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I.”
    The back room of an abandoned warehouse in a Nexian district of New Xiera, made the perfect place for her father to organize a revolution. To Ava, it had been the only secure home she’d known. They’d bathed her in water heated over the rear thrusters of an old starship engine, reclaimed from the bone-yard, and every night, she’d slept in the docking bay of the ancient vessel, on a gel pad scavenged from the captain’s chair.
    Even as a child so young, she knew it wasn’t much, but they were happy. Her parents laughed, talked—were as passionate in their relationship as they were their cause. They weren’t afraid to show it, and even then she’d known how deeply they’d loved.
    Ava’s eyes snapped open, and she set the journal down. For the first time in her life, she wanted more. She hungered for something different from the heritage that had haunted her twenty-nine years, following her from planet to planet. And for just once, she wished it would leave her in peace.
    “Seth,” she whispered and her stomach fluttered. His taste, his energy, all she craved and should run from. For her parents it had been love at first sight, a soul-match.
    For her, it had also been love at first sight. The Regulator pulled on her soul, her body. He touched feelings she’d buried under her duty to her cause and people—emotions she’d sworn to leave alone. That had gotten her parents killed, leaving her an orphan, flying from world to world with her rogue uncle, one port ahead of the Regulators.
    Love was not for forgotten Nexian aristocrats with Rebel leader fathers. Love wasn’t for the captain of a ship that smuggled illegal goods for the resistance.
    Love was for fools, and she’d do well to remember that.

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
     
    Ava slipped out of her clothes and discarded the red swim garment on the floor. She stepped into mister, letting it spray her naked flesh. The hot water would soothe her stress, lighten her mood, and give her a chance to work off building frustrations.
    His kiss . She ached for more. Raising her fingers to her mouth, she ran the pads along her swollen lips, where she still tasted him. Memories of the kiss, the heat of his body as she touched him. She throbbed between the thighs, hot, desperate to have more of the Regulator. The contact didn’t sate her. It had made her ravenous. She closed her eyes as the shower rained like a spring storm.
    Gods, she was a fool. She wanted him and yet she’d locked him to the bed, leaving him in his room, angry.
    She shouldn’t feel guilty about cuffing and leaving him, but she did. The League certainly would’ve tagged him, and they’d know his exact location when he failed to check in as Regulator protocol dictated. He wouldn’t be stranded for long.
    The first rule in running a criminal enterprise—know thy enemy. Ava knew the Regulator standard operating procedure better than most of the men who carried the badge. Her uncle made her memorize the entire four-hundred page digital document before she reached the age of eight. To this day, she could quote any section if given a page number and twist it to suit any need she had. Loopholes were a smuggler’s blessing. She knew every trick and had even created a few of her own.
    She put her hand under a soap dispenser. It squirted a slippery fluid into her hand. Bracing a leg against a nook in the wall, she started to soap along her calf, moving up her thigh, massaging every inch of skin. A warm buzz moved through her body, molten heat and lust.
    Her fingers brushed her swollen clit. Her mouth fell open, and she gasped. Ava collapsed against the shower wall, and pressed her heel tighter into the nook. Water ran down her body, splashing over the jewels and igniting them, driving the spike of need deeper.
    Him .
    She ran her fingers up her thigh, along the outside on her mons until she stopped above the throbbing nub. She sucked in a breath and stroked again. What would it feel like to make love