Free Thief by Anitra Lynn McLeod

hard, tilted head look. “Are you, like Heller said, a—eunuch?” Up her eyebrow went as she cast a dubious gaze to his trousers.
    Jace laughed. “Life would be simpler if I was, but, no, I’m not a eunuch.” He looked out the window to the fathomless Void. “It’s funny, in a way.”
    “What?”
    Jace looked her dead-on. “If I hold you to whore, I’m suspect. If I don’t, I’m even more so. Even by your standards.”
    Kraft opened her mouth to speak, then clamped her jaw with an audible click. She leaned back and considered him for a long, quiet time. Her gaze held the same intensity she’d had when she held him at the tip of her blade. “You’re right. I guess I’ve come to expect the worst. I’ve forgotten.”
    “Forgotten what?”
    “That you are so much more than pretty.”
    “Don’t know about that.” Jace rolled his eyes. Why did she keep calling him pretty? Didn’t sound like an insult the way she said it, but it didn’t sound quite wholesome either.
    Kraft unfurled herself from the counter like a deadly cat and looked down at herself. “My back is to the proverbial wall, Captain Lawless. I got no ship, shirt, or even pants but at your discretion.”
    Looking up at him from a lowered face, she said, “Were you in mind, you could strip me bare and toss me out an airlock, and that’s either before or after you make my last hours hell. Lord on high, I’m at your mercy. You and I both know it.”
    Jace nodded. “I once fell to your mercy.”
    “And you were willing to give up everything just to save your crew.” Kraft frowned. “I don’t have anything to bargain with.”
    “Is that why you spared me?” He’d long and deep into the night pondered why Kraft had let him go. In her hand, at the tip of her blade, she could have taken everything—his ship, his crew, his life. But she didn’t. She left him with everything intact and 5K in script goods. Kraft split the haul so even-steven he still couldn’t grasp why.
    “Spared you?” Kraft shook her head and chuckled. “Heller could have killed us all in an instant with his Gatewin Gusher. If anybody did any sparing that day, it would be him.” She tilted her face to the window in the kitchen ceiling. “I danced. And while I danced with you, I found out you are smart, honorable and fair.”
    “Don’t know about honorable. I am a thief after all.” Jace turned his attention to the swath of Void out the window.
    “Being honorable in a dishonorable Void is a mite difficult, isn’t it, Captain Lawless?” Her voice rolled out to embrace him.
    He looked at her, compellingly dressed in his own clothes, and felt his desire for her rise such that the heat would make him blush if he didn’t turn away. Suddenly, Senna filled his mind. He felt an almost crushing guilt and turned his back on Kraft.
    “It is at that, Kraft. Being honorable in a dishonorable Void is mighty difficult.”

Chapter Ten
    Within three days, Kraft’s life aboard Mutiny settled into a pattern. She cooked while Heller needled her every chance he got, Garrett took great pleasure in tossing limericks back and forth, Bailey developed a crush on her, and Payton and her daughter, Charissa, seemed endlessly fascinated by heavily censored tales of her derring-do.
    Jace made himself scarce.
    Kraft saw him, or at least his backside, only at meal times. She found her gaze drawn to his slightly too long black hair that curled against his shirt collar and brushed the expanse of his shoulders. His utensils looked small in his broad hands and drew her attention up his sinewy forearms, dusted with black hair, to his biceps below the folded sleeves of his homespun shirts.
    Kraft found herself inordinately pleased when Jace maintained a reverent silence during meals. Talking took time away from enjoying his food. The others talked and joked, but the only time Jace responded was when one of the others complimented her on the meal; he would nod vigorously, but keep eating.
    Bailey