“I get off work around twenty-two hundred,” Kit said.
“Suits me.” Parker slid his hand over Kit’s ass. But he froze abruptly, eyes wide, looking past Kit. He took his hand away. Kit glanced around to see Raine standing in the doorway.
Kit scowled at the frown on Raine’s face.
Great, ruin my moment, you big, clumsy fucker. And what’s that look anyway? Disapproval
? What the hell business was it of Raine’s who had his hand on Kit’s ass? Who died and made him king of asses? King of jackasses, more like. He moved away from Parker with deliberate slowness, Raine’s gaze fixed on him. If he was interested—and he so was—then he should say something to Kit.
So Kit could tell him to go fuck himself.
“I’d better get back to work,” Kit said as he moved away. He didn’t need to provoke Raine any further. Raine was still wrestling down the surge and rage and jealousy he’d felt when he came in to see Parker’s hand on Kit’s ass. The backwash of it hung around. He’d come in here for some coffee and a snack, but suddenly the thought of trying to eat or drink anything sickened him. He should turn around and walk back out. No. He’d look like an idiot. Coffee might take away the bitter taste in his mouth.
Kit collected his cleaning gear. He smirked at Raine before he left. Dammit, he knew exactly what he was doing. Probably only coming on to Parker for some help getting off the ship. An officer would be more useful to him than a steward’s assistant like Gracie.
Parker stood and put his coffee cup on the carousel that trundled around taking used crockery to the galley. He looked slightly embarrassed, which surprised Raine. He and Parker might not be friends exactly. They didn’t hit the bars together on shore leave—though Parker had invited him along a couple of times. But they had moments of mutual understanding. So there was no reason for him to be embarrassed about Raine of all people catching him with his hand on Kit’s ass—and there was the jealousy again. Bile in his mouth. Raine strode over to the coffee urn, pulling off his gloves as he went, and grabbed a mug from the rack and filled it.
“He’s quite something, isn’t he?” Parker said.
“Yes,” Raine agreed, turning to Parker. “A thief and a con artist, according to the police file.” Guilt swept in and submerged the jealousy. It didn’t say anything about “con artist” in the police file. He felt even guiltier when Parker’s face fell, a picture of disillusion.
“Con artist?”
“I expect he’d do anything to get someone to help him escape this ship before we hand him over to the authorities.”
“I…I guess.” Parker sighed, disappointment written broadly across his face. And despite the guilt, Raine couldn’t keep himself from going for the knockout punch.
“He kissed me.”
“What?”
He couldn’t believe he was telling
anyone
about this. But if it kept Parker away from Kit, it would be worth it. Raine couldn’t let Kit go around seducing the ship’s officers.
“When I was chasing him down after we spotted him. He kissed me when I had him cornered in an elevator.” He laughed and wanted to cringe at how artificial it sounded. “Man, he really made me believe it. But he only did it to distract me so he could get away.”
Parker nodded, gave another sigh, and looked at his watch. “I’d better go back to work.” He walked out, but stopped for a second in the doorway. “Thanks, Chief. I appreciate the reality check.” He left.
Raine dumped his full coffee cup on the carousel. He couldn’t face it. Hell, he didn’t deserve it. He strode out. The temperature in the corridor chilled his hands, but he left his gloves in his pocket.
Stay cold. You do deserve that.
He was a total bastard, he decided as he walked back to his office. When he reached his office, the program tracking Kit was open on his screen, showing Kit still in the galley, where he should be. Raine turned the screen off. He didn’t need to see it. There’d be an alarm if Kit went anyplace he shouldn’t. There was no need to act like a damn obsessive lunatic and watch his every move.
* * *
The next morning Kit arrived in Raine’s office for his daily check-in a good ten minutes late. He had no good reason for this tardiness; he just knew it would annoy Raine. He’d come straight from the galley where they’d finished cleaning up after breakfast and still had his whites and his apron on. He never took the apron off when wearing his kitchen gear. He liked not looking as if he was wearing a sack.
“You’re late,” Raine said as Kit walked in.
“So dock my pay. Let’s get on with it.”
“Don’t use that tone with me, please.”
“I’ll use any tone with you I like. What are you going to do about it?”
Raine raised his eyebrows, surprise taking over from the irritation on his face. He smiled. “Someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
Kit wasn’t conciliated by the smile. He’d been hoping to spend the night not in the bunk room but in an officer’s quarters. But when he’d gone to Parker’s cabin, he hadn’t even gotten past the door.
Parker had opened it only partway and looked awkward when he saw Kit. Kit had made an effort. Showered, shaved again, changed into the best-fitting of his borrowed clothes, and his hair looked damn good. But his smile had frozen in place when Parker said he was sorry, but it wasn’t such a good idea for Kit to be there after all.
“You seemed to think it was a good idea this afternoon.”
“Sorry,” Parker had said and closed the door.
Kit had stared at it. He rarely saw a closed door from the wrong side. Most men were extremely happy when he showed up with his sexy grin, ready to show them a good time. What the hell could have changed Parker’s mind?
“You were in officer country from 2238 until 2322,” Raine said, bringing Kit’s attention back to him. “What were you doing there?”
He could only tell what section Kit had been in, Kit knew. The tracking data wasn’t fine-grained enough to show an individual cabin, and there were no cameras in that corridor. So for all Raine knew, Kit might have been in Parker’s cabin for nearly forty-five minutes. And Raine wanted to know, because a lot could happen in forty-five minutes.
Kit hadn’t realized he’d hung out up there so long after seeing the wrong side of Parker’s door. There was a tall, narrow port at the end of the corridor and he’d found himself drawn to it. He’d stood there gazing out at the stars for some time, trying to figure out why Parker had turned him away. Had Raine warned him off after seeing them flirting in the mess hall?
He wanted Kit himself, so why didn’t he say so? Did he think it would be inappropriate? He surely couldn’t be disciplined enough to ignore the instructions his cock gave him—
Fuck this guy right now
! In Kit’s experience, such men did not exist.
“What were you doing there?” Raine repeated.
“Visiting someone.” He watched for the reaction, quite gratified to see the little wince.
“Who?”
“None of your business.”
“It
is
my business.”
“You’ll have to beat it out of me, then.”
Provocation again. And the reaction he wanted. Raine stood and came around the desk. He had gloves on again. Did he have poor circulation or something?
“Why do you wear those gloves?”
“What?” Raine stopped and looked down at his hands, apparently disconcerted by the change in subject. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Is it a style thing?”
“No.” Raine went and sat down again. “I come from Ryesh. It’s a very hot place.”
Hot and dull, from what Kit had heard. A colony that had never delivered on early promise and, as others prospered, became a backwater, with a sparse and scattered population scraping a living in near-desert conditions.
“So that’s why you wear a jacket and cap all the time too?” Kit asked. “Other people only wear those if they’re going down in the cargo holds. It’s pretty cold down there.”
“You’re very observant,” Raine said, leaning back in his chair.
“The devil’s in the details.”
“If you weren’t a criminal, I’d suggest you’d make a good cop.”
“Hah!” But Kit couldn’t help smiling about it. Him a cop? Unlikely.
“So are you going to tell me who you were visiting?”
Kit frowned at the question. Damn.
“No, I hadn’t forgotten,” Raine said, a smug look on his face. “I’m learning about you and your distraction techniques.”
“I did give you an advanced lesson in that elevator.”
The smug look disappeared. “And that’s all it was?” Then he flushed and scowled. “Of course it was. Don’t try to convince me of anything else.”
“Wasn’t going to. It worked, didn’t it?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Which means it will work again in the future.”
“I don’t think so.”
“We’ll see. I’ll pick my moment.” He winced as he moved his arm. He’d strained it earlier lifting a heavy bucket of water.
“Something wrong?”
“Just a bit stiff and sore. You know how it is when you do something strenuous you haven’t done in a while.”
Raine’s face darkened then. Until now Kit had never fully appreciated the expression “a face like thunder.” He expected bolts of lightning to flash from Raine’s eyes.
Nice.
“I think I’ll go take a nice long steam in the sauna,” Kit said. “Few hours until I’m back on—”
“You do that,” Raine snapped. “Tomorrow, you’d better report on time. Get out.”
Kit left, deciding he’d be twenty minutes late tomorrow.
* * *
For the next three days, Katherine Warner gave Kit his check-in session. By the third, Kit was certain Raine was avoiding him. Interesting.
“And you’ve just been down in the infirmary?” Warner said, finishing up the last of his movements. From the seat she’d let him sit in, Kit stuck his foot up in the air.
“Follow-up appointment for the ankle.”
“Fully recovered, then?”
“Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
“Good attitude. Okay, you can go.”
“Thanks,” he said, jumping up and offering her a jokey salute, making her roll her eyes. “Don’t you be watching my ass on the security monitors.”
“Buzz off, Kit.”
He buzzed, hurrying down to the galley, where they’d be starting lunch prep soon. He’d kept his cool while talking to Warner, but sweat had been beading on his back while they talked. As if she might suddenly demand to search him. And then she’d find what he had in his pocket.
“Hello, handsome,” Gracie said as he came in. “Was it Warner again today?”
“Chief Stick-up-the-ass is clearly avoiding me. I guess my sexiness is burning out his retinas.”
“Is Warner okay with you? She’s kind of scary.”
“Katie? She’s a pussycat.”
“Yeah, like a lioness is a pussycat. Okay, we need to get some supplies from the container and empty the dishwashers from breakfast.”
“Let’s split it,” Kit said, picking up the printout of required supplies. “I’ll go grab these; you empty the washers.”
“Great. See you back here.”
She opened one of the washers and vanished in a cloud of steam, while Kit took the utility cart they used to fetch supplies and set off for the food-storage container.
In the container, he used the elevator platforms to get to the lower level. He found a couple of the items on the list, then left the cart and headed for a row of large storage crates. These were all red, unlike the blue that designated supplies for the
Light of Dawn
. Gracie had told him one day down here that those were some supplies they were dropping off at the space station on the edge of the asteroid field—only a few days away.
The station where Kit would have his chance.
He popped the lid off a crate, which was half-empty. Kit had done some strategic redistribution of its contents. In one corner sat a neat stash of items. Clothes and food of the “iron rations” type. He’d been careful, bringing in an item at a time, in his pockets, or a piece of clothing worn unnoticed under his baggy kitchen togs, stripping it off and hiding it with the rest. The tricky part was going to be to get a bag of some kind down here to hold it all. But maybe he could lay his hands on one of those duffel bags, the ones like a big-ass sausage skin with a drawstring on the end. He could wrap that around his body, and as long as nobody looked too close, he’d get away with fetching it down here.
He still had to figure out a way to get some working cash and once again wondered where Raine had put his confiscated money. He’d need fake identify documents for working or traveling, and he’d need cash to get hold of them. Well, he’d figure it out. He always did in the end. But getting off this ship was the first step.
From his pocket, he slipped the laser scalpel he’d filched from the infirmary earlier and put it with the rest of the stash. Perhaps he could sell that on the station. He hadn’t intended to take it with him; he needed it for only one job and would have left it behind. But it was possible someone would pay him cash for it.
It felt good to get it out of his pocket. It weighed a couple of hundred grams at most, and yet it had felt like carrying a boulder. At every step, he expected Raine to jump out in front of him and demand to search his pockets. Though Raine searching his pockets had been quite enjoyable the last time. He smiled at the memory.
Most
distracting.
Replacing the lid of the crate, he headed back to his cart to finish getting the rest of the galley supplies.
The plan was coming together.
Chapter Five
“So today’s the big day,” Gracie said as Kit arrived for breakfast duty. He started guiltily.
“What?” How the hell could she know?
“The ore take-on. Believe me, everything changes from here on out.”
“Oh.” He hid his sigh of relief as he pulled on an apron. “But we don’t have anything to do with those guys once they’re aboard, do we?”
“No, but the ship is different when they’re aboard. It’s hard to explain.” She grabbed a stack of plates. “Grab that tray of cups, will you?”
Kit finished tying the apron and grabbed the big tray of white mugs, all sparkling from the washer, and followed her to put them on the serving counter. The aroma of bacon wafted from the kitchen.