Moonstruck by Susan Grant

was one step closer to getting them launched and out of his hair.
    Finn folded his arms over his chest, his armor creaking. He’d won. Instead of celebrating that he got his crew on board, he was thinking about what a gods-be-damned long voyage it was going to be. First, there was something going on between him and Bandar that he couldn’t figure out, but it had something to do with hate and hurt and one hell of a mutual sexual attraction. Combine that with patrolling the Borderlands with her wanting to hunt down rogue Drakken to arrest them, and him wanting to save them. If he were smart, he’d leave now.
    Problem was, Finn had been hungry more than he’d been smart. He needed this job. He’d waged worse battles against worse odds than the one between his heart, his cock and this hands-off woman.

CHAPTER FOUR
    S EVEN…FIVE…THREE… Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Rorkken, Brit counted decks, willing them lower and faster. The ride in the lift from the floor that housed Zaafran’s offices Ring level down to where the Unity was docked at gangway level was interminable. Brit never knew how long mere minutes could stretch out. Each one was an eternity. In the hours since lunch, her reaction to the warleader hadn’t faded. It was more than a passing resemblance to Seff; Finnar Rorkken radiated what could only be described as presence. She could close her eyes and know he was there.
    That was unacceptable, of course.
    Finally, the descent was over. The door slid open with a soft hiss. Brit strode out first, hands locked behind her back, trying to give the impression she was employing a purposeful stride, not running away. Instinct urged her to flee Rorkken; attraction made her want to have him at her side. She boiled with self-loathing and lust, hating that she thought of him, a Drakken, as a man at all.
    She’d spent a career serving with males. Few turned her head, few inspired more than a passing notice. Why this Drakken?
    He looks like Seff. Yes, of course that was it. Why else would she be so drawn to him?
    “Drawn” is an understatement, and you know it. She wanted him in her bed, inside her body, which was utterly unacceptable. Such an attraction must be eradicated.
    She was a sexual being. Now those signals were misfiring, pointing her to the wrong target. If not for the interruption of her shore leave and playtime with the man-toy she hired she wouldn’t be wrestling with such pent-up hunger in the first place. The fault was Zaafran’s—yes, his and the entire Reunification Committee’s—for taking her from the Vengeance and forcing her to take command of a freak show of a crew.
    Heavy boots caught up with her. She gave Rorkken a sidelong glance if only to remind herself of what he was. Not a potential lover. A Drakken. Skin peeked out from under worn leather straps—the curve of muscle and bone, scars. She sped up to escape the sight.
    Rorkken easily maintained her pace. He smelled of leather, and clean skin, spicy sweet, and faintly like that peculiar odor all Drakken carried. It made her want to retch. She was used to Drakken stinking like animals. There was that underlying smell they all had that she couldn’t define. All she knew was it lingered wherever they were, and wherever they’d been.
    “Shall we tour the bridge first?” he asked. “Or belowdecks?”
    “The bridge.”
    “I’d hoped you’d say that.”
    She stiffened at the deep, almost intimate timbre of his voice. How many like him had purred in similar tones as they slit throats, or raped, and murdered little children? Don’t think of that. She gritted her teeth until they ached. Arrayar was a long time ago, in another life that hardly seemed like it had ever belonged to her. But it had.
    Rorkken’s armor creaked, and the beads in his hair tinkled. A Drakken with Seff’s eyes. She couldn’t look at him.
    You have to. He is your first officer. You can’t talk to his boots. But she didn’t trust what he might see if their