Runner: The Fringe, Book 3 (22 page)

Shamefully, she realized she’d taken the same risk with Foster. She’d been so caught up in the moment, she didn’t think about the consequences. Exercising rigid self-control her entire life then, to fall so rapidly, one man to another, made her wonder what kind of woman she really was. Tawdry wench sprang instantly to mind, causing her to laugh against tears. She’d kissed only four men once upon a time. Five now. And she took all of them to her bed, but none so firmly as she took Mr. Nash. Not just to her bed but to the limits of her heart and soul.

Gripping horror suddenly clutched her belly, and she almost swooned. Brandt’s child. Brandt blessed with the same ability to project. If Roberts found out…

Foster entered, strode to the tray, looked at it, then kicked it across the room. Swearing the most vulgar stream of foul words, he proceeded to kick the tray and the test stick all the way to the cell room door.

She’d never seen such a display of physical fury, and she was thankful for the thick bars between them.

“You needed not concern yourself, Mr. Nash. It isn’t
your
child.”

Red-faced, he spun and pinned her with blazing azure eyes. “You think it matters? You think I give a shit who’s kid—” He cut himself off by picking up the tray and the stick. He stomped out of the cell room.

She didn’t understand why he was so upset. It wasn’t his child. Her heart surged when she thought maybe he wanted it to be. But he seemed proud of the fact that he always took precautions. He took them with her, and she didn’t even know it. Had she been looking, she would have felt the B-chip under his arm, but she hadn’t bothered.

Pondering his fury, turning it in her mind with an almost scientific detachment, she felt her eyes go wide when she understood.

“No.” She shot to her feet. “No.” Such fury and anger were because he’d decided to take her to Roberts. He’d changed his mind since yesterday. That was why he was livid. It was one thing to take her to Roberts, but to take her, now even more vulnerable because she was pregnant—that was what infuriated him. Foster didn’t want to turn her over, but he was going to do it anyway.

Glaring up at the com, she said, “You changed your mind, didn’t you? You
are
taking me to Roberts.”

Chapter Twenty

Foster avoided talking to her for three days. No matter how much she yelled and screamed, he refused to say a word. He just left her food and skedaddled away like a coward. Where once she didn’t react the way he thought she should, she more than made up for it now that she had something to live for.

Digging her verbal heels into his back, she called him a baby killer, and he’d finally exploded, “Don’t you dare! That’s your fault, not mine!”

Her eyes lit up when she’d finally forced him to speak. “That’s right. It is my fault, and I’m not blaming you. Are you going to finally admit the truth that you’re taking me to Roberts, or are you going to run away again like a cowardly little boy?” Blazing, sultry amethyst eyes pinned him. “Just tell me the truth, Foster. That’s all I’m after.”

He couldn’t believe he was going to put a dangerous and potentially deadly plan into action, knowing it could go horribly wrong in a million ways. Even if he succeeded, he knew he would hurt her so badly that she’d never speak to him again. He cared deeply about that, but he’d be happy if he could just keep her alive, willingly giving her up so some other man could love her the way he did, and give her child a father and a safe place to call home. All the arrangements were made. He just had to get her to Juno.

Swallowing down all his trepidation, he put on his ugliest face. “I’m not going to run away. You’re too valuable for that. Know what the bounty on your head is, Sweets?”

Her lovely eyes went as round as her shocked mouth. “You’re doing this for the money?”

“270Mil would change any man’s mind.” To his own ears, he sounded like a total jerk. “I’ll never have to work another day in my life. I get to retire with the biggest and baddest rep in the universe to boot.”

“All of this was about money?” She clutched the bars so hard, her fists went white.

“Naw. Money wasn’t the only reason.” He gave her a slow glance from her sock-covered toes to her gleaming honey-blonde hair. Hitching his thumbs to the belt loops of his jeans, he let his hands draw attention to the bulge in his pants. “There were other
benefits
to holding you back.” Not a woman in the Void would miss the glaring implications of what he said by what he did.

Blanching white, she gulped and softly asked, “You played me?” She looked at him with baffled eyes. “You toyed with me for money and sex?”

“Sure. Why not? You made it easy. And fun. Corrupting the IWOG lady right out of you. Even told you to your face I wanted to. You not only let me, you encouraged me. I told you I was a very bad man who would hurt you. You just wouldn’t believe me.”

“You’re lying to me. Why are you doing this?”

He wanted to stop right now, pull her into his arms, kiss her desperately and take everything back. Resolute, he stood his ground.

“I’m doing this because I’m a ruthless bastard. I told you that, too. Patted your lovely butt the first time I said it. Remember? When you were over my shoulder crying in that ratty motel room?” He laughed as the memory flashed in her eyes. “Later, when you were trying to get into my pants, you said a ruthless bastard would be flattered by your interest and take advantage of it.” He winked. “You were right.”

Shaking her head side to side, she fought back a burbling cry of anguish. “Stop it.”

“Naw. That works for the computer game. Or the sex game. Doesn’t work for real life, I’m afraid.” He approached her cage. “You wanted to talk. You wanted the truth. Well, here you go. Happy?”

“Sex game?”

“That’s what it was, wasn’t it? You told me to stop thinking so much and just play with you. Holy shit! You actually bought my shy guy routine.” He flashed her a cutting smirk. “And the way you worked to talk me into it. I tell you, I’ve never had a woman so willing to be taken advantage of.”

Humiliation flared in her eyes, causing her to look away. He wanted to take out his gun and blow his own head off when tears gathered, obscuring her gaze. Instead, he pushed forward, determined to make her hate him.

“I swore when I ordered you to ride me, it was all over.” His dark laughter drew her attention to his face. “Nope. You took me up on it and did a damn fine job of obeying all my orders. Like a good little slut, you did whatever the hell I told you to.”

Her jaw dropped, and for the longest time, she just looked at him, horrified and hurt. Negating his words with a subtle shake of her head, she let go of the bars and took a step back. “Don’t you dare try to make that ugly when it wasn’t.”

“Ugly? Hell no. Nasty is what it was. Down and dirty and decadently lewd. I called you a slut, and you certainly lived up to it. I enjoyed every second of our master-and-servant game.”

Her violet eyes, blurred with tears, cleared, pinning him to the spot. For the first time ever, he was afraid of Jynx Brennan. Suddenly, it felt like there was a bag of sand on his head, and someone poured water on it. His head hurt, and he clutched it with both his hands. Terror sharpened his mind when he realized Jynx tried to read him by projecting into him. She hadn’t lied about how bad it hurt. Vise grips closed along his skull as magma erupted in his brain. He locked his mind down to the only thing he could think of.

Damn You.

He said the phrase over and over and over, for at least a full five minutes, until the weight finally abated. Shaken by exhaustion, he looked up to find that Jynx shook so badly she had to sit down on her prison bunk.

Bursting into tears, she covered her face with her hands.

“I’m sorry, I was angry. I won’t do it again, I just—”

“Wanted to find out if I was lying.” Taking a deep breath, sucking down a burst of fear, he let anger fill him. “I’m not. You try to get in my head like that again and I’ll drug you.”

Raw fear filled her eyes as she touched her belly. “No.”

“Right. Drugs might hurt the brat, so don’t do it again. Got it?”

“Yes.” She sat there dazed, shaking her head softly as tears rolled down her cheeks. One quivered on the edge of her lip, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “I won’t cause you any trouble, Mr. Nash.” Her voice fell flat, toneless and devoid of passion. Wrung out like a dishrag, she gave up as quickly as she had the first time.

Cursing himself a thousand times over in his head, he left the cell room without another word and without looking at her. Making his way to the bridge, he settled at his chair and pounded furiously at the main console.

Not long now. One more day and they’d be in orbit around Juno. He’d hand her over to Roberts and go on his way.

Shocked by her aggression, Jynx sat shaken on her bunk. She couldn’t believe she’d deliberately used her gift to give back the pain he inflicted on her. On the heels of that thought came another, that she should have used her skill much sooner.

“I hurt him knowing I would hurt him because he was hurting me and I wanted to know why.” Slapping her hand over her mouth, Jynx darted her gaze around the cell room. Foster could be listening to her, watching her. Before, she didn’t think he was, but now, she wasn’t so sure.

He’d just been playing her. Heaven help her, she let him. Helped him! She felt like an idiot. Falling in love with him, trusting him, and to make matters worse, telling him! She rolled her eyes at the folly of sharing her body and soul with a man who turned out to be utterly false. Foster was a compelling façade that lured her into an empty room.

A rush of anxiety swept from her toes to her fingertips. She couldn’t trust anything she knew or thought she knew about Foster, and the realization made her heart pound as her breath became ragged.

“Stop it,” she whispered to herself. “It doesn’t matter what he said, it doesn’t matter what he did or why. What matters is surviving. He won’t kill me, because Roberts wants to do it. I’m getting off the
Damn You
alive, so I need to keep my focus on Roberts.”

Taking a deep breath, telling herself to relax over and over, she got her heart to stop pounding. If Foster watched her, let him, he’d see no different than he already had. He admitting to playing her, but she hadn’t played him, and she wasn’t going to start now.

Keeping her focus to her goal, she thought about what she knew and didn’t know. How much time did she have? She realized they could be hanging in orbit around Juno just waiting for clearance from Roberts to land. She may have only hours left, and she had to get ready now. At the moment, she wore a flannel plaid robe and Foster’s ugly mustard T-shirt. It fell slightly below the edge of her bottom, but the robe fell to her mid calves.

Casually, she tidied her cell. She set the books on the table and made her bunk. Where the hell were her panties? At one point, Foster had returned her laundered dress but not her panties or her bra, and she needed them.

“Looking for these?”

She spun around. Foster entered the cell room with her white lace bra and panties dangling from his finger. Wagging them back and forth with a suggestive smirk, he walked right up to the door of her cage.

“If you want them, come and get them.”

His low voice mocked her by vibrating her body from her nipples to her suddenly throbbing clit. Drawing his robe protectively about her, tying the belt securely, not knowing his true game, she refused to play his overtly sexual one.

“Yes. I was looking for those. I need to wash them. I’ll want to wear them when you triumphantly take me into Roberts’s custody.” She stepped forward and tugged her garments from his hand.

He crooked his finger and tried to draw her to the bars.

Frightened, she let go and stood well back.

“Don’t want to play that game anymore?” His eyes were almost feverishly bright. Quickly assessing him, she looked for signs of drugs or alcohol. Truly, he was not himself in some way she couldn’t put her finger on. Who was she kidding? For all she really knew about him, he could be a very clever push addict.

“The sex game?” She tossed her head with cool disdain. “If that’s what you want to call it, and even if that’s what you think it was, I didn’t then and I don’t now. I don’t play games like that, Mr. Nash. I had sex with you because I wanted to.”

He smirked and offered her dangling lace underclothes again.

“If you’re trying to make me regret my actions, think them ugly or feel ashamed, you are wasting your time.” Placing her hands on her hips, she looked right into his eyes. “If you’re looking for a repeat, you’re also wasting your time. Either give me my underclothes or take them and do whatever you want to with them.”

He wagged them back and forth again, trying to lure her to the cell door.

“What is wrong with you?” She stepped farther back into her cell. “I’m not coming anywhere near you, Mr. Nash. Especially when you’re behaving like a lunatic.”

“I like that word. Lunatic.” He said it again and rolled his mouth around it. “Rolls off the tongue in a harsh way. Hardly anyone uses it anymore. Well, except for a lady like you, that is. IWOG lady too civilized to use the dirty words. Those juicy words. Like prick. And bastard. I’m behaving like a fucking asshole. Why don’t you just say so?”

After a glance to her soiled panties and bra hanging from his finger, she met his gaze. “I don’t know what you want. I don’t know why you’re doing this. I really don’t even care. Just go away.”

“So now you don’t want these panties?” Foster lifted them up. “They smell like you.”

She felt her face rush hot with a startled shock of desire. Wide-eyed, she watched as he considered the scrap of lace hanging from his finger. No doubt they smelled like her, since the last time she’d been wearing them was right before she plastered herself against him in his leather pilot chair.

“Why don’t you just keep them as a souvenir, then?”

“Thanks.” He tucked them into his front pocket. Right next to a straining bulge he rearranged while she watched. “I’d much rather get back to the source, though.”