Dragonfly (31 page)

He lifted my ankle, arcing arc hot, wet kisses up the inside of my calf, and I shuddered with urgency, my blood coursing. He licked his way up my thigh, teasing me, and I crushed his warm dark hair in my fingers so he couldn’t leave off.

“Then Lukas pointed that atomflash at you and I knew,” he whispered, nibbling at my inner thigh. “I tried to stay away from you, but I can’t. I craved you when I thought you were just a clever thief. Now I don’t know what you are, and it drives me wild. I think I’m in love with you, Carrie.”

Just hearing him say that burned my blood, the air itself sweet friction on my flesh for having him near. He dipped his head and drew his tongue up my slit, a single lick of flame. Pleasure seared through me like a plasma bolt, sharp, crisp and hot. He tasted me, exploring my shapes, and then he moved to suck me, teasing me with the tip of his tongue in just the right spot.

“Oh, god, Sasha.” I was so close to losing it already, and I wanted to come with him inside me. But each determined stroke of his tongue spiraled tension up within me, filling me tighter and tighter until I screamed and came apart like liquid shatterglass, explosive, prolonged ripples of pleasure weakening my limbs.

He kissed my shivering skin as I caught my breath, trailing his lips over my belly, and I felt him smile. “Well, I guess everyone heard that.”

“Yeah, I guess they did.” I knotted my fingers in his hair and pulled him up to kiss me, my wet lips sliding on his. Tasting myself in his mouth made my pulse race again, his lean body against mine an even sweeter torture now he’d almost undressed me. I wasn’t done. I still wanted more of him, and I didn’t care who knew.

The console creaked under our weight, and I laughed, his soft hair tickling my face. “Look, I love antique virtual kit as much as the next girl, but don’t you have something more comfortable?”

He pulled me up and swept me astride his lap on the console stool. “Better?” he murmured, slipping his hands inside my open sweater.

“Much.”

My taut nipples already yearned for his mouth. I let my head fall back, arching my spine. He peeled the fabric away and captured a nipple in his mouth, his hot hand cupping my breast. The pleasure seared like atomflash, dizzying, my desire flowering under his touch as if I’d never been touched before.

I couldn’t keep my lips from his a moment longer. I pulled him away, my breast wet and shiny and my nipple swollen from his attention. He tilted his head back for my kiss, letting me lead him. Urgently I unfastened his shirt. His body was all muscle, lean and compact, so smooth as I ran my fingertips over his chest. His skin seared mine when I pulled him against me, making me ache all over again, and I could feel the hot moisture between my legs seeping onto his clothes.

Dizziness and desire rocked me. I wanted to eat him, swallow him, consume his body and his soul and become what he was. This was beyond lust. This was possession, intoxication, crushing compulsion. I’d never felt like this with anyone.

I needed him now, before the spell broke. My fingers fumbled and shook as I tried to unfasten his pants. He helped me, and groaned and sank his teeth helplessly into my collarbone as I touched him, his breath hissing hot. The sting of pain only sparked my senses more alive, and desperately I yanked the fabric aside and took him in my hand, demanding, guiding him to my swollen entrance.

Oh. My. God.

The heat of his entry scorched me. I cried out, shuddering, and he dug his fingers into my hips, slamming me down, forcing himself deeper.

I braced my hands on his shoulders so I could move, but he held me still. “Let me look at you.”

My muscles pulsed around him, drawing on him, tension welling forth to grip me. I struggled to remain still, but his beautiful dark eyes captured me, so deep and warm and infatuated I couldn’t look away. Slowly, inexorably, I leaned closer, until his hair tangled with mine. His lips brushed mine, our breath mingling as one, and we made love with our eyes open, drinking in this wondrous new thing, unable to get enough before we came together, gasping our pleasure into a kiss.

33

When I awoke, he wasn’t there.

I sat up in bed, dragging knotted hair from my face. I slipped my hand under the sheets. His half was cold.

We’d moved to his bed once our limbs had recovered enough strength, and now the night was fully dark, wind hissing in the dusty street outside. A krypton nightlight glowed on the bedside table, violet light gleaming on overstuffed shelves, a smudged glass bookreader on the floor on his side. A handful of plasma charges scattered on the dressing table, their reflections dim in the scarf-draped mirror.

I arose, legs still wobbly, and plucked a shirt of his from the chair’s back to wear until I found my clothes. The black cloth whispered on my skin, his scent drifting, and I smiled as I tiptoed out into the study. He sat at his console in the dark, the glowing display tarnishing his face in shadow.

I slipped my arms around his neck, resting my chin on his shoulder. “Can’t sleep?”

He didn’t answer, his gaze still on the display. It showed his message system, encryption off. He’d unwrapped a data block and text spread across the screen. The sender was Lukas, and the header read
Told you so
…

My guts coiled, crushing my contentment. A message from Spider. And it was about me. A page of information about my life. Where I grew up, my time in the military, why I’d left, everything I’d done since.

Or so he thought.

Spider had found Lazuli’s invented past, right where Axis’s intelligence division had left it for him, information snippets scattered throughout any number of obscure databases he’d no doubt spent hours breaking into.

A lump swelled my throat. I’d wanted so much for the lies to dissolve between us that, for a sweet short while, I’d believed they had. And now here they were, in infallible digital. A sick chill fingered my spine, and I straightened, letting my hands slip away from him.

“You were in the marines.” Toneless, as if he was sleepwalking. He didn’t look at me.

Axis like to keep our covers simple, and as close to the truth as possible so we don’t forget. But my truth was so much worse than the lie.

“Umm … yeah. I had to get off my cesspit of a planet somehow. So what?”

He spun around at last. “When did you plan to tell me?”

I turned away from the pain glossing his eyes. Seeing him disappointed in me was more than I could bear. I hunted for my pants and boots, pulled them on and fastened them with sour spit welling in my mouth. “What was I supposed to say? That I’m ex-military but it’s okay now, I’ve come to my senses? Why does it matter, Sasha? I got what I wanted out of them. The past is the past.”

“No, it isn’t.” He shut the console off with a rough slap of his hand. “The past is
not
the past in this business and you know it. I don’t care what you did or when, Carrie. I care that you lied to me.”

“You never asked me!”

“I don’t mean about that! You knew about Urumki Mor, didn’t you?”

My nerves screamed, and I wanted to do the same. I wanted to tell him everything, about Axis and how I’d believed their lies, but terror that I’d lose him spiked me like a poisongun. I couldn’t bear him looking at me like that. Not after the things we’d said, the things we’d done. “So what if I did? You said yourself it’s a myth.”

“A myth you believed!” Color burned in his cheeks. His lashes glistened, and he wiped them roughly. “You believed it because you believed in the Empire, and you damn well still do.”

My heart stung. “What? What else did Spider say? You really gonna trust him, after what he did?”

“Lukas has watched my back more times than I can count. You … Well, you’re very clever, Lazuli, but you slipped up.” His gaze shone frigid, hard. “I just didn’t realize until now. And that bastard you killed in the classroom confirmed it.”

“You can’t be serious. The creep was just winding you up!”

“No. It’s all true, isn’t it? Yesterday, when I mentioned Shadrin, you said, ‘you’ve met him before?’”

My insides heated like a naughty schoolgirl’s. The way I felt about Sasha had put me off my guard, made me careless. I didn’t need to hear what came next.

“What you
didn’t
say was, ‘who’s Shadrin?’ Or even, ‘shit, I didn’t know he was on the negotiation team’.” Sasha yanked his tangled hair, edgy. “Do you know how much that information cost me? How long it took me to find that out? How could you know it if you’re just a simple thief?”

I was digging myself deeper, but I couldn’t stop. “That means nothing. I could have—”

“Stop lying to me, Carrie. Or whatever the fuck your name is. They sent you for me, didn’t they?”

Bitter guilt strangled my throat. I couldn’t find a single thing to say.

He laughed, empty. “No wonder you’re so perfect. Mother of god, I’ve been so
stupid
. I can’t believe I made love to you, told you I … Fuck. You’re good. I really thought you meant it.”

I stared, my heart bleeding.
No wonder you’re so perfect
. No wonder indeed. We had so much in common, we’d clicked like magnets. Axis had hand-picked me for the job, and only one agent knew me that well.

This had Nikita’s malicious fingerprints all over it.

Tears swelled my eyelids, burning, and blindly I walked out.

***

I didn’t know how long I walked the dark empty streets, huddled against the icy breeze, my tears drying warm and dusty on my face. Streetlights crackled overhead, shedding pools of white light in the darkness, and flabby grey bats sparred and cackled in the glare. Wind whistled through creaking tenements, stinging dirt and hair into my face and chilling my fingers stiff, but I didn’t care. I already hurt too much inside.

Emptiness hollowed my heart, blacker than I knew how to deal with. This wasn’t just an ordinary lovers’ disagreement, where you cried your eyes out alone for a few days and then made up by begging for forgiveness. No, I’d done way better than that this time. I’d destroyed my one and only chance with the only man who’d ever seen me—not who I pretended to be, or wished I could be, but
me
—and I’d done it before I’d even met him.

I swallowed, tasting grit and tears. The sharpest barb ripping at my heart was that I’d no one to blame but myself. My Imperial bosses had lied, but I’d chosen to listen. I was no better than any of them. Not even Nikita, who at least had an excuse for his duplicity. If Sasha could ever have loved me, even for a moment, I didn’t deserve it.

I walked past a rusted playground, chains swinging and squeaking in the wind. Through aching eyes I stared up beyond the tenements at the sky, where stars glared, careless. A fat white one gleamed larger than the rest, and listlessly I wondered if it was the Santa Maria colony. Beside it, a streak of arcfuel wake shimmered. An angular black shape arced in front of the stars, rising, and as the ship climbed into the upper atmosphere I caught the telltale glint of stealthplate shining in the vanished sun.

Ladrona
. Sasha was leaving without me.

Sorrow gripped me again, but frustration squeezed my guts too. He’d destroy Esperanza and I’d never get the chance to confront Shadrin. He’d do it thinking I’d betrayed him, and here I was, stuck on this rock with no way to get off.

Except Bastie’s Pharaoh.

Resolution seized me like a magclamp, and I whirled and broke into a run.

***

The hardstand lay deserted, unlit, the Pharaoh’s ramp still down, its huge arcfuel boosters hulking. I leaped aboard, my boots clanging on metal, and smacked my fist onto the plastic panel just inside the hatchway. White icelights cracked on, sluggish insects lurching into flight, and the ramp juddered and retracted with a stiff hydraulic hiss.

The casket holding Bastie’s weighty body still lay on the loader, a hastily modified freezebox powering the cryo. I sidled past as the ramp clanged shut behind me, squeezing alongside more crated goods he’d intended to deliver who knew where else, and hopped up the steel ladder into the cockpit.

The ancient-generation metal console sat dull and silent below a shuttered clearview. The low ceiling was claustrophobic, dangling with patched wires and weld-mended pipes. I scraped my finger cautiously over the nav computer’s cracked plastic case. It itched, crawling. Biochem. Old, weak, not as immediate as
Ladrona
’s, but enough to lock me out of the controls and make me thoroughly sick and sorry in a few minutes.

On the other hand, first-generation biochem was imprecise. It could be fooled.

I glanced over my shoulder at the casket. A stunt like this would kill me on
Ladrona
. But it was worth a shot with old, sluggish biochem like this.

I climbed down and thumbed open the casket. Bastie’d been dead at least seven or eight hours now. The lid slid aside, revealing his white visage, ice crystallizing on his unshaven jaw. I surveyed his massive stiff body. No way could I drag him up the ladder into the cockpit. He was too heavy. But I didn’t need his whole body to switch off the biochem.

My eyeballs swiveled to the slag-encrusted fusion welder hanging in the corner. Good thing Bastie was half-frozen. This could get messy.

I slipped on the purple anti-flash mask and arced the welder to life. It buzzed evilly in my hands, star-bright light crackling off the nozzle. As I wielded it, the stinking vapor hissing, I reflected that it was a pity the body wasn’t sweet young Max’s. I’d have enjoyed hacking off an extra limb or two in his case.

A few minutes later, I stowed Bastie’s newly warm hand back in the casket, fired up the arcfuel boosters and set course on the ancient navset for Esperanza.

34

Interminable hours later, the Pharaoh jolted out of slipspace. I stumbled to the cockpit from where I’d been pacing in the cargo bay. Beneath the floor, the stardrive’s hum intensified and the arcfuel rockets kicked in with a grinding jolt to slow the ship down. I blinked grit from my eyes as I checked the coordinates. At last, I’d arrived, and my body sparked despite my exhaustion.