Her pussy dampened, a fast clench of need that wanted to be filled.

She felt his large hand cupping the back of her head, angling her to take his kiss deeper. And when she did, he groaned his praise.

Using strength gleaned from desire, Mara pushed him back so he sat in his chair. He went willingly, understanding her intent. She straddled him, her arms wrapped around the width of his shoulders. His hand still held the back of her head, while his other hand gripped her waist hard. Mara pressed her hypersensitive body to his and found that he was as tight and solid as she’d imagined. But it was better, so much better, than in her imagination. He had a fighter’s body and a fighter’s strength, and all of it, all of his strength and fire, was focused on her.

Her skirt rode up. Her hips pressed into his. Beneath the searing heat of her pussy, she felt him.

The hard, thick length of his cock pressing into her. He wanted inside her. She wanted him there. She rocked her hips into him, and even through the fabric of her panties and his pants, the shaft of his cock edged between her folds. God, she was so wet. Wet for him. He had to feel it.

“Yes.” His voice rumbled into her mouth, as if in answer to her silent speculation.

The world tilted as he leaned her back, pressing her against the control panel. His thighs were hard beneath her, solid. The hand at her waist released, then she felt the blazing trails of his fingers drifting down between them. In a moment, he would touch her, and she knew with total clarity that the instant he did, she would come, and come hard. And then she wanted him to fuck her right against the control panel.

The comm line shrilled. “Who needs the sex acrobats at Folco’s Bar when we have a show right here?”

Both she and Kell froze, trapped in place. Slowly, very slowly, Mara turned her head to look out the cockpit window.

Standing outside the ship were half a dozen grinning men. One of them wore a comm headpiece.

When he caught her looking at him, he gave a cheerful wave.

Mara gave him the finger.

With a groan that was part animal, part man, but all frustration, Kell’s big hands wrapped around her waist and lifted her up. He deposited her back in the captain’s seat. For a moment, all she could do was sit in dazed, thwarted wonder, her lips swollen, her pussy still extraordinarily wet and wanting.

Kell’s hands knotted into fists and pressed hard into the control panel. “I’ve got a rule,” he gritted. “I don’t fuck in front of an audience.” He eyed her. “Cover up.”

The implication being that if she sat around with her skirt bunched around her waist, revealing her damp panties, he just might break that rule. She tugged her skirt down.

She glanced over at him. He looked tight as a sonic bow, ready to snap. And the thick shape of his erection under his pants drew her gaze. Her mouth watered.

“Look somewhere else, damn it.”

She had to get away from him or else she would attack him. Just rip his clothes off and screw him in front of the dock crew and whoever else might be watching. Once she was fairly certain her legs wouldn’t collapse out from under her, Mara stood. Still, she found herself a little unstable as she tottered into the galley. A few moments later, Kell joined her, and he looked just as volatile and unsatisfied as she felt.

He stared at her, then took a deep, shuddering breath and dragged his hands through his hair. It stood up in sharp spikes, making him look even more like a blade. She knew what she must look like.

Eyes glazed, mouth red. A woman on the verge of an orgasm. A woman who wanted the man who stood before her, his big body faintly shaking.

But she reminded herself of where she was and why she was here. And her white hot arousal began to slowly, slowly cool.

“This is where the mission truly begins,” she said.

He nodded, a quick, clipped movement.

She moved toward the door, placing a hand on her plasma pistol. “Be ready. Beskidt Bay is a dangerous place.”

His own hand hovered above the plasma weapon strapped to his thigh. Yet one corner of his mouth turned up, the sharp edge of a smile. “Nothing’s as dangerous as this.” He leaned close, and his nearness set alight the charged heat between them, rife with voracious hunger.

For once, Mara didn’t argue.

Kell was lost.

He didn’t know the rough, mean city of Beskidt By, couldn’t say what bars watered their drinks or spiked them with something more dangerous than water. He didn’t know which sex theaters offered the best entertainment, both on stage and off. Of its many gambling dens, he didn’t know which were slightly more honest, cheating their patrons just a little rather than a lot. The tough faces staring back suspiciously at him from doorways were unknown to him, as well.

But he knew this place, knew it very well. It didn’t matter if the planet was Ryge, hidden within the Smoke Quadrant, or another planet in some other solar system. Kell knew the streets, knew the people, their avarice and need to survive. He might not have the map for this particular city soldered on the circuitry of his mind, but he understood without a doubt that, if he had to, he could find his way through this filthy maze.

Yet when it came to Mara Skiren, he felt himself wandering without guidance. Made him damn edgy.

He walked beside her through the twisted, grimy streets of Beskidt By. They dodged wasp taxis darting past, drivers bent low as the fares clutched the side bars for safety. Cries of hawkers clotted the thick air, selling everything from service drones to black market drugs to cups of steaming kahve.

Overhead, glimpses of sulfurous clouds peered between the towering buildings, reminders that no one could fly in or out of Ryge until the storm dissipated. Kell and Mara had been the only ones to land in nearly twenty-four solar hours.

She led them now through the web of Beskidt By, her movements sure and confident. The city belonged to her, in its way. Kell saw this in the way she was greeted, again and again, by the various lowlifes lingering in the street. Those that didn’t seem to know her stared at her, anyway. Easy to see why. Her sleek curves, those provocative clothes, the poised, almost aristocratic way she held herself.

Any male, and likely many females, would want her.

He counted himself amongst that number. Only half an hour earlier, he’d almost had her. His body still protested the loss. She’d been fire and spice and hungry, so hungry. He’d never touched a woman like her before. Now his body wanted, demanded more.

Don’t think about that now, or else you’ll be walking the streets of Beskidt By with a gigantic hard-on.

“You’re a popular character,” he noted after a one-armed woman shuffled out from a shop to pound Mara on the back.

“Yes.” She tossed the remark carelessly over her shoulder. “But now I’m legendary. Nobody else has flown through the storm.” She sent him an opaque glance. “Nobody else had the same kind of help.”

“There were two of us, but we worked as one.” Though Wraith ships could accommodate two—a pilot and a gunner—Kell usually flew alone. He hadn’t expected the seamless way he and Mara had performed together. She was a damned good pilot too. Intuitive but astute.

She also looked damned sexy with her hands on the ship’s controls. Kell couldn’t help but wonder if she might grip him with the same assured skill. An image flared in his mind—him laying back, her grasping his cock, positioning him to slide into her.

Don’t fucking think it.

“Partnership is new to me,” she said.

“Maybe you’ll grow to like it.” He certainly was.

“Doubt that.” But she smiled and edged ahead, leading the way. “Not much further.” Even if her image wasn’t already burned into him, he could find her through the thick, raucous crowds choking the streets. There weren’t many Argenti here, and her creamy white hair shone like a beacon in the grime and glare of Beskidt By. He felt the strange urge to shield her from the filth of both physical and human varieties—which was ridiculous. She was a scavenger, a dealer of stolen goods, and candidly admitted to doing what she had to in order to persevere.