Nerves exploded inside me. It was a joke. He was joking. I forcibly calmed my racing heart. “Unexpected asteroid belt.”
“You fire your navigator for that?”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t her fault.”
He nodded, his hands moving to his hips. I noticed scars on his knuckles and wondered how many times he’d split his skin open punching someone in the face. I had a few of those myself. Prison brawls. They happened.
For his part, Shade Ganavan watched me like a hawk, and I wasn’t quite sure why. I could tell he was interested, but this seemed to go beyond normal awareness. I could have sworn he took in my every blink and breath.
Finally, he said, “I might not have the metal you need for a few days, sugar.”
“You might not have your tongue if you call me ‘sugar’ again.”
His expression flared with a heat I felt branch out into every part of me. The man definitely liked to be provoked, and for some reason, I liked provoking him. I think I even liked it when he provoked me.
His countenance changed suddenly, sharpening. “You know how to carry through on a threat?” he asked quietly.
I frowned. “You want me to slice out your tongue?”
“I want to know if your sharp edges can actually cut.”
“Why?” He’d lost me. Was this kinky talk, and I wasn’t getting it? I wasn’t a virgin or totally inexperienced. There had been Gabe. But then he’d run one way that day and I’d run the other, and we’d never seen each other again.
Shade’s voice came to me on a low whisper over the tinkling of the bell I’d just noticed, but there was nothing seductive about it. “Because the Dark Watch just followed you into my shop.”
Chapter 6
Panic iced me over, and I froze. It couldn’t be. How did they know?
“Who?” I mouthed more than said aloud.
Shade’s eyes flicked over my shoulder. He gave a slight shrug, speaking so quietly I essentially had to read his lips as well. “I don’t know every goon they’ve got.”
“Uniform?” I breathed.
“Black,” he mouthed back.
I exhaled. A trooper, then. If it had been my uncle coming for me, he would have been wearing red.
I lifted the shiny metallic cartridge box I still had in my hand. “You’re sure all forty rounds are in here?” I asked in a normal voice again, angling the box to reflect what was behind me. I saw a soldier I didn’t recognize. Probably just some Sector 2 guy in here looking for a knickknack or spare part.
I tried to act casual, even though adrenaline was making me jittery underneath. My relief was cerebral. My body hadn’t caught up yet.
“How much for this?” I asked.
“Fifteen,” Shade said, taking the box of bullets from me. “I’ll ring it up.”
I followed him to the register and then paid, only once darting a glance at the soldier who was perusing the shelves a good twenty feet from me. When Shade handed me back the cartridge box and my change, our fingers brushed, but I was too nervous to appreciate the brief contact.
Chuckling, he said, “I thought you were going to walk off without paying for that.”
What in the galaxy made him think that?
“I’m not a petty thief,” I said, coolness creeping into my voice. When I stole something, it wasn’t measly cartridges for guns we hardly used. It was cure-all vaccines and food for the starving and prisoners of war.
“I was teasing.” Shade cocked his head to one side, looking almost sorry.
I blinked. Oh. All right, then. Clearly, I needed a manual on flirting. I felt myself turn crimson again.
“You remember where to find me when you have those parts?” I asked.
He nodded. “See you soon…”
His sentence seemed unfinished. He might have been about to add Tess or another antagonizing sugar, but he chose not to say anything else when the soldier came up beside me and plunked a shaving kit down on the counter.
Ducking my head, I turned and left Ganavan’s Products and Parts, not looking up or slowing down again until I’d reached the base of the Squirrel Tree.
The Dark Watch was on Albion 5, just like they were everywhere. And where there was one, there were many.
Chapter 7
Shade flipped the sign to Closed and locked the door. He didn’t care who might need a spare part today, tomorrow, or any fucking day. He cared about Tess Bailey and her little stream of lies.
Unexpected asteroid belt. He shook his head.
Under her pale skin, her firework of a blush, and her rabbiting pulse, there was a woman running scared. She looked like she’d been that way for a while, like she never stopped. Never came down. No one got that white unless they spent all their time in the Dark.
Shade’s blood still pumped harder than usual from certain parts of their exchange, and something a little crazy had happened in his chest when she’d looked so terrified of the Dark Watch. Her poker face had sucked, but then she’d managed to pull it together and be as cool as a cloud after the initial shock and assessment had passed.
He’d seen that there had been just one soldier, a man like any other poking around the shelves. A lot of the men and women who joined the galactic military wore their uniforms all the time because it gave them a power trip—always knowing people would get out of their way, say they were right, and look at them like they were a sight. The guy probably hadn’t even been on duty, not if he was shopping for razors in the seedy district around the docks.
Shade had been testing her when he’d said the Dark Watch had followed her into his shop. And her reaction had told him exactly what he’d wanted to know—she was definitely in the hot seat right now.
But he’d gotten more than he bargained for. Her chest had stopped—no breath—and her blue eyes had gone so wide they’d practically swallowed him whole. And then she’d asked the same question he would have. Uniform? Not how many, but what echelon. She’d wanted to know if there was someone important at her back.
Some of the blood had come back into her face when he’d said the uniform was black, which meant that whoever was looking for Tess Bailey wasn’t just some grunt soldier; he or she was a higher-up.
But the savvy space rat hadn’t taken his word for it, had she? She’d held up that cartridge box to use as a mirror and checked for herself. She’d made sure it wasn’t someone who knew her, and then she’d paid for her bullets like nothing had happened, even getting all high and mighty again when he’d teased her about walking off with the ammo.
He had no idea why he’d done that.
Shade ran a hand through his short hair, still not used to feeling it so close to his scalp. The movement wasn’t very satisfying without anything to shove back.
He strode into his office, still seeing the freckles across Tess’s nose. They weren’t very dark; she’d have needed more sunlight for that. She also had a few on her chest. They’d looked like a constellation, a pattern to follow between her straight collarbones and the upper swells of her breasts.
Tension like he hadn’t felt in a while whipped through his body. Rosy lips and a cute ass were just the start of it. He hadn’t been crass enough to add NT to the acronym, but he’d noticed her nice tits as well.
Shade frowned as he tugged out his chair. She was attractive all over, but blue eyes, freckles, and an atomic blush were what had left him feeling like he’d been punched in the chest.
Sitting at his desk, he pushed aside the remnants of the late lunch he’d been eating when Tess had come in and then powered up the tablet that might give him some answers about his latest guest. While it got going, he rummaged through some paperwork, not really seeing it. He was still too focused on the way Tess had frozen, going from a little flirty and confused to petrified all at once.
Who had she pissed off? Some galactic officer? Was she a deserter? A rebel? Despite not having much of a game face, she’d seemed ready to put up a good fight.
And then there was the fact that she’d bought ammunition, when not that many people had guns. LW-9 bullets were for Grayhawks, and there was nothing illegal about buying them, but it sure as hell raised questions in his mind.