“You make it impossible to think,” she whispered. Her feet dug into the bed as she tried to entice his lips upward.
Rick took his time exploring her, not wanting the moment to end. He kissed down her legs before returning to the apex of her thighs.
Harper gripped his hair, tugging his face against her sex. She arched against his mouth, crying out in pleasure as he tasted her. Her foot pushed along his arousal, rubbing near his hip.
The universes faded until all that was left was this bed and this woman. He moved up along her body, needing to be inside her again. Her nails raked along his back to his ass, finding hold as he came above her. Their lips met in forceful passion as if each tried to consume the other. Hands moved everywhere they could reach, gripping and stroking. Tiny moans sounded from their throats.
Rick tried to savor the moments, but they became faster and faster until each touch, scratch, bite, kiss blended into mindless perfection. He kept his hips back, kept from entering her, as he made sure she built toward her climax.
Harper rolled him onto his back and straddled his waist. This was a woman who took want she wanted from him, and he was happy to let her. Rick would do anything for her—protect her, help her, give his life. That was the only way he knew how to love.
There was a desperation to her movements when she drew his cock into her depths. He’d had many fantasies in this room, but they all paled to the reality that was Harper. Her head tilted back in pleasure. He held her hips and watched her breasts as she moved.
Rick wanted to give her every part of himself. Her hands dug into his chest. The second he felt her tremble in climax he joined her with his own hard release. He held her hips tight against him.
The tremors subsided, and her hands slid from his chest to press into the mattress. She gave him a brief kiss, her breath falling heavy against his cheek.
“I told you I was astounding,” Rick whispered as she rolled off him.
“And still so modest,” she answered with a laugh.
He wished she would say she loved him but would happily settle for any admission of affection. Instead, she closed her eyes.
“We should sleep while we can,” Harper said. “Who knows when we’ll get another chance.”
He moved onto his side to give her more room on the smaller bed and put his arm around her waist to keep her next to him.
“Did you figure out when we’d arrive?” She snuggled into him.
“We have about two days, depending on our final route,” he said. “It’s a good thing, too. Any longer and we’d have to detour to a fueling dock.”
“You do know attacking the Ingeniare Trio is insane, don’t you?” She opened one eye to look at him.
He gave a small laugh to hide the worry he felt. Now that he knew what she was up against, there was no way he’d let her go on alone. “Insanity is part of the fun, starbeam. If it wasn’t dangerous, everyone would be doing it.”
11
“Are you sure this is something your crew wants to do?” Harper stared at the viewing screen. The deep blackness of space was a familiar sight, and still if she allowed herself, she could see the immense beauty in the expanse of stars. A smear of magenta and purple dust cut across the darker sky. The nebula appeared brighter than most she’d seen. “You don’t have to. I can tell you where to drop me off, and I can continue on alone.”
She knew Rick’s answer before he said it, but she had to offer.
“I already told you, babycakes, we’re not letting you have all the fun.” He winked at her before returning to the long list of numbers he was analyzing on an electronic clipboard. “Besides, you may need me to save your ass again.”
“I think I was the one doing most of the saving,” she answered.
“That’s because you like me.” Rick didn’t look up.
I love you. His words echoed in her head.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it,” Harper said with a small sigh, watching to see if he’d give her his attention. Every time he looked at her, he smiled. “Up here in space, you can almost believe that the universes are a wonderful place.”
“Mm-hmm.” He didn’t glance up at the nebula.
“What are you looking at?” She moved to lean over his chair.
“I sent a small probe out to see what’s in that thing,” Rick said. “My gut says to fly around it, but that will burn more fuel and take more time.”
“You think it’s manmade?” she asked, looking at the bright lights. Usually, a nebula’s gravitational pull didn’t bother a ship, and they could fly past them without noticing anything beyond a beautiful view.
“I think,” he pointed toward the viewing screen, “that center is suspicious. It looks like someone is trying to set up a new planetary system out here, and they’ve accelerated the process.” He gestured at a block of the numbers on this clipboard. “See, none of this is reading right. If we fly too close, it could knock out our power and pull us in. I am handsome, and I know the ladies like to look, but I don’t want a new star cluster named after me quite yet. The Rick galaxy will just have to wait.”
“You’re just…” She gave a small laugh, knowing he was joking around.
“Yeah, I know.” He grinned even as he kept looking at the readings.
She moved back to stare at the bright center. “I’ve heard of aliens trying to do this. I’ve never seen it though.”
“I don’t see a name for it in the star charts,” Rick answered. “I’m going to tag it as the Harper Nebula when we go past. Named after the prettiest lady I know. And I’ll have a picture of your lovely face pop up each time a passing ship reads the geotag.”
It was almost too sweet.
“I’d rather you pick a nickname instead and not include the picture,” she said. “All it will take is one cartographer ship charting the sky, and I’m screwed. I’m not sure I can do my job if everyone starts recognizing my name and face.”
“Nickname for Harper, huh?” This time he did glance at her. “Harpy Nebula it is.”
She began to smile, only to stop as she saw his smirk.
Leaning over to the controls, she hit the comm button and asked, “Does anyone know what a Harpy is?”
Rick pressed his lips tightly together.
“Old Earth monster,” Alexis answered. “Human lady head, claws, wings, greedy, thought to epitomize an unpleasant woman.”
Rick began to laugh.
“Thanks,” Harper said, cutting the comms. Chuckling, she kicked at his leg. “You’re a space cadet.”
“Yeah, but you still like me,” he said.
I love you.
She wanted to hear him say it again, even though she knew it was wrong to encourage the sentiment. They could have moments where they forgot the danger they faced, but it was always there, looming in the background. Harper wished there was a way she could escape the ship and go on without them. She did not want their deaths on her head.
I love you.
Every time he said those words to her, no matter the meeting, he sounded convinced. She wondered if he fell in love with every woman he was attracted to or just her. The only difference with this time was, she had been unable to jab him in the leg to take the memory of his realization away. Now those words hung awkwardly in her mind, paralyzing her emotions.
Love.
In her line of work, love was a dangerous thing, even the love of family and friends. When she spoke of her childhood, it was never “her” childhood. It was a made-up story, an alias, a tool to endear her faster to her mark. It was a means to an end.
“My parents were poor,” she said, not knowing why. “They gave me up to a finishing school because they thought that would give me a better life.”
Rick set the clipboard on his lap and looked up at her, not answering.
“It did, and it didn’t. They didn’t let the students contact our families until we finished the program. For years, all I could think about was the day I would graduate and return home. Depending on my a
ge, I’d had so many speeches planned. I’d yell at them for not giving me a choice. I’d thank them for their sacrifice. I’d tell them it was all a waste and I wanted to come back home forever. I’d tell them…”
I’d say I love you. I understand why.
“What?” Rick prompted.
“So many things,” Harper answered.
“Which did you end up saying?”
“None of them. When I returned, I found out my parents had been dead for six years. No one told me. My mother had given birth to a boy about six months after they sent me away. He died too. The royals had put everyone on rations. There hadn’t been enough food. Half the village was wiped out. I had no one. So, when the HIA asked, I said yes on the condition my first assignment would be the downfall of that royal family. Now they’re poor and on rations.”
“I’m sorry you lost them.” He stood and reached for her, pulling her against him. His arms wrapped around her shoulders as he held her close.
Harper didn’t cry. Those tears had dried up long ago, but the hollow ache inside her chest remained. It had been clear her mother had been pregnant, and that would have played into her parents’ decision to turn her over to the school.
“If we’re going to die doing this, I wanted at least one person to know my story,” she said.
He nodded as if understanding the need.
“My parents are both gone now, too,” Rick shared. “They were good people. We were transient, traveling around with a caravan. They didn’t aspire to much, they didn’t ask for much, and they didn’t have much. I was raised outside, staring up at the stars as they told stories around a campfire. My mother died from what I can only assume was a lifetime of drinking and eating whatever she wanted. She was a tough woman. My father was lost without her, and he kind of just withered and faded. He was stabbed during a card game gone wrong. First chance I got after that, I hopped on a transport and never looked back.”
“Is that when you met up with Sprout?” Harper pulled back to study his face. “You are a restless sleeper, and you’ve said the name.”
“I met Sprout shortly after my mother died. She was probably my best childhood friend even though we didn’t know each other a full year. I found her in the forest one night after she’d snuck out of her facility home. We were instant kindred spirits. Her parents were scientists.”
“What kind of scientists?” she asked.
“I couldn’t tell you. I’m not even sure if her name was Sprout. I just called her that because when I found her, she was pulling tiny sprouts out of the ground and holding them up to the moonlight like they held all the universe’s secrets inside of them. She must have traveled everywhere, though, because she knew about many things. In some ways, it felt as if she’d predicted parts of my future. She talked about people in stone, and we found prisoners on Florencia’s Fifth Moon who had been stuck in a stone-like state for over one hundred years, abandoned on a dead settlement by the Federation. We saved the only survivor, Violette’s sister.”
Harper watched his face, detecting hints of the emotions he tried to hide.
“A few times when we met, she’d brought an uploader with her that she took from her mother’s laboratory,” he continued. “That’s when I first learned to fly. At the time, I didn’t always know what I was learning, but she’d give me all the information she could find, loading it into my brain until my head throbbed and my nose bled. She called it a temporary discomfort to a lifetime of advantage.”
“What happened to her?” Harper had heard his conversation with Alexis when the medical booth was working on her injuries and knew the child was dead.
“I never found out for sure why, but someone shot her in the neck with a blaster. I tried to help her, but she bled out. She’d been worried about something the last time we talked. My father came and swooped me under his arm and ran me away from there. He refused to speak of it and would tell me to push it from my mind, to never mention it, to never think about it, to never go looking. So, that’s what I did. I boxed it up, shoved it deep, and managed to forget for a time. But when you left me with the demon spawn in the VR tunnel, I started to remember. Now it’s stuck in my head and keeps leaking into my dreams. I’m sure whatever my nightmares are trying to tell me will work themselves out one way or another.”
“Do you think she stole an upload she shouldn’t have?” Harper asked. “Something with sensitive information?”
“Not that she ever gave to me.” Rick caressed Harper’s cheek. “I have accepted that sometimes life does not give you the answers you seek, and it’s best not to look for them or else you’ll go mad. I can’t do anything about the past, but I can do something now.”
The hollow feeling from her past didn’t leave her but the pain it caused eased as he held her.
“You keep asking if we’re sure like none of us have thought this through.” Rick released her and went to pick up his clipboard. “Everyone on this ship has a story. We all have our losses and our reasons. We chose this life. We need this life. Without this life, we are nothing. Pleasure Droid Corporation, Federation Military, the ESC, the HIA, Ticaran nobles, blood drinkers from Kintok secret laboratories…it comes, we take it on. If we stop helping, if we stop fighting, then we might as well stop breathing.”
Harper nodded in understanding. “I won’t ask again.”
Rick returned his attention to the clipboard. “Would you check the radar? We’ll be heading into interference soon, and I want to make sure we’re still clear of your ex.”
“Ugh, don’t call him that.” Harper gave a small shiver of disgust. She pulled up the radar and leaned close to the display as she flipped through the different channels. “I can’t tell you how many times I had to knock him out and take away the memory of it when he started annoying me.”
Rick began to laugh, but the sound stopped suddenly. “Wait.”
She glanced to find him touching his head where he’d hit the branch. It wasn’t the most artful of segues, but she felt like she needed him to know the full truth if they didn’t survive this.
Realization dawned in his eyes as he looked at her. “You knocked me out.”
Self-preservation told her to lie. In no way would this confession make her look good. Instead, she gave him a wide, frozen smile. “Radar appears to be clear. I should check again, though.”
“Harper,” he demanded.
“Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Harper.”
“Things are going so well between us.”
“You took away my memories, didn’t you? You knocked me out.”
“Not with a branch. You did that to yourself,” she confessed. “I just…”
“Just?”
“Nicked you.” She waved her hand in dismissal as she turned her back on him to continue checking the radar.
“You what me?”
She felt him moving behind her and straightened. She didn’t turn to look at him. “I injected Swipe into your thigh and made you forget your time with me, or part of the memory, anyway. It’s standard HIA issue. I tried to erase the adventure tunnel, but you moved and I spilled half of my last dose.”
Rick pulled at her shoulder to turn her around to face him. He studied her expression.
“Trust me, it’s better than my bosses coming in to do a full mind-wipe.” She wished she could walk the conversation backward.
“That’s why I don’t remember much about the first time we met.”
“Do you mean the mines?” Harper asked.
Rick nodded.
“Yeah, sorry, that wasn’t the first time we met. It was, um,” she tried to do a mental tally, “the fourth? Fifth time, maybe? Let’s see, there was the fueling dock when I was pretending to be a waitress, the space station, Torgan poker game, Torgan Scavenger Hunt finals, the jade mines, and now Nozando. Oh, and once at an animal trade show.”
“I’ve never been to an animal trade show,” Rick stated.
Harper gave him a guilty smile
. “Did I say I was sorry?”
“Wait, so you just love me and leave me? Is that the deal?” Rick arched a brow. “I’m not sure how I feel about that. Though it might explain the deep connection I feel toward you.”
“No. We never had sex before this time. We flirted with the idea, and I thought maybe we would a few times, but there were always people around.” Harper bit her lip and glanced away. “Every time you see me you try to talk to me. If I didn’t stop you, my team would. It seemed kinder to make you forget.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
“The first time you almost wrecked my mission, I thought it was a chance encounter. You weren’t the first patron to proposition me. Luckily, I was just gathering intel and didn’t lose my mark because we were in a diner. The second time I considered a fluke since it was at an animal trade show. I believe your crew was going to see the Galaxy Playmates and you took a wrong turn. The third time, I thought you were messing with me and remembered who I was because the odds of you finding me again on a space station were astronomical. You almost cost me my arm, by the way. You called me babycakes and distracted me while I had my hand jammed inside a time-lock vial drawer. The time you and your crew were competing at the Torgan Scavenger Hunt, you asked if I wanted to see you release your giant caged beast.”
“Oh yeah.” Rick gave a small laugh.
“You remember?” she asked, surprised.
“Not meeting you, but I remember the line. I’m sure it would have worked if we hadn’t been in such a hurry to get out of there. We had Prince Falke, a catshifter, in a cage in his tiger form. The man is terrifying. My captain was pregnant, and it became this whole ordeal. But we did win the hunt.” He waved his hand as if stopping himself from telling the rest of the story. “You were saying.”
“Next, we met again on Torgan at a poker game. I was losing at Frendle’s Chips. You offered to make me a winner.” She arched a brow. “Not one of your strongest lines.”
“I can’t believe that didn’t work,” Rick protested. “Are you sure you didn’t ravish me and are just too embarrassed to admit how I rocked your world?”
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