Cassian strode across the bar and slid into the seat next to the pretty brunette human with the sharp eyes. "Sorry I'm late, love," he said, putting his arm around her shoulders.

She gave him an inscrutable look. "I don't know who you are, but you need to take your hands off me or I will break them off."

He lowered his voice, leaning into her ear as if he were whispering loving words. "You see that Rodian over there?"

Her eyes flicked over his shoulder. "What about him?"

"He thinks you're my girlfriend."

"Why?"

Because he's looking for a man alone, and I just told the barman I was meeting you here. Because I'm pretty sure my contact double-crossed me and sent him to pick up the bounty on my head. Because I'm not sure how well my disguise will work if they've got a holo and a decent facial recognition prog. Because the last thing I want to is to start a fight in this bar and get picked up for disorderly conduct by the Empire.

He smiled easily. "It's a bet."

"Who bets on that?"

He shrugged. "What can I say? My friend didn't believe my girlfriend is this beautiful." He tilted his head, cranking up the charm on his smile. It felt pasted on, but he knew how convincing it was from years of practice. Adrenaline buzzed at all his pulse points.

She gave him a long, considering look. Hopefully from a distance, it looked like an annoyed girlfriend.

He was very aware of the mirror behind her head (a good part of the reason he'd picked her booth to slip into), and the Rodian still close to the entrance, and how long he had to get off this planet with what information he'd managed to scrape, including the almost certain possibility that Risde had turned on them.

He was also very aware of the warmth of her thigh against his, and the smell of her, something warm and earthy, and the way her eyes seemed to see right through him as if he were made of glass, and all his sins lay open to her.

"How much was it for?"

"The bet?"

"I'd like to know how much my half is going to be."

He felt his brows go up. "Your half, is it?"

"I'm helping you win the bet, I'm entitled to half." Her mouth crooked up.

"Five hundred," he said.

She snorted and started to shrug him off.

"A thousand," he amended. It would drain his purse for this mission almost dry, but money would be no good to him if he was dead or captured.

Her shoulder dropped and she smiled at him. "I can never stay mad at you," she said, reaching up to cup his face in one hand.

He didn't know why he was surprised when she kissed him.

Her mouth was soft and tasted of whatever she'd been drinking, and she leaned into him, curves against his torso, thigh pressing into his. She felt strong under his arm, shoulders and spine, and strength was desperately erotic for some reason, and he kissed her back.

For a moment, he forgot about Risde, and the Rodian, and the mission, and everything but the woman kissing him right now.

When he put his free hand on her knee, she went still and then eased back, turning her face away so his lips slid across her cheek before he pulled back too. "Slow down there, frisky," she murmured. "Your Rodian's gone."

His Rodian. Risde. The mission. The Rebellion.

Oh. Right.

His heart still thumped against his ribs, but he nodded as if he kissed strange women in strange bars every day.

He put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a spare credit chip, and programmed it. "A thousand," he said, holding it under the table so she could see the amount before he slid it into her pocket. "Thanks for helping me win the bet."

She laughed aloud and said in a much lower voice, "Castor Willix, we both know there wasn't a bet. We'd better walk out together too. Greedo might have left, but the ugly one in the corner's a bounty hunter too, and he's a lot smarter than Greedo."

At the sound of his alias, his blood ran cold, and he shifted his other hand closer to her side. The small vibroblade sheathed to his wrist felt colder and heavier than it had just a moment before.

As close as they were, he could shake it down into his palm, slip it between her ribs, and have it stowed and be out of here before her body slid down under the table.

Of course, she could do the same, so it wasn't that much of a comfort.

Her eyes were cool and knowing. "I'm not a bounty hunter, I just hear things," she said. "And you've just paid me a thousand credits for ten minutes of play-acting, so I'm feeling generous. Come on, then. You don't have much time to waste."

He found himself on his feet, still holding her shoulders, her arm looped around his waist. To his surprise, she was a good six inches shorter than him, easily able to tuck herself into his side like a sweet, cuddly girlfriend.

He was getting surprised altogether too often on this trip. Maybe he was losing his touch.

They strolled out together, oddly in sync considering their respective heights and whatever she'd been drinking, which had tasted strong on her tongue, and the tension that hummed in his nerve endings like power wires. Cassian kept an eye on the ugly one she'd mentioned, and thought for a moment that he was getting up. But he just called for another drink and settled back into his seat, yellow eyes tracking around the room.

The air outside couldn't be called fresh, but it felt lighter. Maybe that was leaving the bar two and three and four blocks behind, at a steady and unhurried pace, with no sign of the ugly one or anyone else who pinged as a bounty hunter.

Or maybe that was his head spinning from the way she would turn and murmur to him like a lover, or the way her hair felt, brushing against his nose when he dropped his head to reply.

The vibroblade still sat against his wrist, ready to be used if needed.

Six blocks away from the bar, an equal distance away from the spaceport, she steered them into a narrow alley and slid out from under his arm. "This is where I leave you, lover boy," she said. "You'll have to make it off this rock without my help." Without waiting for an answer, she turned and headed for the other end of the alley, which emptied out onto a busy street.

For some reason, he said, "Wait."

For some reason, she did.

"Your name," he said.

She turned and looked at him with those knowing eyes. "Tanith," she said. "Ponta."

That wasn't her name, he knew it immediately. He wondered how much of a lie it was, though. Had she made it up on the spot, or was Tanith one of her Castors, carefully built and curated over years?

It didn't matter, he told himself, and nodded. "You hear things, you said."

One shoulder lifted, then fell. "You know. Around."

"Where around did you hear about the price on my head?"

"How much is it worth?"

"I've already given you a thousand."

"Yes, you have," she said.

She wasn't going to tell him anything on purpose, that was clear.

"Was it from an old human man? Balding, sunburnt? Scar right here?" He tapped his jaw.

Her eyes flickered. After a second, she said, "Might've been."

That was a lot more definitive than he'd been expecting.

Fuck. He'd had a lot of intel from Risde over the years, and now it was all suspect. "That was worth a lot more than a thousand credits."

Interest flared in her eyes. "Was it now?"

He let the charm slide off his face. "Figuratively speaking."

She opened her mouth, looked at him for a moment ("how cold you are sometimes, Joreth," someone had said to him once, "it's like there's nothing behind there, isn't it?"), and closed her mouth again. She turned her back and walked away, saying over her shoulder, "Wherever you're going, better start on your way."

FINIS