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  But even though we were being as polite as possible around each other, Leah still seemed to be too close to me about ninety percent of the time.

  If I sat down on one of the comfort couches I had in my small lounge area, she sat right beside me so our legs brushed. When I stood at the counter of the food-prep area to make a meal, she was right beside me, so close I could smell the warm, sweet scent of her hair and feel her arm brush mine. Everywhere I went, there she was. It was enough to drive a male crazy.

  The weird thing was, though, that I didn’t think she realized what she was doing. It was almost like she was drawn to me unconsciously—like there was some kind of weird magnetic field between us, pulling us closer whether we wanted to be or not.

  It affected me too. More than once I caught myself right before I put an arm around her and once I almost kissed her good night without even thinking about it. I couldn’t understand what was going on or why I had such a hard time keeping my hands off her but I wished like hell I could figure it out so I could stop it.

  Leah wasn’t in my league not nearly. Besides being gorgeous, she was a Pure One and a La-ti-zal. But that wasn’t the only reason she needed to stay away from me. I was a hybrid—a half-breed. I couldn’t bond with a female and it wasn’t fair to lead her on and pretend I could. Of course, my friend Sarden was also a half-breed and he’d managed to bond Zoe to him. How he did that, I didn’t know but I couldn’t assume I would be as lucky as he was.

  But even if Leah had been in my league and I had been sure I could form a bond with her, I still wouldn’t have pursued her. Because if I did, at some point, she would have to learn about my past. And if she found out what I had done—if she knew the kind of male I really was—I knew she’d run as fast and as far in the other direction as she could.

  I wasn’t up for that.

  I didn’t want to see the look of horror and disgust on her lovely face when she found out the reason I was locked up for ten years in triple max lockdown. Far better to keep my distance and hope Leah did the same.

  Only she wasn’t exactly keeping her distance right now.

  I was sitting in the control seat and she was leaning over in such a way that her soft breasts brushed my arm through the thin white nothing of a blouse she was wearing. I felt their soft, yielding weight like a brand on my flesh, making me want to turn to her and grab her—an urge I strongly resisted. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the long, silky curtain of her hair fell across my skin too, tickling and teasing me in a way that was hard to ignore. Damn hard.

  “So this is the place? This is Sincon Delta?” she asked again and I realized I’d been too distracted by her nearness to give her an answer.

  “Yeah.” I heard the low growl in my voice and tried to smooth it out. “Uh…this is it.”

  “Oh. It’s really big.” She shifted and I felt her breasts move against my arm, the tight little nipples poking through her thin blouse. Inside my flight trousers, my shaft snarled.

  Sincon Delta wasn’t the only thing that was big at the moment.

  Stop it, I told myself. Just fucking stop now.

  But I couldn’t.

  Once again, I didn’t think Leah was aware of how her closeness was affecting me. After all, it was no fault of hers she was so fucking gorgeous or that the damn Commercians had given her such a tiny, revealing outfit to wear which barely covered her lush curves.

  She probably had no idea of what she was doing to me and it wasn’t my place to say anything about it. It wasn’t her fault for being desirable—it was mine for desiring her. I knew all that and yet somehow I couldn’t stop.

  Ever since the kiss we’d shared I was hyper aware of her. Every time she brushed a strand of that long, gorgeous hair out of her big brown eyes, every time she moved and I could see the shadows of her full breasts shift inside her thin blouse, the little pink nipples looking achingly hard, every time I caught a tendril of her warm, delicious feminine scent, I wanted her.

  I needed to stop that shit.

  “Yeah, it’s big,” I answered, trying to keep my voice even. “But this is just the planet—the actual tech district we want is a station that’s orbiting it. In fact, none of the inhabitants live on the surface.” I gestured to the vast orange and white curve of the planet beneath us.

  “Oh? Why not?” Leah wanted to know.

  “It’s a gas giant. Like some of the ones in your own solar system,” I told her. “There’s nothing to live on. But the planet has rings full of precious metals—good for mining. And where there’s precious metals, there’s tech. You need gold and platinum to make malleable, incorruptible alloys for nanobots, robo-dendrytes, immersion circuits—you know, that kind of stuff.”

  “Right. That kind of stuff.” Leah laughed, a soft, musical, feminine sound I swore I could feel all the way down to my balls. Gods, even her laugh was gorgeous! I really wished I hadn’t kissed her—it seemed to have started a chain reaction somehow. All I wanted to do was take her in my arms and kiss her again. What in the Frozen Hells of Anor was wrong with me?

  “So what are we going to do?” she said. “I mean, when we get to the station.”

  “You’re not going,” I said, frowning. “Safer if you stay in the ship.”

  “What?” She stood up straight and put her hands on her hips. The gesture pulled the white blouse tight across her full breasts and I had to work damn hard to keep my eyes on her face.

  “You heard me,” I growled. “The tech district isn’t as bad as say, the cloning district on Gallana, but it’s still more danger than I want to put you in.”

  “I’m going to be going into danger with you when we get to the all-girls’ planet,” she pointed out.

  “You mean Gemina?” I tried not to laugh. “Yeah, so?”

  “So you might as well let me go with you to the Sincon space station too. We’re partners, right?” She raised one slim eyebrow at me. “Didn’t you tell me we’d split the reward fifty-fifty?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Then we should split the risks fifty-fifty too,” she said, frowning. “If I’m really your partner, I want you to treat me like an equal.”

  Well, she had me there. Or maybe I was just trying so hard not to stare at her chest it was making me stupid.

  “Fine,” I growled. “But if you come with me, you do as I say. You’ve never been off your little planet before—you don’t know how rough and violent it can get out here in some of the darker parts of the galaxy.”

  “I know about violence,” she said quietly and I wanted to kick myself for being an idiot. Of course she knew about violence—living with that evil, brutal bastard of a mate of hers.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, looking back at the viewscreen.

  “It’s okay. I’m sorry too.” She sighed. “I shouldn’t have brought it up—I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  “It’s not that.” I ran a hand over my hair. “It just makes me fuckin’ crazy to think of him hitting you.” I gave her a sidelong glance. “How often did he rough you up, darlin’?”

  She bit her lush lower lip.

  “Only…only twice before…before you stopped him,” she said in a small voice. “Neither time was as bad as this last, uh, attack though. The first two times, he cried afterwards and said he was sorry.”

  “Uh-huh. Probably brought you flowers and presents too,” I said grimly. “And promised it would never happen again, right?”

  She gave me a surprised look.

  “Well…yes. How did you know?”

  “There’s a pattern for that kind of male,” I said shortly. “I’ve seen it before.”

  “Oh, right. During your job as a Protector, right?”

  That wasn’t what I’d meant but I wasn’t about to dive into my bloody past right then and there.

  “Uh, sure,” I said, nodding. “That’s right.”

  “What I don’t understand is why I stayed with him. That first time