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Dante was sure his father had made arrangements to start searching digitally for the pirate ship as soon as they had the lead. The real question was how much groveling, or currency, would be required to get whoever was in charge of the server room to hand over the information.
When the door swished open and Dante saw the man sitting at the desk, he suppressed another groan. Not only was the clerk Jorvlen, but he was ancient. He looked like he’d been ordered there, probably because of some minor infraction that had pissed off the wrong superior.
His name tag read Verjeek, and Dante could see the faded outlines of old ceremonial bars that used to be on his uniform. He’d lost his dignity along with them in all likelihood. Dante supposed the only thing that kept him going was the desire to make everyone he came into contact with as miserable as he was.
The Jorvlen ignored them as they approached the desk and kept ignoring them when they stood directly in front of him. He typed busily on his keyboard, but Dante could see in the reflection of the highly polished server behind him that he was playing a grid game on his computer.
“Hello,” Dante said assertively as he stepped up to the desk.
Verjeek glanced at him and went back to his game.
“I hate to pull you away from your highly important work,” Dante said. It was hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but he made it believable. “We’re here on urgent business, and I’m prepared to compensate you for the interruption.”
“One thousand,” Verjeek said, holding out his comm.
“Done,” Dante said.
“Did I say one thousand? I meant two.”
Dante reached out and grabbed the Jorvlen’s wrist, squeezing it just enough to warn him. The being had been at the station so long, his bones were surely brittle.
“I can see you’re having a busy day,” Dante said. “I’ll give you fifteen hundred. Final offer.”
Verjeek gulped, as if the guy were actually swallowing his pride, and nodded. Dante transferred the funds, and they walked out of Monitoring Command with data about the pirate ship on their comms and a paper printout that Tinsley had insisted on receiving.
They went right back to the ship. Tinsley got to work checking that the ship had been properly fueled. They divided up the list of maintenance items the station had billed her for and went to each system to double-check that the work had actually been done.
“Everything looks good to me,” Dante said. “I really did think they might have ripped us off.”
“Maybe they can’t wait to get rid of us,” Tinsley said.
She reached for the ship comm and requested to be put in the liftoff queue.
“Ninety-ninth,” came the Jorvlen voice on the other end.
“Roger,” Tinsley flipped off the comm rather angrily.
“I guess not that eager for us to leave after all?” Dante joked.
“What do we do now?” Tinsley wondered.
“Nothing to do but wait.” He was uncertain as to whether he actually believed that.
“Nothing?” Tinsley said.
Her voice was husky with suggestion, and Dante made up his mind. He was going to figure out a way to act on his lust for her, which at this point was getting irrepressible.
Chapter 7
Tinsley didn’t want to admit to herself how badly she wanted Dante. It seemed so wrong, given everything that was going on, especially with his sister being kidnapped.
That should be their main, if not only, focus. She felt selfish for wanting to entertain other thoughts. But those thoughts were persistent, and anytime she looked at him, she wanted to look at all of him.
He was just so strong, handsome, and just simply… everything she wanted. Tinsley had never thought much of wanting commitment or a partner. She was content with her life and how things were going. She also thoroughly enjoyed being in charge. She wouldn’t mind having Dante take charge of her, though.
Now, Dante had been making her wet for him every time he made eye contact. And when he’d said there was nothing to do but wait, she had ideas about some other things they could be doing while they waited.
Tinsley couldn’t get the images of their bodies together out of her mind. She just hoped he had the same idea, and that he’d be receptive to not-so-subtle hints.
