Polaris Rising (Consortium Rebellion, #1)(58)
He made a rumbling sound and dragged me closer with a hand on my hip and one buried in my hair. I slid forward until I was clutched against him, straddling his strong thigh. My breasts rubbed against the muscles of his chest and I moaned low.
His tongue thrust into my mouth and I welcomed the invasion. Loch’s hands clenched and he pulled me closer, molding our bodies together. I rocked against him, mindless with pleasure. He pulled back and I chased him, pressing kisses against his lips and jaw.
I ran my hands over his head, relishing the scrape of barely there stubble against my palms. He groaned and the hand on my hip slid up to cup my breast. I hissed out a breath when his thumb brushed over my pebbled nipple. He reclaimed my mouth at the same time he rolled my nipple between his finger and thumb. Pleasure lanced through me and I arched into him.
“Loch,” I gasped.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured against my mouth. He trailed burning kisses down to the sensitive spot on my neck. The scrape of his stubbled jaw made my skin hypersensitive.
Then, with disorienting speed, he slid me into my chair and backed away. I stared at him stupidly for a few seconds before I heard Lin’s voice just outside the door. Heat flooded my face as I realized I’d been so lost in the moment that I’d forgotten my surroundings.
Loch watched me with smoldering, predatory stillness, his hands fisted on the table. Lin entered the mess hall, talking a mile a minute. Veronica trailed behind. She took one look at us and grinned. Busted.
Lin climbed up in a seat across the table from us and started questioning me about the different components in a ship while Veronica fixed his afternoon snack. Loch listened for a little while, then stood. On his way up he paused to murmur in my ear, “We are not finished, sweetheart.”
He took both our dishes and put them into the recycler. The recycler was the counterpart to the synthesizer—it broke items down into energy that could be used by the ship or synth. He nodded a farewell to Veronica and Lin, then left the mess hall.
I entertained Lin for a few more minutes, but when Veronica looked like she was almost done cooking, I escaped before she could corner me and demand details. I didn’t have any details to share. I just knew that Loch drew me in like a magnet and the more time I spent with him, the more I liked him.
I told myself that it was for the best that today was his last day. It was a pretty lie.
I settled into the captain’s station of the flight deck and set an alarm on my com so I wouldn’t miss dinner. I needed to do a deep dive in the ship’s system processes to find out where the rest of the trackers were hiding. And I needed something completely mind-numbing to focus on so my body would calm down.
I pulled up a log of every onboard process that had accessed the communication array before I had shut it down after our second jump. It was a long list. Navigation alone accounted for nearly half of the calls. The navigation computers tried to access the communication array for additional information each time the plotted course updated.
It took a couple hours, but I finally started to see an access pattern emerge. And in that pattern of normal processes, the tracking processes stood out. Well, at least a few of them. I disabled the trackers I found and set the diagnostic to run again now that I knew what to look for.
“Polaris, sweep the ship and show me the locations of all transmitting devices,” I said. A 3-D model of the ship appeared over the console with red dots in most of the rooms on the lower two floors. Great. The room-by-room sweep would have to happen before I turned external communications back on. Otherwise Rockhurst would know our location as soon as the signal reached him.
I had completed the sweep of the main floor by the time my com’s alarm went off. It was tedious work but I felt better with it done. After dinner I would do the lowest level and the maintenance areas.
Fifteen minutes until we had to leave, I climbed up to the top level and entered the captain’s quarters. I washed my face and ran a brush through my hair. I didn’t have any makeup, nor any desire to wear it. Thankfully it wasn’t required—this was not a Consortium dinner, no matter how much it might feel like one.
At five minutes to seven, I went down to meet Veronica and Loch. Both were waiting for me in the cargo hold. Veronica had her face covered with a scarf, much like my own. I loaned her the extra cloak I’d bought. With the sun setting it would be getting quite cool.
Loch wore the dark clothes and cloak he’d worn earlier, and he wasn’t exactly looking excited about dinner. If Veronica’s presence surprised him, he didn’t show it. I opened the door then locked it behind us. We slid into the transport for the short trip.
Rhys’s house was separate from his business, so we didn’t have to use the creepy, unmarked door. Instead, the transport dropped us off at one of the few blocks that wasn’t dominated by a skyscraper. Individual stone houses—complete with yards!—lined the street. All were four or five stories tall, but they were clearly houses. The lot alone had to be worth two fortunes. Rhys had done very, very well for himself indeed.
Loch climbed the steps first and knocked on the door. A gray-haired gentleman in a butler’s uniform let us in. “Mr. Sebastian is expecting you. He’s in the family drawing room. Right this way, please.”
The butler led us through an opulent foyer and past a wide, real wood staircase. The drawing room doors were closed, to better show off their delicate stained-glass insets. The butler slid them open, revealing a warm room with comfortable furniture and cozy conversational seating. It was a stark contrast from the rest of the house.