Still, as Rikki bitched about the restaurant and the food, he smiled at her. He had missed her. And he didn’t realize how much he needed a conversation with an old friend until right now.
Chapter 9
Skye stepped out of the bar. She had a few errands to run: she needed to reserve her room again and then she needed to find some kind of private place to check the scruffy guy’s image. Her stomach was a bit queasy from the lemon fizzy thing, or maybe it was the lack of sleep, or maybe the strangeness she had just witnessed.
Liora had taken off down the concourse a few minutes ago, but Skye didn’t want to follow her. Now that she knew Liora was here, she could actually track her, using the Guild system. Generally assassins on the job kept their Guild tracker off or on low, but Liora wasn’t acting like she was on any job at all. So Skye had checked as she stepped out, and saw that Liora hadn’t been thinking about her tracker. The folks at the Guild on Kordita couldn’t track her at the moment, but any assassin within a five-hour radius probably could.
She scanned the concourse for the scruffy guy. He had gone in the opposite direction from the one Liora had taken. Skye could see his back as he made his way through the crowd. He was heading the same way she had to go if she was going to renew that reservation.
She sighed. At least that would give her an opportunity to study him.
Then, because she couldn’t help it, she glanced at the Starcatcher. She wanted to lie to herself, to pretend that she wasn’t looking for Jack, that she was actually thinking of a greasy burger to settle her stomach.
But lying wasn’t going to work. If only she were already free of the Guild. If only her life were her own. She would go to him, and say, Forget what I told you about a single night. Let’s acknowledge that we’re in space. There is no such thing as day and night, and we can make sure our single night lasts for weeks.
She smiled at the thought. Maybe if she saw him again, after she got out. Maybe she would track him, like she tracked so many other people. Maybe she would “accidentally” show up wherever he was, and proposition him all over again.
The very thought reminded her of that spark in his eye when he realized she had propositioned him, a spark that she saw later when he touched her bare skin for the first time.
The memory aroused parts of her that she thought too tired to respond. Then she shook her head at herself.
And in doing so, she caught a glimpse of Jack sitting in the crowded open-air section of the Starcatcher.
She did need lunch. She could do some of her work from the open-air section of the Starcatcher. She could take Jack’s hand and see if he wanted to change his mind—one more real night only—and then, she could collect a few more memories.
After all, she had so very few good ones from the rest of her life, who would blame her if she stored up one or two more?
She took a few steps across the concourse and froze as a buxom redhead talked to Jack. He laughed, and so did she. Then she wiped off a nearby chair with a napkin.
He was clearly inviting the woman—who was drop-dead gorgeous—to sit with him.
Drop-dead gorgeous and in fantastic shape, the kind women got without enhancements, with a lot of physical work. Rather like Skye.
Only unlike Skye, this woman had other unenhanced parts that seemed to come as standard issue for attracting men—the large breasts, the narrow waist, the stunning face. And she looked so comfortable with Jack.
If Skye had to guess—and she rarely had to guess, that internal sense of hers was right so often—she would say that the relationship between these two had something to do with work, and a whole lot more.
They seemed so comfortable with each other.
Skye watched, mesmerized. She should have moved away, stepped out of view, paid attention to her surroundings. But she couldn’t.
The woman sat down, ordered, and then her smile faded. She seemed upset. And that upset seemed to bother Jack.
Not only had they been close once, they still were.
Skye had to concentrate to breathe. She had to remind herself that she had set the rules. A one-time thing. A man who clearly told her he didn’t do that ever. He had been so shy, so uncertain, that she had found it a turn-on.
She had thought him less experienced, not inexperienced, just not quite as comfortable as she was. But what if he had actually had a girlfriend? A wife? A partner? Someone who let him go off with other women because it was hard to maintain a relationship out here, but someone to whom he felt a loyalty.
He had said he didn’t, but men lied when they were being propositioned. And she had already told him it was a one-night thing. Maybe he thought the relationship was none of Skye’s business.
Maybe his uncertainty had nothing to do with his experience, and everything to do with this woman. Maybe, despite an openness (that, granted, Skye was just assuming was there), maybe he felt like he had cheated on the lovely redhead.
Maybe that was why the redhead seemed close to tears.
He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. Then she slipped her fingers through his.
The gesture had a lot of tenderness, on both sides.
The tenderness made Skye’s heart hurt.
She wasn’t jealous. She had nothing to be jealous of. She had no relationship with this man. Just a great night, one she would always treasure.
Or maybe she was jealous, but not of the other woman’s relationship with Jack. Maybe she was just jealous because no one in her entire life had treated her with such tenderness, in a restaurant, in the middle of a conversation.
Or anywhere. No one had touched her out of love, not even her parents, who, if she told herself the truth, had abandoned her when she was ten, which was how she ended up on the Guild’s doorstep. Not because they had brought her there, but because the man they had left her with finally gave up on them ever returning, and dumped her on the Guild.
She always took responsibility for that. When that “uncle” had dropped her at the Guild, she had not researched where her parents had disappeared to. She hadn’t tracked them down for the very first time. Before that, she always had. Before that, she’d catch up with them, and then they’d find a creative way to dump her again.
She blamed herself for the Guild because she just didn’t want to trace her parents all over the universe again.
She’d been following people for her entire life, spying on them and tracking them, and she was getting tired.
Just like she was tired of the fact that no one had ever touched her the way that Jack touched the redhead.
Jack hadn’t even touched her that way. Not last night. His touch had been gentle, yes, but it had had purpose, and that purpose had been brought him as much gratification as it brought her.
This touch with redhead seemed like something he did for comfort, something that was selfless.
Skye blinked. She had something in her eye. She ran a finger over her lashes, found moisture. Odd. She usually thought it too dry on Krell.
But it was a sign. She needed to put Jack in her past. She had Liora to worry about and a few other jobs to finish.
First, however, she needed a room. And it wouldn’t be the one she shared with Jack. She couldn’t think about him any longer. She’d get something small and unobtrusive.
And if there was a God, she would never ever come back.
Chapter 10
Skye made her way to Upscale Reservations. It was a hole-in-the-wall, given to past guests who had paid a lot of money on Krell. Too many of Krell’s customers specialized in identification theft, so Krell used all sorts of methods to ensure that each “guest” was the one she was supposed to be.