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Layla grinned as she followed Stevie to the door. “Good luck, Rann. You’re gonna need it.”

Then they were gone, the medbay door sliding shut behind them.

Rann looked at B.

She looked back at him.

“Well,” he said carefully. “What do humans do when they’re not allowed to work?”

10

That was a leading question, surely?

Blythe looked up at him.

Rann watched her steadily from beside the medbay door, one broad shoulder against the frame, like he had all the time in the world. The lights caught his strange eyes as he tilted his head. They were a strange mix of blue and green, more blue on one side than the other. Not contacts, either. She’d been close enough to know they weren’t… and close enough to know what those full lips felt like against hers.

His shirt pulled tight over his chest and arms, showing every bit of muscle he had. Pilots were supposed to be soft around the middle from sitting in cockpits, drinking bad coffee, and complaining about fuel costs. Not built like they could rip open an airlock door with their bare hands.

Which, come to think of it...

Nope. Hell nope. Not thinking about that right now.

The question might have been a come-on. Yeah, thinking about it, it almost certainly was. And she was sure he’d lied about his background, or at least some of it. Who was called Norman Smith of all things? Although Norman Smith was way more believable than him running from Maxim Martel. No one ran from Martel. They just died.

But then she frowned. There were the scars. And the way he’d gotten to her out there. No one moved like that who didn’t know what they were doing.

She shook her head. Right at the moment, she really didn’t care about the whos or the whats or the maybes.

They were alive. And that was all that mattered.

“They play cards or have sex,” she said bluntly. “And I don’t know about you, but I left my deck of cards back on that shithole of a station.”

For one beautiful second, he didn’t move.

Then his eyes widened. Just a little. His mouth parted, and the color rose along his cheekbones beneath that rough dark stubble.

Oh. Oh, hell yeah…

Her stomach flipped over. Not from the concussion either. No. Definitely not from the concussion.

He’d obviously expected her to snap at him or tell him to piss off. But the realization of what she’d actually said darkened his eyes, heat pushing out the blue and green until they looked dangerous.

Then he straightened away from the door.

Fuck.

He was big before. In the narrow medbay, with the ceiling low and the counters close around them, he looked enormous. Tall enough that he had to duck his head slightly beneath the light fitting. His shoulders filled out that shirt, his chest broad as he stalked toward her with all the grace and lethality of a predator.

It hit her again. How easily he’d caught her in space.

And how he’d held her against him like she was the most precious thing in the universe.

She’d spent her whole life taking care of herself. Carrying the bag as well as everyone else’s problems, or crawling into the hole no one else wanted to, to fix whatever had broken.

James had promised to be there for her, right up until he’d crashed their ship and run off with every credit they owned.

Nobody had ever put their life on the line for her.