Born of Fire

“Is there anything else you need, Frion?” the attendant asked.

Pausing, Syn looked back at him. “Yeah, tell Eamon there’s a shipment due in later tonight. He can take that flight or a passenger shuttle. Whatever he prefers. Just have him bill it to the account.”

“Yes, sir.”

Her jaw dropped. “You know the ship’s owner?”

He laughed coldly as he walked past her. “I am the ship’s owner. Eamon is just the captain assigned to her.”

Following him up the ramp, she had a strong urge to kick him. He’d been playing with her all this time? “What do you mean you own this ship?”

He pushed the controls to retract the ramp. “I own one hundred and six of them to be precise. Contrary to your information, I happen to be a shipper, not a thief.”

“You mean your flat and everything you own is—”

“Paid for by honest coin.” He started past her but she stopped him.

“I don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t. And that’s your problem. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to plan. We have to get clearance before the Rits get smart enough to lock down this port. I can’t afford to shoot my way out of a port we use all the time for my real business.”

Dumbfounded, she stood in the narrow corridor while her mind whirled with this new information. Was he a doctor, a shipper, a thief, or a filch?

Just who was this man?

Unsure of what to think, she went to the bridge. Syn sat in the navigator’s chair where he was pulling up course information and coordinates.

Shahara headed for the captain’s chair. No sooner had she seated herself than she noticed the cut above his eye had reopened.

Absently, he brushed the blood aside while he scanned the electronic files.

“Here,” she said, pulling out her small handkerchief from the tiny pocket above her breast. “I can get it.”

She moved to his side.

As she brushed the thin, worn linen over his brow, she could feel his warm breath fall against her throat where it tickled, raising chills the length of her arm, tightening her breasts. He looked up at her with an unfathomable stare. One that hypnotized her.

Even with the bruises marring his face, she couldn’t lose sight of his handsomeness. And as she watched him, his gaze darkened with some thought she couldn’t name.

The handkerchief fell from her hand and she touched his roughened whiskers. They made him appear so rugged and raw, a far cry from the clean-shaven man she’d met just days before. Now he really looked like a dangerous criminal. Like a man who could steal her most private thoughts.

Her very soul.

She should be afraid of him and yet no part of her recoiled as she normally did when a man stood so close. He wasn’t groping or pulling. He just sat there, looking up at her as if waiting for something.

Suddenly she felt his hand at her waist. He trailed it up along her spine until he touched her cheek. Before she could react, he gently pulled her closer.

“So pretty,” he whispered an instant before he claimed her lips.

Shahara trembled at the foreign sensation. His lips weren’t demanding, they were asking. Gentle and kind, they teased her senses . . . whetted a hunger that she’d never known existed. Surrendering herself to her whirling emotions, she leaned into him and allowed him to pull her onto his lap.

Again he whispered his language to her and her body arched for the kisses he began to rain down the column of her throat. Throbbing heat assailed her. She wanted more.

Syn knew he should stop, but for his life he couldn’t pull away. It had been way too long since he’d last held a woman. And this one stoked his passions to the highest level imaginable. She was so brazen and yet so timid.

And her body tasted like honey and spice.

He moaned as she ran her hands through his hair, stroking his scalp. Running his hands over her spine, he felt her move against him an instant before her knee brushed against his bruised ribs.

Pain exploded, blotting out all the pleasure. He gasped in agony.

She tensed a moment before she jumped away. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

“Other than the fact that I feel like my rib just punctured a lung, sure, I’m all right.” He leaned forward, trying to shift the pain.

If he ever got his hands on Merjack . . .

And speaking of, it was probably a good thing she’d accidentally done that. They needed to get out of here. Quickly.

Hormones be damned.

Pushing himself up, he took a shallow breath to steady himself. “If you want to punch in coordinates, I’ll do the preliminaries and fire the engines.”

She nodded and took his vacated chair. Syn paused for a minute as he noted her reddened cheeks and swollen lips. His whiskers had burned a path all the way down her throat and, for some unknown reason, he liked that sight. Somehow it marked her as his.

Don’t even go there.

What was wrong with him? He knew better than to put any claim on a woman. He could never depend on one. Women lied and they betrayed.

The only one he could trust was himself.