Like the deepeninghowl of the engines, Blackworm’s voice was juddering with fury, nearly rattling the chunk of discarded armor. “I can’t stop the ship, but you can’t stop me,” he roared. “We will greet the gods together!”
“Someday, maybe,” she murmured. “But not this day.”
She shoved her arms into the exosuit appendages and couldn’t hold back a fierce grin as the suit powered up around her. As she slammed thehatch closed across the mech belly, her ears popped with the seal. She surged to her feet—her feet and Nor’s feet, their legs pressed intimately together.
She squeaked. “Are you…aroused?”
He nudged his hips into hers from behind, his cheek pressed to the side of her head. “I can’t help it,” he murmured. “This is literally my dying wish.”
“No dying,” she said. “I’m saving us.”
With the mech’sborrowed power and grace, she swung a few steps down the corridor. The automatic lights didn’t turn on, not recognizing her as human, but it didn’t matter; she had the lights and sensors of the suit.
She put her robotic hand on the hull access hatch. “This is how you scrubbed the outside of a spaceship?”
“Never going this fast.”
“Nor…”
“Trixie, you really do have pretty eyes.”
She closedthem. “You can even see me from where you are.”
“Don’t need to.” His sigh brushed across her brow. “I’ll remember them always. From the first time I saw you, to the time you shot at me, to the time you saved me.”
She leaned her head back to capture his kiss.
And she blew the hatch.