No Such Thing (25 page)

"Well, duh, because you’re here. I need to pace, Declan. I think better when I pace. I can’t pace that way," she said, pointing at
him, "for obvious, uncomfortable reasons. If we could just clear a—"

"What the hell do you want from me?"

She paused, arrested by all the possibilities she could say but shouldn’t, considering the furious expression on his handsome face. Taking a deep,
careful breath and letting it out, she folded her arms over her chest and studied him. "Are you this hostile with everyone you work with?"

"Are you this goddamned evasive?" he snapped back.

"Yes. It’s kind of a specialty of mine," she answered with a bland stare. "I’m going back to my rooms to think. There’s
a lot more floor space there. Will this link stay on?" She tapped her communicator with a questioning lift of her brows.

"Yes," he growled, eyes narrowed to indigo spears.

"Dandy. I’ll take you with me, then."

Chapter 14

Declan sat very still when she left, waiting for the urge to strangle her to pass. She was very different from the restrained elegance she’d shown as
a girl. Still elegant, but in a way that seemed totally unconscious and natural, like the quick movements of a prowling cat. And as unpredictable. Casual
and flippant one moment, mysterious and opaque the next, she was driving him mad with her quicksilver changes and innuendos.

Had she come here to seduce him again for some crazy reason? He would swear that he’d seen desire in her eyes a time or two, but she’d been
honestly embarrassed and apologetic about touching him with her talent. And she’d wasted no time putting space between them. Then why the suggestive
comments? Driving him mad.

He’d forgotten how deeply she could affect him. He hadn’t believed she could still do it until she’d said his name for the first time.
And then he’d felt that tingling touch, the brush of her power, the stroke of it, sliding over him and deep inside him. If she’d kept it up for
even a second longer, he would have pounced on her. His body hadn’t settled down since, still painfully hard and ready for her. Driving him right out
of his mind.

A dangerous condition to be in, if they were going to have GenTec visitors.

"What do you do for food around here?" her voice exacerbated his lust, cool with a hint of husky humor.

He ground his teeth and revisited the urge to strangle. Whatever she wanted from him, he was not going to go that road again. He wasn’t into
disasters. "Your dinette is fully stocked. There’s also catering, if you want to order in."

"Anything decent?" she asked in a brightly hopeful tone that annoyed him by being cute and funny.

"It’s edible."

She sighed in his ear and sent a shudder straight down his spine. The communicators had not been his best idea. "Oh, well. Can’t have
everything," she muttered as if to herself.

He lifted his eyebrows but didn’t bother to point out that she was one of the most influential people of their time. She could and probably did have
everything she ever wanted.

"So I’m thinking bait."

He blinked. "For dinner?"

"For the GenTecs. If we play along, lure them in, maybe they’ll show what they’re really up to."

"Lure them in how?" he asked with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He was afraid he already knew.

"That supply ship coming in tomorrow. We know they’ll hit it again. So I play the normal telenetic acting to defend it and we see what they
do."

"You can’t reach out there and smash the shit out of them?"

"Well, sure, but what good would that do?"

"It would stop ‘em from sarkin’ up my damned supply line," he grumbled, spinning around the end of his desk and sitting to stare at
the load of normal work he still had to do before quitting for the night. With a grimace, he touched the nearest viewer and scanned the data.

"But it wouldn’t give us any idea what they’re planning. You know they’ve got a plan. They always do." She paused with a hum
that made his skin prickle. "How’s the chicken dinner?"

"Edible."

"Uh-oh. I think we need to go into detail on your definition of edible."

His lips twitched, a reaction he refused to acknowledge as amusement. "Food you can chew and swallow without choking and puking."

"Lovely," she drawled, which made his lips twitch again before he could discipline them. "Wasn’t that hungry anyway. You know,
crackers are highly underrated as a food group."

He looked up with exasperation. "You are not eating crackers for dinner. At least throw some cheese and fruit in there."

"Yes, Master Chief," she said in a sweet voice.

He snorted in disbelief but didn’t push it. He was enjoying this conversation far too much as it was, bittersweet memories overlapping with this new,
charmingly irreverent Ryelle. He focused on his work, doing his best to ignore the discreet nibbling sounds in his ear. Imagining her slipping anything
between her lips was a very bad idea.

"You know what this reminds me of," she said in a subdued voice after a while.

Declan paused in his assessment of baseline wormhole operations, head lifting warily. When she said nothing else, he told himself to leave it alone. But
the tone of her voice called to him, inciting his curiosity until he gave in. "What?"

"When I used to take you to bed with me."

A flash fire had nothing on his body temp just then. He knew what she meant, when they would talk each other to sleep over portable viewers, but the
combination of her husky voice and the memory of her sleepy, sultry smile damn near did him in. Jamming the heels of his hands into his eyes, he growled
through gritted teeth, "Knock that shit off, Ryelle."

"Oh, you do remember my first name. How nice."

Slamming his hands on the desk, he thrust to his feet and took up pacing. It wasn’t easy. His office really was too cluttered for it. "What are
you trying for here? A trip down memory lane? To finish what we started? I don’t wanna remember or finish anything. Once was enough, lady. So knock
it off!"

He expected a witty retort or another evasion. Instead, there was a long silence, long enough to slow his stride to a standstill. He was frowning when she
finally said, "Goodnight, Declan," in a quiet voice. Then the communicator sounded a faint click in his ear, signifying a severed link.

He stood very still, trying to tell himself there was no reason to feel guilty. This was the woman who’d brushed him off like lint so many years ago.
Whatever game she was playing now, he wanted no part of it and he shouldn’t feel guilty for making that clear.

But she’d sounded almost—hurt. The idea twisted something inside him, some residual, protective urge left over from the wreckage of his teenage
love. He ran aggravated fingers through his hair, turning for the door. Damn it, whatever her motive, she was the one who ended it the first time,
shattering him in the process. He wouldn’t let her do it again.

He made his way to his quarters, uncomfortably aware that her rooms were just down the corridor. Feeling her presence like warm breath on the back of his
neck, he made a quick dinner, ate half of it, and threw the rest away in revulsion. Making a drink, he tossed it down and paced his living room for twenty
minutes before he realized he’d been carting around an empty glass. With a snort of disgust, he stripped and took a hot shower. Halfway through, he
turned it to cold, but neither temp seemed to help.

Finally, cursing himself for an easy mark and a fool, he toweled off, threw on a robe and headed for the com unit. He made sure the chime was low enough
not to disturb Ryelle if she was sleeping, but she answered quickly. He frowned at her wary expression. "You’re not sleeping."

"Neither are you," she pointed out. Her eyes moved over his wet head and dipped to his chest, before her lashes swept down and she turned her
face to the side. "Did you have a reason for calling?"

He studied the smooth curve of her cheek and the sweep of dark lashes, tapping his thumb hard on the edge of the console. Then he sighed and asked,
"Do you know what happened to Bags?"

She peeked at him with a hint of a smile, making his heart stumble in his chest. "Bagera? He stayed with the
Odyssey.
He’s Chief
Engineer now, since Sheridan retired."

"Bags is Chief?" Declan asked with an incredulous shake of his head. "How did that happen?"

"I’m pretty sure it was a mix up, but nobody’s caught it yet," she said with a conspiratorial smirk. "And they couldn’t
get Bagera out of that ship with a blast pack."

"Why’d Sheridan retire? I thought he was a lifer."

She laughed softly and shook him down to his soul. Oh God, he’d forgotten what she could do to him. He needed to end this madness right
now.
Instead, he watched her eyes sparkle and felt that old need building again.

"Mike said since the war was over, life on the
Odyssey
was too boring. I think he really just wanted to get Mina alone for a while. They had
a daughter and live on a sailboat."

"They had a daughter?" Somehow, Declan couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea.

"She’s a firecracker. You should have seen Mike’s face when she was born. You’ve never seen such terrified love in your
life."

"You were there?" he asked with a strange pang through his center.

"Of course. They’re my family." Her dark eyes were clear and direct, spearing him clean through. His heart was limping along in his chest
when she continued, "Sam Task made Admiral and is semi-retired, though I don’t think he wants to admit it. The man would run the universe if we
let him." She rolled her eyes with a fond smile. The smile faded into a faint crease in her brow as she added, "I suppose the GenTec will pull
him from retirement."

He wasn’t ready for the conversation to go in that direction. Ignoring the little warning voice that said he was asking for trouble, he said,
"I thought you’d transferred to the
Destiny.
How did you keep up with the
Odyssey
crew?"

She blinked at him for a second then gave him a thoughtful frown. "Funny, you seem familiar with the concept of a communications system, and
yet…"

"Right," he responded with a dry look. He manfully refrained from pointing out the obvious about her communication skills back then. At least,
where he’d been concerned. "Did Frankie stay with the ship?"

Her eyes lit up as she leaned closer. "No, Frankie left early on and took over an entire moon. I kid you not. She runs a moon full of entertainments,
from bars to tech sex and everything in between." His face must have shown some of the horrified hilarity he was feeling, because she snickered and
said, "I know! Scary, yet perfect. She’s got three kids, by the way."

"You’re shittin’ me."

"Not even a little bit."

"Frankie runs a sex moon and has kids. My head hurts just thinking about it. You still keep up with her, too, then?"

Her face took on a hunted expression. "She sends me
coupons,
Declan."

He couldn’t help it—he had to laugh. She cupped her chin in one hand and watched him with a little smile playing around her mouth, dark eyes
warm with something that made his heart kick and teased the slow burn in his body to flame.

"Declan," she murmured in the silky voice of his most erotic memories, "can I ask you a question?"

Say no. Shut off this goddamn thing and go to bed.
But he couldn’t find his voice, and the stupid, horny part of him nodded instead. Her eyes moved over his face, flicking down to his chest like dark
flames kissing his skin. His hands slowly curled into fists.

But instead of voicing the question he could see in her eyes, she took a deep breath, looked away, and asked, "How is your mother?"

He told himself he was relieved. The ravenous hunger prowling through his body snarled disbelief. "My mother," he repeated, studying her
downcast eyes warily.

"Sorry, did that break the truce?"

"What truce?"

"You’re willing to walk down memory lane with me as long as I don’t get too personal. That truce."

"Hmm." The woman was too damned clever for her own good. And his, for that matter. Shifting and running restless fingers through his damp hair,
he said, "Mom’s fine. She’s here on the station."

Her face lit up, eyes returning to his with what looked like genuine delight. "She is? That’s wonderful. What does she do?"

"Whatever the hell she wants," he said dryly then listened to her laugh with shiver of despairing need and wistful remembrance.

"I’d love to meet her," she said with a brilliant smile, but something she saw on his face made her rearrange her expression hastily into
wide-eyed, solemn innocence. "Purely for academic reasons, of course."

"That’s not gonna happen," he said in a dark tone, eying her with narrow suspicion. Never mind what kind of mischief Ryelle had in
mind—he could just imagine what his mother would do if she met the woman who’d devastated him all those years ago. "What about your
mother?"

He’d asked on impulse as a distraction but felt like a brute when he saw the flash of pain in her eyes. She sat back, beautiful face smoothing into
the bland mask he remembered too well. "She died two years after Mirabella. The coma was irreversible."

"I’m sorry."

"Thank you. But what happened to her wasn’t a total tragedy. She helped me reform the Institute."

He lifted his eyebrows, surprised by the grim humor in her voice. "How?"

"The Institute put her in that coma. After Mirabella, Sam and I found enough proof of that to blackmail them into submission."

"You’re shittin’ me."

"Not at the moment. The Institute wasn’t going to go quietly. They thought I was coming home to destroy them and I did seriously consider it.
But then what would happen to the rest of the telenetics? To the kids who had that power but couldn’t control it? The Institute does provide a
valuable service, though they were going about it all wrong. So we took over and now telenetic children have a place to learn without oppression and slave
labor."