had checked up on him. Maybe she had already known that Heller was on Krell. Either way, maybe she made up a story about Heller trying to kill him, and then she had moved forward with a kidnapping plan.
But she had to know that there was no one to ransom him.
Although Heller might pay to get Jack back, just so that Heller could kill him.
She glanced at Jack. Her smile faded as she saw the look on his face.
She said, “I’m exaggerating. I sort-of lived in the Brezev Sector. Until I was ten. My parents always fled back to the Brezev Sector when they felt like they’d gotten into too much trouble.”
“The people who named you Skylight to honor one of their escapes.” He couldn’t help letting his sarcasm through.
“Yes,” she said.
“I’ll wager you haven’t been back since,” he said, hoping he was right.
“You’d lose,” she said. “I’ve gone in and out countless times, researching targets.”
He didn’t get the sense she told him this to calm him down. And yet, it had that effect. He was wildly out of his element, and trusting a woman he hadn’t researched.
He hadn’t realized until now just how much he relied on information. Not information someone had told him, but information he found himself.
It gave him security.
Apparently, it also kept him from making things up. That kidnapping thing had to be unrealistic. After researching him—and if she were kidnapping him, she would have researched him—she would have known that he had no resources. Just a savings account, a ship, and his brain.
Which he had apparently shut off the moment he met Skye.
She was saying, “You’d be surprised how many criminals use the Brezev Sector as home base.”
He focused back on the moment. He wasn’t surprised about criminals and the Brezev Sector. Criminals liked places like the Brezev Sector and Krell because those places gave them cover.
“You realize we’re criminals at the moment,” she said in that same conversational tone. “We don’t own this ship.”
He’d been trying hard not to think about that. He figured they would deal with it wherever they ended up.
“What are you going to do with the ship?” he asked. “When we get to the Brezev Sector, that is.”
“Sell it,” she said. “Then get us another ship.”
Of course, there had to be good people in the Brezev Sector. He’d just never heard of any.
“And then what?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “We’re playing this by ear.”
“Yeah,” he said, not sure how he felt about it all. “I guess we are.”
Chapter 20
Jack sounded mournful, as if he were already regretting this trip. He had trusted Skye on everything, from the threat to the escape. Now she was taking him on a stolen ship to a place that harbored known criminals. She supposed she could understand why he worried.
She might have, in his shoes.
Although she couldn’t imagine being in his position. She would never have worked for the Rovers in the first place. They made the Guild seem like heroes.
She turned on all of the proximity alarms, setting them to scout for ships at the farthest reach of the sensors. Then she hit the holographic navigation screen, setting it so that the walls of the cockpit disappeared, and it looked like the cockpit floated in space.
The ship’s automatic pilot had a setting called “Escape” built right in. She glanced at the onboard manual and saw that it would take an unusual flight path at the highest possible speeds to get to the destination.
She programmed that into the navigation panel and turned the setting on. The ship acknowledged her, then took over. It was better to have a computer randomly set their route than her. Humans could never do true random, always picking a pattern.
“No one followed us,” she said.
Jack was looking at the star-lined space around them. “You’re sure?”
“The ship’s sure,” she said. “That’s good enough for me.”
“Then can I get out of this harness?” he asked.
She smiled at him. She would love to get him out of the harness, and all his clothes. She’d always wanted to make love in space. This would be the next best thing.
“Before you get out of the harness, let me check one thing first,” she said.
She let herself out of her own seat and crossed to his. She sat on his lap and eased her hands around his face, kissing him. He tasted good. She had wanted to do that all day.
But he broke off the kiss and peered around her shoulder. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
His body was clearly interested, but his prodigious brain was obviously not allowing him to focus.
She could get him to focus.
“You don’t think what is a good idea?” she asked.
“Um… this. Now.” He was shy. She loved that about him.
“I think it’s a great idea,” she said. “What else are we going to do? Worry?”
He nodded, his hands still at his side. “Someone has to worry. I’d like to find out what’s going on.”
“We can find that out easier in the Brezev Sector, where no one will be searching for us,” she said. “God knows how they’d look. They might even track data usage. And if we stay off the grid, then what will we discover? Only what’s in this ship’s database.”
His gaze flicked away from the screens to her. Two spots of color rose on his cheeks. “And our tablets,” he said. “We can combine information.”
She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “We can combine other things as well.”
He smiled. The smile seemed reluctant. “Skye, I’m still uncomfortable—”
“With what?” she asked. “Me? The stolen ship? The circumstances? Of course you are. But they are what they are. And if it’s me that you’re not comfortable with, send your mind back to last evening. We didn’t know each other at all then, and we managed to have a good time.”
His smile grew, and this time it reached his eyes. He shook his head just a little.
She was getting to him.
“Besides,” she said, “I’ve always wanted to have sex in space, and I could never figure out how to do it in a space suit. Want to try it here? I could shut off the gravity.”
“I’m not good at anything in zero-G,” he said, his voice thicker than it had been a moment before.
“Well,” she said, “you’re good in Earth Normal gravity. We’ve already tested that.”
She dipped her head and kissed him again. This time his hands came out and caught her waist. He participated fully in the kiss, his mouth open. He tasted her as if she were a favorite dish he hadn’t had for a long time.
She felt like she hadn’t tasted him in forever. Maybe that was because she had already given up on ever seeing him again after they separated. Or maybe she was just addicted to him.
Whatever it was didn’t matter. She had never ever been attracted to anyone like she was attracted to him.
She wedged her knee against the end of the harness, so he couldn’t let himself out of it. He didn’t seem to notice. His hands spread across her back, leaning her in closer, his arousal straining against his pants. She shifted slightly, then, without breaking the kiss, opened his shirt and pulled it out of his waistband.
His hands slipped under her shirt, reaching up, and finding her breasts. They’d never been very sensitive, yet somehow his touch made desire run through her. It was as if he knew every button to push to make her
