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chair."
    "Knock it off. I'm really no fun." His standard letdown these days. Not that he had to use it often. With the prostheses, most people treated him like he'd suddenly morphed into a different species—something way too complicated to have sex with. And he'd grown to agree. He was too complicated to attempt a connection with the other species: the abled . Especially when the connection was something as fragile as sex.
    "I'll decide whether you're fun or not." Grimm's hand hovered near his hip rather than making its way down his legs. "Maybe I think you are."
    Kyle swallowed. Now, Grimm was insistent. He was Tamenean, and, fuck, he was also a warrior. Shining knight on a white steed. A born and bred hero, selfless and noble. And even though Grimm had clearly made a mockery of the tattoo on his face, Kyle still felt that old reflex to take his hurt to a warrior.
    Take your darkness to the warrior, for they can slay it.
    "Some kind of warrior you are," Kyle muttered.
    "You're evading the question."
    "What fucking question?"
    "Can I kiss you?"
    "You didn't ask." And it's a no , he was about to add, but Grimm shut him up with a deep, curiously intense kiss. It wasn't even probing so much as familiar, like they'd been lovers before, even for years, and the old spark had never withered. He tasted of electricity and copper wires and all too human. Kyle groaned with pleasure when Grimm ran his fingers through his hair. He felt more alive than he had in weeks—his scalp tingling under a touch too sensual to have come from a stranger.
    "I've wanted to do that for a while," Grimm murmured.
    "I'm sure Jay and Petros wouldn't mind a third guy."
    Grimm smiled. "Not interested."
    Focus on the work. Kyle pushed the thoughts away and then the man. "You got from me what you wanted." Pretend this is still about the stupid codes.
    "Not by a long shot," Grimm said, and it sounded like a promise.
    Kyle shifted his weight as best he could to test the chair himself, but everything was in order. Just needed to do something so he didn't have to look at Grimm or acknowledge the touch. "Give me access to the system."
    Grimm laughed, stood back and adjusted himself in his jumpsuit. "You can have all the access you want."
    Bastard. Kyle's gaze stuck for a second to what Grimm held in his hand, and a hot-cold sensation flashed over him, a memory of arching over the body of another man, sweaty skin sliding together. He ground his teeth in frustration. Ever since the injury, nobody had been so insistent on getting into his pants; he'd overheard a nurse saying he was damn cute and it was a crying shame , but nobody had managed to get him into bed. Early on, he'd resolved that people who wanted him because of the prostheses—and there had been two or three—were fucking freaks and he wanted nothing to do with them. But he hadn't counted on meeting a warrior so far from home.
    "The system," he reminded Grimm.
    "Fine." Grimm threw his hands up and went back to his chair. He tapped buttons and pulled levers, and Kyle's screen came alive like his body couldn't anymore. But he felt the current of excitement all the same. He logged on, shook hands with the system, set up his ID, and the systems recognized the other Kyle, the petty criminal. Connected again.
    For a few hours, they worked in silence, Grimm in control of the ship, cross-checking navigational data with an attention to detail that would have seemed manic even in the Space Navy. Had he messed up once and now took it much more seriously? Getting out of the solar system wasn't that complicated. Any experienced pilot could do that in their sleep. And at the speed they were going, there was simply no way anything but a high-spec hunter-killer commando could catch up with them. But then, an obsessive-compulsive co-pilot was better than a sloppy asshole, so he kept his thoughts to himself.
    Besides, he was busy getting to know the ship. Cargo Hold One had life support and heating, and Cargo Hold Two was