Collision Course by Zoe Archer Read Free Book Online Page A

Commander,” she said, all business. “It’s about to get rough.”
    He did so, and just in time. They had reached the outer perimeter of Ilden’s Lash. Giant, shifting masses of molten rock seethed and moved, and clots of partially-formed asteroids careened between them. A hunk of scrap metal drifted through the Lash. The moment it contacted a swell of magma, it incinerated.
    Seeing Ilden’s Lash through the cockpit’s window sent a bolt of adrenalin through him. A normal person would be frightened. Kell grinned.
    She caught his grin, and her eyes gleamed with anticipation.
    “Let me fly us through.” He leaned forward, barely able to contain his excitement.
    “Don’t trust my skills?”
    “I want to take a shot at it.”
    “Decelerate your thrusters, Frayne. This is my ship, and my run through the Lash.”
    He growled his displeasure. Whenever he saw a challenge, he ached to conquer it. But unless he wanted to tie Mara down and wrest the controls from her, he was going to have to content himself with letting her do the work.
    “I hate being a passenger,” he muttered.
    “Me too.” She took the controls.
    And then all arguments about who would and wouldn’t be piloting the ship disappeared as they breached the Lash.
    Calm but focused, Mara angled the ship to swerve through a narrow opening between two protoplanets. The ship shot forward, then banked hard to port when a cluster of asteroids spun toward them. Three asteroids collided with one another, shattering into clouds of jagged debris. The ship shimmied with the force of the concussion.
    “Having fun?” Mara shouted above the rattle of the hull.
    “Hell, yes,” he shouted back.
    “Good—because it gets better.”
    Someone else, someone sane, might have said that the going got worse, but clearly Kell and Mara had different ideas as to what constituted “fun.”
    They flew toward massive shapes of nascent planets that spewed arcs of magma, stretching like fiery bridges between the protoplanets. Just beyond lay the relative calm of the Smoke Quadrant.
    Mara pushed the ship onward, accelerating. Great technique . A lesser pilot would think to slow down when approaching a dangerous obstacle, but those with more experience knew that greater speed meant greater maneuverability. And Mara guided them with a skilled, fearless hand, swooping and diving between the protoplanets. Several times, it looked as though she steered them directly toward a surge of magma, but just as the ship neared the molten rock, the surge shifted out of their path, leaving them a clear route forward. Meanwhile, the clear routes suddenly were blocked by seething columns of magma.
    “That’s how these wily fuckers work.” She laughed like a madwoman. “I love it.”
    He grinned. Unpredictable—the Lash and the woman. It surprised him how much she made him smile.
    They were almost through. Mara pushed the accelerator.
    “Starboard,” Kell murmured.
    She banked away just as an asteroid flew at them from the starboard side. Then they were out, Ilden’s Lash retreating behind them in a fiery red haze. Adrenalin continued to pour through him, even though he hadn’t been the pilot. Another day.
    “Appreciate it, Commander.”
    “Kell. Seeing as how I just saved your ass, you can call me Kell.”
    “You didn’t save my ass,” she argued, but she didn’t sound angry. Far from it. She laughed again, and the sultry sound curled warmly in his groin. “I had everything under control. Kell.”
    Hearing her say his name, his pulse spiked—far more than it had when navigating the dangers of Ilden’s Lash. Hunger gripped him, and it was all he could do to keep from dragging her out of the pilot’s seat, having her straddle him. He wanted his mouth on hers, his hands all over her body. His cock felt huge, demanding. It wanted inside her.
    Focus, goddamn it.
    “We’ll be at Ryge soon,” she said, totally unaware of the fact that he wanted to fuck her up against the control