Keirth rubbed his face. Great. So he’d slept for a while. And sure enough, the ship started beeping to let him know that they’d be exiting hyperspace in a half hour. Keirth jumped out of bed and pulled his trousers on. “Stay here,” he told Ariana. He ran to the bridge, turned off the alarm, and checked to make sure everything was in order. Then he climbed back into bed with Ariana, who was propped up on the only pillow in the bed.
“You gonna share that?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Not sure.”
He put his head on her shoulder instead. She wrapped her arm around him. Now he was pillowed on her breast. Nice. He couldn’t resist lifting his head to put his mouth on her nipple again for a second.
She squealed.
He rested his head on her breast again. “We should get married.”
Ariana laughed. “Is this a proposal, Keirth, because I feel like they usually involve asking questions.”
“Do you want to get married?”
“Keirth...”
He repositioned himself so that he was facing her, propped up with one arm. He kissed her. “Seriously. We’ll have new names, and we’ll be legitimate, and we’re going to travel the galaxy together. Doesn’t it make sense to get married?”
She was grinning. “I guess so.”
“Is that a yes?” he asked. “Because usually they sound more certain.”
“It’s just backwards is all. I think people usually meet, fall in love, get married, have sex, and then maybe they save each other’s lives. But we’ve got it all jumbled.”
“Would it make you feel better if I got down on one knee?”
She laughed again. “No.” She kissed him. “Yes.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Feeling confused?”
“I mean, yes, I’ll marry you, you idiot.”
“Good.” And they were kissing again, and she was naked against him, and Keirth let his hands sweep searchingly over her glorious skin. If they weren’t going to be out of hyperspace soon, he’d... He forced himself to pull away.
“I would like a ring, though, I think,” said Ariana. “I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter—”
“Of course it matters,” said Keirth. “After all, I have to make sure other men know you’re spoken for.”
She smiled at him, running her hands over his chest. “We couldn’t have that, now could we?”
For a man who’d been pretty sure his life would be over after he completed his revenge, things were certainly looking up. He thought that with Ariana with him, he couldn’t possibly be happier. “You and me,” he whispered. “Together, traveling wherever we want, seeing the universe.”
“It sounds perfect,” she said.
And it was perfect. There was nothing more perfect than the two of them together in their narrow bed on the ship as it streamed through space. Nothing. But eventually, they had to get up and get dressed. There were guns to be sold.
* * *
“Sorry about the visual,” said a voice filtering through the ship’s comm in the bridge. “We’ve got a bit of a malfunction here. Hasn’t worked in a week.”
“That’s fine,” Keirth said. They’d just come out of hyperspace near the planet Eron. Once in regular space, Keirth had made contact with the people they were smuggling the guns to. “Just send me some coordinates and we’ll touch down and get this show on the road.” The people he was working with were touchy, apparently. They hadn’t wanted to give their exact location to Itrick Monthow because they were paranoid. Instead, they’d indicated that Keirth would need to contact them once he was in system. Keirth wasn’t sure if this was standard practice or not.
“Transmitting now,” said the voice.
Keirth checked his console. “Yep. Got it. See you planetside.” He plugged the coordinates into the ship and told Ariana to strap in. Going back into an atmosphere was usually a little bit bumpy.
He didn’t have trouble landing the ship. There was a nice big field to set her down in. Once they’d landed and powered down, he and Ariana went to the cargo bay. “They’ll probably meet us down here,” he told her, opening the hatch so it would be easier to unload the gun crates. He wanted to reach over and grab her hand, or pull her close, but he didn’t think it was a great idea for them to look like lovestruck idiots in front of the men who were buying guns, so he squelched the desire.
The hatch opened. Keirth peered out to see if anyone was there. He didn’t see—
A man appeared from around the side of the ship. He was dressed in a black jumpsuit. He had a blaster trained on Keirth.