Page 37 of The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
She dragged in a shuddering breath, lifting and dropping her hunched shoulders under his palms. “I guess a blaster and all black doesn’t make me a badassafter all. I should’ve stayed on Azthronos.”
“Then I’d be alone here in this creepy place,” he said, injecting a whining note of complaint into his voice.
She angled her head to peek up at him. “You are so silly,” she whispered.
He’d had many epithets lobbed at him over the lightyears, but he had never been called silly. From her, he would take it. But he felt he needed to take back at leasta modicum of his ex-pirate dreadnaught captain mystique. “Maybe you just need something else to think about,” he murmured.
Slowly, he dipped his head to brush his lips over hers, a distraction, yes, and a comfort, he hoped. A reminder that they were not alone.
With a soft moan, she skimmed her fingers up the back of his neck under the tightly bound club of his hair. The icy caress of her fingertipssent a shiver coursing down his spine, evidence of her cold and her fear, but mostly he felt the instant sleeting pleasure of her touch. How easilyshedistractedhimfrom this grim mission on this sinister station. When she was in his arms, all that meant nothing.
He lifted her against his chest, a nearly weightless bundle in the haphazard gravity compared to his strength. So light and fragileand yet she sent a spasm through his heart more unnerving than all the times he’d pushed his unmarked, overcharged cruiser to lightspeed just ahead of enemies or authorities.
When he swung her a few degrees to starboard before reluctantly letting her slide down to the deck plating, she clung to him for an instant, her eyes closed. The radiant light glinted in the hint of a tear beaded at thecorner of her lashes, but when she opened her eyes hesitantly, peeking past his shoulder, only starlight reflected in the blown-wide blackness of her pupils. He’d moved her just enough not to have to see the black hole.
Her gaze shifted back to his, and a blush of her natural color tinted her cheeks as she let her arms slip down from his biceps. “It’s like an eye,” she said softly. “Judging me.”
He made a rude gesture behind him, earning him a watery giggle that soothed the spasming in his heart. “That thing steals actual light,” he pointed out, “so it doesn’t get to condemn us for whatever little pleasures we take as our own.”
Although kissing her was much more than a little pleasure. He forced away the need for much, much more and kept his smile even. “Ready to do this?”
At her hesitantnod, he stepped to one side.
She hazarded a quick upward glance but followed him resolutely across the dome. The streaming photons tumbling into the black hole had spawned particularly vigorous growth in the reclamation plantings, and as they delved deeper into the shipboard jungle, Nor admired the cascades of vegetation and flowers.
“The duke has been taking business proposals for rebuildingthis station into a refueling depot and shipyard or maybe a mining waystation if its moved in-system,” he mused, “but I’m thinking with some redecorating, it could be a destination resort.”
Trixie snorted. “Right. It’s quite the getaway from everything. Just don’t get too close to the singularity or you’ll be torn away from ev-er-y-thing ever forever.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Yes, well. There’dhave to be some precautionary measures.”
She peered at him. “Seriously?”
“You might have noticed that Azthronos is a bit uptight. They could use a resort. And there’re a half dozen other systems within easy travel that would bring in tourism credits.”
She gave him an assessing stare that made him shift uneasily in his boots. “Actually,” she said at last, “I could totally see you as a fantasyspace station tropical cruise captain. You should tell Raz about your idea.”
He narrowed his eyes back at her, fairly certainshewasn’t being serious. “I don’t need another job. I already have theGrandy.”
“And we have this task first.” She paused underneath a particularly lush fall of kyapa-sho vines. “One of the main filters should be back here.” She nudged at the vines, knocking loose afew small golden orbs.
“Careful,” he said. “Those berries are a rare drakling pepper spice, very hot. I didn’t know they’d fruit anywhere besides their homeworld.”
“Great,” she muttered. “Everything loves it here besides me.” She gave the vines another shove. “Here’s the access hatch.”
Nor reached past her to anchor the trailing greenery out of her way. “According to the schematics, the filtershould just slide out. We can scan and scrape it and then replace it.”
Side by side, they wrestled the large, thin panel out where they could get at it. He aimed the dat-pad sensor across the filter and started the scan. The pad beeped softly with each hit. “Plenty of bio markers,” he murmured. “But nothing Earther.”
Trixie shifted impatiently. “Are we sure it works?”
He wrapped his fingersaround her wrist and pulled her hand under the scanner. It chirped in triumph.
She grimaced. “Oh yay, it found me. Better late than never, I guess.”
At least she seemed to have gotten past the horror that had gripped her earlier. He let her go reluctantly. “Let’s try the next filter.”
The reclamation dome—future site of a unique vacation destination?—had six other filters. In the second andthird, they found degraded samples that had to be collected for resequencing by Doctor Boshil back on Azthronos. The sensor chimed on a pass over the fourth filter, and the dat-pad quickly returned a response.
