Authors: Cathy Pegau
“You were right,” she said in a voice so small he almost didn’t hear her.
“About what?”
“He still loves me.”
He grasped the controls in a white-knuckled grip at the anger and fear in her words. The pain that wormed its way into his chest and clawed at his throat was guilt. He swallowed it down, reminding himself she went in knowing that very fact. “You did your part. You don’t have to see him again.”
That eased the weight in his chest somewhat. She’d be safe. At the same time, with her part done, her chip would be deactivated and he’d probably never see her again.
The weight returned, but it was different now.
“He loves me,” she repeated, her tone bitter, filled with disgust, as if she hadn’t heard him or he hadn’t heard her. “He wants me to work with him on the deal, and he’s willing to let me dictate how soon we get back together. Isn’t that noble of him? I sure can pick ’em.”
His entire body tensed. Damn the void.
“You warned me.” She gave a short, harsh laugh of derision. “I didn’t want to believe you, but you were right.” She shifted in her seat, turned toward him. Half her face was shadowed, half lit by the blue lights lining the road. “You’re always right, aren’t you?”
“No,” he said, the word rasping against his throat. “No. I’m not.”
She sat still, staring at him while he focused on the road and avoided making eye contact. Because if he did, if he faced her fear and anger and sadness, he’d kill the deal with Christiansen and have to find another way to save Kylie. He couldn’t do that.
It was too late for both of them to turn back now. He
wanted
to let Sasha go and get her chip deactivated so she could live a normal life. But Christiansen had changed the game. All they could do now was play along.
“We can use that,” he said around the sudden dryness of his mouth. “Christiansen’s feelings for you.” Who was the rat bastard now?
“I know.” She sounded weary, resigned to a fate he’d set in motion.
Sasha turned to face the front again, her hands clasped in her lap. Neither spoke as they entered the city limits, and Sterling navigated through traffic to reach her building. He pulled up to the curb, cut the engine then disengaged the door locks. By the time he got out and rounded the front of the car, Sasha was standing on the walk.
“I can get inside on my own,” she said.
“It’s late. I’d feel better if you let me walk you to your door.”
She gave him a strange little smile, part sad and part bemused, and shook her head as she turned toward the building. “A white knight.”
He followed her through the front door and up the stairs, keeping his eyes averted from the sway of her hips above him. “Why don’t you take the elevator?” he asked. What was it about her that made him so damn protective?
“Stairs tire me out. I need all the help I can get to fall asleep some nights.”
Insomnia was both a side effect of amber as well as from the nanos curbing the desire for another fix. Amber addicts were not destined to achieve a decent night’s sleep.
They reached the third floor and stopped in front of her door. Sasha looked up at him and smiled. “You’re very chivalrous.”
Her grin was genuine, and he couldn’t help but smile back. “My mama raised me to be a gentleman.”
“Tell her I said she did a fine job.” Amusement changed to disappointment in her eyes and she dropped her gaze to her feet. “Not that I’ve known too many of those.”
“I do my best to represent the species.” Though what he was putting her through was far from gentlemanly.
She laughed a little.
Sterling found himself lifting her chin with the tips of his fingers. Her skin was so soft. Their eyes met. Behind the hardness of the recent years, he saw a vulnerability in her that aroused his most base of male instincts. He made sure she could see the truth of what he said next. “I’ll be right there with you, Sasha. I’ll keep you safe.” His voice was rougher than he’d meant it to be. He could feel her warm breath feather across his palm as he lightly traced the line of her jaw, up to her cheek.
“I know you will.” She spoke in a low, husky timbre that shot straight to his groin.
She rose up on her toes until their lips were centis apart. He didn’t move away. Damn it all, but he wanted this. Wanted her.
He moved closer until their bodies were just barely touching and he could hear the sharp increase of her breath. Sasha stared at him, her eyes dark and unreadable. Then her eyes closed, and she leaned in to kiss him softly on the mouth.
He closed his eyes, too, and lost himself in her.
A moment, just a moment of normalcy for both of them. That was all he wanted.
Sasha clutched the front of his coat. He slid one arm around her shoulder and the other around her waist, drawing her to him when he knew he should be pushing her away. Her body against his, her rain-and-flower scent filling him, made it impossible.
Her tongue darted against his lips, teasing to let her in. He did, nearly melting into the heat and need she generated like a furnace. Her throaty moan nearly did him in, and he pressed her back to the door. She moved beneath him, her breasts against his chest making him hard. He slid the hand at her waist under her sweater, up to her ribs. Soft, warm skin against his calloused palm. He knew the rest of her would be just as soft and warm.
Sasha broke away from his mouth and trailed searing kisses along his jaw. “Come inside.” Her teeth, her breath grazed the skin below his ear, making his gut quiver. “Be with me, Nathan.”
At the moment, he wanted nothing more than to do just that.
But he couldn’t. Damn it, he couldn’t.
It took all of Sterling’s willpower to step back and separate himself from her, to regain the balance and sanity he needed to think straight. Because intimate contact with Sasha now, when she was vulnerable and he felt guilty, would only lead to disaster. For both of them.
Her hands were still twined in his jacket as he held her shoulders, keeping her at a safe distance from what his body clearly revealed he wanted.
“I can’t take advantage of you, Sasha.” His voice sounded like he’d swallowed broken glass. “I won’t.”
Never mind that he was taking advantage of her in other ways.
Her lips pressed together, and he braced himself for tears. Anger or disappointment, the reason didn’t matter. Just knowing he was responsible for them was enough to make him feel like a bastard.
Sasha uncurled her hands from the fabric of his coat. The trembling of her mouth stopped and she raised her chin, her gray eyes like stone. “You can’t take advantage of someone who has nothing to lose, Sterling.”
She turned and touched her palm to the admit panel. The mechanism clicked and the door opened. Her back to him, she went inside without a word. The door closed with a soft thud.
Sterling ran both palms over his face and threaded his fingers through his hair. He should have stopped her, asked her what she meant. But it was better this way. Better to let her feel angry with him if it meant protecting her from the complications that would result if they were to pursue anything.
Hands shoved in his coat pockets, Sterling headed down the stairs and out to the street.
* * *
Sasha pressed her back against the door. Sterling’s footsteps faded as he went downstairs. She crossed her arms over her aching middle, closed her eyes and took deep, even breaths to stave off the threatening tears.
Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl.
What made her think he would be interested in her that way? Because he’d touched her? She’d been touched before, tenderly and otherwise. Anyone could go through the motions of physical attraction.
Because he looked at her with what appeared to be sincerity? Easily feigned. She’d fallen for that too. Fallen hard.
But he’s different,
the small, hurt voice inside claimed.
You know he is
.
Different from Guy and Marco. Different from the other men she’d been with, those who’d used her as much as she’d used them. She wanted to believe a basically good man like Nathan Sterling could honestly be attracted to a mess of a woman like her. But she was fooling herself.
The kiss,
the voice insisted.
He returned your kiss. He didn’t fake that.
Sasha’s conviction wavered, but she quickly dismissed Sterling’s response to her, shoving the memory of how his lips felt on hers, how he tasted, to the never-to-be-revisited depths of her brain. She’d caught him by surprise with her behavior, and he’d reacted as any man would. Nothing more.
Despite his claim that he didn’t want to take advantage of her, that stopping was for her sake, they both knew sleeping together could threaten Sterling’s plan to save his sister. If Guy ever suspected anything other than a business relationship, they were done. Or even dead.
Sterling wouldn’t risk that.
Sasha pushed herself away from the door, determined to treat Sterling the same way she had to treat Guy: a means to get what she wanted. No more, no less. She wiped away the stupid tears, shut away the roiling need and desire that clouded her mind.
She just wished she could shut off the pain that came from thinking of what she could never have.
At the halfway house, Jules’s late nights hadn’t bothered Sasha; she’d welcomed the time to herself. But now it was just her and she wished she didn’t have to be alone.
What you want doesn’t really matter, does it?
She started to hang up her coat in the hall closet when her comm buzzed, alerting her to an incoming call. Guy. The muscles on the back of her neck tightened. The comm registration wasn’t secret or unlisted. Easy enough to track it to her.
The “incoming call” icon changed to “message being recorded” as she stared at the screen. She hadn’t set the lights to automatic before she left, so only the glow from the screen and from the window illuminated her path to the couch. She sat on the edge of the cushion, eyes on the recording icon until it changed to a small, flashing green number one. Guy’s message was waiting for her.
Deleting the message was out of the question because the next time they saw each other, he would ask her if she got it. It was also possible he had a back-tracker on it, telling him when she picked up the message. The only thing she could do was play it.
Sasha stabbed the flashing number one, noted the message was audio only, and tapped the play icon. Before Guy said anything, she could hear voices and music in the background. He’d called her from the party.
“Hi, Sasha. I wanted to tell you again how glad I am we’re working together. I think you’ll do great on this job, and maybe we can discuss other ways you can be part of the operation. Call me and we’ll arrange a meeting. Talk to you soon.”
The message icon changed to a steady, yellow number one as she set the comm on the table and lay down on the couch. There was no need for him to comm her tonight for that. But calling her with such an inane message was meant to show her one thing, and one thing only.
No matter what
she
might think, she was not going to escape him so easily this time. That she had no other path to follow but the one he chose.
And part of her knew he was right.
Chapter Eight
Sasha rubbed her gritty, sleep-starved eyes and sat up on the couch. Somehow she’d managed to fall asleep for a few hours, but it had been a restless night. As she worked the kinks out of her neck, her gaze fell upon the comm on the table. The yellow “one message read” icon glowed in the dim room. Guy would be expecting a return call this morning. She didn’t look forward to it, but talking to him would be easier than facing Sterling, that was for sure.
Her entire body flushed with the memory of last night. How she’d wanted Sterling kissing her, touching her, tasting her, in a way she hadn’t wanted anyone in years. His body against hers, his mouth, his earthy, masculine scent, all combining to make her ache for him. How quickly the ache of desire had become the hurt of denial, then embarrassment when he pulled away from her.
A rough night on the couch hadn’t diminished that in the least. And when they were together again, the embarrassment—and, God help her, maybe the need—would flare up like a wildfire catching on dead wood.
Not that she’d let him see as much.
Sterling could never be anything more than her chance at freedom. She had to keep herself grounded in reality, not waste time or risk her heart on some fantasy.
White knight.
What a foolish thought. Girls like her didn’t get rescued by storybook heroes. They sat at the right hand of the devil and danced for treats. Or slept with the devil’s minion when that wasn’t enough.
Her jaws clenched. No. Not anymore. She was different. Sterling was giving her the chance to change that image of herself, and she would take it.
It was a simple notion, if not simple in execution. Get this done, get the chip deactivated and start a new life somewhere else. Somewhere no one knew her. Somewhere men like Guy and Marco wouldn’t see her as one of their own.
A shower helped set her mentally back on track. She tugged a blue sweater over her head and was working the closure on her dark trousers when her comm trilled in the other room. Her hands stilled as her heart rate picked up. Sterling or Guy?
Either way, they could wait until
she
was ready to talk to them.
The comm fell silent. Sasha ran a comb through her damp hair, found socks and a pair of black boots, and went into the kitchenette to make coffee. While it brewed, she checked the comm on the living room table. No new messages. The incoming history showed the most recent call had come from Guy last night. That was odd.
How could a caller dodge the system and not even leave their digits or some record in the history? That required a more sophisticated screening technique than Sasha was familiar with, which meant either Guy or Sterling, since both had the resources for such measures. But why hide it if they were calling for her?
She shook her head, dismissing the call as a glitch in the system, and hefted the comm in one hand. The yellow number one glowed malevolently, like the eye of the Temptation Snake. The beast had been described at one of the Revivalist meetings Sasha attended at the NCRC. The snake promised riches and pleasure, but there was always a price far higher than expected to be paid if one succumbed. Sasha could appreciate the sentiment, even if she didn’t follow the movement.
With a sigh, she tapped the yellow message icon. Might as well get this done now. She chose the callback option, audio only, and glanced at the chrono. A little early, but Guy picked up on the first tone.
“Hey, Sasha. Great to hear from you.” He sounded surprised, as if he didn’t think she’d return his call. As if he didn’t have control over her and the Kettrick deal. He didn’t fool her in the least.
“Did I wake you?” Not that she cared if she had, but even false politeness went a long way with Guy.
“No,” he said. “I was just getting up anyway.”
Too bad. She paced the area between the coffee table and the window, catching a glimpse of the wakening neighborhood. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Better to talk in person. You and Nate come to the warehouse at the port tonight. Say, nineteen hundred. You remember which one?”
“Sure,” she said. Guy rarely invited anyone but trusted employees to the warehouse and office at the commercial port. What prompted him to do so now? “I’ll comm Nate.”
“I’ve added you to the access log,” Guy said. “Come to the side door.”
Sasha had only been to the warehouse once or twice. The cargo doors were closed unless a lorry was headed in or out, leaving one regular door for entry. Easier to secure, was Guy’s thinking, though he usually put a guard or two inside as backup to his electronic alarms and surveillance scramblers. She’d have to warn Sterling that if anything went awry, their means of escape would be limited.
“See you tonight,” he said.
“Can’t wait,” she replied. The comm beeped twice, signifying Guy’s disconnect.
Sasha turned off the comm and set it on the table. She’d call Sterling later. Right now, she didn’t want to think about Guy. And she wasn’t ready to talk to Sterling after last night’s kiss. She knew she’d stammer and stumble, even over the comm. On second thought, she’d text him.
* * *
Sterling leaned against the idling car, waiting for Sasha as the sky darkened. They were due at the warehouse in fifteen minutes, plenty of time as long as she didn’t take much longer. Snow pellets pinged off the windscreen behind him. He crossed his arms over his chest and breathed in the frigid, mind-clearing air. He needed his wits about him tonight. Needed to put last night out of his head.
He’d mentally kicked himself all the way back to his cramped room over the Revivalist meeting hall after leaving Sasha. Reacting to her was the wrong thing to do, no doubt there. He should have recognized her vulnerability before they even got out of the car. He should have let her walk up to her flat alone, as she’d wanted. He never should have let her kiss him and definitely never should have returned the kiss. At least he hadn’t accepted her invitation inside. That would have been a point of no return neither of them could afford to cross.
The front door of her building opened and he ignored the hitch in his chest as she stepped out. Her red hair was swept back from her forehead, sleek, bordering on severe. The long, black leather coat she wore accentuated her slight build. High-heeled black boots would put her eye to eye with him. He’d noticed her attractiveness before, but now it seemed to scream at him.
All the sensations from last night flooded his brain and sent a jolt through his body. The heat of her mouth, the way she fit perfectly against him, her rain-and-flower-scented hair. He swallowed hard and dug his fingers into his crossed arms as the thought of taking her back into her flat and finishing what they’d started gained traction.
Not the time, boy
. The voice in his head sounded like his father.
That’s asking for trouble, sure as the sun rises
. Sterling had to agree there. With great effort, he shoved the errant craving away.
Sasha hesitated when she saw him, her hand on the latch. Sterling remained still as they assessed each other. Reassessed each other. How would the rest of their time together play out? The memory of the kiss couldn’t be completely wiped from his brain; he wasn’t that disciplined. The best he hoped for was that both of them would pretend it never happened.
But that would be like pretending he didn’t have an artificial eye. He didn’t consciously think about it all the time—it was simply part of him. Like she was becoming part of him.
He could almost see her give herself a mental shake as she shut the door and walked toward him, back straight and chin up. Was she having the same thoughts about him, or just hating him for everything he’d done to her so far?
“Sorry I made you wait,” she said.
He came away from the car and opened the passenger door. “Not a problem. I have sisters, remember?”
She glanced at him as she ducked into the warm vehicle. “An expert on women, are you?”
Sterling gave her a crooked smile. “Not even close.”
Her cheeks pinked. She quickly settled into the passenger seat.
He shut the door and moved to the driver’s side, muttering, “Not close at all.” He got in, checked traffic and pulled onto the street, determined to stick with the business at hand. “Your text wasn’t too detailed. What do I need to know about this warehouse? How many people are usually there?”
Sasha shrugged. “I’ve only been there a couple of times. Three, maybe four men were hanging around.”
“Armed?” He was sure they’d be carrying some kind of weapons, but whether concealed handguns or rifles made a tactical difference. Though no matter what they carried, he’d be out-gunned.
“I don’t know.” She stared out the windscreen. “My memory on that is a little blurry.”
Between the amber and her limited visits, that was no surprise. “We’ll just see what we’re getting ourselves into when we get there,” he said.
“Right.”
Sterling tried to assess her as he drove, but it wasn’t easy to read more than her frown. He wore the same expression. Her part in all of this was taking longer than either of them had bargained for. Much longer. And they both knew the only way to get Kylie out was for him and Sasha to play along with Christiansen’s game. The question was, how far would it need to go before he could get them both out?
“Listen,” he said, keeping his tone as reassuring as he could, “I know this isn’t how we planned things, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your sticking with it this far.”
“I’m not doing it for you.” She slanted a quick glance at him then returned her attention to the road ahead. “I’m doing it for me. And maybe your sister. That’s it.”
He was surprised that her words made him mentally flinch.
She crossed her arms, and they fell into uneasy silence for the rest of the trip.
Heavy civilian traffic thinned out as they drew closer to the port. The road split, carrying passenger traffic to one side of the Hub Station complex and commercial cargo traffic to the other. Air and ground lorries made up most of the vehicles traveling in that direction. With the 250,000-square-meter commercial port operating twenty-six hours every Nevarro day, megatonnes of cargo shipped to and from Pandalus between on-planet sites scattered across the two main continents.
Nevarro itself was little more than a flyover planet for most system traffic except keracite ore product haulers. The continents’ shuttle stations catered to local passenger traffic more than interplanetary or interstellar travelers. The environmentally hospitable and highly populated Core planets had facilities for larger vessels traversing the forty light years from Earth and beyond, but people and products typically landed on one of those before being reshipped on smaller crafts to outlying worlds like Nevarro. You had to
want
to come here, and it was a long, uncomfortable ride.
As such, it was the perfect place for Christiansen to set up base: out of the way, on a planet whose government was more concerned with ore production than the people living there.
The headlights picked up two enclosed guard sheds flanking C gate, one of four entrances at each cardinal point. A five-meter-high fence with security towers spaced every hundred meters encircled the port. Access by air lorries required specialized—theoretically secure and unbreakable—codes to pass through the airspace within the fence. One hundred fifty warehouses surrounded the five landing pads, with a security and customs building in the center. It was manned by officials who were supposed to regulate what was brought into and sent out of the port, but Sterling knew how things really worked.
Little had changed in the past fifteen years, when he’d last been here to help run a sting operation with the local law. It was still the grimy, no-frills industrial site where he and his team had taken down a med supply profiteering operation. That bust had helped him get a position with the CMA. He wondered how participating in
this
unofficial, unsanctioned case would affect his career. Among other things.
He stopped the car and lowered the plasti-glass window when the guards emerged from their respective sheds.
“IDs, please,” the man on Sterling’s side said. The other guard slowly walked around the car, sweeping the vehicle with a wand scanner.
Sasha handed Sterling her card as he fished his own from his coat pocket. The guard took them both and ran them through a reader embedded in the glove on his hand. The device beeped with each pass, and the man handed the IDs back to Sterling.
The other guard looked inside the rear windows then nodded to his partner when he returned to his shed. Two guards per gate seemed like light security at first glance, but Sterling knew there were plenty of electronic sensors, cams and autonomous, unmanned rovers on the grounds.
“There’s a flight scheduled off pad two in about forty minutes,” the first guard warned, “so that area’s pretty busy. Watch out for loaders on the roads.”
Sterling thanked the man and handed Sasha’s card to her. He closed the window then drove forward when the gate swung open. The main road split, encircling the five landing/launch pads at the center, and became a network of smaller roads accessing various-sized warehouses. All five pads were lit but only two had ships on them, loaders buzzing about in a manner of organized chaos. Many of the warehouses had lights on as well. The shipping business didn’t quit for the day at eighteen hundred.
“Guy’s building is number one-twenty-seven,” Sasha said.
Sterling nodded and glanced at the map on the dash screen. The Hub Station transmitted flight information on a dedicated wave for drivers and pilots. Bad for business if ships and lorries got lost or smashed into each other. Warehouses and pads were numbered, and the display showed real-time movement of loaders and personnel as well as a countdown to the next launch or landing.
Following the side roads to Christiansen’s two-story building, Sterling parked in front and shut off the car. There were no windows, only a heavy-duty, overhead rolling door in front for lorries and loaders, and a regular door on the side for people.