by Anna Hackett
“Stay back.”
Justyn breathed through his nose, fighting the urge to deck the man. Ignoring Solomon, he knelt beside Nissa. Blood flowed down her temple and right cheek. “You okay?”
With a wince, she nodded and looked at Solomon. “No!”
The treasure hunter had just cut a long slit in the side of the tent and was climbing out.
“Go!” Nissa urged. “Catch him. I’ll follow in a second.”
Justyn helped her up. She was unsteady on her feet but her eyes were clear and focused.
“Go. That’s an order, Phoenix.”
Damn, she was sexy when she was tossing orders. He spun and dove through the opening.
He barreled through the market. Ahead, he glimpsed Solomon’s red waistcoat. Justyn jumped, and dodged, bumped into unsuspecting shoppers, but he was gaining on the treasure hunter.
As he sprinted down one aisle of shops, he caught sight of a pair of Mackon’s guards in the distance. They spotted the commotion of the chase and with a few shouts, started in Justyn’s direction.
Great. He hurried on, racing around a corner and into another aisle. He paused, searching the crowd. There. A flash of red ahead.
This area was cleared of tents. Instead, there were stacks of crates and boxes, piled high. It looked like some sort of market storage area. Solomon slowed to a walk, reaching the edge of the platform. He leaned over the black railing and glanced down.
Justyn slowed as well, his heart still pounding. “It’s a very long drop. Not much chance you’d survive the fall, but if you did, the native sharks, genetically-engineered kraken or Mackon’s mechanical giant squid would get a tasty little snack.” Justyn gestured with his fingers. “Hand it over.”
Solomon raised a brow. “Why the hell would I want to do that?” He jiggled the holder. “This is going to make me the most famous treasure hunter in the galaxy.”
Justyn snorted. “I think that title is taken. And I have the unfortunate duty of being related to Dathan. He won’t want to give it up.”
Solomon’s face remained impassive. “You’re a Phoenix?”
“Justyn Phoenix.”
“The smuggler?”
“Ah, my reputation precedes me. Well, I’d be happy for you to take the title of most infamous smuggler on the edge.” He thought of Nissa. “It causes me a lot of hassle.”
“You’re going to take this and sell it the highest bidder,” Solomon said.
“Nope. The woman you clobbered back there—” he thrust a thumb over his shoulder “—she really is GSS. She needs to return it to the Institute.”
Something flashed in the other man’s eyes. “Is she okay?”
Justyn didn’t want to see the man’s regret or concern. He wanted to take a swing at him. “Probably got a nasty headache, which won’t improve her temperament. She won’t be gentle about throwing you in the brig.”
Solomon’s lips twitched. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” And he’d probably have the dubious pleasure of having her do it again sometime. Then he frowned. Except after this, she’d get that cushy posting back in the central systems and he’d never see her again.
“Why are you helping her? And the GSS? You’re a criminal.”
Justyn straightened. “That’s a fine accusation coming from you. Look, give the document over to me.”
Solomon’s face hardened. “Not today.” In a quick, agile move, he leaped over the railing and off the side of the platform.
No, goddamnit. Heart pounding, Justyn raced to the railing.
He saw the treasure hunter’s big body falling. The ocean wasn’t visible below, obscured by clouds.
Justyn slammed a hand against the railing. Solomon and the Constitution were lost.
Then Solomon grabbed something off his belt and aimed upward at the main city platform.
A grappling hook flew through the air, trailing a metal cable. It hit the base of the platform with a thwack. A second later, Solomon was swinging through the air and whizzing upward as the line retracted.
“Cheeky upstart!” Justyn took off again, heading to the ramp.
“Phoenix?” Nissa was running toward him.
“Back to the city platform,” he yelled. “Solomon dove off but made it safely across.”
“We have another problem.”
He heard the shouts behind her. A whole gang of Mackon’s guards were in pursuit.
“You’re popular,” he said.
She didn’t even slow down as she passed him. “It’s my winning personality.”
With a chuckle, he sprinted behind her. And damn, he had a fine view. That synth-leather looked like black liquid licorice coating her butt and legs. He’d loved licorice as a boy, and let himself imagine eating the treat off Nissa’s golden skin.
They made it to the ramp leading to the city.
A bolt whistled past his head and slammed into the ramp’s railing.
“Fuck me.” His little fantasy dissolved in a puff of reality. A quick glance showed most of the guards still giving chase, and two lined up on the edge of the market platform holding crossbows.
Another bolt headed in their direction. Aimed for Nissa’s back.
Justyn dived, taking her down near the end of the ramp. They rolled in a tangle and spilled onto the city platform.
“What the hell?” she yelled.
The bolt whizzed overhead and hit the ground.
Her eyes widened. “Right. Let’s keep moving.”
They helped each other up. “That way.” Justyn pointed. “He’d have come up near the airship docks.”
They ran through the streets. Most people barely gave them any attention, so used they were to seeing pickpockets racing around the crowds. Keeping the tethered airships hovering above in their line of sight, they ran in a wild twist through the back alleys, trying to lose their pursuers.
They burst out of a narrow alley, right at the entrance of the docks.
“There!” Nissa pointed.
Solomon was sprinting down one of the finger wharves, the sunlight glinting off the document holder bouncing on his shoulder.
As they gained on treasure hunter, Justyn noted the airship at the end of the wharf with a scarlet-red balloon.
The guy clearly didn’t believe in subtle. He wanted to be noticed.
Nissa yanked her disguised laser pistol from her hip. “Solomon! Stop or I will shoot you.”
The treasure hunter spun. Eyed her pistol and Justyn’s double-barreled weapons. He had both his pistols aimed at the younger man’s head.
Solomon raised his hands. Then he looked past them. “Looks like Mackon isn’t going to just let you walk out of here.”
Justyn saw the guards coming. Damn.
But Nissa’s calm face didn’t show a flicker of worry. “Hand me the document.”
Solomon swung it off his shoulder. Hesitated.
Nissa stepped forward and shoved the barrel of the weapon in the center of his chest. She held up her hand.
With a deep sigh, Solomon handed it over.
Nissa swung it over her shoulder. “You’re under arrest.”
“You have no jurisdiction here.”
“Maybe not. But once we cross the galactic border, I will.”
“How we going to get out of here?” Justyn asked. The guards were getting closer.
“I have a plan.” She nodded to the ship. “Onto Solomon’s airship.”
They boarded the cargo cage sitting on the wharf. A quick tug on the chains and the cage lifted off the ground with a rattle.
“Anyone going to fight to help you up there?” Justyn asked.
“It isn’t my ship or crew. I just paid for passage to New Venice.”
Another floating city not far away.
“Then I don’t need to shoot anybody,” Justyn said.
On deck, they stepped out of the cage. The crew had a har
dened look, and most of them had mechanical enhancements of some type. They gave Justyn and Nissa’s weapons a brief glance before going back to their work.
A short, barrel-chested man with hair the color of a sunset leaped down from the rigging above. “I was only paid passage for one. I’ll need more coin to take all three of ya to New Venice.”
“We aren’t staying,” Nissa said.
The captain shrugged. “Suit yourself. We set sail in an hour. Be off me ship before then.”
“You going to share your plan to get out of here?” Justyn asked.
Nissa glanced at the bulky timepiece on her wrist. “Not yet.”
“And we’re going to escape the guards who’ll be here in a few minutes, right?”
“Yes.”
“But you won’t escape me.”
All three of them spun at the feminine voice.
Lady Curiosity climbed over the edge of the ship with acrobatic grace and stood on the wooden railing. She held a rope in one hand and her mechanical arm was aimed at them.
Justyn saw some sort of mechanism built into her forearm. It held darts. His chest tightened. Poison.
“You made an incredible mess of my store.” The woman stepped gracefully off the railing, landing with the tiniest bend of her knees. “And I believe you have something my employer was going to buy from the boy.”
“I’m Captain Nissa Sander of the GSS. I’ve taken the artifact and the boy into custody.”
Lady Curiosity smiled, looking every inch like a feline about to devour its dinner. “The Galactic Security Services?” Her laugh was a delicate tinkle. “Way out here?” The human part of her face hardened and her voice lowered. “Where no one cares?”
Nissa kept her gun pointed at the woman. “Stay back.”
“Captain Sander?” Commander Tellis’s voice came through the timepiece on Nissa’s wrist. “Nissa, we’ve reached orbit and are in range for teletransportation.”
Justyn grinned at Nissa. “Nice work, Captain Smooth.”
She shot him a brief glance and the tiniest smile. “Three to transport, Commander. All humanoid, don’t grab a cyborg by accident.”
Lady Curiosity’s mouth firmed into a flat line. She started forward.
“Stay back or I will fire.” Nissa’s voice was unforgiving. “Ten more seconds and we’ll be gone. Your employer will have to find something else to acquire.”
The woman shrugged. “He will. I don’t think he was particularly attached to the Constitution.” Her gaze narrowed. “But I still am not inclined to forgive the mess you made of my shop.”
“Teletransportation in three seconds.” Tellis’s voice.
Lady Curiosity raised her arm.
“No!” Justyn called out.
As the dart hit Nissa in the neck, her body jerked. Her gun hit the deck.
Justyn leaped out and caught her. He yanked the dart out of her skin.
“It burns,” she whispered.
Solomon made to move, but Justyn jabbed one pistol in the base of the man’s spine. Justyn speared Lady Curiosity with a stare. “What kind of poison is it?”
The woman’s smile was smug. “Oh, it isn’t poison.”
Justyn frowned. Nissa began to writhe. “What, then?”
“An aphrodisiac. One that sets the blood on fire and brings all a person’s needs boiling to the surface.” The half-metal woman winked. “I suspect you should be thanking me, Mr. Phoenix.”
The world dissolved in the bright blue light of teletransportation.
Chapter Eight
As the bridge of the Freedom materialized in front of Nissa, she fought to stay upright. Her skin was on fire and felt too tight. A fine sheen of perspiration covered her from head to toe, and her clothes were choking her.
But she was a captain and she had to job to do.
“Commander Tryker, please take Mr. Solomon to the brig.” She watched her head of security move toward the treasure hunter. “Lieutenant Galen, please secure this and run the necessary tests.” She held out the metal cylinder out to her CSO. Damn it, her hands were shaking.
Luciana took the holder, eyeing it reverently. “You found it. Well done, Captain.”
Nissa felt a wave of fire wash over her and gritted her teeth. “I need to shower and change.” She swiveled and her gaze crashed into Justyn’s.
“Nissa…”
His deep voice was like a stroke of fingers over her skin. She shivered and took a step toward him before she caught herself.
“You need to get to sickbay,” he said quietly.
She shook her head. That was not what she needed. Gossip travelled on a starship with the energy of a star going supernova. She didn’t want her…condition bandied about. She wanted quiet and privacy. “Please, could you get a medscope and bring it to my cabin?”
He eyed her for a long second then nodded.
Nissa wasn’t sure how she made it to her cabin. She weaved like a drunken starfreighter worker on station leave, her body consumed by flames. For one humiliating moment, she sagged against the corridor wall and pressed her thighs together to fight the burning, needy sensation between them. She wanted to touch herself and rub until she found some release.
She staggered into her cabin with a sob. In her bedroom, she ripped off the constricting corset and dragged in some air.
It didn’t help.
Next she ripped the gauntlets off her forearms and worked at the slick trousers. With shaking hands, she took her contacts out and then ripped away the derma patches on her skin. It took her a few attempts but finally she got them off.
She stood there in only her panties and the billowy white shirt that hit the top of her thighs. The cool air of the cabin barely dimmed the heat of her skin.
“Nissa?”
Justyn’s deep voice came from the living area. She moaned and steeled herself against the boiling rush of needs and wants swirling inside her. She panted, trying to get air into her constricted lungs.
“Leave the medscope on the coffee table and leave.” There. That sounded relatively steady. Considering she wanted to strip the last of her clothes off and rub herself against something like a cat.
“No.” He appeared in the doorway. He hadn’t changed but somewhere along the way, he’d lost the waistcoat. His shirt was snowy white against his darker skin. In one hand he held the slim metal wand of the medscope.
Panic gripped her throat like choking hands. She held one hand up, like that could ward off six feet two inches of hard male. “Get out.”
“Jesus, Nissa. Just lean on someone for once.” He stalked toward her.
She slammed a hand against his chest. Her fingers twisting in his shirt. “I don’t want to lean on you. I want to knock you to the ground, tear your clothes off and rub myself against you.”
He went still as stone. “Shit.”
Her entire body trembled. “Yes. Shit. Now please, don’t test my tenuous control.”
“Let me treat you with the medscope and this’ll all go away.”
Nissa bit down on her bottom lip. The flames licking her skin were getting worse. Far worse.
“Sit down,” he said.
Her legs were barely holding her upright. She dropped down. The cool fabric of the cover against her bare thighs almost made her moan.
Justyn moved to sit beside her, then paused and obviously thought better of it. He knelt in front of her. When his gaze lingered on her bare legs, Nissa’s breath hitched. She tried to fight her body’s response to the flash she saw in his eyes but against her will her legs shifted, her thighs falling apart.
He hissed in a breath. “Fuck, Nissa—” the knuckles on the hand holding the medscope turned white “—how about you lie down?”
She swiped a trembling hand across her lips, then dropped backward, closing her eyes.
She heard the medscope switch on, followed by its gentle hum. She knew it would be emitting a gentle, blue light. His clothes ru
stled as he moved closer. She imagined him leaning over her, his big body caging her to the bed. Then her feverish mind took over and she imagined the hard weight of him pushing her down into the sheets, the two of them twisting together, fighting to get at bare flesh.
Her chest started rising and falling rapidly and she twisted her hands in the sheets.
“Hold on, sweetheart.”
His voice was close. His body was so close. She could reach out and… She tried to focus on the fact the medscope would be eliminating the aphrodisiac from her blood stream. The small device could treat small to minor wounds in just a few minutes.
Time ticked by with agonizing slowness and she wasn’t feeling any better.
She heard the scope click off. “Justyn?”
He sigh was loud. “I’m sorry, Nissa. It’s too late. The chemical’s spread too far and the medscope can’t remove it.”
She made a strangled sound.
“The readout says there should be no side effects though and the chemical will wear off naturally.”
Her eyes opened and she stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. The room felt tiny and suffocating, like all the air had been sucked out the nearest airlock.
Heat flared across her skin. She writhed amongst the sheets, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. She hated the lack of control, that her body was no longer under her command. “It’s getting worse.” She tore at the buttons on her shirt, desperate for something to cool the raging fire.
“Maybe a cold shower?” He gave a tortured laugh. “A tried-and-true antidote that’s been around since old Earth times.”
His voice…it stroked over her like a caress. Her nipples hardened to tight points and she was drenched between her legs. Another sob tore from her throat.
Justyn made a choking noise. “God, sweetheart, I’d do anything to help you.”
Yes, he would. Working alongside him the last few days had shown Nissa there was much more to Justyn Phoenix. She pushed up on her elbows.
He was still on his knees, his hands digging into his hard thighs, his head hanging down. The lights in her cabin caught the golden strands in his hair, making them shine like gold. Such a delicious-looking man.
