Her skin would be moist and salty from sweat as he licked up the line of her spine. She’d whimper when he sucked hard just below the edge of her shoulder blade, marking her.
“Where do you go?”
Startled, still vibrating with the need to be in her, he risked a glance to her. It was funny how little she’d changed, even after eleven years. She’d been a lovely child. Lively. Pretty and smart. Sullen then as her mid years had hit. And then she’d been perfect and small and all his. At his side always as they marauded through the streets. She’d sewn up their wounds, had been their lookout when they’d nicked food or gear.
He’d laughed with her. Been her shoulder when she cried. And then she’d been his in every way. Had given herself to him shyly, but no less beautiful for her inexperience. She’d been the place he was never angry. The person who gave to him without expecting something in return.
With Piper there’d been acceptance. The quiet place in the noisy storm of his daily life. She’d brought him calm when the rage had pumped through his veins like fire.
He hadn’t tasted her in eleven years, but the phantom feel of her skin against his fingertips still tingled from time to time as the ghost of her lived in him for a breath or two.
The velvet of her voice still soothed, even as she teased. Maybe because she felt comfortable enough with him, even after all they’d been through.
“What do you mean?”
“You think so deeply. You just go away. Your eyes show it. Where do you go when you think like that?”
He nearly choked, and she laughed. “
Oh!
You were in
that
place. Tell me about it. Who is she, this mystery woman you were with in your head?”
“A true man does not kiss and tell, Piper.” Desperate to change the subject, he held the valve up. “I think we’re good. I’m going to go see if that’s so.”
She put a hand on his arm. “I’ll go with you. And then, shall we take a trip to town? See what business we can get our way?”
He nodded, hoping she’d go out first. Of course she didn’t, and he had to hold his things in front of his crotch so she couldn’t see the raging evidence of just exactly what place he was in.
Work then. He needed to put his mind back to the job.
He’d checked in the night before, after he’d read over the data Benni had passed him. Mining for something. Clearly they were Imperialist troops, there to guard the dangerous open pit mines. No one would notice them so far away from population centers.
Daniel would pass the information to Julian and Vincenz and told him to report in daily, even if it was to say he saw nothing. They had the key, at least one of them anyway. They now needed the lock. In the chip, on the very edge, there had been a sliver. Andrei assumed it was the material being mined.
With the parts he found around the compound, he’d managed to extract enough data to send to Vincenz. He and Julian would figure it out and he’d hear back and they’d know what the next steps were. In the meantime, Andrei wanted to get closer to the Imperialist minister and his lackeys who had shown up there in the Portal town.
Chapter 6
T
wo days later, Andrei sat next to her in the truck as they headed toward the ramshackle cluster of buildings on the north end of the portal town often referred to as Thieves’ Alley. Though he’d been there a few nights before when he’d met Benni, the place was different in the light. Despite the ominous name, really it was several bars, a few houses of prostitution, boardinghouses and flats and food carts. Those streets had been his second home for years of his childhood.
He pondered a trip down those memories, just to take his mind from the alarming rate of speed they traveled at.
She drove like she did everything else. Fast and bordering on reckless.
In the case of driving and flying, the pleasure of watching her so intent on her job, on the level of skill and competence she had, was nearly too much. Not that it would stop him from watching her. Watching her had become something of a favorite activity since he’d arrived.
When they’d returned from running cargo, Kenner had told them that on his trip to town that morning, he’d seen some Imperialist types around. Imperialist types attempting to hire on a crew.
“More troops around lately.” She slowed as they entered the more populated areas heading into the center of town.
“Yes.” She had no idea how truly bad things were. He found himself caught between wanting to keep her safe from the truth of it and telling her everything so she’d be better equipped to handle any trouble.
“Listen, I need to make contact with them, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Why don’t you stay here or go to the mercantile to grab supplies? I’ll find you when I’m finished.”
“Oh, you mean while you go over there and get hired on because you have a penis and therefore are more qualified than me? Me, who has a reputation here as a cargo runner?”
He nearly growled at her. Until several days before when he’d saved her ass from being murdered by Imperium troops, he’d not been tempted to growl at anyone in years if one didn’t count Abbie Lyons and Carina Fardelle. They were other men’s problems though. This one—he glared in her direction—was most definitely his problem.
“Don’t growl at me. Just look pretty and scary in that way you have. I’ll do the talking. I will, however, take any advice you’d like to give me on what it is you want me to say.” She said it as she pulled the conveyance to a stop.
Annoyed as he was, he had to admit she was right to take point. They knew her, though some knew him, too. “Fine. But if I start giving orders, you take them.” He ignored her snort and continued speaking. “We just need an in with them again. We want to run goods, but
not
whatever it is Cheney wanted you to move.” He’d been working with others like him so long, he wasn’t sure if he was making the distinction clear.
They needed to earn enough trust to look around, but not to actually do the bidding of the Imperium that would cause harm. He’d be sure to drop the location of the cargo, whatever it was, to the Federation, but there were other parties working on other things, other pieces of the puzzle, and he had to keep his pace even with theirs.
“Good.” She sat back a moment, clearly relieved. “I don’t want any part of this whatever it is they’re trying to do. I want to help stop them. I’ll do everything I can, even take orders from you if necessary.”
“If I could do this all without you, I would.” He hesitated.
“You can’t, and no matter what, I’m happy I can help.” She pushed from the door she’d opened, hopping to the ground, and he followed.
Her walk was confident. No one would get the drop on her out here, which made him relax marginally.
She headed toward a man Andrei had seen in his briefing materials. Jan Karl, one of Fardelle’s top ministers after Hartley Alem had been put to death some months before. There was strong suspicion the man had engineered the recent biological outbreak in the Imperial ’Verse, Faelene. So many had died, even before all outgoing communication had been halted.
And here he was, in Federation territory engineering their own natural resources to aid them in murdering Federation citizens. Anger spiked through him at the sight of this man who shat upon the Federation with such impunity. He wanted to punch someone over it.
Dust, rage and impotent frustration. The scents and memories of Asphodel all knotted within him.
“You owe me quite a packet of credits.” Piper’s snarl at the man in the chair next to Karl yanked Andrei from his anger.
It also began to revive his cock. At this rate, he’d lose all sensation in the area from overstimulation or something.
The man twisted a smile up at her. “So I do.” Drawing out a pouch, the man counted out the chips, sliding the small pile to the center of the table, where the magister checked and then handed it to Piper.
“I assume this makes us square?” He leaned back, and Andrei realized who the man was. Back in their youth, Kenner and Andrei had done numerous not-even-legal jobs for him. Porter, yes, Rhymen Porter. Andrei was surprised to find him still drawing breath, but then, he always had been a canny bastard.
“This a new crew member?” He tipped his chins toward Andrei.
“Only if by new you mean someone who ran
your
cargo back in the day.”
Porter cocked his head, examining Andrei.
“Hair’s longer now. Your sister worked at my tavern for many years before she finally married and hooked up with that husband of hers and hied off to wherever she did.” He grinned, standing and holding a wrist.
Andrei clasped it, wondering where Hali had gone. Wondering if he should try to find her. He’d tried to find Carmine, his younger brother, but there’d been nothing after he’d been taken by the authorities. Chances were his name had been changed and he’d been fostered somewhere else. Andrei hoped he was well, wherever he was.
“Walk with me.” Porter didn’t ask as much as he pulled on Andrei to follow, which he did, Piper with him.
“Piper, why don’t you two just go back to your compound? Come back in a few turns.” Porter lowered his voice as he gestured off toward the town. “These Imperialists, the ones who attacked you. Yes, of course I heard about it.” He rolled his eyes at their silly ignorance. “They want that cargo run. You have a good head for business, Piper. Got people to keep alive back at the compound. Don’t go messing with this rabble.”
Andrei looked to Piper, loving the curve of her cheeks. He wondered if Porter was trustworthy, and she gave him a short shake of her head. “What is it they’re moving?”
“Nothing you want any part of, boy.”
“But, you see, I do want part of it.”
Porter looked at him closely, as if deciding Andrei’s intent.
“I had family on Krater.” Which was a total lie, but he was a professional liar, so that worked out well. Krater had suffered so much both sides of the line had heard about it, had been affected by it. Most didn’t know Fardelle had used a primitive version of the portal collapsing device and it went horribly wrong, sealing Krater off to her own fate. Space travel would take two standard years from the nearest ’Verse. Even the private portal had been cut off.
It had served to turn attention to just what Fardelle wasn’t doing to protect his own people. While most didn’t know he’d wantonly murdered his own people, they knew he was doing nothing to help.
“These men are not easily played, boy.” Porter narrowed his gaze.
Andrei didn’t need to tell him he had no intention of playing. He just waited as the gears turned in the old man’s head.
“I’ll make the introduction. If you want my advice”—he paused to chuckle—“not that you need it. But they’ll know about the others. Cheney survived it, limped away, licked his wounds and was called off ’Verse. Own it.”
Andrei planned to do just that.
Porter showed Piper the next cargo he wanted her to run. Clever woman gave him a discount for the introduction.
By the time they’d finished their business with Porter, Karl was still there, looking agitated. Good. Andrei would take great pleasure in bringing these fuckers down.
“Do you want me to do the talking on this, or do you want to take it?” she murmured as they walked back toward the table where Karl sat.
He nearly laughed. Instead, he shook his head. “You take it. You’re right. You have the reputation here.”
“Jump in if I miss anything. I don’t want to mess up.”
Andrei took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “You’re doing just fine. I’m sorry to put you in this position.”
She tipped her chin up, locking her gaze with his. “You should kiss me.”
Surprise made him a little wide-eyed. “I should? Other than the fact that you’re a beautiful woman with delicious lips, why should I?” Not that he was opposed to the idea in any way.
“I like it when you cast aside the taciturn thing and flirt with me, Andrei. You should do it more often. And as we’re here having this little conversation in full view of the table of men over there, there should be a reason for it. Don’t you think a kiss is a good reason?” Her teasing smile brought out the dimple at the right side of her mouth. “Also, I want you to.”
How could he resist?
He bent his head, meaning to deliver a quick kiss, but she grabbed him, holding him tight, and he was lost in the taste of her, lost in the way she felt there against his body after all this time.
Instead, she opened her mouth on the sweetest of sighs. He inhaled that sound, inhaled her breath and then her taste, gods her taste, the sweet, hot tang of her echoed through him.
Images battered him, tearing at his resolve until all that was left were shreds. He wanted her, craved her taste, reveled in it as his tongue found its way between her lips and into her mouth.
Hot and wet, gods. The inside of her welcomed him here, as he’d dreamed her cunt would. The idea of it, the way she’d yield as he slid deep, the way her inner muscles would hug and give way around him. Gods.