Shade opened his door a little too forcefully. His docks. Who the fuck was he kidding? They hadn’t been his for ten years. And if he turned his back on the bounty for Tess, chances were they wouldn’t be his for ten more.
He powered up and took off, staying low to avoid traffic. Tess watched the city go by, seeming to appreciate it but not looking overly impressed. Her Sector 12 accent made him think she’d grown up with enough privilege to make Albion City look pretty basic. So what had turned her into a rebel and a thief?
“Sector 12 has all the best planets and the nicest resorts. How come you’ve never been to the beach?” he asked.
She glanced over. “I told you, I’m from 8.”
“And yet you speak in tones of the galactic ideal.”
She paled and turned back to the window. “I abhor the galactic ideal.”
Shade could tell. “Yeah, me too,” he said.
Tess swung around again. “I do. You do. There must be other people who do, too. Why is it winning? Why is he winning?”
Shade shrugged, going for levity. “I guess people don’t like having to think for themselves.”
“That’s bullshit,” Tess said, leaning toward him.
“Because he has bigger guns?”
She snorted. “Because he doesn’t fear using them.”
Shade felt sweat prick the back of his neck. For fuck’s sake, they’d been in the cruiser for five minutes, and she already had him talking like a Nightchaser.
He tried to steer the conversation to safer territory. “The Overseer brought order.”
“The Overseer brought murder, and I’ll jump out of this boat right now if you start trying to convince me otherwise.”
Shade blew out a breath. This wasn’t a path he’d wanted to go down with her tonight. He already understood that she was radical to the core. “You do realize that most people would report you for a statement like that?”
“Are you most people?” she challenged, facing him straight on.
He hoped not. He sure as hell didn’t want to be. “You got a parachute?” he teased, since she’d just threatened to jump out.
She didn’t look impressed.
“I control the locks, Ms. Bailey.”
Her chin went up. “I can override any lock.”
Interesting tidbit. Was that how she stole the good stuff? “Since the locking mechanism is on my side, good luck overriding me first,” Shade said.
Her eyes narrowed as her razor-sharp gaze shifted over the lighted panels. Her mouth thinned, and she hmphed.
Shade grinned. This was turning fun again.
Tess had spirit. She made every sentence feel like a dare—like she was daring him to be different. To be more. He’d wanted more from the women he’d dated in the last decade, but all he’d found were people trying so hard to conform that they’d left him feeling frustrated and unsatisfied. Even in private, no one was willing to make a ripple for fear of where that wave might wash up—and who it could drag under. He didn’t blame them, but there was nothing exciting about it, especially in bed. The galactic ideal was boring as fuck.
Tess finally grinned back. “You’re just trying to rile me up.”
“Guilty,” he said with a wink, although that hadn’t been entirely it.
The city disappeared behind them, giving way to green fields and then to a tangle of foliage. They flew over the forest, and Tess inched away from the window while still avidly staring down. She looked like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to jump in with both feet or run away screaming. It was cute.
“We have dragons,” Shade said, nodding toward the darkening treetops. “That’s where they live.”
She gasped, and her head whipped around. “What? Really?”
Damn. He couldn’t help smiling again. “Just kidding.”
“Why would you do that?” Tess’s hand snapped out and thumped him hard across the chest. “Dragons don’t exist.”
His lips twitched. “Maybe they did—at one point.”
She shook her head. “Next you’ll be telling me there are mermaids in your ocean.”
Shade sighed. “Ah, wouldn’t that be nice. I’d come to the beach every day, if that were the case.”
He thought she muttered men under her breath.
Tess looked like she was having fun again. So was he. That was a problem—and yet he didn’t want it to stop.
The cruiser’s com buzzed, and Shade glanced at the caller ID. His pulse surged. Solan and Raquel.
He reached over and rejected the communication.
“Do you need to answer that?” Tess asked.
Shade shook his head. “Nothing important.” Now, if he could just convince his hammering heart of that.
A few minutes later, the casino resort came into view. Tess pressed up so close to the window that it started fogging up, and she had to use her sweater to wipe it off.
“The shore is amazing,” she breathed out. “Such pretty lights.”
“What? The torches?” Shade asked. They lined the long stretch of beach.
She nodded. “It looks so…ancient and exotic.”
That was what he’d always thought. Every time he saw them, he half expected prehistoric tribespeople to materialize with their body paint and drums and start dancing beneath the moons.
“It’s pest control,” he told her. “There’s a scent that keeps insects away from the beach.”
“It’s beautiful,” Tess murmured, sounding like she was caught in a dream and just waking up.
Fuck mermaids. Tess had a siren’s voice that sent his blood rushing south. Shade shifted in his seat. “Let’s go down for a closer look.”
She turned his way again. “Not to the casino, though, right? Just to the beach?”
Shade nodded. Every wily rat in Sector 2 frequented the Star Palace Casino, and there was no way he was bringing Tess into it. He’d gone in exactly once and lost everything. He hated that place.
Next to it, though, was the only safe stretch of beach on this side of Albion 5. Most of the coast was rocky and lined with sheer, often-crumbling cliffs. And here, the waters were all netted off. Nothing that might eat you could get through.
Shade requested a docking space, paid electronically, and then brought the cruiser down to his assigned platform in the beehive-like structure adjacent to the resort. Landing here put them closer to the casino than he liked, but there was no other choice. This was all Star Palace land for as far as the eye could see, and the owner didn’t tolerate anyone on his property for free. The minimum to set foot on the private beach was forking over the docking fee.
With a smirk in Tess’s direction, Shade very pointedly unlocked the doors. Tess smirked back and hopped out, but he didn’t miss the humor in her eyes. It made him feel both warm and cold.
The com buzzed a second time, drawing his attention away from Tess. Solan and Raquel. Again. Couldn’t they leave him alone? Figure things out on their own for once?
Or not, he revised, glancing at his companion. He knew what, or rather who, the hunters were after.
Tess grabbed her sweater. “They’re not giving up. I’ll let you take that while I wait by the railing.” She nodded toward the edge of the platform before shutting her door again.
Tess was clearly a woman who valued privacy and didn’t begrudge him his. Could she be any more perfect?
WANTED flashed through his mind. Yeah, he supposed she could.
Then again, she probably wouldn’t have been half as interesting if she’d been your typical law-abiding citizen.
They were docked one-hundred-and-seventy-two levels up and over a cliff, but she still went straight to the edge and leaned against the barrier, looking out. An ocean breeze tossed her loose hair around, and Shade thought he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life as Tess framed by a dusky, dark-blue sky and the first stars of the night.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
Scowling, he crushed his finger down on the com like he wanted to pulverize it. “What?” he barked.
“Why the hell aren’t you out on this hunt, man?” Solan asked in response.
“How the fuck do you know where I am?” Shade asked.