Stripper: The Fringe, Book 4 (15 page)

“Lower your voice. You’ll wake up Scott.” Diane felt a rippling unease as she peered up into his angry face. “Yes, I want to know what’s going on. But I don’t need you to hiss it in my face through your clenched teeth.”

Duster closed his eyes, shook his head and pulled himself away. “I’m sorry. I’m—I may have screwed us all.” Retreating to his side of the bed, he sat cross-legged with his head down and his fists gripped tight in his lap.

“Please, tell me what happened.” She sat up too.

Haltingly, he told her of his conversation with Mary, and Michael’s reaction.

Somehow, Diane wasn’t surprised. Disappointed and terrified but not really shocked. She expected no less from Michael. Gently, she took Duster’s hand. At first, he resisted, but eventually twined his fingers with hers.

“If he demands you choose, you must choose Scott.”

Obviously incredulous, he glared at her. “How noble of you, Diane.”

“I’m not trying to be noble. I’m trying to do what’s best for Scott. If it’s a choice between all of us die or one of us dies, I am the obvious choice to go.” Not that she wanted to die. She wanted to spend a lifetime taking care of Scott and rebuilding what she had with Duster.

“Gee, well, let’s just make our way over to the airlock, then.”

Diane rose.

He hauled her back down. “Are you nuts?” He pulled her onto his lap and hugged her one shade shy of crushing the breath out of her. “God, you really would, wouldn’t you? To protect Scott. To protect me.”

“Duster, I—”

He tilted her face to his. “Do you think I could live with myself if I tossed you off the ship? How the hell could I look into Scott’s face and tell him what I did to his mother?”

Her heart melted, but she had to be strong to protect Scott. “If it’s as you say, that we don’t have the fuel to go anywhere else, that if we try to land with three people onboard, they’ll shoot us down, then we don’t have much of a choice.”

“We’ll find another way.”

“I’m all ears.”

Duster laughed and leaned his head back with a frustrated futility. “I kinda hoped you might have a plan. The wellspring of my brain has run painfully dry.”

“What if I talked to him?”

“He wouldn’t talk to his best friend, but yeah, he might talk to you, the woman who betrayed him long ago.”

“Don’t be flippant.”

“Diane,” Duster said, then burst out in a stream of almost hysterical laughter. “If he won’t talk to me, that probably means he won’t talk to you either.” He kissed her with a harsh, desperate urgency. “It’s hope—”

“Don’t say it. Don’t say that word. That’s what I thought seven years ago. If I would have held out hope, I would have told you, and we could have survived together. Isn’t that so?”

“It’s not the same.”

“It is. You, me and Michael are all right back in a terrible tangle.” Again she noticed the circular nature of their relationship. She hoped she didn’t have to die to atone for what she’d done in the past. She’d thought she’d killed Duster, so maybe this time her death would put an end to the tumult they kept finding themselves in. “There has to be a way to at least get him to let us land.”

“So what if we manage that? I got news for you; he’s still going to kill you.”

“Maybe not.” Diane struggled to find a way to appeal to Michael. Sadly, she couldn’t think of anything she had that he would want. The only thing Michael wanted was revenge.

“I’ve got all kinds of faith in your ability to charm just about anything out of any man, but not Michael.”

“I’m not planning on charming him.” That was a lost cause before it began. And then the solution struck. “What if you convince him that I’m your prisoner? That you took me hostage? Well, actually, it’s not much of a lie, is it? You have taken me prisoner. So what if it’s with my consent? Michael doesn’t have to know that, now does he?” Diane arched her brow, pleased with herself for finding a solution. If he thought Duster was only keeping her to punish her, he might let them all land and live.

Duster considered. “I don’t see how that will help anything.”

“Tell Michael what you told me when you first took me prisoner on this ship.”

“What?”

“That I took your money and you’re going to make me your whore to work off the money I owe you. I don’t care what he thinks as long as he leaves me in your care. Honestly, Duster, if you want to make me your whore, you’ll find me a willing participant.”

Duster’s eyes and nostrils flared at the idea, but the lust in his gaze faded quickly. “And what about Scott? I can’t even play that kind of attitude around him. Just the thought of it turns my stomach.”

“Scott doesn’t have to know. Tell Michael that. That you don’t want your son to know. What we do behind closed doors—”

“Diane—”

“What? What do we have to lose?”

“I’m not good at lying. I never have been. I don’t think I’m going to pick that skill up overnight, even if you give me intensive lessons.”

Diane extricated herself from his arms. “You may not know how to lie, but you certainly know how to hit below the belt.”

“Aw, hell, I didn’t mean it like that.” He reached for her, but she moved away.

“You most certainly did. If there is no hope of you ever trusting me, then do us both a favor—toss me out the airlock right now. I won’t tolerate a lifetime of this. I’m racking my brain trying to figure out how to keep us all alive, and you’re getting in digs at me.”

“You’re right.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m frustrated and miserable because it’s my own damn fault we’re all in this mess. I thought Michael would
never
turn his back on me. I’m devastated that he has. You don’t know what I’ve done for him. That I damn near sacrificed my life to build his planet, and now he won’t even let me near it.”

“He won’t let you near it not because of you but because of me. Turn him around about it. Make him believe that you kept me alive only to punish me. It’s really not that far from the truth, is it? Be honest with me, Duster. There is a big part of you that wants revenge. It’s not a lie.”

After giving her idea some consideration, he said, “There’s something about Michael that you don’t know.”

“What’s that? Don’t tell me that alcoholic can read minds?” Diane wondered why Duster seemed so resistant to every idea she tossed out.

“Damn close. Michael can read bodies.”

“Facial expressions?”

“Scents. He could do this when we were on the
Damn You
, but he worked so hard to keep himself distracted from the stench of misery aboard that ship that he tuned himself out with alcohol. He’s not a drunk by choice, Diane. More so by circumstance. Michael didn’t have a clue what you and I were up to back then because he couldn’t smell it.”

“That’s why he drank so much.” Diane had just thought Michael was a lush like her father.

“Not anymore. Dealing with Mary has brought Michael to the pinnacle of his ability. If I go into his office and try to lie to him, he’ll smell it.”

“He can read scents?” Diane had never heard of anyone with that unique reader ability. Her skill was rare, but not that rare.

“Pheromones. Subtle chemical changes. He calls himself an emotichemical perceptionist. If we even try to go in there and sell him a big lie, he’ll smell it coming a mile away. Given his current utter disregard for me, I have no idea what he’ll do to me, you or our son.”

“How much time do we have left to decide?”

Duster looked automatically at his wrist and frowned when he saw it was empty. “I’m used to a wrist com. I wore one for the last five years.” With a sheepish glance, he got off of the bed, checked the wall com, then came back and slid under the covers. “Prox ten hours. We’ll be in shooting range about then. Maybe sooner if Michael decides to just put us out of our misery and dispatch a crew to take us out. Given that? Prox four hours.”

“Even if we turned tail and ran right now, he could catch up to us.” Diane tried to fight the wave of nauseous fear that gripped her.

“Sure enough. Knowing Michael like I do, if we alter course in any way, he’ll send someone after us.”

“Why? If he doesn’t want us there, then why not let us go?”

“Alive and loose, we’re a threat to him. You know what he looks like, but I know his security
and
what he looks like. If we’re dead and gone, hey, no worries. If Mary is a smart security head, and trust me, she is, she probably already knows this. Even if out of kindness she doesn’t point it out to Michael, he’ll see it too. Eventually.”

“There must be something we can do. We just have to put our heads together, and we’ll find a solution. If we got into this, we can get out.”

“That’s why I’m so upset. We didn’t have to be here. We could have stayed on Dahank. We could have gone anywhere else and started over, but I chose to come back to the planet I built. It doesn’t matter what you did seven years ago. What matters, what’s ultimately going to kill us all, is what I’ve decided to do in the last seven days.”

It started to feel like the gods themselves were chucking boulders down on her head. She wouldn’t let him say it, but hopelessness crept ever more fully into her heart. Seizing on the one thing that would be the most difficult for her to do, Diane offered, “Then we won’t lie to him.”

“Puts us right back where we started.”

“Not really. You don’t trust me, do you?”

“Diane, I’m not—”

“You don’t. That’s the truth.”

“Fine. Yes. It’s true. I don’t trust you. I’m going to have to relearn it.”

“You want me to be your whore too.”

“No, I want you to be my wife.”

“A polite name for whore.”

He grinned, remembering their prior verbal sparring. “Not my wife.” Very gently, he tilted her head back and kissed her.

As much as she wanted to lose herself in his touch, she knew she couldn’t. Not now. Pulling back, she peered up into his eyes. “There is a part of you that secretly thrills to have me at your mercy.”

Gritting his teeth, Duster looked away.

Lifting up, Diane whispered in his ear, “Think of how much bigger and stronger you are than I am. I could fight you tooth and nail, and you could do whatever you like.” Sliding her hand up his leg, she touched his growing erection below the covers. “It excites you to even think about it. Forcing me to be your willing whore for somewhere between seven hundred and seven thousand nights.”

“Stop it.” Shoving her hand away, Duster uttered a growling sigh. “You know I wouldn’t.”

“I know that and you know that, but Michael may not. It’s not really a lie.”

“He’ll figure it out.”

“By the time he does, maybe he won’t care. He’ll see I’m not a threat to him.”

“He’ll worry that you’ll seduce me, pretty much like you just did, and then I’ll go against him and try to take over Windmere. Pretty much like I did on the
Damn You
seven years ago.”

“I’m not trying to seduce you. I’m trying to show you that we wouldn’t be lying. And I would never try to compel you to take over Windmere. Why would I? Like you said, who the hell would want Michael’s job?” It upset her that she just couldn’t make him see the reason and logic in her plan. Switching tactics, Diane said, “Fine. Let’s run it your way. What’s the truth that you would tell Michael?”

Chapter Eleven

Duster thought about what he would tell Michael, the truth that he would tell him, for a long time. A powerful craving for crackleseeds gripped him, but he pushed it away. As much as they would help him think, they would make a mess, and he didn’t exactly have a pocket to put the spent pods in.

“Are you going to answer me, or are we leaning more toward the airlock?” Diane rose, and he pulled her down.

“Just let me think.” Lowering himself onto his side, he finagled Diane down with him. She didn’t put up a fight but seemed to want to be coaxed nonetheless. “Come here, please.”

“I wouldn’t want to be accused of seducing you.”

“Diane.” He said her name with a whispered warning. “I don’t want to fight. I want to touch you while I think. Please, come here.”

Lips parted to object, she closed them and moved to his side.

He rolled onto his back, with his left hand on his belly. Diane curled up and put her left hand on his. When their rings clinked together, he asked her to do it again, which she did. He pulled the covers up around their bodies, then held her close. Diane was naked, warm and soft. That compelling vanilla-musk of her distracted him, but Duster kept his focus on the truth he would tell Michael.

After giving it a lot of thought, Duster said, “I would tell Michael that I want to forgive you and start over. That it will take time for that to happen. I don’t want it so much for myself, which I do, but I want it more for my son. Because I want him to have what I never did. I want Scott to have a home. A normal and safe home. Where he doesn’t live in constant fear of cutthroats and killers. Where he doesn’t ever wonder where his next meal is coming from, and certainly not if he’ll ever live to see another day. Where he can play and be a kid and not have to grow up overnight, because if he doesn’t, someone will kill him just to get his shoes.”