“Zip!” I yelp, jerking back.
“SIMPLY STATING THE OBVIOUS DATA POINTS.”
Rynn releases my wrist slowly, his gaze lingering on my mouth for one torture-filled second before he steps back. The mask slides back into place—the cool, detached diplomat—but I can see the tension in his jaw. The way his hands flex at his sides like he’s physically restraining himself from reaching for me again.
“Lead the way, Captain,” he says, his voice carefully controlled. “Let us acquire your parts and leave this cesspool.”
But I hear what he’s not saying: Before I lose what’s left of my control and take you right here on the deck plates.
The airlock hisses open, and the smell hits us instantly—stale recycled air, frying oil, and the metallic tang of old blood. Junker’s Rest is a sensory assault. The corridors are narrow, lit by flickering neon strips that buzz like angry insects. Music thumps from the walls, a heavy, dissonant bass that you feel in your teeth.
It’s crowded. Scavengers, smugglers, and Fringe-dwellers push past us, and I feel Rynn move closer. Protective. His hand hovers near the small of my back, not quite touching but close enough that I can feel the heat of him even through my flight suit.
Close enough that every jostle from the crowd pushes me back against his palm.
And I swear he’s doing it on purpose. Each time someone bumps me, his hand is there, steadying me, pressing me back against him for just a second before I step forward again.
“Keep your head down,” I mutter, trying to ignore the way my body lights up every time we make contact. “My contact’s shop is on the lower deck.”
“Who is this contact?” Rynn asks, scanning every shadow, his hand now definitely on my lower back. Possessive. Claiming. His voice has dropped into that dangerous register that makes my thighs clench.
“Jax. He’s... an old friend. Best mechanic in the sector, assuming he’s sober.”
Rynn’s hand presses harder against my back. “How old a friend?”
There’s something sharp in his tone. Something that makes my pulse spike.
“Does it matter?” I glance back at him, and his eyes are gold-flecked amber. Watching me with an intensity that should be illegal.
“It matters.” His thumb strokes across my lower back, just once, and the casual possessiveness of it makes me stumble.
We turn a corner into a cavernous hangar bay filled with the carcasses of stripped ships. Sparks shower down from the ceiling where a loader-droid is welding a hull plate. In the center of the chaos, a pair of legs sticks out from under a battered freighter.
“Jax!” I shout over the noise, stepping away from Rynn’s touch. I immediately miss the heat.
The legs slide out. A human male, broad-shouldered and covered in grease, sits up. He wipes his hands on a rag, pushing back a mop of shaggy blond hair. He blinks, then a slow, lopsided grin spreads across his face.
“Rocket?”
He scrambles to his feet, dropping the rag. “Rocket, you crazy starkiller! I thought you were dead in the Karris Nebula!”
Before I can answer, he crosses the distance in three long strides and scoops me up in a bear hug that cracks my spine. He smells like engine oil and cheap spice-liquor—familiar and safe. Completely, utterly platonic despite the enthusiasm.
Nothing like the way Rynn smells. Nothing like the addictive mix of alien spice and male heat that makes me want to bury my face in his neck and just breathe.
“Put me down, you oaf!” I laugh, slapping his shoulder, but I don’t pull away. It feels good to be touched by someone who isn’t a walking existential crisis. Someone who doesn’t make me question every decision I’ve ever made.
Jax sets me down but keeps his arm draped heavily around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. “Damn, girl. You look good. Trouble, but good. You here to finally pay off that tab from Risa? Or are we making new mistakes tonight?”
The temperature in the hangar drops about twenty degrees.
I feel it before I see it—a wave of cold, heavy menace rolling off the man standing behind me. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, and suddenly I’m very, very aware of how Jax’s hand feels on my shoulder.
How it must look.
“We are here for business,” a voice says. It’s Rynn, but it doesn’t sound like the Rynn I know. It’s deeper. Flatter. Terrifyingly calm.
The same voice he used when he said he’d pin me to the mattress and fuck me until I forgot my own name.
