his jugular and scraped her teeth along the pulse beating wildly there while gripping his growing erection through his pants.
He sucked in a sharp breath, and she grinned, leaning back just enough to look him right in the eye. The mischievous gleam in her eye amused and unsettled him. She had something naughty in mind, and as much as he wanted to indulge her, he couldn’t ignore his responsibility to her well-being. He shook his head and gently touched the area where he had operated a short while ago. “Let’s wait.”
She pouted dramatically and rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
He pinched her thigh. “Behave or else I’ll have to punish you.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she signed back.
“Brat.” He kissed her lovingly and held her close, enjoying the feel of her on his lap and in his arms. He let his mind wander briefly to the question of where they would go after the pleasure ship reached its destination. The answer to that question depended on what the chip revealed. If it was information they could use to bargain for her freedom, he would have to try to make contact with Vicious and work out a deal for her safety.
He eyed the ration box and noticed the reactive strip on the outside had gone white, indicating the heat cycle was complete. Not ready to let go of Maisie just yet, he ignored it. A little extra time to cook out the moisture wouldn’t hurt.
“Terror?”
“Yes?”
“Should we be using contraception?”
The question was one they should have discussed before falling into bed. Wanting to set her at ease, he explained, “We already are.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I have implants.”
“Implants?” She eyed his lap. “Where?”
“In my testicles,” he stated matter-of-factly. “They’re standard issue for all special ops. We get them right out of the Academy.”
She made a horrified face. “Does that hurt?”
“At the time, yes,” he admitted. “Like hell, actually.”
“And now? I mean, when you orgasm? Is it painful?”
“No,” he assured her. “It doesn’t hurt at all. Sometimes, there’s a bit of pressure, but nothing painful.”
She considered his reply and then asked, “Is it permanent?”
He shook head. “They can be dislodged with trauma or removed when a man leaves spec ops or Grabs a mate.”
Her stomach growled loudly, interrupting a discussion that was about to wander into territory he wasn’t sure they were ready for just yet. Babies were a future decision. Far in the future. When they weren’t on the run.
He shifted her off his lap and onto her feet. “Order room service. I’ll check the chip.”
Maisie hesitated. “What’s our money situation? Like am I ordering a sandwich for us to share?”
“We’re okay,” he assured her. “I have money squirreled away in all sorts of places.”
Her eyebrows raised at that. “Did a lot of off the books work?”
“Something like that,” he admitted. “Missions get boring. I had free time. I chose to use that time doing odd jobs and invested it.”
“Under the table?”
“Very.”
“Well, Mr. Moneybags, I’m getting steak,” she decided. “Real meat, from a cow, raised on a planet with actual grass. None of that weird lab meat. And fruit,” she added, with a flourish of hand signals. “Fresh fruit from an actual tree.”
He smiled as she sauntered off to the cruise ship’s touchscreen communication unit mounted flush on the wall. While she tapped away at the room service menu, he retrieved the nearly bricked tablet he had taken from the shredder bin at the safe house. The tablet wasn’t able to connect to any network which made it perfect for reading a chip that might hold a malicious program. Even though he trusted the work Pam had done on it, he checked the tablet again himself to make sure the connectivity was completely destroyed and unusable.
Maisie joined him back at the table and opened the now cooled ration box. She carefully removed the tray holding the gauze-wrapped chip and extended it toward him. He peeled away the gauze to retrieve the clean, dry chip and examined it. From what he could see, it looked fine. Glancing up at Maisie, he said, “Fingers crossed.”
She lifted her hand and crossed two fingers with a playful smile before moving a chair closer to him. The chip slipped right into the correct slot, and he accessed it easily on the tablet. It took a few seconds to open up the information stored on the chip, and Terror grimaced at the possibility the chip was corrupted. After a few tense moments, folders began to populate the