He settled back against the bulkhead, watching her profile as she guided the flyer away from the burning ship. Brown eyes, dark hair, soft skin that probably bruised if you looked at it wrong. Utterly unsuited for the life he led. And yet...
Don’t,he told himself.Don’t even think about it.
But he was already thinking about it. Already cataloging the curve of her jaw, the way she bit her lip when she concentrated, and the competent gentleness with which she’d soothed the crying infant.
This woman was going to be trouble.
He could feel it in his bones.
CHAPTER FIVE
Emma’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She gripped the flight controls tighter, as if that might somehow steady the trembling that had taken root somewhere deep in her chest and radiated outward through every limb. The flyer responded to her death grip with a slight wobble, and she forced herself to ease up before she sent them careening into a chunk of debris.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Behind her, she could hear the male who’d rescued them moving around the small cabin. Fabric rustled. He hissed through his teeth, a sound that was more cat than human, and she found herself glancing over her shoulder despite her better judgment.
He’d stripped off his shirt.
Her breath caught. She told herself it was surprise. Or lingering adrenaline. Or the fact that she’d just witnessed him kill people and then drag himself aboard a moving spacecraft with a hole in his shoulder. It definitely wasn’t because his torso looked like it had been sculpted by someone with very specific ideas about male perfection.
Golden fur covered his skin in a fine layer, darker along his spine and shoulders, lighter across his stomach. Muscles shifted beneath that fur as he pressed a wad of bandaging against his wound, and his face betrayed nothing but mild irritation. Like getting shot was an inconvenience rather than a life-threatening injury.
His long furred tail was currently twitching with what she suspected was pain, though his expression gave nothing away.
“Eyes forward,” he said without looking up. “Unless you want to fly us into a hull fragment.”
Heat flooded her cheeks, and she snapped her attention back to the viewport, where the burning wreckage of the Ithyian ship was already shrinking behind them. Debris floated in lazy spirals, catching the light of distant stars, almost beautiful if you didn’t think about what it represented.
People died on that ship.
People who kidnapped you,a harder voice reminded her.People who were going to sell you.
She didn’t know how to feel about that. Relief, certainly, but also something uncomfortable and complicated that she didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to examine right now.
The baby made a soft sound from where Emma had strapped her into the safety harness. Not quite a cry, more like a question.
“I know, sweetheart,” she murmured. “I know. Just give me a minute.”
“You’re doing fine.”
She startled. The male had moved closer without her hearing him, and now he was leaning over her shoulder, his breath warm against her ear. He smelled like blood and metal and something musky and not unpleasant. His chest was still bare, the bandage secured around his shoulder with what looked like actual medical tape.
“The course is good,” he continued. “We’re clear of the debris field. I can take over.”
“Your shoulder?—”
“Will be fine.” He straightened, and she felt the loss of his warmth more acutely than she should have. “Move.”
It wasn’t a request. She found herself standing before she’d consciously decided to comply, and then he was sliding into the pilot’s seat with a fluid grace that had no business belonging to a male who’d been shot twenty minutes ago.
His hands moved easily over the controls and the slight wobble in their flight path smoothed out immediately. The tension in his shoulders eased by a fraction.
This is his element,she decided.Flying, escaping, surviving.She wondered how many times he’d done exactly that.
“There should be supplies for the baby in the rear compartment,” he said. “This vessel belonged to a diplomat—they tend to travel prepared for anything.”
“A diplomat?”
