Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “Er, we?”

  Was she alarmed or intrigued by the notion? He couldn’t tell.

  “Whoever wanted to kiss me on a sofa.” Viktor took another bite of meatloaf. This wasn’t how he had imagined this meeting going. “I do have a couple of questions for you, Ms. Markovich, if you’d be inclined to answer.”

  “Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.” She nodded, looking relieved at the change to a more formal tone. She even took a bite of her dinner.

  “Where did you learn mashatui?”

  She sputtered, flecks of meatloaf flying out of her mouth. Apparently that had been too blunt a question to start with. He handed her a napkin.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, wiping her mouth, and then the spattered table. Thoroughly. Buying time before answering, was she? Because she did, indeed, have something to hide? Or because it was an uncomfortable subject?

  “My father,” she finally said.

  “He was from Spero?”

  “We all were.”

  Ah. One question answered. “You escaped the destruction.”

  Had she been nearby when it happened? Perhaps been in orbit and seen it with her own eyes? The way he had for his world’s destruction?

  “We’d left a week earlier. My father had a job offer on Novus Earth, one that evaporated after... Let’s just say GalCon didn’t trust Speronians for a while.” Markovich gave him a puzzled expression. “Why do you...? I mean, these aren’t the kinds of questions I expected you to ask.” Or care about, her tone said.

  Yes, and why did he care? Why was he asking? “You’re something of an enigma. I’m trying to figure you out.” That sounded plausible. Maybe.

  “I’m not that complicated. Really. My father didn’t get the job, and there was no home to go back to—” her mouth twisted, “—so my brothers and sisters and I grew up in the slums of Calimar on Novus Earth. Sometimes we had a place to stay; sometimes we were on the street. My father always kept us together though, made sure we didn’t starve. Financially, he had nothing, and he had to do jobs well beneath his education level, but he loved us, and he gave us... his culture, his sense of honor. I don’t know what you’d call it. He taught us a lot, and he always made me want to be a better person than our situation and my own tendencies might have otherwise warranted.” She smiled faintly for the first time. She was still wiping the table, though she didn’t seem aware of it. “He hated it when we stole. Better to starve than to act without honor, he’d say. Though...” She squinted up at Viktor and pointed a finger at his nose. “I’m positive he’d have no qualms about stealing if it was to escape an enemy.”

  “Hm,” Viktor said, not ready to give more, not ready to admit that his mind was working over her words, what it would mean to be raised by a Speronian practitioner. “This business of yours, it’s not the first?” He didn’t want to mention her ship and bring the loathing back to her eyes, but he was trying to work out how someone who had grown up in poverty could have acquired a craft. Even if it had clearly been a clunker, spaceships weren’t cheap under any circumstances, and it had apparently been full of expensive scientific equipment.

  “Oh, it’s at least the tenth.” Markovich tapped her fingers on the table, counting. “The eleventh. Twelfth if you count the recycling craze. To this day, I can give you the spot price of more than two hundred metals that trade on the market. Well, I haven’t had a chance to check the market for a couple of days, but...” She spread her hand.

  Viktor grunted. Then, feeling he should say more, thus to encourage her to continue speaking, he added, “No other prisoners have asked for market feeds to be delivered to the brig.”

  “No? How odd.”

  He chewed on a bite of food while he tried to think of another question that would lead her to answer his unspoken one. The food had been lukewarm to start and was cold by this point, but he barely noticed. His mind wasn’t on the meal.

  “The recycling stint was what gave me seed money for my first real business. I’d learned early on, you see, that working for someone else didn’t suit me.” She paused for effect, or so the twinkle in her eyes said. “I discovered that when I was selling pet hair detangling devices door to door.”

  He thought it was a joke at first, but nobody would make up something like that, would she?

  “It was for a pet grooming company. I’d never had a pet in my life, unless you count the stray cats that wandered all over the back streets of Calimar, but I was working on commission and did my best to detangle every cat, dog, gerbil, and furred lizard in the city, thus to show off my product. It wasn’t the worst thing I’d done, but the company was very strict about the sales pitch you had to give and it was... ludicrous. Pay was by commission only and usually late. I never worked for anyone else after that. My first business success was in that industry though, building a system for people to find lost pets. I should tell you, lest you think my whole life has been silly, that I was fifteen, sixteen at this time. I had a couple of more serious businesses later on. I didn’t get into the medical industry until I met Lauren, who helped me with some of my own issues. I’m sure you don’t want the details, but let’s just say that she made me a believer with her microbiota transfer solution, and I agreed to help figure out a way to finance her research into the ancient alien gut bugs. I’m, ah, talking a lot, aren’t I? Is this what you had in mind with your questions?” She shrugged, looking sheepish, but at least she had lost some of that nervousness. Her rambling didn’t bother him the way it might coming from others. He wasn’t sure why. He usually preferred silence, but the solitude of command did sometimes grow old.

  “Perhaps not exactly,” he murmured. “I’d been wondering what crime you committed against Felgard.”

  It was the wrong thing to bring up. Her sheepishness vanished, replaced by irritation. “I haven’t committed any crimes. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you people. I could be researching and trying to figure out why he wants me, but I’ve been locked away without access to the net.” She threw him an accusing look, and he had a feeling she had remembered her destroyed ship. She pushed her plate away, clearly ready to leave.

  Viktor caught her wrist. It was silly when she was angry with him, but he didn’t want to let her go—or escort her back to the brig, as the case would be. A look of raw fear entered her eyes, as if she thought he would strike her, and he let her go immediately. “Ank—Markovich.” Why couldn’t he remember not to use her first name? “If you’d—”

  She stood, almost stumbling over the chair, righting it, then rushing to put it between them, even though he hadn’t taken a step toward her. “Captain, I know you’re busy and have work. I thank you for dinner, but if you’re done asking questions, I’d like to go.”

  Viktor sighed. “As you wish.”

  He walked after her toward the exit, but as she was about to walk through the doorway, she stopped, turning so quickly, he tensed, almost expecting an attack.

  She surprised him, not by attacking but by apologizing. “Wait, I’m sorry.” She lifted a hand, palm open toward him. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry. I intended... I wanted to thank you for sending our gear to us.”

  “All right,” he said, keeping the suspicion out of his voice, but her sudden change of attitude set off his alarms.

  When she had been chattering about her background, that had been her, the real her, he’d sensed, but maybe she had forgotten with whom she was having dinner and had inadvertently let her shields down. The calculation was back in her eyes now, along with that quiet fury she felt toward him. Her smile wasn’t genuine, not the way it had been when she had been discussing recycling businesses.

  Of course, she was attractive whether those smiles were genuine or not, and it didn’t escape his attention that, because of the way she had turned so abruptly, they were standing with only a few inches between them. And she hadn’t stepped back to adjust that distance, to make it less intimate. The scent of lavender and lilacs, ever so faint, drifted to his nose. He swallowe
d, aware of the fullness of her lips, of the sleek line of her neck running down to her collarbone. He would like to see more of that collarbone, of all of her. Get her out of that dusty, unflattering jumpsuit.

  She was watching his eyes. Reading his thoughts? They weren’t that original. She had doubtlessly attracted enough men to know when one was thinking of sofas, or beds as the case might be. Or dining room tables in empty rooms, late at night, with nobody else around to hear them.

  Dining room tables with handcuffs on them, Viktor reminded himself. The handcuffs of a criminal. Although... more and more, he was questioning if she was truly a criminal, especially now that she’d spoken of her father as someone who had raised her with honor—something he believed because of what he knew about mashatui practitioners. But she didn’t know he was wavering, and he wasn’t ready yet to tell her he believed her, to risk being made a fool. Especially with that calculation glittering in her eyes. But there was indecision there too. What did it mean? That she was going to try and distract him so she could pickpocket him? He remembered the way she had watched him put away the electronic key. It wouldn’t open the brig force field, but she might not know that. Or maybe she did and had a plan for that. He wouldn’t put it past her to trick someone into letting her out again. The key would open the doors on the ship the rest of the crew members had access to.

  “Captain,” she said, and instead of backing away, she put a hand on his shoulder and stepped closer.

  She licked her lips. Yes, she was up to something, perhaps the very something he suspected. But all he could focus on was the way her tongue moistened her lips. He could kiss those lips... and still pay attention to what was happening to his pocket.

  “Viktor,” he whispered.

  “Oh? Are you always so familiar with your prisoners?” She was trying to sound nonchalant, but it didn’t quite come off. She might be attractive, but he either made her nervous or she wasn’t a very practiced seductress.

  He put a hand on her waist, and she tensed. For a moment, he thought she might forget this mission she’d given herself and turn to flee. She stayed, but she licked her lips again, the pink tip of her tongue darting out before disappearing back into her mouth. He couldn’t pull his gaze from her full lips.

  “You’re not in my command. You can use Mandrake if you prefer.” He found her uncertainty more appealing than brazenness would have been, though it bothered him to know she wasn’t genuinely attracted to him, that she was working up the courage to try something. It didn’t bother him enough to let her go. “May I call you Ankari?” He was tired of thinking of her as Markovich. Ankari was a much more appealing name. A more feminine one.

  She didn’t answer right away. She peered into his eyes. Trying to figure him out in the same way he had been puzzling over her? “If you want to,” she said.

  “Good.” Viktor massaged her through her jumpsuit, caressing her waist. When she didn’t pull away, he eased his hand around to her back, rubbing her muscles and nudging her toward him, as well. Or maybe he crept toward her. He wasn’t sure, but noticed when her breasts brushed his chest. There were layers of fabric between them, but the soft touch sent a charge through him, nonetheless. His groin stirred. How far would she let him go in her attempt to distract him? How far should he go... with a prisoner?

  Nowhere. This wasn’t wise.

  Yet his other hand joined the first, massaging her waist, the small of her back. He inched closer to her. That alarm returned to her eyes, and she shifted one hip away from him, almost bumping against the wall. He should release her, end the game she was attempting to play, and take her back to the brig. He was already going to be spending the night imagining what might have been if he had shoved her up against the wall, kissed her breathless, and torn that jumpsuit off her. With his teeth.

  But she didn’t pull farther away from him. “The doctor said you had another name,” she murmured.

  “Huh?” he uttered, his mind elsewhere.

  “Besides Viktor.” Despite that concern that had flashed through her eyes, Ankari didn’t remove her hand from his shoulder. She slid it to the back of his neck and scraped her fingernails through his hair.

  A hot surge of blood flowed to his groin, and his trousers grew uncomfortably tight. They hadn’t even kissed, and he wanted nothing more than to mash her against him and have his way with her. “She tell you what it is?” he asked, struggling to track the conversation.

  “No.”

  “Good.” He gave her a tight smile.

  Ankari kept kneading the back of his neck, her fingernails grazing his skin, and it was making him want to descend upon those lips and kiss her senseless. She leaned her chest against him, her other hand stroking his waist through his shirt, her thumb slipping beneath his belt, teasing his stomach. The muscles there shivered beneath her touch, and he wanted very much for that hand to delve lower.

  If it did, it would be to his pocket, he reminded himself. And he would stop her when she reached for it, but then this encounter would end. He should end it now, before it came to that. His hands drifted from the small of her back down to cup her butt. He should turn her around and prompt her to start walking back to the brig. But she was tilting her face up toward him, displaying those full shining lips that he wanted so much to taste.

  “I get Spero,” Viktor said, the words surprising him.

  Her hands stopped moving, and she stared at him. Why had he said that? All he knew was that he wanted her to not hate him. For this to be something besides some onerous task for her. If that was possible.

  “What?” she breathed, her lips inches from his own.

  “I know you were young, but I get how it must have shaped your life growing up. I’m from Grenavine.” He could have explained further, but he didn’t think he had to. There were only two worlds that had been destroyed in the system. Everybody knew about them.

  She didn’t respond, didn’t move, barely blinked. He wasn’t sure why he’d told her that; he didn’t tell anyone. But he wanted her to know that if she wasn’t a criminal, if this all had been a mistake or some play by Felgard to get her business, he would be sympathetic to her plight. He just needed time to figure it out. After this next mission was over, they would have days in space and a stop for repairs before reaching Felgard’s planet, plenty of time for research. So long as she didn’t do something foolish in the meantime. No, escaping wouldn’t be foolish from her perspective—wouldn’t he be trying to do the same thing if he were the captured one?—but it was clear that more people than just he knew about her bounty and would be watching for her.

  He ought to tell her these things, not simply think them. Yes, that would be useful, but some of the calculation had gone out of her eyes at his revelation, and she was looking at him with... concern? Wonder? Understanding? Whatever it was, it wasn’t loathing, and the new expression tugged at something inside him the way the other one hadn’t.

  It could still be a ruse. That knowledge didn’t keep him from opening his mouth and welcoming her when she melted against him, her lips reaching up to his. They were warm and full, eager and sensuous. All he had hoped. He inhaled deeply, the scent of her shampoo, of her skin—of her—making him heady. He tasted her, nibbled at that bottom lip she had been licking all night, understood the draw...

  Her earlier hesitancy disappeared, and her hands slid across his shoulders, down his arms, and around his waist. She rose on her tiptoes, deepening the kiss, her mouth hungry, excited by him. She leaned into him, rubbing against him. Raw heat coursed through him, every part of him rigid where she was soft.

  He pressed into her, stroking her body, exploring it more brazenly than before. His finger brushed the corner of something in the pocket on the side of her thigh, and he would have laughed if his tongue and lips hadn’t been otherwise occupied. So that was what she had been nervous about. Afraid he would discover that she had pilfered a tablet? It wasn’t his; he could still feel the weight of his in his own cargo pocket. He would have to wat
ch for the key though. That was so small that he wouldn’t miss it if light fingers made it disappear.

  Right now, her fingers were a little higher up, more interested in slipping under his shirt and stroking his abdomen and waist. A very acceptable place for them. He let his own fingers go back to roaming. The jumpsuit was problematic. He wanted to touch silky flesh, not rough fabric.

  As they kissed, Viktor followed the curves of her body with his hands, eliciting a soft moan of pleasure when he grazed the side of her breast. He found the fastener beneath her collar and slid his finger down it. The garment peeled open. He thought about pulling it all the way off her shoulders and dropping it to the floor, but that would require her to stop touching him while she lifted her arms out. He didn’t want that. A conundrum. He settled for this new access. Only a lightweight camisole lay beneath the jumpsuit, and she groaned when he stroked her through it.

  A ruse? Or was she genuinely enjoying herself? It seemed that way, but he couldn’t forget that he was an obstacle to her, one she had come here tonight to deal with. He ought to check on that key—her hands had drifted lower—but she seemed distracted from her mission. She had forgotten to keep that outside hip away from him, and her whole body was molded against his now, his heat mingling with hers like magma in a volcano.

  He growled deep in his throat, needing less clothing between them. One of her hands paused on his belt clasp, and her lips stilled. She lifted her eyes toward his, a question there. As if she needed to ask. He lowered his lips to her neck, again breathing in the scent of her warm skin, tasting her, the lingering dust from those ruins making him think of sharing a shower with her later, but now... He tugged the suit off her shoulders even as she fumbled with his belt.