We crawled through an access door into the jungle enclosure and landed on an employee staircase that descended to intercept the guest path. Signs advertised that the lemur habitat was open to guests, so we probably wouldn’t fall victim to a wild animal attack.
My wound broadcast its pain more loudly as the immediate danger had passed. I sagged against a sturdy tree stump and pressed my hand against my hip. I’d only been shot once before. During the war, of course. The field medic, Cha, had made fun of me for crying like a baby.
Myka was all business as she eyed my injury. “Let me see it.”
I turned, yielding to her as she pulled up my shirt. I winced when her fingers brushed against hot flesh.
“Why were they even shooting at us? I got the data tab they want in my guts.” I spat the words out.
Something ripped. Myka, sacrificing the sleeve of her luxury blouse to press against the wound. Her hands were shaky. “The people in charge want the data tab. The mercs they hire are annoyed that we’re making their job so hard.” I inhaled sharply at the pressure of her hands. “You’ll need to get this looked at sooner rather than later.”
Well, that probably wasn’t gonna happen. She wrapped cloth from her other sleeve around my midsection in a makeshift bandage.
When I turned around, she looked on edge. “That jump was the dumbest thing I’ve ever been forced into.”
“Hey, it wasn’t my idea to go to the fucking roof! Besides, it worked.” Case in point, both alive.
“It was insane!” I’d never heard her so worked up. “And if you’d let me call in Cadinoff we wouldn’t have to hide out with monkeys!”
Now her expression was so different from her expression as a kids’ entertainer. It didn’t intimidate me so much as intrigue me. She kept changing. Kept being different. “Since when does Glezos’ little sidekick do children’s entertainment?”
If she’d had both hands free, she would have crossed them. She frowned at the change in subject, then scowled. “Does it matter?”
“I just…I liked hearing you sing.”
My skin itched as the adrenaline rush kept shoving this need to keep acting onto me. Like I had to keep taking on the world, lifting all the transports, and fucking all the girls.
That last option snagged me as I looked down at Myka Benton, sweating and wide-eyed, frazzled and wearing my blood on her hands. Always centimeters away thanks to the cuffs, but way closer now. And as I looked down at her she looked up at me, and when our eyes met, I felt those somersaults in my belly.
I didn’t question it; I just kissed her. Her lips were soft and eager. Like she’d been waiting for me to do this for ages. A moan escaped from her mouth into my mouth. I pulled her towards me, and when I felt her body press against mine, I shuddered. What was it about this woman that was making me do this?
It was her everything. Her singing. Her scaling of walls. Her dimples and legs and everything else. All of it. She was a mystery, a puzzle, and I knew then that I wanted all of her. I wanted to figure her out, as long as that took. I wanted to see her smile—her real smile.
She leaned into me as I leaned into her, both of us pushing and taking and wanting and needing. I drank her in, lips tasting her mouth and her throat, reveling in the little noises she made in response. My free hand tangled through her hair, as my other hand wandered down her body to mirror her own roving hand. Conscious thought wasn’t there at the moment. Just desire and need and hunger and her soft body pushed against mine in such a way that all I wanted was to touch more of her. I nudged a knee between her legs, desperate to see her pleasure.
She jumped back with a shriek. So suddenly I almost fell forward. She stood wide-eyed with her free hand at her mouth. Then she laughed. I looked behind me.
Weird yellow eyes surrounded by coal black fur blinked at me. A fucking lemur sat on that tree stump, watching the show while chewing on a piece of fruit. Our dispassionate audience was not at all impressed by the performance.
Making out in the middle of a zoo habitat was not the greatest of ideas.
“We need to go.” Because Sev Tech mercs were probably working their way up to our level as we snogged. Because kissing Myka Benton was confusing as fuck. Because a lemur was staring at us.
Myka looked breathless, but she nodded. I took her hand and led, searching for the perimeter of the habitat and the door that would take us to the employee area. Hopefully, the Sev Tech goons would be going up the guest pathway. To be fair, I wasn’t concentrating much. As I found the employee door, all I could think about was Myka’s hand in mine. About my lips against hers. About what it might be like to…
Stairs. Lots of stairs. We flew down, and I kept hold of her hand the whole time, even when my palms grew sweaty. We reached the bottom and found the exit to the street. The station was still within sight. We hadn’t moved far, had we? It felt like light years.
Myka squeezed my hand and nodded through the crowd. “Sev Tech mercs.”
Myka didn’t hesitate as she pulled me into the nearest storefront—some photography place. I couldn’t tell if the Sev Tech mercs had seen us or not. They
