Recon Marines II: Marine's Heiress, The (18 page)

“
I had a conversation with
one of the mine owners Hadrason had forced out a few years ago. He
gave me some names. Each person I found after that gave me
more.”

“
And now my stepfather is
the only one left.”

“
He went into hiding two
months ago. The only lead I had was you and that he was searching
for you as I was for him?”

“
How did you find me?”
Emma knew she had to warn Vin that the admiral might even now be on
his way, but she didn’t want to interrupt this moment when he was
so open.

“
It took me nearly a
month. I visited all the planets where Hadrason and the admiral had
interests together. Nearly all the mines had satellite settlements
like Hovel Port. This was the sixth planet I explored.”

“
And ingratiated yourself
to us so you could use me as bait to catch the admiral.”

“
Ingratiate?” Vin seemed
to ponder the word. “I wasn’t searching for gratitude. I wanted to
stay close to you so I made myself useful. I thought all I had to
do was wait for the admiral to come out of hiding in his search for
you.”

“
You thought that? You
don’t anymore?”

Vin grimaced. “I’m starting to think
he’s not smart enough to find you. And I still don’t know why he
wants to find you. Does he love you and miss you? I don’t
understand how this stepfather relationship works. Why are you
hiding from him?”

She understood why people answered
Vin’s questions when he fixed them with his intense stare. But he
wasn’t threatening her, and she wasn’t going to answer his
questions. Now wasn’t about her. “Has vengeance eased the pain of
losing Yalo and you child?”

He looked down at their hands again.
“It’s not over yet.”

“
What will you do when it
is over?” She’d already guessed that he hadn’t planned beyond
revenge.

Vin looked up, over her shoulder
staring into nothing. “It depends. I haven’t figured out yet why
someone from the mine wants to chase this settlement off and will
kill children to do so.”

“
So even if you take care
of the admiral, you’re going to stay and help Hovel
Port?”

“
The next attack might
kill someone.”

Emma couldn’t find words. How was her
training to deal with the convoluted and engrained sense of duty
and sacrifice Vin suffered from? Or did he suffer? Perhaps he was
blessed with this ancient nobility. The men who had made enemies of
the Recon Marines hadn’t understood the soldiers at all. “Hovel
Port is lucky to have you.”

She closed the distance between them,
freeing her hand from beneath his and reaching up to his shoulder.
He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. Despite the
grim nature of their conversation, his body was prepared for her.
His erection pressed into her most sensitive spot. And she was
ready for him.

His lips found hers with a question.
She opened her mouth and answered. Their previous chaste kisses
hadn’t prepared her for the talent of his lips. His hands slipped
under her shirt, touching his skin as lightly as a breeze. The
brush of his rough calluses along her spine sent shivers of
pleasure across her entire torso. Her clothing felt like body
armor.

Vin helped her shimmy out of her shirt.
She reached for the ties on her pants but he stopped her, sitting
up and pulling her up with him. He stared at her breasts, and for
the first time since she was a teenager she wished she had been
endowed a bit better. But Vin took her small breasts in hand, a
look of wonder on his face that made her forget any regret. His
lips followed his hands, a gentle but insistent laving of each in
turn.

She ran her hands through his silky
hair and down over his shoulders. Vin twisted and pressed her onto
her back. His lips never left her breasts until she tugged on his
hair. She needed him to kiss her again. His eagerness overcame some
of his gentle caution. Their hands tangled as they shed the
remainder of their clothing. Vin kicked their pants and boots off
the end of the cot and then pressed his heated body against her
side.

She wanted to explore his body and
savor his pleasure. But her own body outvoted her. He touched her
between her legs, his hands no longer hesitant. Her insides melted,
bathing his fingers. She lifted her hips and asked for
more.

He lifted his lips from hers and looked
down at her. Even if she’d wanted to prolong the anticipation, she
couldn’t deny the aching longing in his beautiful eyes. She opened
her legs further and he moved between them. Though she was a tiny
person, his slim hips fit perfectly. He entered her with more
insistence than her body had prepared for. She gasped in
surprise.

Vin froze, his body poised above her.
He stared at her with stark dismay in his wide eyes, and his mouth
pressed tight.

She wrapped one hand behind his neck
and grabbed his butt with her other. At the same time as she joined
her lips to his again she pulled his hips tight to hers. He filled
her completely, eliciting matching sighs. He guided her into a slow
rhythm, unbroken even when he kissed her. She recognized the
tension building inside her but not the bounds by which it grew.
Urging him with both hands on his behind, she increased the pace of
their lovemaking and worked toward her release. But the pleasure
tightened, spiraling higher and higher. Then it burst, grabbing
Vin’s cock and holding it deep inside her. His groan accompanied
the pouring of his seed.

All remnants of energy drained from
Emma’s body. Vin must have felt the same as he melted down to
sprawl half on top of her. His chest rose and fell as fast as her
own. She smiled with the satisfaction of having pleased her man.
And smiled again as she contemplated the concept of having a man to
call her own. And what a man.

Vin recovered enough to roll off of her
and reach for the blanket. He pulled it over them and lay back. He
drew Emma up against him.

She sprawled half on him and half off
with her head resting on his shoulder. They should talk but already
Vin’s breathing slowed into a sleeping pattern. As her eyes drifted
closed, she noted the barely healed wounds on his torso. His
injuries hadn’t impeded his performance and neither had their
mutual exhaustion. Pleasant thoughts meandered through her groggy
brain, most of them involving Vin. She’d forgotten to tell him that
her stepfather might be on his way. When he woke up, she would
explain. After they made love again.

Chapter Eleven

Emma found Vin working in his shop when
she woke up. She might have called it puttering around if it had
been anyone else. His AI unit sat on one table, awake and working
on something. Vin turned a cylindrical object in front of him at
another table.

She walked up behind him and wrapped
his arms around her waist. After a brief hesitation, he turned into
her hug and returned it. He dipped his head and kissed her, gentle
and so sweet her limps curved into a smile beneath his. His body
reacted in a pleasing way to her hips pressed against
his.

Vin sighed and stepped back from her.
He stared at her with something like suspicion in his gaze and then
turned back to his work.

“
What are you working on?”
The morning sun shone outside the windows and she realized she’d
slept nearly an entire day. She should go start the bread for the
evening meal. Moe’s customers hadn’t had any fresh rolls for a
while now. But instead she rounded Vin’s work table and faced him
across it.

The device looked strange with mirrors
angled to reflect toward one another in a cascading spiral down to
a concave base. Vin used a small laser welder to secure a last
mirror, calling Emma’s attention to his strong, lean fingers and
their ease with the finely detailed work. “Those viral balls still
need to be neutralized. Some alien viruses are resistant to cold
and heat or able to go dormant in order to survive extreme
conditions. Regular burning could create toxic smoke or make the
virus airborne.”

Emma reached out and touched the clever
invention. “Medical facilities had high heat ovens to destroy such
organisms. You’ve created one.”

Vin set aside the welder. “I think I
have. I’ll leave the pellets cook in it until the next rain day.
Then we’ll bury the entire oven in a container of salt.”

“
Sounds like it will do
the job. What do you have the AI doing?”

Vin hefted the oven and carried it over
to the other table. “I saw the type of cyber data device they were
using in the mining office. I have a program running to find their
interstellar signal and follow it back to its source.”

Emma followed him, seeing nothing but
confusing lines of code shifting about the screen. “You can spy on
their communications?”

“
More than that I hope.”
Vin looked over her head toward the door and a moment later it
opened to admit Moe.

“
Hey, there you are, Emma.
I just checked the surgery for you, expecting to find you still
sleeping.” Moe’s eyes narrowed. “Your bed didn’t look slept in, and
I’m pretty sure you’re wearing the same thing you wore the last
time I saw you.”

Emma touched Vin’s arm but there was no
need. He didn’t even glance at Moe, instead frowned down at the AI
screen.

“
I slept here last night,
Moe.” Emma hoped her tone conveyed the idea that it really was none
of Moe’s business. “I was about to join you in preparing
dinner.”

“
You go ahead, lass. I
just need a word here with Vin.”

Emma intercepted Moe as he stalked
toward Vin, wrapping her arm around his. “I have an idea for a new
moose gravy.”

“
Sounds lovely,” Moe
growled. “Get it started and give me a taste. I’ll be right
there.”

“
Vin has work to do,
including taking care of those poisoned pellets before someone else
gets sick.”

Vin looked up from the AI screen. “We
still don’t know exactly what the virus was, but it could be
contagious. A close watch should be kept on anyone who had contact
with the little girl. Who can lead me around to the other pellets
that were found?”

Moe looked indecisive for a moment and
then huffed out an angry breath. “Vannie can show you. He’s outside
right now.”

Emma led Moe toward the door and looked
back at Vin as she opened it. He stared at her with a hungry
intensity that sent her stomach to quivering. She wanted to take
him back upstairs to his bed and keep him there all day. But it
would have to wait. Hovel Port needed him.

* * * *

Vin wondered what Emma’s look meant.
He’d watched her sleep until the gray dawn leaked in the windows.
With great reluctance, he’d left her side and started on the two
important tasks he needed to get to as soon as possible. He’d
wanted to say and wait for her to wake, but more than his desire
had been his fear.

His short time with Yalo had taught him
that women sharing a deep emotion with a man often became amorous.
The emotion could be joy, sorrow or the thrill of victory. Emma’s
eyes had shone with joy and the fierce victory of beating death
when she had entered his shop. Though Vin had been trained to
suppress such distracting feelings, he understood them. He’d feared
Emma would wake and regret falling into his bed while those
emotions drove her desires.

Regret didn’t enter his memories of her
sweet body and tender hands. But guilt cursed his warm thoughts.
Should he have enjoyed being with Emma so much? Already images of
her soft feminine body painted themselves over his memories of
Yalo. Could a man have loved one woman with all his soul and barely
half a year later be drawn to a completely different type of woman
with a fierceness that might outshine what he’d felt for the first
woman?

Vin absently played with the encryption
breaking code, entering older directives that hadn’t been used for
at least a year. This outpost in space might not have the latest
security updates. He let the program to work on its own and took
the oven outside. He wasn’t going to figure Emma out or his
feelings by sitting still and thinking about it. The only thing he
was sure of was how to be a soldier.

Vannie talked to couple of miners in
the middle of the street. All the men had weapons slung over their
shoulders or strapped to their waists. Outdated guns but a good
idea.

“
Vin.” Vannie waved him
over to join them. He slapped Vin on the shoulder hard enough to
remind him of his recent wounds. “How can we thank you enough? I
don’t know how you got that serum and returned so quickly, but you
saved little Julie and probably lots of others.”

The other two murmured their agreement,
offering Vin their rough hands to shake. He shifted the oven to one
arm, the civilian custom starting to feel natural.

“
What’s that you have
then?” Vannie asked.

Vin explained the function and asked
Vannie to lead him to the bio-warfare pellets.

Vannie walked with him toward the end
of town. “We found them all on this side of the street, couple of
dozen scattered right on the other side of the fence as if they’d
been tossed over. How are you going to put them in your little
heater there without touching them? And aren’t you worried about
catching it?”