She never hesitated but squatted and squirmed under the panel, the teasing tool in hand.He heard her muttering to herself about damn wires and moronic idiots.
Ellard wasn’t sure if she intended her words for him or not.He stood, his gaze zapping to the viewport.A huge chunk of debris headed directly for them.
“Try the starter,” she called.
The engine turned over and coughed twice before dying.
Gweneth muttered, but he couldn’t make out the words.“Again,” she called.
Fuck a duck.With the debris looming even closer, Ellard prayed the engine worked even as he stole Gweneth’s curse and made it his own.He fired it to life, his gut twisting in the beginnings of fear as the engine coughed like a sick cambeest.But to his relief, the engine kept running, and he sprang into his seat.His hand gripped the guidance thruster, forcing it to the left, his attention on the chunk.The view turned red and dark while the ship slowly edged to the side.Too slowly.
“I think I’ve sorted the communication system too.Holy heck,” Gweneth muttered as she slid into the seat beside him and stared their situation in the face.“If we die and I miss my next kiss, I’m going to blame you.”
“Do you think of anything else?”
“Not often.I have a plan,” she said.
“Strap in.”
To his relief, she buckled in and wrapped her fingers around the seat sides.“We’re gonna crash.”
Ellard appreciated her calm manner.Most women of his acquaintance would be in full hysterics by now.
The ship shifted and obeyed but so sluggish to his will, he wanted to curse again.“Turn, phrull it.”
The debris chunk came closer, closer, closer.
It struck.
The impact threw him back in his seat, the safety harness jerking him upright.A pained grunt squeezed from him, but he kept his hand on the controls, fighting to shift the lethargic ship out of the debris field.
“Full collision, but the shell isn’t compromised.”
A second crash spun them around and a third shot them to the left.
“Shell is breached.”Gweneth’s fingers flew over the controls.“Breach localized in the cargo hold.Segmented doors locked down.”
While he concentrated on steering the ship farther from danger, Gweneth calmly took care of the problems on board, and despite the crisis, he found himself admiring her gumption.
Grudgingly, the ship started to respond to his direction, and they edged farther from the field and in to the blackness of space.
His breath hissed out with relief, and he consciously relaxed his tight shoulders.“If we get out of this mess in one piece, I’ll give you your kiss.”
“It’s worth more than one kiss,” she said without glancing at him.“Storage hold also breached and contained.I want a kiss for each day we’re away from Viros.Now all we need to do is discover how far off course we’ve gone.”
Ellard spluttered, his gaze going to her and getting trapped in her cheeky grin.“I…that…that’s inappropriate.”
“It comes under the heading of flirtation.”Her voice emerged prim yet businesslike.“I’m not requesting anything impossible or improper.No one else will know apart from us.It’s not as if I’m asking for happy ever after.I suggest a kiss each day, and if you decide you need more, we’ll renegotiate our deal.”
Ellard found his mouth dropping open as he attempted to decipher the underlying subtext.Every word she spoke hovered close to outrageous.If he wanted more…
His feline took that moment to flex beneath his skin, and because his brain was processing the possibilities beyond kisses, his cock began to swell.No, no, phrull it no!Maybe he should have listened to Shiloh and Lynx and paid for a woman.But after Mareeka and Marjo, the twin chameleon lovers of their enemy, and the way they’d played him and stomped on both his heart and his pride, the idea of touching a woman with intimacy in mind…
He swallowed, hating the way she’d directed his thoughts to sex.
“Do you want me to fix the communications?”
“You can do that?”
