“To capture a criminal, dead or alive.”
She sighed and looked from the ship and back at him. “That sounds about right. I’m staying with you.”
“You are,” Gunner agreed and started walking again. His hold on her tightened as he approached Cypher.
Elodie pressed her lips against his ear, her breath tickling it and sending a spark straight to his cock.
“Who is he?” she whispered.
Gunner turned his face toward her. “An asshole who can hear you,” he whispered back.
Cypher narrowed his eyes.
“Tell him I just got out of a procedure and that I’m mutating and tickling, and flustered,” she huffed another sultry breath, “and frustrated.”
“I think he wants to talk to us.”
Elodie shifted in his arms, clutching his neck and shoulder with both hands. Gunner hefted her closer. “Tell him it’s not a good time. Tell him to leave.”
“Leave.” Gunner looked at the man.
If Gunner was utterly horrified with the prospect of Chesnik living on his ship. Cypher was utterly bored.
“I scanned your ship for trackers,” Cypher said unfazed. “I didn’t find anything.”
Elodie sighed again and he gripped her tighter. “I never asked you to check.”
“You didn’t, but Stryker made the rounds and told the others. I found one on Dommik’s ship so I thought I’d better take a look.”
“And? Can you trace it and find out its origins?” Gunner already had a hunch, but didn’t have any proof.
Cypher smiled, a toothy smile with dimples and all. The Cyborg was a big guy, stocky, like a man who lived to lift weights and eat. No one would ever expect that the Cyborg slept at least six days out of every seven day Earth week.
He pulled out a small bug, no bigger than a pinky nail—or Elodie’s tiny pink clit—and handed it over. Gunner released Ely’s legs and held her tight against his side as he surveyed the piece.
It was exactly what he’d expected.
“What is it?” Elodie asked, taking it from him.
“A bug. An extinct one from Earth. But this one is made of metal and enhanced, like me.”
Her eyes widened. Gunner wondered how many drugs Cagley had given her. “It’s a Cyborg?”
“It was. But it’s dead now,” Cypher answered.
“Can we keep it?” Gunner asked.
“Sure thing.”
Cypher moved out of the way and Gunner picked Elodie back up, walking into the hatch. He called over his shoulder, “I’d search Ghost City if I were you.”
“Already have,” Cypher grumbled, somewhere far off.
He closed the hatch and ordered APOLLO to disembark. By the time he carried Elodie to his armory, they were already thousands of miles away from Ghost. She was rubbing her body up against his, shivering, pulling at his clothes and grazing her skin with her nails all at once.
“Cagley told me something interesting.”
“Oh?” Gunner set her down among his weapons and grabbed a belt from the cabinet, taking her wrists and tying them together and attaching them to the wall at her back.
