ë Archer - Collision Course

She must have sensed it, too, because she cleared her throat and shifted awkwardly in her seat.

“Just because there are some who know the Smoke and know Ilden’s Lash doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. Pilots die trying to make their way through, even ones who’ve taken the Lash a hundred times before.”

“Doesn’t sound like an even trade,” Kell mused. “Risking your life again and again just for a bit of privacy.”

“Two things, Commander. First, never underestimate a scavenger’s need for privacy. We spend our lives running from the law, constantly looking over our shoulders. Having a place that’s all our own is a gift.”

He mulled this, considering how it reflected on her needs. “And the second?”

She gave him another blood-heating smile. “Risk turns us scavengers on.”

“Us scavengers? Or you?”

“Yes to both.” She ran her finger around the rim of her mug. “But especially me.”

He fought a shudder of need. When he spoke, he was surprised how level his voice sounded,

instead of the growl he thought it would be. “You should consider becoming a fighter pilot.”

“A bunch of thrill seekers?”

“Worse than kids darting between laser trams.”

She shook her head. “And here I thought you 8th Wing types were all rule and regulation.”

“A lot are,” he admitted. “Couldn’t fight PRAXIS if there wasn’t discipline and order. But Black Wraith Squad—we’re the wild ones.”

Her gaze turned contemplative as she stared at him. “I like the sound of that.”

Kell seriously wondered if she was trying to kill him. Every word out of her mouth seemed laden with erotic promise. Deliberate or not, it played havoc with his willpower. He felt tightly wound, as if it had been two months and not two weeks since he’d last taken a woman to bed. It took him a moment to remember who that woman had been—a lieutenant from the Engineering Corps who’d been looking for a night’s release—but everything about that night vanished in the heat of Mara’s presence.

How the fuck was he supposed to get through this mission with his mind and reflexes intact? He had thought the danger would come from either PRAXIS or negotiating the Smoke Quadrant. Turned out that the biggest threat sat right beside him, in the form of a scavenger with wide-set eyes, silky white hair and a thirst for excitement.

It was a relief when the control panel blared, breaking the moment. Mara straightened and set her mug down at her feet.

“Better drain your cup, Commander,” she said, all business. “It’s about to get rough.”

He did so, and just in time. They had reached the outer perimeter of Ilden’s Lash. Giant, shifting masses of molten rock seethed and moved, and clots of partially-formed asteroids careened between them. A hunk of scrap metal drifted through the Lash. The moment it contacted a swell of magma, it incinerated.

Seeing Ilden’s Lash through the cockpit’s window sent a bolt of adrenalin through him. A normal person would be frightened. Kell grinned.

She caught his grin, and her eyes gleamed with anticipation.

“Let me fly us through.” He leaned forward, barely able to contain his excitement.

“Don’t trust my skills?”

“I want to take a shot at it.”

“Decelerate your thrusters, Frayne. This is my ship, and my run through the Lash.”

He growled his displeasure. Whenever he saw a challenge, he ached to conquer it. But unless he wanted to tie Mara down and wrest the controls from her, he was going to have to content himself with letting her do the work.

“I hate being a passenger,” he muttered.

“Me too.” She took the controls.

And then all arguments about who would and wouldn’t be piloting the ship disappeared as they breached the Lash.

Calm but focused, Mara angled the ship to swerve through a narrow opening between two protoplanets. The ship shot forward, then banked hard to port when a cluster of asteroids spun toward them. Three asteroids collided with one another, shattering into clouds of jagged debris. The ship shimmied with the force of the concussion.

“Having fun?” Mara shouted above the rattle of the hull.

“Hell, yes,” he shouted back.

“Good—because it gets better.”

Someone else, someone sane, might have said that the going got worse, but clearly Kell and Mara had different ideas as to what constituted “fun.”

They flew toward massive shapes of nascent planets that spewed arcs of magma, stretching like fiery bridges between the protoplanets. Just beyond lay the relative calm of the Smoke Quadrant.

Mara pushed the ship onward, accelerating. Great technique. A lesser pilot would think to slow down when approaching a dangerous obstacle, but those with more experience knew that greater speed meant greater maneuverability. And Mara guided them with a skilled, fearless hand, swooping and diving between the protoplanets. Several times, it looked as though she steered them directly toward a surge of magma, but just as the ship neared the molten rock, the surge shifted out of their path, leaving them a clear route forward. Meanwhile, the clear routes suddenly were blocked by seething columns of magma.

“That’s how these wily fuckers work.” She laughed like a madwoman. “I love it.”

He grinned. Unpredictable—the Lash and the woman. It surprised him how much she made him smile.

They were almost through. Mara pushed the accelerator.

“Starboard,” Kell murmured.

She banked away just as an asteroid flew at them from the starboard side. Then they were out,

Ilden’s Lash retreating behind them in a fiery red haze. Adrenalin continued to pour through him, even though he hadn’t been the pilot. Another day.

“Appreciate it, Commander.”

“Kell. Seeing as how I just saved your ass, you can call me Kell.”

“You didn’t save my ass,” she argued, but she didn’t sound angry. Far from it. She laughed again, and the sultry sound curled warmly in his groin. “I had everything under control. Kell.”

Hearing her say his name, his pulse spiked—far more than it had when navigating the dangers of Ilden’s Lash. Hunger gripped him, and it was all he could do to keep from dragging her out of the pilot’s seat, having her straddle him. He wanted his mouth on hers, his hands all over her body. His cock felt huge, demanding. It wanted inside her.

Focus, goddamn it.

“We’ll be at Ryge soon,” she said, totally unaware of the fact that he wanted to fuck her up against the control panel.

He barely managed to growl his assent. They couldn’t get to Ryge soon enough. Even a man as tightly controlled as Kell had a breaking point, and he was getting dangerously close to his.

She played with fire.

Mara studied her reflection in the mirror, a knowing smile curving her lips. It was dangerous,

what she was doing, but she couldn’t stop herself. After breaching Ilden’s Lash, she’d seen the raw hunger and need in Kell’s face, and the same impulse that had her laughing all the way through the band of dangerous protoplanets made her choose the clothing she now wore.

She had gone a little overboard—deliberately. Yes, the scavengers and smugglers on Ryge liked to dress flamboyantly. Calling cards for how successful they were. A drab scavenger clearly wasn’t doing well, and they were a collection of braggarts. Nobody respected the soft-spoken, the humble.

Reputation wasn’t everything, but it counted for a lot.

Mara’s reputation gleamed, and everybody in the Smoke knew if they wanted merch moved, or prime scrap, she was the one to see. So she dressed the part.

As the Arcadia neared Ryge, she had slipped into her quarters to change from her usual working clothes to her Smoke persona. The rationale being she needed to learn any intel on the whereabouts of Lieutenant Jur and her Wraith ship, and the best way to glean intel was to cut a wide and respected swath through the watering holes of Beskidt By.

But, as she stared at her image reflected back at her, Mara knew the real reason she’d selected these particular clothes. And he was sitting in the cockpit right now.

She took a deep breath and walked from her quarters into the galley.

Hearing her footsteps behind him, Kell spoke. “We need to formulate a—” His deep voice trailed off as he turned and saw her, an expression of complete and total wonderment on his face.

“Formulate a what?”

“A…strategy.” He couldn’t even blink. “A strategy to…uh…to…” Then he simply stopped speaking and stared.

She resisted the impulse to pose, though she very much wanted to. She knew she looked good,

drew power from that, as she held herself still for his amazed stare.

Her typical uniform of cargo pants, heavy boots, tank top and nyyrikki-skin jacket was now on the floor of her quarters. Instead, a crimson koen-hide skirt clung to her hips, ending at mid thigh. Her cap-sleeved, gold tissue blouse scooped low on her chest, revealing an expanse of tawny skin. She’d laced herself into a corset of dark red Hadaza silk, which ended just beneath her breasts and lifted them up in unashamed display. Koen-hide gauntlets covered her from wrist to elbow, held in place by a series of buckled straps. Her matching sharp-heeled boots climbed to just above her knees, and more buckles gleamed in deliberate provocation. It would take patience and resolve for him to strip her of the boots, unlace her from the corset and unbuckle the gauntlets, but she knew the rewards would be worth it.

Naturally, she still wore her plasma pistol. And naturally, she could fight or run in her boots.

Unfiltered desire tightened Kell’s features. Slowly, he began to rise from his seat in the cockpit, his eyes never leaving her. A growl resonated low in his throat, making him sound more beast than man. It had been at least a day since his last shave, and the dark bristle across his jaw only strengthened his rough, animal appearance.

She pressed her thighs together as a rush of arousal flooded her. Last night, she had lain in her bed and listened to Kell moving his big body restlessly across the hovermattress. It had taken more self control than she’d thought she possessed to keep from pinning him down on that mattress. She’d had to sleep on top of her hands to keep from touching herself.

“Back on my homeworld,” he said, his voice low and roughened, “there were these feral macskacats. No one knew how such wild creatures got into the cities. But they adapted to their urban environment, hunted in the shadows. Sometimes street orphans disappeared, and we knew the macskacats got them. One cornered me, once, when I was alone after dark.” His dark stare burned her.

“Barely made it out alive.” He pulled on the cropped sleeve of his shirt to reveal an old scar across his shoulder—four deep gouges from an animal’s claws.

“But think of the thrill from facing the beast.”

“Foolish to discount the threat of a dangerous animal.”

“Better watch your back. I might leave you with more claw marks.”

There was nothing warm or friendly about his smile. It was pure predator. “In this analogy, you aren’t the animal.”

Mara sauntered forward, though her heart beat faster. “Whatever wildness you’re capable of, I can take it.” Then she started. “Fuck.”

His eyes darkened even further. “Exactly.”

“No, I mean—” she pointed over his shoulder, “— fuck.”

Kell turned and cursed under his breath. “That’s Ryge?”

“On a bad day.” Mara squeezed past him, and though her body heated as it rubbed so closely against his, her attention was fixed on what she saw out the cockpit window.

A swirling energy storm encircled the planet, its heavy mass broken by flashes of lightning. The roiling clouds were sickly yellow, and through them one could barely see the surface of the planet.

“The pollution on Ryge does this sometimes.” She sank into her seat. “Nobody can fly in or out until the storm abates.”

Kell took his seat beside her. “How long does that take?”

“Could be days.”

He cursed again, surprising Mara with his extensive vocabulary of foul language. She had no idea 8th Wing even knew such words existed.

“We don’t have that kind of time.” He growled his frustration.

“If we can’t get through, no one else can, either.” She pointed toward the forms of other ships orbiting Ryge, all of them waiting out the storm. “That means that whoever has the lieutenant and her ship probably won’t do anything until the storm clears.”