Page 29 of The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
Nor shoved the flimsy fabric to the back of the wardrobe with a scowl. The Duke of Azthronos let him command a dreadnaught—the flagship of the duchy, thanksverymuch, with all the power and firepower that entailed—and yet this littleEarther girl doubted him and his guns. His bare skin prickled with frustration and annoyance at the evidence of his failure tucked in the back of a refugee’s closet.
Although he preferred the militaristic ships fatigues that were fitted and utilitarian, he helped himself to one of the less pompous robes cut straight from the neckline to the hem. It had a subtle geometric pattern woven into thefabric, but nothing that would get him automatically punched in a freighter crews’ lounge. He yanked it around his shoulders and sealed the front with angry twitches of his fingers.
Pacing through the small pantry area while his pixberry tea brewed, he paused to look down at the sunken seats where Trixie had straddled him and kissed him so sweetly, so hot.
Larf it, his erection had just barelysubsided, and now…
Scowl returning, he smoothed down the robe, shoving his perky flesh down to a sullen bulk. He needed to get away from this temptation. At least he’d left his dat-pad beside hers by the seating area, not in the bedroom.
Swiping the steaming cup of tea, he stalked out of Trixie’s suite. He had a list of responsibilities longer than theGrandy’s main corridor, but he discoveredthat her door—which he’d closed himself, and set with an alarm connected to his dat-pad now strapped to his wrist—seemed to have an inordinate gravity that kept him from walking away. Some wistful, needy part of him didn’t want to leave her.
His resentment at that weakness—the part of him that had cried out when his father had turned away, the part that should have finished withering to nothingwhen his mother walked off the ship that had taken them into exile from Azthronos, leaving him behind—gave him enough escape velocity to stride down the hallway to the doorway at the end. He pushed through to stand on the balcony overlooking the courtyard garden below.
This was where Trixie had found him just a night ago, with his trousers around his knees. At the time, the improper awkwardnesshad amused him. But remembering it now, he squinted, as if he could stop himself from seeing it again: Trixie’s horrified gaze, Illya’s quizzical glance, his own smug smirk.
No wonder she didn’t believe in him. He hadn’t exactly shown her his best side right then. And even once he’d shown her the rest of him, he’d given her nothing to hold onto. Besides some well-used muscle.
And after that,he’d sneaked out.
To find himself here, walking the pretty balcony in agitation, blind to the morning beauty of the garden below. The orderly procession of the planters lining the balustrade prevented him from pacing along the rail. He had to keep sidestepping the big square containers, striding over the sculpted shadows of the stone balusters stretched across his path like nicely carved prisonbars.
How had he found himself stuck on this estate when he’d been a free-roaming privateer with galaxies beneath his boots? Had he really thought he could make a place on this confined world?
When he skirted too close to one planter, the blunt corner clipped his hipbone, nearly spinning him around from the momentum of his own steps bouncing back at him.
He growled at the concussion. Thatwould leave a mark.
To his relief, his dat-pad beeped an incoming message from theOnoffon. A diversion, good.
Placing the device on the balustrade, he stepped back as a half size figure beamed upward in holo-vid mode.
He recognized the younger Quaye sister. Vaughn Quaye had the same dusky skin and wavy brown hair as his half-brother’s woman, but she was taller and broader, and the edge ofher polite smile was sharper. She gestured to one side and her mate, the hivre iomale Dejo Jinn, joined her in the hologram.
“Captain,” she said. “We have news.”
He stiffened, the instincts that had carried him through lightyears of danger tingling. “You found Blackworm.”
In the high resolution of the holo-vid, the ripple of the small, striped feathers in Dejo’s hair looked like a glitch. “Notquite. But we found out why.”
Nor hadn’t survived his childhood by wondering why. How and how much had been the driving forces. But he found his curiosity prickling like hivre feathers. “What was he doing on that space station?”
Since Blackworm had already been caught, charged, tried, and sentenced for other crimes, the transgalactic authorities weren’t much interested in the whys either, butafter the Earther females had been rescued, Rayna had wanted answers. And her sister Vaughn had the resources to keep looking, thanks to Dejo and his data recovery skills. Before theOnoffonhad departed for a recovery, they injected a sample of Dejo’s new neural gel into the data core on the space station. They hoped the artificial intelligence might make some connections to Blackworm’s intent.
Instead of answering, Vaughn eyed him, her suspicion as visible on the high res as Dejo’s feathers. “We couldn’t reach Rayna and Raz.”
“They were going to be touring the outer gas giant,” he told her. “The heavy ores in the rings are a mining asset for the system, but the more exotic metals often interfere with communications.”
Dejo nudged his mate, as if to say I-told-you-so, and when Vaughnhuffed, the iomale said, “The duke left you in charge?”
Nor lifted one eyebrow at the disbelieving note. Considering that Dejo Jinn had a questionable past himself, it seemed unfair of him to question Nor.
Although maybe that waswhythey were questioning him.
He set aside his irritation with a slow breath. “What do you have?”
Dejo punched something into his dat-pad, and Nor’s responded witha beep. “I’m sending you the raw data, but here’s the overview of what we found.”
The device whirred again, and Nor scanned the info scrolling below the holo-vid figures. “Blackworm didn’t site the station on the edge of the black hole just to hide?”
