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Her laugh was softer, huskier this time. “You not so bad yourself.” Her eyes sparkled impishly in the darkness.

He laughed and buried his face in the crook of her neck, pressing smiling lips to her pulse. The oddest sensation took hold of him, as if he were standing apart from his body and watching his interaction with Jordan. This teasing, this love-play, he had never done before. It was as if he’d become a stranger to himself, a good stranger. Or perhaps he was seeing the man he’d been all along. He saw the promise of a future with Jordan: laughter, warmth, and affection. That was what he’d experienced with his birth family; he knew it as surely as he breathed.

He arranged her untamed hair behind her shoulders so that he could gaze at her body. “Why did you think my father would come knocking at my door?” he asked, unable to confine his touch to her hair.

“Because of what we talk about,” she tried to explain as he smoothed his palms over her body, gliding them up her ribcage to mold his hands to her breasts. “We plan a new future. One he does not know.”

“He
will
know it.” He turned her around to face a low shelf of soft, folded towels. “And by the time I’m done with him, he’ll be happy for us.” His mouth found the side of her throat. He inhaled her scent, and his, and the sweet fragrance of clean sheets.

“If he does not already,” she breathed. “Parents have a special sense. They know when you plot to go against their wishes.”

He bent her forward over the shelf. Her buttocks jutted into his thighs, and he pulled her tight against him. “Like now?”

She let out a throaty moan. “Like now.”

He gripped her hips, spreading her thighs. Bracing himself for the rush of pleasure, he pushed inside her. She gasped, coming up on her toes. He reached around to where her breasts hung loose and free. Gently he twirled her tight nipples between his fingertips and he felt the answering clamp of her inner muscles. She liked being touched that way. And here, too, he thought, moving his right hand lower as he moved inside her.

Pushing back the shielding flesh, he opened her to the circling caress of his fingertips. A cry exploded from her, and her hips writhed. He looped one arm under her belly to bring her hard into each of his thrusts as his hand paid intimate attention to her body, rubbing, circling, a never-ending rhythm that came to him instinctively, as if he’d lived his life, gained his experience, so that he could bring pleasure to this one woman. The realization nearly pushed him over the edge.

Not yet
.

His breath hissed past his locked jaw. Perspiration tingled
on his body and on his brow. His belly tightened as desire dragged him toward completion, but he held back to ensure her peak before he took his own.

He stroked her between her legs, exploring, caressing, until she writhed, pushing her bottom against his thighs, rhythmically, deepening their contact. The closet was snug and dark, taking sight and heightening all the other senses: smell and taste, touch and sounds. Jordan’s sighs, her soft groans of delight. He groaned, shuddering as he drove upward in steady strokes. He could hardly believe he was the same man who not too long ago mourned the loss of his strength following his years in prison. And now, with Jordan, he had nary a worry about his stamina. It proved how much power the mind had over the body. Or how desperation ruled the spirit, he thought. He wanted Jordan, a future with her, a desire that went against the obligations that had ruled him since his earliest memories.

He brought her upper body off the folded linens, his upward strokes steady. She arched her back, standing on her toes, her bottom jutting into his abdomen. “Yes,” she gasped, her hands closing convulsively atop the linens. “Oh, Kào, yes.”

She sheathed him, slick, tight, possessively. His teeth pressed into the flesh of her shoulder. He fed on her mounting pleasure. He filled her. She filled him. Her spirit burned in him, giving him life. He was alive.

Alive!

After so long, too long existing as a dead man, he’d been wrenched into life. He felt it now, making love to Jordan—his rebirth. The lovemaking was a celebration, affirming life, for both of them. “Ah, Jordan,” he gasped. “My woman, my love.”

His love
.

Saying it aloud made it so. He thrust into her with renewed vigor, claiming her. She jerked, shuddering in his
arms. “Kào!” Her legs went rigid, and a rhythmic, pulsing inner squeeze began deep inside her body.

She gasped—English words. His hands molded over her heaving breasts. Thrusting deep, he rocked faster until her cries, her climax, pulled him over the edge.

Her head fell forward, exposing her slender neck, and together they sagged forward onto the plush towels. He cushioned her fall with one arm, while catching his weight with his other.

Never would she fall in life without him there to catch her, he vowed. And when he next saw his father, he would take the first step toward making good on that promise.

Ian Dillon dashed across Town Square. He wove through the crowd as if he were back in downtown Dublin stuck in Friday afternoon traffic. He careened into an elderly Hawaiian woman, apologizing as he stumbled past and left her cursing in his wake, and arrived breathless at the small portion of the common area that was designated
CREW ONLY
. “Jordan!”

Jordan was asleep on the small couch. Hands raised, Natalie intercepted him like an outraged mother bear before he could get to her. “Be quiet,” she whispered loudly as she pushed him backward. “Can’t you see she’s sleeping?”

“I surely can, miss. You’ve got to wake her up.” He paused to catch his breath. “I found something.”

“Yeah?” the tall black woman said archly. “What is it?”

“I’ll tell her first, and then she can tell you.”

“She’s exhausted. I don’t think she meant to fall asleep, but since she has, come back in a half hour.”

Their attention shifted to Jordan, curled on her side, her hands pressed together and wedged under her cheek. She looked different. Happy. At peace. But there were rings under her eyes, attesting to a lack of sleep. Dillon peered at her. “Why, she has a hickey. Two of them.” He pointed to
his neck. “There and there,” he said and grinned.

Natalie frowned. “Are you the one who gave them to her?”

“Me? Hell no.” He blushed hard.

“Then why do you care?”

“I didn’t expect . . . I just thought . . .”

Jordan rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes. “Hey, who’s talking about my hickeys?” she mumbled sleepily.

Dillon shuffled his feet. Natalie glared at him. “You woke her.”

Jordan opened one eye. “Dillon?” She groaned and sat up, her hand going to her neck. “I told you I was going to need that makeup, Nat.”

“I’ll get you that camouflage as soon as I send Mr. Dillon on his way. Mine’s too dark, but Karen has some.”

Dillon held his ground. Jordan pushed herself upright, sweeping her hair away from her face. “No, Dillon can stay. We’re working on a . . . project. What’s up?” she asked him.

“I know where we are.”

All sleepiness fled Jordan’s eyes. She fixed him with a sharp gaze, penetrating and fully alert. “You figured out the coordinates?”

“That’s right. I know where Earth is, Captain. And it ain’t where they told us.”

Kào didn’t have to make an appointment to see his father; Moray summoned him.

As he had on the previous day, Moray waited for him in his private meeting room, his computer in his hands. “You’re late,” the man said with formal pleasantness.

“I had to shower,” Kào replied.

“I imagine so.”

He peered at his father, trying to read the emotions playing on the man’s ruddy face. “What’s happened? Was there bad news?” Perhaps Headquarters had changed their minds about reviewing his war records. He hoped not. The review could be done from the Rim, bolstering his father’s name and at the same time allowing him to be with Jordan. His plan was so ideal, he was sure something would happen to sabotage it. And sure enough, it did.

“You slept with the refugee woman last night,” Moray said.

It felt as if the floor dropped away from under Kào’s boots.

“You did even after I told you not to, even after we discussed our plans for your future,” Moray accused.

Kào squared his shoulders. “Yes, sir.”

“Ah, so you don’t deny it.”

“Is my integrity in question, or only my choice of lovers?”

Moray bristled. “I did not mean to imply that you would stoop to lying. I—I—” The man rubbed his hands over his face. The glowing table did not flatter it.

Kào wondered how his father had found out. The corridors had been deserted when he’d come for Jordan and brought her back. She had been disguised as an officer, and they’d taken the service hallways and hand ladders, keeping off the shuttles and lifts. The only way his father would have found out was if someone had been assigned to spy on him—though Kào doubted he’d have missed the signs. Listening devices might have been installed in his quarters, but he doubted that, too. His security panel showed no evidence of tampering or intruders. Someone had told Moray, then. But who?

“I’m taking you off this assignment, Kào. Because of the continued fraternization. You are too close to these refugees. You’ve lost your ability to be objective.”

Kào didn’t argue. He was anything but objective when it came to Jordan and her people.

“I want your head clear and your charm out in full force when you speak to Senator Felleni’s daughter.”

Kao leaned forward. “What?”

“Kyrie is a marvelous marriage prospect. The senator and I are arranging the meeting. It will be via long-distance comm, but it’s a start.”

Kao squeezed his eyes shut. A distraction. That’s what this was. He mustn’t let Moray throw him off course. “Who
have you appointed in my place as primary intercessor, sir?”

“Trist.”

His world fell out from under him. Kào gripped the table, seething.
Blast it all
. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Trist had masterminded this entire fiasco to put herself in control.

“I know you two have had your disagreements in the past, but she’s proven herself to be a fine officer. Responsible.” Moray’s eyes warmed. “And compliant.”

Kào frowned. His father’s relationship with the Talagar linguist was a concept that puzzled him. There was a bond between them that Kào believed went beyond professional boundaries. But if she had told Moray that Jordan spent the night in his quarters, where would
she
have learned of it?

Someone told her
.

But who? She didn’t keep company with the refugees. Or did she? She’d brought Ben and Jordan to The Black Hole, after all, before she’d summoned Kào. With that, he had the eerie sensation of another puzzle piece falling into place, but the entire picture remained elusive.

Moray cleared his throat. “With the refugees about to be relocated to another ship, I need an officer in charge who is unbiased with regard to the transfer.”

Kào’s head was spinning, but he’d be damned if he’d let it show. “Transfer? To what ship? I didn’t know of this.”

“We’re needed here in the Perimeter on our normal patrol. A round trip to the Rim will keep us out too long. I’ve decided to put that rogue Talagar ship we’ve been trailing to use. I found it this morning and have been in communication with the crew. They recognize they’re outgunned. They won’t be putting up a fight, thank the Seeders, and we’ll be able to board peaceably. Once their crew is removed and our own people are installed, they’ll deliver the refugees to the Rim.”

Using captured ships as freighters wasn’t unusual, and it made logistical sense for a ship such as the
Savior
with other, more pressing duties. Kào might have been removed from his position as primary intercessor for the refugees, but that might be good; it would allow him more time to pack his bags.

His father might not know it yet, but Kào intended to be part of the replacement crew. Then he’d be able to escort the Earthers all the way to their destination.

Yet he’d hold off on telling Moray until the man cooled off. Better to work on his father in stages than to throw too much at him and make him feel defensive. A controlling, overprotective father was one thing; a
defensive
controlling, overprotective father, Kào knew from experience, was not a pleasant encounter.

He took a breath. “I’d better go brief Trist on the details she’ll need to know. As a matter of fact, we have much to talk about.”

“Indeed you do.” Moray shook his head, clearly torn between reprimanding Kào and soothing him. “By the Seeders, boy! I’m angry with you.”

“I gathered that. I don’t know what to say other than that the woman, Jordan, has come to mean much to me. I have rarely gone against your wishes in the past. But I won’t agree to any order that will keep me from seeing her. Take me off the assignment, but don’t keep me from seeing her. I’m a man, Father, a grown man. Such decisions are mine to make.”

“Not if you are to ruin your life!” he roared, red-faced. “Not if you can’t think past your cock! You can’t waste your life with her. She’s beneath you, Kào. You’re of a higher class. She has nothing,
nothing
to bring you. You need to make a good marriage, like with the Felleni girl. That is what men of our class do. Think of the Moray name. Don’t
we want it to stand above all the others? Don’t you respect the name I gave you at all?”

Kào sighed silently. His father knew all the right buttons to push. “When are we due to rendezvous with the Talagar vessel?”

Moray sat back in his chair. It bobbed heavily under his weight. “Rendezvous is imminent. As soon as we dock, we’ll begin the transfer of personnel right away.”

Kào swallowed against a throat gone suddenly dry.
Think
. It used to be something he was good at: processing information analytically and objectively. But with so much at stake, he struggled with a mind that was all but paralyzed.

“The arrangement is a good one for us, Kào. It allows me to return to the Perimeter in the shortest possible time, where the Alliance needs us. If there was one rogue Talagar vessel, there’ll be others. We need to be there to intercept them.” Moray smiled beseechingly. “Just think, without having to go to the Rim, we’ll be able to serve fresh vegetables again.”