Page 82 of Throwing Fire

“Public,” I remind her, but I don’t try to stop her. I hug her close so I can whisper into her ear, “You’ve made me into such a simp.”

“I love you,” she whispers back. “I love you.” She keeps kissing me until I catch her face in my hands. “I love you so much.”

“See how much you love me when somethin’ Dunk’s fed Jaxon bites us in the ass.”

“I don’t care. I’ll still love you.” She wriggles free of my hands and goes back to kissing my neck and chin. “Can we go back to your place? Please?”

“Thought we were goin’ out to lunch?” I don’t really care all that much, although I had picked out a nice place for us to eat and I don’t think there’s any food at mine, since we’ve been eating at Kez’s most nights of late.

We can always get take-out.

“Please?” She kisses me more determinedly. “I want to be alone with you.”

Well, that’s tempting. But I’m supposed to be letting the little monster heal. “Kitten.”

“Please?”

I love it when she begs. “Okay, yeah.”

That’s why Doc Gray gave me the goo, after all.

After leaving a message for Myhre about Duncan’s mother, I lead Kez out to my trike. We make a quick stop for noodles from a shop a minute from my place. Another quick stop in my ‘fresher for lube, because it can’t hurt to give the goo a helping hand. Kez tries to drag me out to the hammock on my deck, but fucking in view of Security Xec Zatlan’s corpse is not a turn-on, so we end up in my bed, with her riding me. The sex is sweet and sweaty and messy.

She cries against my neck while I finish, which doesn’t surprise me, given everything that’s happened. It’s just a release of tension. I hold her for a while afterwards, until the little monster reminds me that it’s supposed to be in recovery. I withdraw, clean us both up, put on more of the goo and some skivvies, and retrieve the noodles from the kitchen. I’ve learned not to have sex with Kez on a full stomach. Gives me gas.

She’s straightened the bed and pulled on one of the soft, silky shifts she keeps at my place by the time I return. We prop ourselves up against the headboard and eat our noodles directly out of the tray. Kez leans against my side and I put my arm around her as we eat. Good thing I can use chopsticks left-handed.

“Why didn’t you kill Dunk?” she asks around a mouthful of noodles.

“He ever mention his mother to you?”

“Mmm-hum.” Kez chews for a moment. “He lives with her. She’s sick, I think.”

“Yeah, radiation sickness. Jaxon got leverage on Dunk by threatening her. Same as the Old Man before him.”

Kez sighs. Taps her chopsticks against side of the tray. “I should have seen that coming, shouldn’t I?”

“Whether or not Old Man Tyng was thinkin’ of her as his heir before Sokun’s death, she’s still his daughter. Makes sense he’d keep an eye on her.”

“Yeah, but a spy in my house?”

“Gig’s too good for anything else.” I just added defenses to the Warren. Gig had it in an anti-surveillance wrapper long before I came along. “Without eyes or ears, they’d need a man on the inside. We gotta figure they know everything about where you’re gonna be and when. You can’t keep to your routine. Sorry, kitten.”

She rubs her temple against my shoulder. “It’s okay. I knew this was coming.”

“You didn’t seem very happy about it out in the Clouds.”

“I’m not.” She rolls her head against my shoulder. Smiles up at me. “But there’ve been compensations. Spending nearly every minute with you doesn’t suck.”

I chuckle. Give her a squeeze. “Speakin’ of which, I think this was the last shoppin’ trip for you and Baby Tyng. I know that’s gonna be hard for you to take.”

Kez sniggers. “I’m destroyed. You’re going to have to break it to her, though. We’re supposed to be doing nails and hair tomorrow. I feel like a threedy star.”

“We gotta focus on business now.” The serious business of destroying our enemies. And keeping Kez safe. “I need you with me for that. I’ve got a hard lead on Jaxon. Means going to Tonlye, though.”

“We could hit that on our way back from Kuus.”

It’s a little out of the way, but Tonlye’s down the Hemos Valley from Kuus, so we’d be going in the right direction, at any rate. “Howlong you think the meet-n-greet with your friend Java’s going to take?”