Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars

by Melisse Aires

  She tried a smile. A poor effort, given the winged thing inside her, now hissing with a voice darker than the constant fog outside the space port. It fed on her twinge of shame at even considering hitting up a stranger for money.

  "Thanks. I guess you kept me from getting fried. But you must have things to do, so …"

  When his eyes crinkled slightly with amusement, her panic veered in a new direction.

  "Wait. You're not some uppity-up in the space port authority, are you? I wasn't really going to kill the Vulpean." Well, she was, but not publicly. She'd wait until the little sleazebag ventured out into the dark alley behind this section of port, and then she'd …

  She didn't know what she'd do. She'd like to claw her credit out of the gambler, and she knew a few tricks from her years of living in the area near the port, but Vulpeans had claws too, and fangs. She could always pour scalding coffee on him. Teach him to mess with a barista.

  "Do I look like a helmet to you?"

  She let her gaze drift down over him again. For the first time she noticed the charcoal gray business suit tailored to his lean, powerful frame. "Um, no. You don't. So who are you?"

  He smiled, creases grooving his taut cheeks. He had a beautiful mouth, with thin, sensitive lips that belied the ruthless set of his jaw. His teeth gleamed white and straight. The twinkle in his eyes sent a curl of heat straight inside her. Amazing, considering her turmoil. This guy was truly a powerful force.

  Why was he here, anyway? The wealthy didn't stop to buy her coffee. In this old, shabby area of the space port, her stand was frequented by travelers and pilots on the small, discount flights and those of questionable legality. So even if she had the credit for a flashy display like the big MoonPenny chain that had a choke-hold on the port coffee market, she still wouldn't get customers like this one.

  "I'm the man who's going to take you to dinner. Close down your machines, and let's go."

  Dinner? She started to shake her head. But her stomach growled, reminding her it was as hollow as an empty coffee mug. Had she eaten anything but the soy in her latte that morning?

  Besides, that smile of his ... Her light-headedness wasn't all from hunger. Undecided, she pushed away from the counter and pulled the lever that emptied the unused coffee into the recycler. Only a liter left, not too bad. She hated wasting coffee, even the cheap stuff she could afford, but she refused to reheat it and serve it again—smelled like burnt veg and tasted just as bad.

  "Why do you want to take me to dinner?"

  "Maybe I need a barista." He waited by the opening in her counter as she finished tidying the area, cleaned her hands on a moist wipe and tossed it away.

  She grinned over her shoulder, charmed in spite of her turmoil. "No, you don't. Excuse me, I need to close that. I go out the back."

  "Not today. My cruiser is waiting across the concourse. Come."

  A private cruiser? Who was this guy? She planted her feet, facing him. "I’m not going anywhere with you until I know who you are. Name and credentials, please."

  He gave her an approving look. "Wise of you to ask."

  She shrugged. "Slavers have been out. And you don't look like one of those either, but…"

  The slave runners had been getting bolder lately, with all the rioting over jobs going to off-worlders. The cops were preoccupied with keeping the unemployed workers and the crooked unions from blowing up entire city blocks in their battles, and had little time or energy left for individual disappearances.

  When a strange slider with no markings cruised slowly along her block, accompanied by suited-up outriders on aircycles for the third time in recent weeks, it had been the final impetus behind Kiri's reckless gamble. She had to get out of the port slums before she disappeared as well. The slavers had already taken more than she could bear to lose.

  This man didn't look like a slave runner, but appearances could be deceptive. Not every criminal inked their skin and wore leather and outlandish tails of hair like Tal.

  Instead of answering her, he sauntered out onto the concourse, beckoned to her to follow him. When she did, he nodded toward a huge holovid screen hanging from the vaulted ceiling. The ever-present fog swirled high above, carrying the dank smells of cruiser exhaust, dirty streets and the mildew that pervaded the city, summer or winter.

  Kiri frowned up at the display. A panoply of stars against the midnight of space swirled through a complicated pattern that became a gleaming white space cruise ship speeding toward a guiding star. As the ship neared the star, words became visible.

  "'Fly LodeStar,'" she read aloud. "'Where the ride is as good as the destination.'" Starry. Like she had credit for a cruise.

  The ship accelerated out of the hologram, and a group of beings in silver flight suits filled the screen. With muscular builds and direct gazes, they looked like the Intergalactic Space Forces pilots who came through the space port, tough and cool.

  In their center stood her rescuer, the only one wearing business attire. And clearly the man in charge.

  Kiri peered at the man waiting beside her. As arrogant as he was patient, those smoky quartz eyes fixed on her.

  "That's you," she blurted. "You're …"

  "Logan Stark." He bowed slightly. "And you are?"

  "Kiri." She looked at the hand he held out and wiped hers surreptitiously on her smock before holding it out. "Kiri te Nawa." Quark, he had credentials all right, solid iridium.

  His hand engulfed hers, warm and powerful. "Kiri," he repeated as if he were tasting it. "It suits you."

  Her gaze locked with his. Was the gleam in his eyes that of a predator? Had he saved her so he could devour her himself? His grip tightened and she rocked forward onto her toes. Her knees trembled, the warmth of his hand arrowing deep inside her as if he was touching her far more intimately.

  And although his gaze held hers instead of sliding down to catalogue her physical assets in the overt way of many males, she felt uneasily that he saw far more than she wanted him to. The lonely, vulnerable woman inside the veneer, starved for the warmth of a tender touch, for the knowledge that she belonged to someone.

  Oh, quark, that was ridiculous. He was just a guy, a rich one. He wanted what all guys wanted from her, a quick fuck and someone to listen to them. And that was all she could hope for here, someone to make one night less empty and cold. She sure wouldn't be keeping warm with happy thoughts of how she'd invest her winnings.

  But her dark humor was tinged with excitement, the kind she felt when she was about to leap. Much as she reminded herself she needed both feet firmly on the ground, sometimes she reached for stars that were out of her grasp. Sometimes it worked, like investing her savings into this stand, going indie.

  Today's leap had been an epic fail. She'd been flung into empty space with nothing to grab onto. And she quarking hated this feeling. Played hell with her usual confidence.

  Here was an escape from her current freefall. Later she'd figure how to get her credit out of the Vulpean. Because she would have it—she didn't care if what the little vermin had done was legal, no one cheated a te Nawa.

  If it was only for herself, she'd tough it out, but she had another star to grasp. One which might be unreachable, but she'd never give up trying.

  "Coming?" Logan Stark asked.

  Chapter 2

  "All right." Kiri closed up her own kiosk's security grid, and with a last vengeful glare at the now quiet gambling stand, she followed Logan Stark onto one of the small platforms that lifted travelers up to the hoverways. He escorted her onto the moving walkway and they zipped off above the concourse, across a rotunda and along a newer, brighter concourse.

  Hanging onto one of the supports, Kiri studied her escort covertly. He had presence, a kind of force field around him, a magnetism that allowed him to draw others to him, bend them to his will.

  Even now that he wasn't holding onto her physically, she wanted to stay close.

  Quark, maybe he was Indigon and doing some kind of mind control on her. Nah
, he didn't have freaky dark blue eyes, and he certainly didn't have their cold demeanor. His eyes were more like a locked hatch on a molten core of energy.

  He led her off the walkway onto one of the platforms, and it dropped them to the broad, gleaming concourse, near a large MoonPenny coffee stand with a line of well-dressed beings waiting to order.

  Kiri followed Stark into a narrow private docking bay. Beside an open hatch waited a man in a gray flight suit like the pilots on the LodeStar holovid. Beyond, Kiri saw a female flight attendant in a trim, feminine version of the suit. She stood in a short podway, one of those that docked smaller cruisers landing at the space port.

  Logan Stark owned a space corporation and his own cruiser. He was a wealthy, powerful man. Maybe that meant he thought he could do anything he wanted, treat humans as disposable.

  She stopped, just out of earshot of his two employees. He stopped as well, turning back to look down at her.

  "Why do you want to have dinner with me?" she asked. He hadn't really answered her the first time she asked.

  His hooded gaze gleamed, sparking an answering flame deep in her own core.

  "Because you're beautiful, and you interest me," he said, his deep voice wrapping around her like a velvet leash. "Anything else you'd like to know before we board?"

  She swallowed, suddenly breathless. This man, who could probably have any female he wanted, thought she was beautiful? He must like the tired, pale type.

  "Just one. You're not into anything twisty, are you?"

  His brows lifted. "Over dinner? No."

  Kiri's face burned. Right. He hadn't exactly invited her to do him in the back of his cruiser.

  "However," he went on in that same smooth voice. "Should we make the mutual decision for sex later … I suppose it depends on how you define twisty."

  She stared up at him, that heat leaping across the short distance between them. She truly was a gambler at heart, because instead of dousing her desire, his warning only enhanced it. She had a sudden, searing image of him over her, commanding her to let him do very naughty, intimate things. And of herself agreeing.

  Oh, black holes and quarks. She was in trouble enough without getting into some weird sex tangle. There were clubs where wealthy people did all sorts of things. Some of the girls who'd been in trade school with her had gone into prostitution before they were even of age, saying they were going to find a rich being to keep them in style, not work at a trade until they were tired and broken. Kiri had considered it for about five secs, until she thought of nameless and possibly repulsive beings touching her.

  Logan Stark was the opposite of repulsive, but if he expected her to go along to one of those places, she'd have to be ready to run. Unless … she used the opportunity to get some credit out of him. If he wanted a particular sex act badly enough, he'd be willing to pay for it, wouldn't he?

  Except that—no. Seven hells, no. If she prostituted herself, even with him, she'd end up hollow as a modelbot, moving and posing with an artificial smile and empty eyes. What was she willing to do to stop her fall? Not that. The decision was a relief, as if a heavy choice she hadn't even known she'd been carrying had slid off her shoulders.

  He took her arm and gently but inexorably guided her across the bay. "Let's take it one step at a time, shall we?"

  He nodded to the pilot. "Giles. Ms. te Nawa will be joining me for dinner at Jasmine."

  "Very good, sir." The pilot nodded respectfully to both of them.

  The attendant, a slim woman with silver hair, smiled as they walked through the podway.

  "Good starfall, sir, ma'am."

  "Opal, this is Ms. te Nawa. Kiri, Opal will show you where you can freshen up before we take off."

  Kiri followed the other woman through the cruiser, taking in the sheer, quiet luxury of the compact interior. It was all done in soft grays and blues, the floor firm but soft under foot, with chairs that were so wide and deep she could curl up in one and stay for hours.

  She stroked her fingers over a chair back as she passed. Was that skrog leather? It was as soft as the inside of her wrist, at least the parts that weren't scarred from scalding-hot coffee. She couldn't afford 'gesics that grew new skin, just the cheap kind that doused the pain enough to keep working.

  The lavatory gleamed with spotless cerametal and mirrors of faultless reflective material. Opal showed her how to work the toilet and cleansing unit and indicated a discreet section of storage stocked with cosmetics and toiletries.

  As soon as the attendant left, closing the hatch behind her, Kiri touched the mirror wonderingly. Real glass, slick and cool under her fingers. Oh, she'd smudged it. Hastily she pulled a cleansing cloth from the commode and wiped the slight mark of her fingertips from the glass. She cringed at the thought of Logan Stark or his employees knowing she was such a slummer she never saw real glass.

  She stared at herself in the mirror—the familiar reflection of short, dark hair framing an oval face with winged ebony brows, eyes that were brown or amber depending on the color she wore, but which currently had dark shadows beneath them and a mouth that was too soft for her liking. Males liked it, though. She could get them to add extras to their coffee order if she was in the mood to pour on the sex appeal. When she was out at the clubs, she could get pretty much any guy who took her fancy.

  Logan Stark thought she was beautiful. She lifted her hands to her face, tracing the curve of high cheekbones and stubborn jaw. Of course he could have just been saying that to get her to have sex, but he found her attractive, or he wouldn't want to have sex.

  Kiri shivered as she again imagined him touching her. Oh, glory. Would she have time for a shower-dry first? She sniffed her armpit and grimaced—coffee and sweat. Not too bad, but still.

  She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to comb the unruly waves into a semblance of order. She'd done a crap job cutting it. In the cubby of toiletries, she found some hair cream that smelled wonderful. She dabbed and tucked until her hair was in some semblance of order.

  She used the lavatory, wishing she could spend some time in the sleek shower-dry. The tube in her tiny apartment emitted water either too cold or too hot and smelled funky even after she ran the cleaning cycle.

  She washed her hands, grimacing at them too. She needed a manicure. Her nails were clean, but her hands were rough and chapped, with burns old and new marring her golden skin.

  Well, it was honest labor that had made them so, nothing to be ashamed of. This was just a moment out of time for her. She'd have dinner with Logan Stark and maybe more, and then it would be back to her life in the dark, gritty streets of New Seattle.

  For a moment, remembering the black hole her life had imploded into with the loss of all that credit, she wanted to huddle on the floor and whimper. But she wouldn't let herself crumble. She'd get through this somehow, just as she always did. She had a few friends, and she had her coffee stand, and she had her own lodestar, the purpose that kept her going every day.

  This dinner with him was just an aberration in her orbit. Hopefully a safe one.

  * * *

  Logan Stark waited with keen anticipation for his guest to return to the main cabin of his cruiser. Kiri Te Nawa might not be polished, perfumed and physically enhanced as the women he usually took, but she was beautiful as a wild doe.

  No, a wild cat, he corrected himself, amused. With those tilted eyes spitting golden fire, and her slender hands clawed to attack the sleazy gambler, she resembled the Tyger females he'd met on the planet Bryght. She must have Tygean blood in her ancestry.

  Her husky voice added to the illusion. Perhaps she'd suffered damage to her larynx at some point, but he found the slight roughness in her voice, the way it cracked under emotion, unexpectedly alluring.

  Her slim, taut body had felt very good in his arms, too. She had a curvy ass below her small waist, and in her snug uniform, her breasts were high and round. Not as large as he usually preferred, but then that was what made women so fascinating—their en
dless variety, the mystery of discovering what made each one of them unique.

  This one had a spirit as wild as the cats she reminded him of, and she shone like a sleek purebred in a pack of alley-bred mongrels.

  He'd found her by accident. With time on his hands after a meeting with space port authorities, he'd been walking. Out of curiosity, he'd ended up in the oldest section of the space port. He passed loading bays for discount cruise lines and smaller private bays that he guessed shrewdly were used by those who preferred to avoid the brightness of the new concourses, their trade better conducted in the shadows.

  There were families and business travelers just like on the new main concourses, but these folk were shabbier. A few toughs cast him avaricious looks, as if wondering whether he could be dragged into a dark alcove and robbed. Stark watched them decide against aggression and move on, realizing he was no easy mark despite his grooming. Wise choice on their parts.

  His brother Joran would say he was slumming. Because he'd been here before, many times. Once this shabby area had seemed palatial to youths looking for a safe place to get in out of the cold rain and scavenge something to eat and drink.

  And while he'd never mugged innocent travelers as these toughs would, in the darkest times he and Joran had rolled a few druggers in the dark streets outside the port. With bellies so empty they hurt, and Creed to feed as well, it had been one of the choices between survival and death.

  Stark had shaken off the dark memories and was about to turn away when lights caught his eye. The holomarquee of a coffee bar glowed cheerily ahead, contrasting with the garish bar sign across the way and the dark, barred-up space alongside. That valiant little sign drew him. As he neared the stand, he saw that it was clean and bright, with neat racks of snacks and souvenirs.

  Then he saw the barista. A slim, vibrant figure in her fitted black, she moved with the grace of a dancer as she scrubbed the small countertop of her stand. He stopped for a moment, simply appreciating.