Silent Empire #03 - Trickster by Steven Harper

Author:Steven Harper [Harper, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Putnam
Published: 2003-11-01T07:00:00+00:00

Elena Papagos-Faye drummed her fingers on the cheap tabletop of the Pit restaurant with ill-disguised impatience. Devin Reap was a mystery, an enigma. His consultant file with SA was annoyingly brief. He had only been on the station for a few months. Before that he had worked tech for a passenger ship named the Merry Widow, but it had apparently gone into slipspace just before the Despair hit and had never come back. Devin Reap had, by sheer chance, not been aboard because he had been taking a two-week vacation. That was all. Because he was a consultant who didn't work with classified equipment or software, SA didn't keep an extensive background file on him. It didn't even list where he lived--just a com-link code identical to the one he had given her. A high-level check with Domestic hadn't turned up an address, but that wasn't uncommon--Reap was likely pirating quarters with someone. It was a common scam. SA partly based its rents on the number of people living in a given place, so two people who officially shared an apartment would one day come home to a rent hike, wiping out the main reason for putting up with cramped living quarters in the first place.

The fact that Elena couldn't learn more about Devin made him even more intriguing. Elena was someone who made her living manipulating information and data, and not having much information on this guy tantalized her. He certainly hadn't volunteered much about himself last night during their second date at the Pit.

Elena smiled, remembering. Their time together yesterday had been filled with entendres that varied from double to quintuple. They had placed some bets and cheered the gladiators together, and Elena had used the latter activity as an excuse to rub up against him in the press of spectators. Devin seemed to be receptive during the entire thing, even flashed her a shy, boyish smile when her hand stole down into a more . . . private area. But when the Pit closed down for the evening, he had thanked her for a fun time, given her a quick peck on the cheek, and vanished.

She checked the time on her ocular implant. He was three minutes late. This was their third date in as many nights--if you counted their first meeting as a date--and Elena had decided that tonight she would get him into bed if she had to put him in chains. And wasn't that a lovely thought? Watching those muscles of his strain against the metal, hearing him cry and beg as she held back from the one thing that he wanted. That all men wanted.

"What are you thinking about?" a familiar voice asked. Devin slid into the seat across from her in what they had already come to refer to as "their" booth at the Pit. The fights hadn't yet started, and the place was quiet.

"You," she replied. "You're late, you know. I'll make you pay for that."

"I'm sorry," he said contritely. "What can I do to make it up to you?"

His tone was absolutely serious, with no trace of innuendo.

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