Thief: Fringe, Book 1

by Anitra Lynn McLeod

  “You planning on keeping us here forever?” Kraft asked.

  “I haven’t decided yet.” Michael sipped from his crystal wine glass. He sat at the head of the enormous table with Kraft to his right and Jace to his left.

  All through the painfully awkward dinner, they made wary eyes at each other. Jace wanted to pull her close and reassure her, and he discovered a similar desire in her gaze.

  “What exactly do you want, Mr. Parker?” Jace didn’t have any appetite at all. His stomach rolled and clenched so tightly he didn’t dare eat.

  “You will address me as Commander Parker, Captain Lawless.” Michael nodded to Jace. “What I want is very clear. I want Kraft.”

  “It’s not mutual.” Kraft pushed back from the table and all five men behind her tensed.

  “It isn’t your decision, is it?” Michael turned the full intensity of his gaze on Jace. “Captain Lawless owns you.”

  Jace crossed his arms. “I already told you she’s not for sale.”

  “Indeed. You won’t sell her because you are a man of honor. I find honorable men most interesting.” Michael took another sip from his wine. “What about you, Kraft?”

  “What about me?” She leaned back in her chair.

  “What’s your price for Captain Lawless?” Michael twirled his wine glass. “What will you sacrifice to save him?”

  Kraft caught Jace’s gaze. “Let him and his crew go, and I’ll—”

  “No!” Jace shot to his feet. “No way am I letting you sacrifice yourself to save me and my crew!” As if she hadn’t done enough for him already. He wouldn’t allow her to sell herself to protect him, especially not to a man with about as much honor as Trickster.

  Michael considered them both with a satisfied smile. “It seems you two have something to discuss.” He dabbed his napkin to his lips. “You can either sell Kraft to me, or she can stay here to save you and your crew. That’s the deal. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to decide.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Why is he doing this?” Jace threw a pillow and blanket on the floor.

  “I don’t know.” Kraft sat on the edge of a massive green silk-clad bed. Her head felt heavy with all the questions in her mind. “I told you I would sleep on the floor, Captain.”

  Jace shook his head. “No. You sleep up there.”

  “You could sleep up here with me. It’s a huge bed.” The beautiful bed was big enough for six people to sleep comfortably, or eight people to sleep sensuously.

  “Everything in this mausoleum is huge.” Jace rubbed his hand over his exhausted face. His stubble rasped against his palm.

  “Including Michael’s ego.”

  Jace laughed and punched the pillow. “I think that’s what he wants.” He glared at the bed. “Michael wants to see if I’ll try to claim you like some kind of macho Neanderthal. He wants to see if you’ll let me, or kill me.” Jace shook his head, threw himself down on the floor, then glared at the ceiling. He lowered his voice. “I’m curious about it myself.”

  Kraft sat very still. Too afraid to meet his eyes, she cast her gaze around the bedroom. Silk, velvet, rich wool, luxurious flowering plants hanging from the ceiling and growing up from large pots on the floor—everything earthy and sensual. Michael, that prick, knew just what buttons to push. If he tested Jace, he just as surely tested her. She didn’t think it was any accident that all the shades of green complemented Jace’s eyes.

  “I know he has cameras in here.” Not that she cared in the least. This might be her last night with Jace, and if it was, she wanted him in the lush bed with her. She wanted to touch and taste every last bit of him. She wanted to straddle his hips around every corner of the bed before she had to say goodbye.

  “I’m sure he does.” Jace cupped his hands behind his head as his gaze wandered speculatively around the walls and ceiling of the room. “Cameras and coms.”

  But, if somehow they got out of here after she indulged the last bit of her erotic mind on the so-much-more-than-pretty Captain Jace Lawless, Kraft knew she’d never be able to tell him goodbye. One kiss and she’d be hooked for the rest of her life. She knew that down to her toes. Honor bound her to Jace, but love would enslave her to him.

  “Coms and cameras and security right beyond the door.” Kraft nodded to the gigantic door about fifty feet away.

  “At least he didn’t send those five guys in here to guard you all night.” Jace considered. “Let me guess? I make a move on you and the testosterone freaks rush in here and do the unspeakable to a delightful combination of my own face and my own ass?”

  She bit back a laugh. “Not on my watch, Captain.”

  “There’s no way in or out of this room but for that door?” He nodded to the gigantic door.

  “Only that door.”

  “Those five guys are just waiting for you beyond that door, right?”

  “Most likely.”

  “We can’t get out of here any other way?” Jace perused the ceiling.

  “No.”

  “If you were alone, could you get out of here?”

  “No.” Kraft considered as she looked around the decadently lewd room. Michael had the tightest security in the whole of the Void and he’d more than trebled security to contain her. She had a few tricks up her sleeve, but she was reluctant to share them with Jace when there might be an open com.

  “I’m not holding you back, am I?”

  The way he asked it, barely a whisper, stunned her for a moment. “Holding me back how?”

  “You tell me.” Jace kept his attention on the ceiling.

  “You think this would be easy for me if only you weren’t here?”

  “Would it be if not for me?” Jace sat up. He drew close, trying to whisper to her without a com picking up their conversation. “Michael is terrified of you. Even with the security bracelet on your wrist, he has five hulking guards follow your every step. Every single person in this house is tense, waiting for you to do something, Michael most of all.”

  Kraft nodded. “I know.”

  “Michael doesn’t stand a chance against you, and he knows it. Care to explain that to me?”

  Kraft shook her head. She didn’t want to discuss her past history with Michael.

  “You could kill him, couldn’t you? You know it, he knows it, his guard knows it, and now I do too.”

  Kraft looked away. “Are you demanding that I fight him?”

  “What?”

  “I could take him down, given half a chance. Is that what you want me to do?”

  “You’d have to seduce him to get half a chance, wouldn’t you?”

  Kraft swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  “Could you?”

  “I don’t know. Do you want me to try?”

  “You’d really do it if I told you to, wouldn’t you?”

  “You’re my captain.”

  “No, I don’t want you to—I’m not going to use you—he really is Overlord, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s the only man to defeat an IWOG civilization attempt.”

  “Yes.”

  Jace clearly admired Michael for not only standing up to the IWOG, but defeating them. Given Jace’s past with the IWOG, his attitude didn’t surprise her in the least.

  “Do you love him?”

  “No.” Straight from her heart, she told Jace the truth. She’d never loved Michael. She’d been soundly in lust with him once, but that was very different from love. Only two things did she cling to—her honor and her love. Not a force in the Void could wrest them from her without her permission. She gave honor to Jace in full and equal measure as she received it, but she had never given her heart to any man.

  “If he were in here with you, would you want him sharing that big bed with you?”

  “No.”

  “But you want me there.”

  “Yes.” Kraft finally met his eyes. Now wasn’t the best time to get into this, but now might be the only time they had left. “Tell you what, Ca
ptain Lawless, if I had my pick of any man in the whole of the Void to spend my last night with, I’d pick you.”

  Reclining on the floor with his hands behind his head, he pinned her with his exotic-sunset green eyes. “I’d pick you. But not when I feel like I have to. I don’t want you to feel like you have to.” He let out a longsuffering sigh. “I don’t like feeling I have to claim you in some twisted way to prove I’m a man because of some pissing contest with Michael.” Jace tore his gaze away to focus on the ceiling of the plush bedroom they shared. “I don’t want it to be like that with you.”

  The longing in his voice touched her deeply. “I’ll stay. You take the money and go. Trust me, Captain, I’ll escape.”

  “You want me to sell you for 15Mil.” Jace said it dispassionately, looking at the shadow thick ceiling. “What a tidy profit on fifteen hundred.”

  “I’ll stay here just so you can get away. Take the damn money. It’s bonus all around.”

  “No.”

  She was simultaneously pleased and angered when he didn’t hesitate. “Captain—”

  “What was the deal with you and Michael?”

  Reluctant to answer, she stalled for time by slipping her boots off. “We were lovers for three months, but that was five years ago.”

  “It ended badly?”

  Very badly, she thought. “Michael went his own way.” A way she refused to tolerate.

  “Why does he have your ship?”

  “Randoms must have sold it.” No matter how much she loved her ship, after what happened on it, she didn’t want to ever set foot on it again. The emotional residue would drive her crazy.

  “He’s behaving either like a man in love, or a man hellbent for revenge, or both. Explain that to me.”

  “I can’t.” She removed her socks. “I’ve been racking my brain ever since we got here. When I pulled the IWOG transport job the first time, I sold the goods to Michael—about a year ago. It seemed to me we were friends.” Michael’s sudden shift in attitude baffled her, and her attempts to read him and the objects in his base hadn’t clarified why.

  “Did you sleep with him then?”

  “Talk about not pulling any punches.”

  “Report.” Jace used his imperious captain voice. “Did you or did you not sleep with him the last time you were here?”

  “No.”

  “Did he want you to?”

  “If he did, he didn’t mention it. I flew in, made the deal, had dinner with Michael, and I left.” Kraft shrugged. “That’s why I thought we would be fine coming here. I really don’t know what’s going on.” She tried to rub the exhaustion out of her eyes with her fingertips. “Whatever the reason, it’s clear he wants me to stay, so maybe it’s best—”

  “For the last time—no.” Jace climbed off the floor and sat on the bed beside her. “I’m not selling you to him.”

  “Don’t think of it that way. Think of it as saving your ship and your crew.”

  He frowned. “You are part of my crew.”

  His intensity caused her to glance away. “If I had any idea, I never would have brought you here.”

  “I know.” Tentatively, he took her hand. “We’ll work it out, annyae.” His beautiful green eyes searched her face. “I won’t leave you here.”

  Kraft knew, at that moment, simply holding his hand while they sat on the plush bed, she fell hopelessly in love with Jace Lawless.

  Deep in the night, shrouded in the darkness of their shared bedroom, Jace awoke on the floor to find Kraft kneeling above him.

  She pressed a finger to his mouth before he could speak, lowered her head to his and whispered, “I have a plan.” With that, she crawled on top of him, pulled the cover over her and pressed her body against his.

  After a deep groan of pleasure, he managed to whisper back, “And your plan involves straddling my hips?” Not that he minded in the least. So far, it seemed like a grand plan.

  “No.” She smiled against his neck. “That’s just a bonus.”

  He chuckled softly. “I’m not sure I have enough blood left in my brain to actually think at the moment.” All the blood in his body migrated to his hips.

  Snuggling a bit firmer, she sighed. “Actually, Captain, I forgot what I was going to say.”

  “Something about a plan?” he prompted, calling on every shred of self-control not to rock his hips.

  “Right.”

  With her lips invitingly close to his ear, she told him her plan. He argued against it. She insisted the scheme would work. He found new ways to nix the idea. She found a way to allay his concerns. After a long debate, he admitted to himself he was arguing with her only to prolong having her draped over him.

  Kraft felt nothing short of wonderful. Her husky voice filling his ear compelled his whole being with a deep longing he hadn’t known in a decade. He didn’t want her to move away. For a few brief moments, he could pretend that she was his.

  After he’d dragged out the debate for as long as he could, he said, “Okay, we’ll run with it.”

  Kraft lifted her head and smiled down at him. “I know you’re going to have to put a lot of trust in me, but I hope I’ve proved to you that you can.” She moved to go.

  “Don’t go yet.” With his hands to her wide and sexy hips, he pulled her right back down.

  She whispered something guttural in German then tried to kiss him, but he moved his head to the side.

  Kraft tensed and whispered, “What’s wrong?” She lifted her head. “I thought you wanted to kiss me?”

  He cupped her lovely face in his hands. “Believe me, I want to kiss you so badly I’m literally shaking not to.” His hands trembled against her face. “But not here, not now, not like this.” He traced his finger across her sensuously full lips. “When you come to me, I don’t want there to be anything between us but…” He didn’t know how to finish because he wanted only love between them but couldn’t bring himself to say those telling words. “I just want to hold you. Please.”

  Reluctantly, she settled against him. “I’m not crushing you, am I?”

  “No. You feel wonderful.” Lifting his hands, he stroked her back, marveling in how sexy her muscles felt below his hands. He never would have imagined himself so attracted to a woman so much stronger than himself, but that was one of the things that made her so compelling, her physical strength. “Kraft, there is so much I want to say to you, but again, not here, not now, not with so much hanging over us.”

  “You are so much more than pretty, my captain.” Lifting up, she touched his mouth. “I’m afraid if I don’t kiss you now, I never will.”

  Tears fell down her cheeks and he brushed them away.

  “Then maybe that’s as it should be.” He pulled her tight and nestled her face against his shoulder.

  “What have you decided?”

  Michael once again sat at the head of his massive table as she and Jace picked at their dinners. Michael was the only one who had an appetite. He also had an annoyingly smug smile on his arrogant face that she wanted to slap off. But she remained seated and nodded to Jace.

  Jace placed his napkin on the table and stood. “We’ve decided you can keep us both.”

  Michael lifted one brow and leaned back. “That’s not a part of the deal I offered.”

  “It’s our counteroffer.” Jace shrugged, pulling his battered blue shirt tight across his shoulders. Despite the shadow of his beard and the darkened circles under his eyes, he looked wonderful. “If you want Kraft to stay here, I’m staying here with her.”

  “I’m not interested in you, Lawless.” Michael stood, looming his superior height over Jace.

  “I’m not interested in you either, Parker.” Jace didn’t back down. “I’m also not selling Kraft to you, or trading her to you, or leaving her with you—deal with it.”

  “You think you can protect her from me?” Lifting a brow, dropping his bottom lip to a crooked half grin, Michael smirked as he took a step closer to Jace. “You can’t protect yoursel
f, Lawless, let alone her.”

  Jace straightened. “I’ll die trying.”

  Michael laughed. “I could take you down without breaking a sweat.”

  “I know.” Jace lifted his hands to his shoulders, the universal sign for surrender, then lowered them to his sides. “Give me guns at thirty paces and I might have a chance.”

  Jace was playing the situation exactly how they’d discussed last night; be calm, be clear, but above all, offer no challenge.

  Michael took a breath and resettled himself, clearly perturbed by Jace’s attitude. Michael wanted to fight. The fact that Jace didn’t unbalanced him. Kraft knew the time was right.

  She stood, ignoring the guards behind her. “Think you could take me down without breaking a sweat, Michael?”

  “I’m not offering to fight you.” Michael spoke to her but kept his gaze on Jace.

  “You were right,” Jace said to her with a shake of his head and a bemused smile. He turned his attention to Michael. “She told me you wouldn’t fight her because you know you’d lose.”

  Michael went rigid at the insult and quickly offered one of his own. “Enjoy hiding behind a woman?”

  “I’m not hiding behind her.” Jace chuckled and pointed. “She’s way over there with five heavily armed guards.” Jace shifted his gaze to Michael. “I know you’re not afraid of me, but you’re afraid of her, and I don’t blame you. I’m afraid of her too.” Jace winked at her. “Thing is, she’s on my side. She could best every man in this room without breaking a sweat.”

  “Not with that bracelet on her wrist.”

  Kraft glanced at the bracelet. It would inject her with powerful drugs if she raised so much as a finger against Michael. This was the one problem they could not overcome, but she and Jace had come up with an alternate plan. She’d worried that the very idea would anger Jace, and it had, but he’d finally agreed.

  She approached Jace. “I offer a challenge to you, Jace Lawless of the ship Mutiny. Will you fight me?”

  Jace didn’t hesitate. “Nope. You can have my ship, my cargo—the whole shebang. Knock yourself out.” He bowed formally and took a step back.