And she delighted in embarrassing him, sliding her hand down to his ass during the waltz, kissing him so passionately at the end of a tango that she almost took him beneath the stairs and had her way with him, climbing in his lap when they sat at a table, ostensibly to rest.
There wasn’t a lot of rest when they were together, and usually she enjoyed that. But this night, in the middle of the waltz, Misha had suddenly become a distraction.
Because Rikki noticed something.
“See him?” she asked softly. She nodded toward a man standing near the orchestra. He was tall and thin, with a long face and an ill-fitting suit.
She spun Misha around so that he could look without being obvious.
“I’m supposed to lead,” Misha said through gritted teeth.
“Archaic rule,” she said. “Did you see him or do I have to move you again?”
“I saw him,” Misha said. “He’s following us.”
“So you noticed,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Regretfully, I do notice things other than you.”
She smiled back. “You’re very good at flattery.”
“It’s foreplay,” he said.
“Oh, no,” she said with a laugh. “If we go back to the room, I’ll show you what foreplay is.”
“You could show me here,” Misha said, raising his eyebrows just a little. “And we could see just how intrepid our friend is.”
“And we would make sure everyone on the ship remembered us,” she said.
“I’m sure they will anyway,” Misha said and this time, he spun her around.
She laughed from the sheer giddiness of it.
They continued to dance, and finally, as the music stopped, she brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Should we figure out who he is?”
“He’s exactly what you think he is,” Misha said.
“You’ve checked,” she said, feeling a bit odd that he hadn’t consulted her.
“It wasn’t hard,” Misha said. “He’s not trying to hide. He’s an investigator, and I assume he’s from our friend.”
“But you don’t know,” she said.
“And I’m not willing to find out. We don’t want to cause trouble. And you’re not supposed to be thinking about being followed. You’re supposed to be thinking about your upcoming job.”
She nodded, then smiled, put an arm around him, then slid her hand down his back and squeezed his ass again.
“I’d rather think about something else,” she said.
He leaned over and kissed her, pulling her against him so she could feel how aroused he was. “It doesn’t require thought.”
“The room?” she said. “Or behind the stairs?”
“I’m too shy for behind the stairs,” he said.
“It would be easy,” she said. “I’m not wearing anything under this dress.”
His eyes twinkled. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said. “But I’m thinking of something quick, then something that takes time, and then, maybe, something quick. I’d rather have a bed for that kind of marathon.”
“Who knew you were so traditional?” she said.
He put his arm around her shoulder, just like he had done when they met. He steered her out of the ballroom, and as he did, he said in her ear, “I can show you a few things that aren’t traditional at all.”
“Promises, promises,” she said.
And then she held him to those promises when they got back to the room.
The man shadowed them all the way to Prospera. But when they got on the transport that would take them to the Guild, he was nowhere in sight.
Rikki almost missed him. She had gotten used to his glowering presence.
But she had more to focus on now that they were getting close to the Guild. Misha was getting nervous. She couldn’t tell if he was having second thoughts.
Misha had taken her to the transport station on Prospera, then told her she would have to follow all of his instructions. There was a special way to the Guild that only members knew or people whom the Guild wanted to arrive.
They had to take a private transport. Misha hired it, and wouldn’t let her near him as he did. So there were other things he had to do, things he didn’t want her to see.
He sat quietly in the ground transport car he’d hired. Rikki sat close to him, hands folded in her lap. Because he wouldn’t talk with her, she stared out the window at the scenery passing at five hundred miles per hour. Which meant, of course, that the scenery was just a blur of colors. She could tell she was going through a city because the colors changed from green and gold and red to dark blue and brown and black.
Otherwise there was no difference. The transport hadn’t even slowed, because it was private. It just sped along the express track, going through every single station.
She had never traveled in a private transport on the planet Kordita. It felt odd. She’d been to the city of Prospera several times, but not outside it. So she didn’t realize that the transport had taken a special turn toward the Guild until Misha told her the turn was unusual. It had been sharp and it made the windows in the transport become opaque.
Apparently, even if someone was cleared to hire a private transport to the Guild, that person wasn’t allowed to see the way there.
The opaque windows gave an eerie light to the car, making the seats look like they were in some kind of shadow. She sat stiffly beside Misha, trying not to show her nerves.
But she was nervous, and she was beginning to think he was as well. He had gotten progressively more tense as the transport got farther away from Prospera. The gentle, sensual man she was coming to know had vanished as well. He was all hard edges and sharp lines now. His posture had become more and more rigid as they got closer to the Guild.
He had warned her that he wasn’t quite certain what would happen when they arrived. He had never brought a guest before, and it had been decades since he was the newcomer. He had seen other newcomers enter the Guild, but he hadn’t even been on security detail when they arrived.
He only knew in theory what would happen, and he only told her bits of that.
The transport took another sharp turn, and then came to an abrupt stop. Misha was braced, clearly ready for it, but he had to grab Rikki’s arm to keep her from falling forward.
“Move with me,” he said softly, keeping a grip on her.
He went to the door, slammed his hand against it, and then, as the door opened, pushed her out first.
She stumbled again, startled, and nearly fell on the three steps that led down to an empty platform.
It took her a moment to get her balance. She stood up, a bit startled at where she was.
She was inside a station, with a small seating area, a bench, and several pillars. The station had no identification and no robotic guards that she could see.
For a moment, she thought she was the only one who had gotten off the transport, which made her stomach twist, as she wondered—fleetingly—what Misha had planned for her.
Then she saw him standing behind her, glancing around as if he was expecting someone. Maybe he was. He had told them he was bringing a friend, and he had sent her identification—her real identification. They both figured there was no reason to use an alias here since whoever hired her would know who she was, and might figure she was using her real identity to get into the Guild.
“Everything all right?” she asked softly.
He wasn’t looking at her. He was scanning the area. “Let’s just see how it goes,” he said just as softly.
He put a hand on her arm, almost as if she was his prisoner. She wanted to shake him off, but that was because she was nervous. Still, she walked with a tension she hadn’t had near Misha since she met him.
They stopped at the first pillar. A small window opened in its face.
“Weapons,” he said.
He had prepared her for this, but she still didn’t like it. She had to surrender her weapons to the Guild. He swore she would get them back when she left.
If she left.
If this wasn’t some kind of elaborate trick.
She made herself take a deep breath. She had to remind herself that she trusted Misha, that he had never lied to her (although he had occasionally left things out), and that he would want no harm to come to her.
Still, she couldn’t get rid of the sense that she was walking naked into a pit of vipers.
She pulled out all of her weapons—her pistol, her backup pistol, and her tiny all-purpose weapon, the one she usually never removed. She had been half tempted to keep it, just to see what would happen, but she didn’t.
She had agreed to this. She needed to go through with every step.
She set them all inside the window, and her heart sank as it closed, making a small sound as it whisked her weapons away.
Then it opened again, and Misha had to place his weapons inside—pistol, second pistol, and the knife he kept in his boot.
He looked as uncomfortable about this as she felt.
They moved to the next pillar. His grip remained tight on her arm. He was holding her so tightly it was almost painful. He was still looking around as if he expected something.
The window on the next pillar opened up slowly. She glanced over at Misha, uncertain what to do.
He glanced back, surprised for a moment, as if he thought she should know. And then he frowned just a little, and nodded toward the pillar.
“All identification,” he said.
“All of it?” she asked.
“Legit and not,” he said, and she could hear an attempt at a jaunty tone in his voice.
The attempt failed miserably.
She emptied out her identification into the window, but it didn’t close.
“Any embedded identification too,” he said.
“I’m not removing it,” she said.
“You don’t have to. We’ll take care of that.” He almost sounded annoyed, which made her feel annoyed. She didn’t like the “we.” It suddenly placed her against them.
Against him.
She extended her right hand and placed it in that little window, cringing as a warm beam of light touched her. Then she pulled back her right hand and extended her left. The same light touched it, making her tremble.
Misha felt that. He gave her his cool stare, but he didn’t even try to reassure her. Maybe he had no reassurance to give.
The window closed. This little pillar didn’t even make a sound as her identification got swept away.
Then the window reopened and Misha dumped all of his identification in it. He let the little scanner run over his left hand, the hand he was not holding her with.
The window closed, and Misha waited, almost as if he expected something else to happen. When it didn’t, he took a deep breath.
“I guess we keep going,” he said, sounding a bit confused.
He led her to the third pillar, which opened completely, revealing a staircase leading into the darkness. His heart rate increased.
She wouldn’t have noticed if she wasn’t standing so close to him, if he didn’t have such a firm grip on her arm that she could feel his heartbeat in his hand.
“Everything all right?” she asked as quietly as she could.
He didn’t even move his lips as he replied, “This is almost too easy.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant: was it too easy to get into the Guild, which would be odd, since he came and went from here all the time.
Or was it too easy for her to enter?
She would ask for clarification when she could.
He started down the steps, but he kept a hand on her, holding her behind him, protecting her with his body. She kept glancing up the steps—or at least she did, until the pillar closed behind them.
Then a breeze started, caressing her face.
She stiffened at first, and finally understood what it was.
This was some kind of decontamination chamber. She hadn’t ever encountered one outside of a ship or a port before. The air had that hot chemical smell that decontamination chambers always had.
Misha reached the bottom step, then looked both ways. The corridors themselves were arched, and wound in various directions. He waited in front of three of them before she reached the bottom step.
Then lights came on in a single corridor.
“Okay,” he said again in an undertone, his lips still not moving. “This
is
weird.”
He had told her that at some point they would separate. Clearly he had expected it before now.
“What should we do?” she asked, working to stay as quiet as he was.
“Keep going,” he said.
They walked through the lit corridor, and it wasn’t until they were almost through that she realized this was the main part of the decontamination chamber. Then they reached the end of it, and a single door opened, leading into a dressing chamber.
“We have to leave our clothes too?” she asked, this time in her regular voice.
“I warned you,” he said.
“You didn’t warn me about clothes,” she muttered. She stepped behind one of the dressing screens, not because she wanted to hide herself from Misha, but because she knew that some places like this monitored the entries. Someone was probably watching, and there might be laws that protected a newcomer’s privacy.