Cait drank from the pouch without looking at him. Three days ago, she’d been sharp-eyed and furious on the slabcrete, and now the exhaustion had eaten all of that away. Now all that was left was a woman running on caffeine and stubbornness, with dark smudges under her eyes.
Sealing the pouch, she stood. “I’m going forward. Check the seals on the airlock if you get bored. The sensor is twitchy again.”
“On it.”
She slid past him, carrying the scent of engine coolant and stale coffee with her. He watched her go and kept his mouth shut, and she let him, and that was as close to functional as they’d managed so far. He finished the bar in two bites, tossed the wrapper into the recycler, and wiped his hands on his pants. Then he counted to three and followed her down the corridor.
He didn’t check the airlock seals. Instead, he headed for the cockpit.
She was already in the pilot’s chair, blue light from the nav-display washing up over her face. Her fingers moved over the console in a rapid dance as he braced a shoulder against the frame.
“I won,” he said.
She didn’t turn, looking across at another screen. “Congratulations. You won what? The award for ‘Most Likely to Bankrupt a Small Haulage Company’?”
“The bet.”
That got a reaction. Not much of one, just a tiny hitch as her fingers hovered above the board for half a breath before they started moving again.
“What bet?”
“The one from Parac’Norr.” He kept his voice low. Easy. “I deliver the part, I get a kiss. I delivered the part.”
“You stole the part! From the garrison… which triggered an alarm. Which is why we’re in this mess in the first place.”
“Delivery method wasn’t specified.”
She spun the chair around to face him.
“Besides,” she said, leaning back and crossing her arms, “Your stake was my penalty clause. Full lost revenue. That was your exact wording.”
“Correct.”
“Money you didn’t have.”
He held her stare. “Also correct.”
“So if you’d lost, I’d have been owed a debt you couldn’t pay by a male I didn’t know on a planet I couldn’t get off.” She tipped her head, tapping one finger against her bicep. “That’s not a wager, Raaze. That’s a con.”
Well, trall. She had him there. He should have dodged or deflected. Turned on the charm like he’d done in a hundred bars on a hundred worlds. He had lines for this and a whole polished little routine.
Instead, he smiled. Not the one he’d sold to crowds and cameras and sponsors for most of his adult life, but the one underneath it. Slower. Warmer. Just for her.
“Oh, you’re good,” he said softly. “Beautiful as well.”
She blinked, and her gaze flicked to his mouth, then back to his eyes so fast most people wouldn’t have caught it. He did. And draanth, his pulse kicked hard at the base of his throat.
He uncrossed his arms.
“So that’s the ruling?” he asked softly. “I owe you.”
“You owe me,” she said.
Her voice was steady, but the tiny, frantic beat in the hollow of her throat told a different story.
“Fair enough.” He let his voice drop, soft enough that the drive core’s hum seemed to carry the words the rest of the way. “Do I get the kiss anyway?”
She looked at him. Her lips parted, just a fraction, and her eyes stayed on his long enough that the silence in the cockpit turned into something else entirely. The nav-display ticked softly behind her, and the drive core hummed. She didn’t blink, didn’t look away, and he stopped breathing because if he moved, whatever was building between them would shatter.
