Thieves In Paradise (3 page)

Kol sighed and wiped stinging rain from his eyes. Beside him, she sank nearly to her knees in the river of mud that flowed down the forest slope. Her voice barely carried in the sodden air. “Well, it looks like we're not going anywhere at the moment, are we?"

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Charity sat in the feeble shelter provided by the port wing of the Antarean's shuttle. He'd taken the unnecessary precaution of fastening the kevlex tether to one of the shuttle's landing struts while he climbed on the nose of the craft and removed the huge tree limbs that had landed on the wind screen. Her assurances that she had no intention of trying to escape in this weather had been met with stoic indifference.

Even partially protected from the driving rain, she was shivering and exhausted. The only consolation she found in this otherwise hopeless situation was that the bounty hunter had nearly fallen off the slippery bow of the shuttle twice during his efforts to dislodge the branches, and he seemed suitably vexed by the crack in the glass.

At the moment he lay spread-eagle against the forward hull while he attempted to shove the second limb free of the ship. At least he hadn't expected her to help. But that left her with little to do except ruminate on how she could possibly escape from him.

After a while she ran out of imaginary scenarios, and now she was left with nothing else to do but study his impressive physique.

Paid bloodhound or not, by the Goddess, he was put together well.

Though most of his body was covered in mud at the moment, his corded muscles rippled with every movement. The fallen tree limbs were each as thick around as her waist, yet he moved them with relative ease. A human would have required help, maybe even machinery, to complete the daunting task.

She wondered what made such a fine male specimen loyal to a runt like Gar Gremin. It had to be money. Since he hadn't even acknowledged her offer to split her take with him, the Magistrate of Valencia must have offered him something substantially more valuable that a quarter million credits.

That left Charity short at the bargaining table. If he wasn't interested in money, what could she trade him for her freedom?

That thought lead her curious gaze to his firm backside and his massive thighs and, despite the icy rain, her face went hot.

She couldn't. She would never—
had
never—bartered her body, even with men who would have willingly accepted such a proposition.

She wasn't that kind of woman, and she'd steadfastly refused to let circumstances dictate a compromise in her values. Just because she'd grown up struggling on one of the galaxy's poorest colonies, didn't mean she had to rely on her body to make a living when her brain could get her so much further.

Nevertheless, he was certainly a prime candidate for debauchery. His face was handsome enough, despite what seemed to be a perpetual scowl of disapproval, and he moved with sensual, almost predatory grace that hadn't escaped her attention, especially when her wet body had been plastered against his.

He'd be huge, no doubt, a challenge for her physically ... ooh, but what fun it might be to peel off his tight flight suit and see for herself what an Antarean cock looked like.

"Goddess bless me, I've lost my mind!” As quickly as the wind-driven rain changed direction, reality intruded on her uncharacteristic sexual fantasy and Charity's thoughts careened back to the problem at hand.

She'd sooner shoot the bounty hunter than fuck him. Obviously the relentless rain and mind-numbing discomfort had made her delirious.

Kol's boots hit the squelching mud, and he sank to his ankles in front of the shuttle. At least he'd managed to remove the branches. Now he had to worry about getting atmo sealant to set in this humidity. He calculated at least six hours before they'd be able to lift off, and by then he'd be half out of his mind trying to interpret the true meaning of his erotic vision.

He swung around to glance at his captive and looked away quickly when their eyes met. She'd been watching him work, no doubt planning her next nefarious scheme. Magistrate Gremin had warned Kol about Charity Foster. She was smart, fast, and could talk her way into or out of just about anything. That's how she'd ended up in Gremin's monthly game of High Aces where she'd cheated him out of four million in selenite.

Granted, it seemed it was more Gremin's pride than his purse that had taken a beating in the game, and cheating at High Aces was not a federal offense, but Kol had taken the job because the price was right and he had a personal dislike of cheaters of any kind.

His job would be much easier if she looked guilty. Right now, she seemed small and defenseless. The mud and rain had left her blond hair stringy and plastered to her skull, all but obscuring the decorative purple streak. Her face was smudged and her slender body trembled with the cold.

He could have secured her inside the shuttle, but short of tying her to a seat, she'd have had access to the controls and his supplies, and he couldn't trust her not to sabotage his mission.

She raised her graceful brows at his approach and swiped at the chilly drops of rain that hung from the tips of her dark lashes. “Now what?"

"I have to apply the sealant on the inside of the glass.” He unhooked the kevlex tether from the landing strut and then from the cuffs and directed her toward the shuttle's hatch. “I'll be watching you closely. Don't try to escape."

She rolled her golden eyes at him. “Where in Goddess's name would I go? Face it, flyboy, you've got me. I'm your prisoner."

He didn't like the emphasis she put on the word “prisoner.” There seemed to be a sexual innuendo there that made his thoughts circle round to the vision he'd been trying so hard to forget. Had her hands been tied when he'd fucked her? Kol would never force himself on a female, certainly not a captive and certainly never a non-Antarean, yet the idea of pushing her bound hands above her head and settling her hips against his made his cock stir uncomfortably.

Did he only imagine the flirty tilt of her head and the secretive smile as she passed by on her way into the shuttle? Her rounded ass swayed a little as she lifted one leg and climbed into the ship. He dared not follow right away, but instead stood for a moment in the driving rain, allowing the cold water to soothe the sudden flush that traveled up from his groin.

He would not use her. Even if she begged him to.

Heaven was a dry place, Charity decided when she settled on one of the firm flight couches of the Antarean's shuttle. If she never saw rain again, it would be too soon. She kicked off her boots and did her best to push the sodden streaks of her hair out of her eyes. Her wrists ached and she made sure to give the bounty hunter a pointed glance when he climbed up into the shuttle. “Do you really think I'd rather be out there than in here? You can uncuff me. I promise I won't do anything."

He held her in his piercing gaze for a moment. “I already know you will try to escape."

"Not before the rain stops,” she countered with a slight smile. “I give you my word on that."

He didn't respond. Instead he turned to rummage in the storage compartments of the shuttle. Charity watched him, wishing she could bore a hole in the back of his skull with nothing but an angry stare. How could a man be so maddeningly unresponsive? She'd been captured before by bounty hunters, soldiers, and countless local authorities, and she'd never failed to draw any man into a verbal battle of wits. It was her experience that most men liked to talk, if nothing else, at least about their own prowess and intelligence. That's how she'd managed to snooker Gar Gremin into letting her play in the High Aces game.

"Please?” She figured if sarcasm didn't work, then maybe begging had a shot. “My hands are turning blue. The cuffs are too tight. I promise I'll sit quietly and not bother you."

"You're already bothering me.” He produced a thick tube from the storage bin and stalked to the front of the shuttle with it. Charity watched while he extruded a line of sealant along the crack in the wind screen. The clear gel would keep the crack from spreading during a short space flight. They'd probably just make it to Valencia where the ship could get proper repairs.

When he finished the job, he tossed the sealant tube aside and settled into the pilot's chair. “We lift off in six hours,” he said. “If you behave, I will activate the force shield and you can have free run of the back of the shuttle. I'll remove the cuffs then."

"If I behave? And just what constitutes behaving in your opinion?” The indignities. She'd never been treated this badly, even when she'd been in federal custody.

"Keep seated and stay quiet."

"For six hours?"

"Why don't we bet a quarter million in selenite that you can't do it?"

Charity almost laughed. He hadn't looked back at her, but she sensed the faintest hint of humor in his voice. He was starting to crack a bit and she could exploit that. “Why not make it half a million?"

"Deal."

It was no deal, of course, but it was worth playing along for now. She'd let him win so he would feel superior, then she'd have him right where she wanted him. “Deal."

Kol nearly dismissed the first tiny movement of the shuttle as his imagination. After all, ever since his last vision, his mind had been conjuring all sorts of unusual and blatantly sexual images involving the female. It stood to reason that his perception of reality might be skewed.

His muscles had gone stiff with the effort not to turn in his chair and look at her. She'd kept her bargain thus far and remained still and silent, but while he had been passing the time watching the wind screen sealant harden, she'd no doubt been plotting her escape.

When the first distant rumble sounded and the shuttle tilted forward by barely a degree, he assumed he must have nodded off. Jerking himself upright, he settled his gaze on the landscape beyond the shuttle's nose.

"Did you feel that?” the female asked, breaking her silence.

The question worried him. Had the shuttle actually moved?

Another rumble and tilt, and this time a torrent of mud spilled down the slope on either side of the shuttle, carrying with it some smaller plants and trees from the denuded forest.

Kol rose and so did the female. “What's happening?” There was a sharp edge of panic in her voice that Kol refused to admit he shared.

Landslide.

The word came to mind almost like a vision, galvanizing him. He braced for it, and barely a second later the entire hillside let loose. The shuttle, the surrounding trees and a good number of rocks careened down the slope in a wave of mud.

The female let out a sharp, truncated scream and stumbled forward when the shuttle pitched nose first into the maelstrom. Kol barely turned in time to catch her, and together they landed on the ship's control console.

Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her, hoping the contact wouldn't bring on another disturbing sexual vision. It was bad enough she'd settled against him, chest to chest, her bound hands wedged between them and her thighs spread and clamped on either side of his hips.

She stared up at him with huge, frightened eyes. “We're going to die."

Had the actual descent been any longer, he might have agreed, but the shuttle came to rest fairly quickly at the bottom of the slope, prevented from hurling into the ravine beyond by the trunks of two of the larger trees.

The impact of branches, rocks, and mud lasted another several minutes during which Kol and his prisoner clung to each other, not daring to breathe.

The silence that followed the landslide was so complete, Kol wondered if he'd gone deaf. It took a moment for him to realize that he no longer heard the drumming of rain on the shuttle's hull. As quickly as it had begun, the storm ended. Bright sunlight washed through the leafless forest and illuminated the dim interior of the shuttle as Kol extricated himself from the female's grasp. He met her shocked gaze and raised a brow. “Why did you have to pick
this
planet to crash on?"

Well, at least he was talking more and swearing
a lot
. And he'd unfastened the cuffs, which shocked Charity completely. Either he no longer cared if she escaped, or he assumed she'd be too frightened to make the attempt.

She now stood outside the shuttle, which had sunk to the hilts of its landing struts in the quickly drying mud. A tumble of uprooted trunks and small boulders obscured the ship's aft exhaust ports, and its nose was wedged between two bowed trees.

No matter how impressive his muscles were, there was no way the Antarean was ever going to get this ship off the ground.

"The Valencian authorities can have a ship here in four days,” he said when he emerged from the shuttle a final time. He'd been in and out a half dozen times in the last few minutes, carrying supplies from the storage bins and setting them on the ground.

Overhead, the leaves of each plant and tree had begun to unfurl from their tight coils, slowly recreating the deep green canopy and dark shadows of a true forest.

As each leaf opened, a few specs of yellow dust dislodged from within and floated to the ground, making the air thick with swirling motes. The sweet smelling pollen made Charity's nose itch and her throat scratchy.

"Four days is outrageous. I can have someone here in three, and we can be dining in the finest restaurant on Gossamer inside a week. If you let me have my personal communicator back, I can arrange everything."

He set a med kit and two bottles of water on a nearby rock and swung his upper body in her direction. “You're a possession of the Commonwealth of Valencia until your trial. You're not going anywhere but back to the Magistrate."

Charity huffed. “At least can we stay inside the shuttle? What if the carnivore comes back?” She rubbed her nose and tried to stifle a sneeze. “Not to mention this dust can't be good for our lungs."

"The ground is still unstable. If the rain returns we could end up at the bottom of the ravine. We're safer out here for now."