grounds of the Assassins Guild on Kordita when she was ten, and the Guild had both saved her life and trained her to be an assassin.
The cost of the training, and the room and board, had left her indebted to the Guild. They had done this because they thought she was angry enough and smart enough and asocial enough to be an assassin. But she wasn’t. Angry, yes. Smart, yes. Asocial, no.
Something about her prevented her from seeing any human being as someone to be destroyed—no matter how evil. And she knew people could be evil. All of the targets of the Assassins Guild were supposed to be evil.
Everyone connected with the Guild, from the lowliest instructor to the Guild’s director, Kerani Ammons, had told her that as if they believed it. In fact, Director Ammons’s eyes had glowed with fervor, as if she had thought destroying evil was part of the Guild’s mission.
It was now Skye’s job to make sure the targets actually were evil. She vetted them. She had only two years left on her contract with the Guild, and then she was on her own.
She couldn’t wait for that.
She ran a hand along Jack’s face, the stubble on his cheek scratching her palm. She had never in her entire life been so attracted to someone. She certainly hadn’t admitted anything, made careless statements like she had done with him, or even blurted out her thoughts.
He shifted beneath her, putting his hands on her hips, and she realized he was adjusting her. He was growing hard again.
He smiled, then dipped his head down and sucked on her breast. Pleasure spiked through her all the way down from her nipple to her womb. She moaned again, and tried to move his face. She wanted to taste him. He lifted his head for just a moment, eyes twinkling, then captured the other breast.
She was going to have an orgasm right there—and then, with that thought, she did. Long and slow and thrumming through her. Her breath sounded ragged. She grabbed his shoulders, holding him in place, yet somehow he moved from breast to breast as if he couldn’t figure out which tasted better.
Then he wrapped his arms around her, and turned her over without losing their connection. He slowly moved inside her, his gaze on hers, those blue eyes holding her in place as his face reddened with pleasure.
She wanted to watch him have this orgasm, but she couldn’t, because she had another. The slowness triggered something deep inside her, something she’d never felt, some kind of slow-motion quake that she hadn’t known her body capable of.
She tried to regain control, tried to move faster, but he slid his hands to her hips and held her there while he was on his knees, rocking in and out, out and in, until she wanted to scream.
It took longer than she thought possible—either she had several orgasms one after the other, or she had the longest one of her entire life. Just when she thought she might die from it all, he gasped, smiled half- apologetically, and poured into her, making her feel even warmer, wetter, and fuller inside.
He leaned forward, landing on his elbows, as if he was afraid he’d crush her.
“My God,” she said. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice shaking. “But you may have corrupted me forever.”
“Me?” she asked. “You—”
He kissed her. Really kissed her, not one of those pecks men so often gave her after sex.
“I have to move,” he said, and she thought he meant he was going to slip out of her. Instead, he pushed himself up on his hands, and that was when she realized he had twisted himself into the strangest position just to stay on the couch. It was too small for him, like everything in this room.
Except her.
“The bed’s bigger,” she said.
“Good for it,” he said as he tried to stand. Instead, he fell against the couch, then slid onto the floor.
She tilted his head back and kissed him upside down. It was such a novel sensation for both of them that rest became impossible.
They gave up all thoughts of bed and concentrated only on each other.
For the first time in her life, she trusted someone completely.
If only for a few hours. A few blissful hours she would never trade for anything in the entire universe.
Chapter 5
Jack woke up before Skye did. He had no idea how they had gotten into the bed. He only knew that they had, and that their bodies had finally given out.
He was pressed against her back, his hands cupping her breasts, his penis against her buttocks. The thought of those buttocks made him stir, but he wasn’t sure he should try anything again. She had to be sore. He might even be sore. He didn’t know if men could get sore.
He never had before.
He pulled her close. He wasn’t sure what would happen next. She had made it clear that she only wanted to spend one night with him, but he wanted to spend more time with her than that. He wondered if every man she had been with wanted more time with her. He had never experienced anything like the last few hours before, and he doubted he ever would again.
He had felt a connection, something more than physical. If he had to guess, he would say that she had too. The problem was that he had to guess. He didn’t know her. He didn’t know anything about her.
For all he knew, she slept with a different guy at every single space station she stopped at.
She had money, that much was certain. Krell had to charge a lot of money for a suite like this. Hell, it charged a lot of money for that crap-ass room he’d stayed in the first time he was here. This place had to cost a fortune.
He didn’t know anyone who came to Krell who could afford that fortune without breaking a lot of laws.
That very thought bothered him, particularly with all the things he had been dealing with lately. He had left the Rovers because he couldn’t work for them anymore. They had gone too far, and now, he was here, with a woman he didn’t know, in a suite usually frequented by people who made their money illegally.
He should have rolled away. Instead, he didn’t move. He just held her, conscious of the time ticking away.
The Rovers were a group of loosely associated assassins who, for whatever reason, refused to join the Assassins Guild. Back when they had hired Jack to vet their clients, he believed the Rovers were more ethical than the Guild. They wouldn’t take jobs sanctioned by governments, they wouldn’t assassinate anyone without discovering who that person was first, and they often turned down work that seemed shady.
But Jack had joined the Rovers as their main investigator more than a decade before. He had left Tranquility House with only a few skills, one of them the ability to search for things.
He had searched his entire life. That was why he had chosen the last name Hunter. He had arrived at Tranquility House with no last name at all.
He used to say that his name wasn’t Jack Hunter. It was Jack, hunter, the hunter being a descriptor, not a designation.
He hadn’t lost that feeling; he was still hunting, for his identity, for his work, for everything.
Only at this very moment, he felt like he had found something.
Someone.
She was right. He fit perfectly. More to the point, she fit perfectly.
And it frightened him.
He had never let his guard down this far, particularly not on Krell.
And he had never felt so confused. He honestly didn’t know what to do next. Should he get up and leave? Should he wake her? Should he make love to her again?
He wanted to make love to her again. And again. And again.
He gave in. He kissed the spot where her lovely neck met her well-sculpted shoulder.
She sighed and squirmed against him.
