“Should we talk about last night?” I offer, when she remains quiet.
She moves to the tapestry and folds it up, putting it away. “What about last night?”
I can’t believe I’m the one that has to bring this up. “What happened between us?”
Piper gives me a calm look, tidying the living area. “What happened between us is that I was trying to convince you to stay. I’m showing you what I can offer as a partner.” Her voice is even and casual, but her cheeks are bright pink, betraying her emotions. “Nothing more.”
Such a little liar. “You’ve had sex before, but not like that.”
Her chin lifts. “Is that what you want this morning? To have your ego stroked?”
I chuckle. “No, I’m just curious about you. Has…no one ever touched you like that before?”
Her expression changes from defiance to wariness. “No one out here cares what a human thinks.”
“No one cares what a convict thinks, either.”
She relaxes a little at that, coming to sit at the table with me once more. “Jutari says you broke out of the same prison he did. Was it for the same reasons?”
I eye her, curious if she knows that Jutari was a famed assassin or if he’s told them a much tamer version of his past. I decide to avoid it entirely. “I escaped Haven with my friend Tassar. We were both prisoners of war and instead of being sent home after the conflict ended, we got dumped in with the scum of the galaxy.” I shrug. “Wrong place, wrong time. You learned to toughen up or you didn’t survive for very long.”
“I see.”
I tilt my head, studying her. “You’re not scared of me, are you?” It’s more of a statement than a question. She hasn’t shown a bit of fear towards me, not once. I remember how she skirted wide around the praxiian back at the jail. That one, she was afraid of. But not me.
“Because you came from a prison planet? You were a soldier.”
“That doesn’t mean I was a schoolboy on Haven. Like I said, you did what you had to do to survive. My hands aren’t clean.” It’s as much as I’ll admit to her right now, because I don’t want her to look at me with unease or hate. I want her to look at me again like she did last night when I made her come—I want that look of wonder and bliss in those deep brown eyes.
But Piper shakes her head. “I’ve learned that the people with the best pedigrees or the ones that look great on paper can be the biggest monsters. Some of the people with the worst stories to their name can be the kindest. All that matters to me is how you treat me.”
“And what do you think of how I treated you last night?” I can’t help but ask.
Piper blushes and ducks her head, letting her hair fall in front of her face. It’s charmingly adorable and it makes my cock hard.
“Well, if you were trying to entice me to stay, you did a convincing job.”
Hope flares in her eyes. “Then you’ll—”
“I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
She looks crushed for a moment, and I feel like a keffing ass for getting her hopes up. I shouldn’t have said anything. “I see.”
“It’s not that I’m not tempted by your offer,” I say. “I just…have somewhere I have to be. Other plans I already committed to.”
Piper gives me a crisp nod, jumping to her feet. “You don’t owe me an explanation. It was a gamble, and every gambler knows they don’t always pay off.” She smooths her hands down her dress. “I’m washing your clothing for you. It’ll be ready shortly and then you can be on your way whenever you like.”
“What about you?”
She gives me a puzzled look. “What about me?”
“What are you going to do?”
“The same thing I always do. Keep on hoping for a better future.” She gives me a tight smile and then heads outside, throwing on a wide-brimmed hat to hide her face from the sun.
I watch her go, heading out to the barn. I should chase after her, help her with the chores. I should promise to stay just long enough to help her with her problems and get her settled.
But I can’t. I’ve promised to do other things and I already have people waiting on me. Maybe after I make my fortune on this run with the va Sithai brothers, I can send some money back to Piper, help her buy some security for this place. Maybe crash here for a while…but it all hinges on actually having credits, and right now I have none. Like it or not, I need this keffing job.
Just because I had mind-blowing, amazing sex with an attractive human last night doesn’t change the fact that I have commitments. Or that I’m not a farmer.
Even so, I glance out the window again, watching her. It’s only been a day but it feels like everything is changing, and I’m not sure what to think anymore.
I need to focus on my goals. I can’t let myself be distracted.
With that thought in mind, I retreat to the bedroom and hook my personal comm—retrieved from the jail with my possessions when I left with Piper—to Piper’s network. I send out the encoded message to the va Sithai brothers, waiting for someone on their ship to pick up. A few minutes pass and I absently scroll through the latest news-cycles from Homeworld. Nothing’s of interest. I could care less about who’s in power or what political scheming there is. None of it means a thing out here on a remote farm planet, and that’s rather refreshing.
My communication is suddenly picked up, and a big face fills the screen. “Well, suck my cock and call me a praxiian, it’s Vordigar. About keffing time you answered, you ugly bastard.” It’s Adiron, an idiot grin on his wide jaw. “Didn’t you get our messages? We’ve been trying to reach you for a keffing week.”
“I was held up. Sorry. Bit of a snag at port, but it’s taken care of now. What’s the status of the job?”
A big hand lands on Adiron’s face and pushes him to the side. Mathiras leans in, scowling in my direction even as he holds Adiron away. “We’ve been waiting on you and all you can say is that you were held up? We need reliable partners on this mission with us.”
Adiron slaps at his brother, and off screen, I can hear another man chuckling. Ironic that these three idiots are talking to me about taking things seriously when they look as if they’re about to start arm-wrestling for control of the communicator like a bunch of children. “Like I said, bit of a snag. Is the job still available?”
“We’re approaching the Jintarr asteroid belt right now. You’re just in time.”
“I am?” I’m surprised to hear that. When we were talking about the job last month, there were no specifics. Just that the brothers were chasing down a rogue group of pirates and skin smugglers—slave traders. They have a personal vendetta against this group, but no one’s shared the details over the comm with me. Even so, they must have discovered something, because…Jintarr’s asteroid belt is not far away from Risda III at all. “You found the men you’re looking for?”
“Yup,” Adiron drawls.
“There’s an old mining station at Kafterra Prime,” Mathiras says, all business even as Adiron punches him in the gut. The third brother, Kaspar, goes around to Adiron’s other side and gets his brother in a headlock, one hand braced against Adiron’s horns to freeze him in place. They’re both grinning like keffing madmen while Mathiras tries to have a conversation with me.