Chapter 14
“Damn,” said Nash. “Would you look at that?”
Oh, I’m looking, Gwain Dutton thought. He had already unfastened his safety harness—he didn’t need it anymore, now that they were out of hyperspace—and he leaned forward in the copilot’s seat to get a better view.
Navigational beacons flashed and blipped on the console in front of him, but he ignored them for the time being.
His attention was focused instead on the object looming ahead, beyond the window of the cockpit, an outsized jewel adrift in the endless void.
Calyxia.
The resort hung suspended in the darkness, its jagged asteroid body bristling with docking tubes like metallic roots sprouting from a clod of dirt.
The bulk of the rock tapered to a point at the bottom, while the top swelled into a broad, roughly circular plateau, its surface capped by a shimmering dome of glass.
Beneath that dome, Dutton could make out the shapes of glittering towers surrounded by lush green gardens and deep azure pools.
A miniature paradise, sealed tight against the unforgiving vacuum of space.
Nash seemed less impressed. “Looks like a damn snow globe,” he muttered from the pilot’s seat.
Even though Nash was the youngest member of the team, he was the best pilot among them, so it was his job to bring them in for a landing.
Dutton was there, ready to assist if necessary, but he knew it wouldn’t be.
During their time together, he’d seen the kid do things with spaceships that should not have been possible.
The rings of Uz came to mind. Or that one time in the Necropolitan undercity.
Dutton still had dreams about that. Bad ones.
Behind them, in one of the passenger seats, Reece chuckled coldly.
“A snow globe,” he said. “Yeah. And we’re gonna shake it up.”
Fairchild didn’t say anything at all. In fact, she hadn’t said a word since they’d come out of hyperspace a few minutes before.
She was sitting directly behind Dutton, so he couldn’t see her without turning around in his seat, but he could imagine her intense expression as she glared out through the windscreen, and he could feel the heat of her pent-up rage.
Somewhere down there in that glittering city of sin was the man she had come to murder.
And Dutton was going to help her find him.
Chatter came across the speakers as a space traffic controller hailed their incoming ship.
Dutton handled the comms. The ship moved forward, and the asteroid grew in size, until it filled the viewport completely.
Nash eased them into their assigned docking bay with such gentleness he might have been guiding a spoon into a baby’s mouth.
Once they were in, the teeth of the airlock clanged shut behind them with a harsh, metallic finality. They had arrived.
“Alright, people,” Reece said from the back of the cabin. “Suit up.”
* * *
Suit up indeed, Dutton thought several minutes later as they rode the transport elevator up to the surface.
He was dressed in a gray double-breasted suit with a black turtleneck underneath.
Black leather dress shoes. Black pocket square.
Gold watch. It was all he could do to keep from fidgeting.
Formal was not his thing. Neither was expensive, unless it was functional, and this suit was anything but.
Six goddamn buttons on the jacket, but he was only supposed to use one of them.
What the hell kind of sense did that make?
Reece appeared to be more at ease in his getup—midnight blue three-piece, crisp white dress shirt, and a rich silver-gray tie. To the unknowing eye, he could easily pass for a highly successful businessman. One who spent all of his free time at the gym.
Nash, on the other hand, was sporting more of a rockstar look. Underneath his charcoal blazer, he wore a plain white tee with a smattering of tastefully placed holes around the hem and neckline. A pair of ripped designer jeans and alligator boots completed the outfit.
Lucky bastard, Dutton thought. Why couldn’t he have gotten a wardrobe like that? He ran his finger under the edge of his turtleneck and winced.
Then his eyes fell on Fairchild.
It was perhaps the hundredth time they had fallen on her since she’d first emerged from her walk-in closet a few minutes before, and each time he looked at her, a fresh surge of arousal went rushing into his cock.
She was wearing a simple black dress that conformed to her body so tightly, it could have been applied with an airbrush.
The fabric served to accentuate rather than conceal, and Dutton’s eyes rode her feminine curves all the way down.
There was a slit up one side to show off a single perfect thigh.
It was all Dutton could do to keep from dropping to his knees in front of her and licking every inch of that smooth expanse of skin.
When he glanced up at her face, however, he could see she was every bit as uncomfortable as him.
Perhaps even more so. She was a soldier, a natural-born killer, and she still wasn’t used to getting in touch with her feminine side—even though Dutton and his two partners had spent the last week touching that side of her very, very deeply.
Probably should have spent a little time on wardrobe training, he thought, instead of nonstop morning-to-midnight sex.
Nah.
Besides, once they got checked into their suite, the wardrobe wouldn’t be a problem anymore. The clothes would come off, and they would put all that intensive training to use breaking in their new bed. Dutton could hardly wait.
Neither could his cock. If it weren’t for the compression shorts he had on underneath his suit, the front of his britches would be looking like a tent right now.
He gently ran his fingers up the curve of Fairchild’s spine, which was left exposed by the scandalously low back of her dress. Her skin felt warm and smooth as silk. Her muscles softened slightly under his fingertips.
“You look unbelievable,” he whispered.
He meant it, too. He literally couldn’t believe that a woman could look as good as she did right now.
He’d been with lots of females over the years, more than he could even count, but none of them had meant a damn thing.
To be honest, he’d mostly been humoring his companions, Reece and Nash.
Those two had always liked the ladies, and they’d especially liked sharing, so Dutton had gone along for the ride.
He’d viewed it as an opportunity for bonding with his brothers-in-arms, nothing more.
With Fairchild, however… things were different.
She smiled at his compliment, and he could see all the tension drain out of her body. She faced him and ran her fingers over his lapels.
“Thanks,” she said. “So do you.”
Her high heels gave her a few extra inches, but she still had to stretch to make her mouth reach his. She kissed him, slow and wet, and his cock throbbed painfully inside his compression shorts.
It was going to be a miracle if he could actually make it to their suite without tearing off her dress and fucking her harder than any woman had ever been fucked before.
The elevator eased to a halt. A soft chime rang, and the doors whispered open. A gust of warm, perfumed air washed over them. Together, they stepped outside.
For a moment, Dutton felt as though he’d stumbled into a dream.
Overhead, Calyxia’s dome arched across a permanent night, almost invisible against the star-filled sky beyond.
Below, gleaming resort towers rose in the middle distance, their surfaces terraced with manicured gardens and elegant balconies.
Tropical plants lined the footpaths on the ground level.
Exotic birds fluttered softly through the temperature-controlled air.
And everywhere—everywhere—there were bodies, nude and writhing in the dusky illumination of the glow-globes hovering overhead.
Some tangled wantonly in the grass. Others mated half-submerged in fountains and pools.
Their moans drifted on the breeze like music.
The air was laced with the scent of their sin.
Dutton glanced over at Fairchild. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes tracked every detail like a soldier scoping the terrain. God, she was so—
A knuckle prodded Dutton’s ribs, snapping him out of his daze. It was Reece.
“Don’t forget your specs,” the team leader said.
“Right.”
Dutton dipped a hand inside his jacket and pulled out a pair of glasses. To the casual observer, they would look like nothing more than expensive designer eyewear, but in reality, they were so much more than that.
Due to the undercover nature of the mission, Dutton and his teammates had been forced to deactivate their eye-augs. The soft red glow of the implants would have given them away immediately.
That was where the specs came in.
As Dutton slid the lenses into place, his view of Calyxia was transformed, rendered in infrared heat vision. Glowing orange and yellow bodies copulated in fields of mauve and darker violet. When they rolled over, they left human-shaped heat-stains on the grass.
A quick double eyeblink switched modes, and the specs transitioned to ultraviolet vision—blink-blink—then metal-detection mode. That was the one Dutton wanted. He gave a subtle nod to signal that he was ready.
“Alright,” Reece said. “Let’s move.”
The team leader strolled forward, walking at a leisurely pace, looking every bit the businessman on vacation.
Fairchild walked along beside him, performing a sexy supermodel strut, one foot in front of the other, like she was walking a tightrope in her high heels.
Dutton followed a few paces behind her, savoring the view.
During the course of their week-long journey, his high-carb cooking had had the intended effect. All of Fairchild’s muscles were still there, but now they were covered in a nice, thin layer of fat. When she walked, everything jiggled. And when they were in bed, she didn’t just jiggle; she—
Reece cleared his throat, breaking into Dutton’s thoughts a second time. The team leader lifted a meaningful eyebrow.
“Dutt… maybe you want to walk up front?”
Of course. Since Dutton was the one wearing the specs, he needed to take point. That way he could keep an eye out for their targets. Behind him, Nash chuckled. The youngest Merc was bringing up the rear, guiding the small hover-trolley that held all of their luggage.
“That’s right, Dutt. Get your ass up front where you belong. You’re blocking my view.”
Fairchild must have heard the comment, because she glanced back over her shoulder with fire in her eyes. For a second, Dutton feared she might chew Nash out. Instead, she just smiled sweetly and kept walking, putting a little extra bounce into her step.
Damn… she was really getting into character, wasn’t she?
That was good. Real good.
Dutton took one last look at Fairchild’s twitching backside, burning the image into his memory to tide him over until they got to their room. Then he advanced to the front of the group and continued walking.
A little ways down the footpath, they passed a couple on their way to the docks, a middle-aged man in an expensive-looking suit and a noticeably younger woman in a form-fitting red dress.
Dutton’s specs allowed him to see all the metal the man had on him: comm tablet in his pocket, belt buckle, artificial hip, artificial heart.
The woman had some metal on her as well, hidden beneath the scarlet of her dress—a barbell piercing through each nipple, and a third down between her legs.
The couple offered friendly smiles as they passed, and Dutton returned their greeting. His augmetically-enhanced ears picked up their whispers a moment later.
“Oh my,” the woman said. “I think we’re leaving too early.”
“Indeed,” the man answered. “I would thoroughly enjoy watching those three run the train on you, my darling.”
“Mm. And I wouldn’t mind watching her smother you with her…”
Then the couple was out of earshot, their voices swallowed up by the ambient sounds of soft music and rough sex.
Probably for the best. The woman’s last sentence had ignited a sudden spark of jealousy inside Dutton’s chest. The thought of Fairchild fooling around with anyone other than himself and his brethren was almost more than he could stand.
He realized his hands had turned into fists. He took a deep breath and forced them open again.
Don’t be an idiot, he told himself. You’re on a mission here. A mission.
As they moved deeper into the resort complex, they passed more tourists, and received more flirtatious glances from men and women alike. Some were looking at him, but others obviously had their eyes aimed at Fairchild. Even some of the rutting couples lifted their faces to stare.
Dutton did his best to ignore them. He needed to stay sharp, keep his eyes out for—
There!
Just outside the entrance to one of the resort towers, he saw what he’d been looking for. Three men were coming out through the rotating glass door. Dutton slowed his pace and leaned over to whisper to Reece.
“Ten o’clock,” he said. “Black suits. They’ve got pistols under their jackets.”
Reece nodded, his eyes tracking the three men Dutton was talking about.
“Didn’t need your specs to see that,” he said. “They’re printing so bad it’s like they don’t care if anybody knows they’re packing.”
“Think they’re Slayn’s men?”
“Only one way to find out,” Reece said. He turned and gave Fairchild an affectionate kiss on the cheek, then smiled. “The three of you go get checked in. I’m gonna run a bit of recon.”
They stood for a moment and watched him go, strolling after the armed men at a leisurely pace, yet somehow keeping up with them. Reece had always been the best at tracking and tailing.
Beside him, Dutton sensed Fairchild’s tension returning, but he knew it had nothing to do with the discomfort she felt from her dress. She was worried about Reece, worried about his safety.
And worried, perhaps, about the way some of the other female tourists were eyeing him up.
Was it possible that Fairchild had a jealous streak too?
Interesting.
Dutton placed his palm against the small of her back and guided her gently toward the entrance of the resort tower ahead of them. “Come along, darling,” he said, affecting a posh accent. “Let’s see about our suite, shall we?”
In the real world, he would never have dared to touch Fairchild like that. She was a warrior like himself, and he got the impression she didn’t take kindly to being pushed around by anyone—especially a man. But they were undercover now. They both had their roles to play, and she played hers well.
“Let’s,” she said, smiling up at him sweetly. “I’m just dying to test out the bed.”