Cassiopeia

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An Excerpt From: CASSIOPEIA

Copyright © NATHALIE GRAY, 2008

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

He wasn’t trouble or some cookie-cutter rebel. Neither did he portray a “bad boy” image for the simple reason that Ty was a man, not a boy, with no affected bravado. The cloud of menace permanently hanging over his head, it was for real. His unusual sort of beauty transcended every stereotype.

“You’re getting the same cut I am,” he went on in that hoarse voice, which did nothing to help her focus. “But the deal’s changed now. You’re gonna give me half so I can get a salvager to tow my ship back. Then you’re gonna finance the repairs too.”

The pleasant tingle of sexual awareness evaporated like fog in a wind tunnel. Who did he think he was? Her temper had never flared so bad, so quick. She planted her fists on her hips. Heat wafted out of her zipped-down flight suit. “What? Finance your repairs?”

“Hell yeah.” He cocked his pierced eyebrow, took a good look from her boots to the top of her head. Which was about to blow off with the mad she was working on. The gall!

“Are you out of your mind?”

Ty gave her another pronounced once-over, his mouth curving at one corner. Oh hell, that was one sexy smirk. “You don’t wanna know what’s on my mind, Jackie. Let’s just stick to the biz, okay?”

“I have connections, I’ll see what I can do, but you’re not getting half my cut. As for your mind,” she went on, letting her gaze travel down the length of him the way he’d just done with her. “I know exactly where it is.”

Where her own had been the entire time. In the gutter.

“You do?” The sexy curve to his mouth accentuated. “It means yours is there too.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she replied a bit too fast. The heat of anger turned into something else. She swallowed.

“You’re such a bad liar. Always were.”

Jackie crossed her arms just in case she didn’t appear composed enough—which was a lie, damn him. She wanted him in a bad way.

Ty looked down at himself, grinned as he patted his crotch. “What can I say, I’ve always had a weak spot for you.”

He had?

“A weak spot?” she retorted. “For me? Since when?”

“Since I saw you demolish that locker door,” he said before tucking his bottom lip behind his teeth. It gave him a predatory air. She loved it. “Remember that one? In the cargo bay. You were trying to get into your locker and it wouldn’t open?”

“I remember.” Her supervisors had deducted her pay for the repairs. She’d been in a hurry. The story of her life.

“Turned me on hard enough to see stars,” he said. “Like right now.”

Her gaze slid down his chest and belly, both of which looked rock-hard and tantalizing enough to touch, down to his crotch again where a lump strained the cargo pants along the inside of his muscled thigh. Her palms itched to cup all that hot man. His T-shirt looked as if it’d been painted on, shiny black with the synthetic fabric.

“See something you like?” he asked, pierced brow arched. That throaty voice was doing wonders to her imagination again. Having a guy with a voice like that could probably make her sweat just by whispering wicked things in her ear.

She shrugged, all cool composure even if inside she’d become a hormonal mess. “Do you?”

“You know it.”

“Mmm, I don’t know,” she replied. Rising blood pressure began a rhythmic whoosh-whoosh in her ears. “You can never tell with these things.”

She stopped breathing when he extended a hand, pinched the lapel of her flight suit in thick, strong fingers then gently pulled sideways to expose a bit of her black tank top. She noticed he chewed his nails bad.

“You gals are lucky. It doesn’t show when you’re turned-on. Not like us guys.”

She hooked her thumb in her pocket just to give herself something to do. Half of her wanted to kick his butt and get him off her ship, but the other half wanted to do very different sorts of things to her passenger, things that years before had made her call a lover “Ty” by mistake.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” she replied, feeling stupid for the way her voice sounded tight and tremulous. “I’ve changed, Ty. I’m no longer the young woman you worked with.”

“You’ve more than changed,” he replied, licking his bottom lip. “You’ve become even better. And it’s turning me on, Jackie. You have no idea.”

“Turned-on is a good thing. Natural response. Instincts. Women have all that too.”

“I know, gorgeous. I know.”

Each nerve ending felt on fire, each sweat pore prickled, each hair on her arms stood at attention. That he had her absolute attention would be the understatement of the century. With the sensualization he’d triggered then and now, with the vivid images of his body moving against hers came a wave of heat, a rush of adrenaline that left her wanting him. Fiercely. An old hunger.

“Let’s say you do,” he replied, his voice a notch above a murmur. His nostrils flared. “Mmm? Let’s say you do see something you like. Are you the kinda gal who’ll go and take it, or wait ’til it comes to you? Are you still the Jackie Clark I once knew?”

“What do you think?”

Don’t look at his mouth, don’t look at his mouth. She couldn’t focus and play cool cucumber if she looked at his wicked, sexy mouth. Never could.

He crowded her against the bulkhead, his wide chest and shoulders so tempting in the black T-shirt, his chin angled downward at her and mouth slightly parted. Tease.

“I think you want the same thing I do. For me to take your clothes off and not do it slowly. My hands all over you and my mouth clamped to your pussy. That’s what I think you want.”

Her breathing quickened. She cocked her head to the side. “Is that so?”

Ty nodded. Diffused light from the consoles played with the hard lines of his face and cast his eyes in pools of shadow. After he licked them, his lips glistened. “That’s so. You want it as hard as I do. Question is, you gonna do anything about it, or you gonna let me get the ball rolling?”