Stripper: The Fringe, Book 4 by Anitra Lynn McLeod

“Scary Mary. She’s one of a kind.”
    “And she’s on Windmere.”
    “Is she who you’re after?” Duster hadn’t thought of that angle, but it fit. There was an awful lot about Mary neither he nor Michael knew. As the Bandit of Taiga, Mary made a bundle of bitter enemies. As the Purple Lady of Corona, she undoubtedly made even more. Hell, just her walking into a room would piss some people off, given the arrogant strut she had. No matter what her nickname, Mary had a real knack for making enemies out of people within five minutes. Moreover, her mysterious father was an IWOG officer. As crazy at it might seem at first blush, Diane could have been after Mary.
    “I’m not after anyone,” Diane defended.
    “Just money.” Duster turned his attention to her restraints. He realized he wasn’t checking them as much as he was feeling the way the silk robe clung to her hips. Damn it. He had to get his hormones under control.
    “I give up. I’m not going to argue with you anymore.”
    “Gee, that’s too bad. Looks like we don’t have much to say to each other, then.” Duster got behind her and marched her to the bridge. “Take a seat.”
    Diane made an ungainly plop in the copilot’s chair. When her robe lofted open, she tried to close the loose flaps by wriggling her legs and squirming her hands. All she did was widen the gap.
    Duster grinned. He had a wonderful view of her legs all the way up almost to her tight, wet— “Leave it.”
    Diane lifted her head like a queen addressing a serf. “Why don’t you just have me run around naked?”
    “It’s better this way.” Actually, he enjoyed enticing himself, teasing himself. Seeing some, not all. After a lingering look at her, he turned his attention to the dash. “Now, let’s see what we have here.”
    Riveting his hands to the keypad, Duster quickly hacked into the heart of the ship’s mainframe. “Nice.” He changed all the passwords, recalibrated all the autofires, then checked the Tasher history cache.
    “What are you doing?” Diane tried to sound mildly curious, but there was a distinct edge of panic to her voice.
    “You know what I’m doing.” When Duster glared, her queenly look crumpled to one of frightened maid. “I’m about to find out a whole lot about you.” With another series of keystrokes, he accessed her email, her credit accounts and the entire history of her registered ship. “Well, well, isn’t this interesting.”
     
    Diane took a deep breath. There wasn’t anything about Scott. She knew that for a fact. Only one other person knew about him, and that was the way it was going to stay. Duster would never let her go if he found out. If he was in love with another woman, she certainly wasn’t going to tell him.
    Deliberately sounding bored, she said, “I can’t imagine what you find so fascinating about my transactions.”
    “Well.” He tapped the screen. “Your network, for one. I didn’t know you were working with them. How long have you been a member of Network Thirteen?”
    “Since the day I met you.”
    There was a long pause as all the implications of that sunk into Duster’s mind. He nodded, as if that lone fact made everything click. “So that’s why you betrayed me the first time. I guess Michael was right.”
    “About what?”
    “That you really did want me dead. See, I always thought you just wanted to get away.” Duster frowned, his hurt stamping clear lines across his brow. “You really did want me to die in that shuttle, didn’t you?”
    “I wanted you to survive. I helped you get away.”
    Duster uttered such a harsh and bitter laugh, she winced.
    “Right!” Duster snickered. “You helped me ever so much by strapping me into a shuttle that had barely an hour of air left. Oh, but yes, before you left, you accepted my ring of betrothal, then screwed me senseless.” He shot her a grin and a tight wink. “That was a nice touch.”
    Diane felt the ring against her back. She wanted to yank it out