“When I get you, Paxton, you son-of-a--”

I fell forward, the rusted metal floor rushing up to meet me. I hit it and what little air there was whooshed from my lungs. Lying there, I couldn’t move. I’d fallen from a body-tube, a cryogenic storage device. The familiar rank odour of flash-warmed skin swept though me, and I choked, my aching chest heaving as I pulled in new breaths for the first time in too long.

My milky vision cleared, and I found a row of the bulky, black body-tubes disappearing into the shrouding darkness. The single shot of light from high above stung my face and dried the gel to my skin. I shivered. Damp material stuck to my limbs and my shiver deepened.

I drew in an easier breath of stale air and coughed. Where the hell was I?

“Falling at my feet.” A man’s smooth voice eased over me. “Really, what have I done to deserve this?”

Turning my head, my chin rested on the cold metal floor, and I stared at polished shoes. They swam into focus, black, real leather shoes with neat hand stitching. The rich scent warmed through me, and I let my face rest back against the uneven metal. Tiredness sat on my cold muscles and bones.

His words rolled through my brain. Something about them triggered a flare of heat under my skin. Yes, I recognised my fight-reflex ... but my body was rubber. Smacking him could wait.

The stranger squatted down beside me and stroked back my damp hair. Unexpectedly, my heartbeat slowed, and I breathed easier at his slow, rhythmic touch. Which was odd, since I’d been ready to punch him only a moment before for being supremely oily. I blamed the fog clouding my brain.

“I’ve been looking a long time for you. A long, long time.” The soothing press of his palm, his fingers over my hair continued. I lay there and a knot in my chest eased. A knot I didn’t know I had until it was gone. Who was this man? Or was it simply the warm touch of another human being after the cold grip of the body-tube?

“Tell me your name.”

The soft words fell. It was an easy enough question to answer.

Yes, it was...

“My name?” I pushed hard, scrabbled about in my mind, but the thought was slippery, elusive. What was my name? I didn’t know it. My own name, it was gone. Ease vanished and panic fired through my blood. I whipped up, finding my feet and landing in a natural half-crouch.

“Nice reflexes.”

I blinked. I was fast; I knew that. I also knew that my abilities weren’t natural, they were ... grown. What the hell...? Another burst of fear lashed words. “Who the hell are you?”

He straightened and stood watching me, his arms loosely folded across his chest. He was beautiful. Tall, with a lean athleticism only accentuated by his smooth, black suit and an easy perfection to his features that made it difficult to look away from him...

The most deadly smile lit his face. I swallowed, my mouth dry, and my heart thudded out an uneven beat. My stomach twisted as more panic surged. Did I know a lot about wickedly attractive men? This stranger had me completely thrown and that wasn’t ... me. Who was he?

“My name is James Kinsare.” He lifted a dark eyebrow and there was a hard glitter to his eyes that I couldn’t read. “Sound familiar?”

“Should it?”

James sighed, and he gave me a simpler, less threatening smile. “I always live in hope.”

Straightening, and ignoring the protest of unused muscles, I stayed wary. I was in the dark ... about everything. I didn’t know who this man was. His name, his pretty face meant nothing. And I would never believe someone who could smile the way he had. “You said you knew me?”

He winced. “I was looking for you. Well, the frozen woman. I only knew you as Katya.”

Katya. I rolled the name silently around and over my tongue. There was no corresponding fire of neurons in my brain. It was as blank to me as the stranger’s ... as James Kinsare’s name. My mind jumped, instead, to another name. “Paxton.” I had shouted it the second the tube reactivated. “I need to find Paxton.”

James shrugged. “I have no idea who he is.” He fastened his jacket and smoothed over his tie.

The incongruous sight of his smooth suit finally hit my addled brain. He was wearing a suit in a rust-thick silo. I had no name left in my mind but I knew wearing expensive civilian clothes here was wrong. I stared down at my body. I wore a brown flight-suit, patched, grubby and still damp. Patting the bulbous pockets proved useless as I came up empty. Nothing to tell me who I was. Damn. “Who are you, James?”

His sharp smile returned, and I took a step back. James’ smile brought with it a sudden hot rush and made me nervous. I didn’t like being nervous. Not one bit.

“Me? I’m an entrepreneur.”

“Yes.” My gaze slid down the tailored lines of his coal-black suit. “I can believe that.” I met his dark eyes. The spark there had my stomach in a knot. “Though, I think, more creative accounting than salvage.”

“What?” He spread his arms, half turning, staring down at himself. “A man can’t be well-dressed?”

I wiped a damp hand over my mouth, hiding a smile. I didn’t want to like this man; didn’t want to trust him. My skin prickled, and it was more than the cramps of new blood reaching my muscles. Trust. I didn’t do trust. That was very important.

“Katya...”

Something about the way he said my name lifted more hairs on the back of my neck. Maybe it was still my worry about trust, maybe a realisation that Katya really was my name or maybe it was just the silky darkness of James’ voice. I couldn’t decide.

“I know your memory is patchy.” My expression fixed. Shit. He knew. I held back a groan. Of course, he knew. He’d known I couldn’t remember my own name. “You’ve been in a body-tube for years. You’re disoriented, jumpy.” His mouth quirked. “Hungry?”

Years? A tremor ran through the hand covering my throat, but to answer his question, my stomach growled. He was offering food. I had to concentrate on that. For now. “You can feed me?”

He stood back and waved an arm into the darkness. Tracking lights shone a path across the metal floor. “This way.”

I walked ahead of him, the click of his expensive shoes beating out a metallic echo around me. It was the only sound to cut the oppressive silence. I rubbed at the back of my neck and willed away the unease that prickled my skin. I had no memory. Nothing. No childhood, no parents, no friends. The collar of the flight-suit dug into my skin. Was I a pilot? I felt over my right breast pocket, the diffuse light too dull to see. There was no company insignia branding the material.

My hand stilled. I knew to look for it there, knew I was wearing a flight-suit. Had I only had my personal history wiped? A door loomed out of the semi-darkness, the lock glowing in a panel beside it. James entered the key code and with a slow gush of stale air the seals disengaged and the door swung back. From the shots of light, a green medical insignia flaked on the doorframe. Beyond the storage room, a narrow corridor curved away, auxiliary lighting tracing the brown walls.

They’d stashed me in a medical bay. I stretched my fingers, feeling the tight muscles strain against fresh movement. My body ached, hung heavy with unused muscle ... but I didn’t feel ill. “Why was I hospitalised?”

“You weren’t. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

I scrubbed at my face, flaking off dried gel. None of it made sense. “What is this place, then?”

“The Deimos drilling platform.” He pulled the door shut, the locks and seals whirring and clanking. He rubbed his hands together, rust drifting slow to the metal grating. “Long abandoned.”

The site name didn’t strike any memory either. Someone had frozen me on a derelict station. What had I done? What hadn’t I done? Too many unanswerable questions shot through my dazed brain. I voiced one of them. “You were looking for me. Why?”

James put his hand to the small of my back. The unexpected charge of contact urged me forward. “All in good time.”

I stopped, turned. “No.” My smile became sharp. “I might not know my name, but I know I wouldn’t fall for that line.”

His head tilted, and he looked at me. The edges of his mouth twitched, and I felt a responding tug in my chest. Damn, was it simply the fact that my brain was overreacting to fresh stimuli? And James’ mouth was everything stimulating should be...

“I suppose you wouldn’t. Please,” he waved me forward. “You have something I want, Katya.”

My mind went to places it shouldn’t. Hot, dark places, heavy with the scent of lust and sweat-slick bodies. I pushed those thoughts down. Bad Katya. “What would that be?”

“Information.”

I laughed, and it echoed around the curve of the corridor. I ignored the prickle of disappointment that his interest wasn’t more carnal. “Now that might be difficult.” I rapped my knuckles against my skull. “My brain is fried.” And wasn’t that the truth?

He paused and there was a hint of something in his smooth voice. Not knowing what else to call it, I had to label it irritation. “Yes.”

Another door, another keypad and the clunk and whoosh of locks and seals. More stale air gushed towards me, and I winced. What the hell had I done to deserve being dumped and abandoned in this decaying hole? “How did you find me?” I stepped over the doorframe and waited while James secured the door. “Is there a sign saying ‘frozen woman here’?”

He flashed me a grin, and my heart missed a beat. Damn it, that smile really was deadly. “If you know where to look, yes.” The corridor branched, and James paused. “The refectory’s this way.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“Trust me, Katya.”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

James stopped. His jaw twisted and for a second I thought I saw emotion surge behind his dark eyes. His index finger traced my cheekbone in slow exploration. Heat rose under my skin, and my mouth dried. I swallowed. “What are you doing?”

“You can trust me. Can’t you feel that?”

What I felt was a hollowing in my stomach and the real urge to run. I stepped back from his touch and forced a smile. “Trust is earned.”

His fingers curled, and he dropped his arm. A shadow passed over his face as he turned to the locking mechanism. “Yes, so I’ve heard.” He opened then sealed another door, and we stood in the refectory.

I stared. I couldn't help it. "You did this?"

James smirked at me. "I thought that my ship, simply a runabout, would be too confining after your time ... away. At least here there's elbow room."

Rusted tables stacked against the side walls of a rectangular room. Collapsed ceiling panels, which had once hung from the cracked girders, littered the floor, and every joint and tile groaned with age. But in the centre of the room, laid to perfection, sat a circular table covered with a pristine-white tablecloth. Glow lamps illuminated a spread of silver dishes. The scent of warm bread drifted through me, and my soul lifted. Home. It reminded me of home. Pain seared and tears burned my eyes. My home was gone. Dead. A burnt cinder.

"Katya, what have you remembered?"

His question jumped into my thoughts, urgency colouring his voice. I didn't trust James Kinsare. He had sought me out for his own purposes, not as an altruistic act. Drawing in a tight breath, I shook off the ache of loss. I focused somewhere below his right shoulder, unwilling to meet his gaze. I didn’t want James seeing what little knowledge I did have. "Nothing."

James took my hand, and the touch of his skin on mine burned. I picked out the fine weave of the cloth, highlighted by the wash of the lamplight. A distraction. Anything, so that I didn’t focus on the way he squeezed my fingers and how I took too much comfort from his hold. It was wrong. Completely wrong. I pulled my hand free. "Thank you, James." I waved the hand he had held to the spread of food. "This was thoughtful."

"I don't think anyone's described me as that before."

I glanced at him, stern, immaculate. "I can imagine."

"Only a few minutes out of a tank and already cheeky. What happens when you really warm up?"

The knot of pain eased, and I let out a slow breath. For a moment, I met his gaze and found his eyes gleaming. "I'm certain you'll find out."

He pulled out a chair, the legs scraping over the metal grating and picked up a flat-pressed pile of clothes. He handed them over. The fabric was dry, soft under the rough nap of my hand. I shook out the long suit, laying it over the back of the chair, balancing the underwear on top. Tugging at the fastenings of my flight-suit, I let it fall to the metal grating with a heavy thump. Cool air washed over my damp skin, and I shivered.

James had politely presented me with his back as I dropped the flight-suit over a nearby chair. Odd, I’d never even given my nakedness a thought. Something else I’d found out about myself: I obviously didn’t embarrass easily. Or maybe it was just him? Which raised even more questions. Was I so comfortable because I already knew him?

Damn it, not knowing what I was, who I was had my nerves shot. I dug the heels of my hands into my eyes, wanting to quiet the chaos in my brain.

I let out a slow breath and stared down at grubby nakedness. I didn’t even recognise my own smooth body. I shrugged quickly into the underwear and black suit, stretching, twisting and flexing my arms, torso, legs into the slick outfit. The material clung, and activating technology warmed me. Fabric tightened and thickened under my feet, forming flexible soles. Letting out a slow breath, I suddenly felt better. “Perfect fit.”

James turned. A muscle jumped in his cheek and his eyes darkened. The expression of a moment and then it was gone. “Yes.” He waved his hand to the chair on which the clothes had sat. “Please, sit.”

I sat and habit obviously made me unwrap the cloth napkin from the gleaming cutlery. My face reflected in the silver knife. Streaked with dirt and dried, flaking gel, it was a lean face with pale blue eyes and a tangled mass of dark blonde hair. I looked young, which was an odd surprise. I felt ... old. Putting that from my mind, I spread the napkin across my lap. "Is there a place I can wash?"

“Washing here is impossible.” His eyes glittered. “The suit will absorb body odour and micro scrub your skin. Not a substitute for a shower, I know but I did try for you.” He sat to my right and deconstructed his napkin. “What little water there is here I electrolysed into oxygen. Better to be dirty than dead.”

“The information must be vital.” I watched as he uncovered a metal platter. Thick salad leaves burst up around scallops, curved shellfish and hot ginger. Breathing in the scent forced my stomach to growl in anticipation. My mouth already watered. Well, my body seemed to remember the food even if I didn’t. James scooped a generous portion into a bowl.

I stabbed at a forkful and stuffed it into my mouth. Hot, crunchy, with nice little sparks of ginger as I chewed; for a moment, I forgot the nightmare I had just woken up to. I stared around the refectory. The food counters were rusted through, dust thick along what remained of metal storage shelves. The platform had stood empty for decades, maybe longer. Something about the curve of the supporting architecture said the place was old, centuries old.

I held down a shudder and stared back into my bowl. I speared another curled, pink prawn and bit it in two. Waving my fork at James, I chewed and swallowed. “What information did you dig me out of a deep freeze for?”

He was helping himself to seconds. I wasn’t the only one to have a hole where my stomach should be. “I need your expertise in genetic manipulation.”

I blinked. Was that what I was? A doctor? I couldn’t help it. I stared at my hands and found prominent knuckles, square fingertips. I rubbed smooth palms together and knew they sounded wrong. My gut tightened. Calluses should have scored and hardened my skin. I didn’t have a surgeon’s hands. Not even someone who worked in a laboratory. Pushing at my thoughts only hit the same frustrating blankness. “How do you know I have this knowledge?” Irritation at my lack of history had me snapping at him.

James’ fork stilled in the bowl but he didn’t look up. “Because you’re Katya.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

He shrugged. “It’s all I’m willing to give.”

I ate the other half of the prawn. “Why do you need it, this information?”

“Full of questions, aren’t you?”

Scraping the rest of the platter into my bowl, I smiled at him. “It’s all I have, James. My brain’s running on empty.” I scraped clean my second bowl and wiped a crust of bread around it. I caught James’ sideways look and ignored him. He could worry about manners. It was my first meal in ... I shied away from thinking decades. “So what happens now?”

“Now? Now we have the main course.”

“Funny.” I poured tea into a small white cup and wrapped my chilled fingers around its warmth. Steam rose and breathing in the soft herbal scent eased me. Yes, my body seemed to know this little ritual too. “We leave in your ship and go where?”

James piled the bowls to one side and placed a covered platter before me. “There’s a Command Base patrolling the system. I have a larger vessel there.”

I took another sip of my tea before placing it back on the tablecloth. Poking at the thick slice of meat with a fresh fork, I didn’t look up. It was odd the things I still knew. The face of the first man I kissed was a blank, but I knew that this man, James Kinsare, who could ... park ... at a Command Base had power. Real power. He seemed unaware that what he’d just revealed was unusual, special. What could I possibly know that he would need? The thought made my gut cramp.

The name James Kinsare meant nothing to me, no matter how hard I pushed against the blankness in my brain. I willed myself calm and turned my attention to the food. It seemed that even unsettled; nothing could dent my hunger.

My knife cut easily through the hot steak.

“What have I said?” he asked.

James’ dark, intense gaze held me. I made myself smile. Truth was my safest option. If he believed that of me, that I told the truth, then lying later would be easier. That made me pause, the fork halfway to my mouth. It seemed I was practised at deception. Who I really was started to feel ... criminal. “You use a Command Base. You must have friends in high places.”

His expression didn’t change. “I must.”

Our conversation dried, and I continued to eat. The steak melted in my mouth and slid happily down into my stomach. I hadn’t eaten this well in a long time. Not questioning that knowledge, I let myself enjoy my food. I glanced up to find James staring at me, an unknown look in his eyes. My chest tightened. I swallowed, jabbed my fork at the half-eaten steak and tried to distract him. “What is this?”

James snagged another slice from the silver platter and dropped it onto his plate. “Grus venison. Great white-coated beast.” He grinned at me. “All horns and teeth.”

“And you hunted it yourself?”

A smile lurked on his mouth, but he didn’t look up as he eased the knife through the meat. “Do I look like I hunt?”

In his immaculate suit with his perfect grooming, he appeared to be a man whose only sport was chasing down company stock. He looked up, and the glitter in his eyes squeezed my heart. Something in him screamed power, raw energy and strength. An image of him stalking the animal, his bared muscles sinewy and streaked with sweat and muck hit me.

My gaze dropped, and I breathed against the sudden heat in my blood. The idea of him hunting, the chase, the adrenalin rush of the kill, had my body on fire. I pushed away those thoughts. Well, tried to. Nothing seemed to dampen the sudden twist in my heated thoughts, tearing through my brain of me with a spear, running James to ground...

All right, my attempt at distracting him had only unsettled me. “So ... how did you find me here?”

“Katya...” The slow drawl of his voice did little to ease the fire licking against my skin. I twisted in my seat and decided to refocus my questions again.

“That’s yet another of your secrets. So ... this is a drilling platform. Why was I dumped here?”

James gave me nothing. “Why do you think?”

I sat back in my chair and tried not to fill my mind with the image of him tearing through long grass, with the whip of the thin green blades against his bare thighs. My imagination drifted upward--Shit. It felt good to have no memory. I was obviously some sort of pervert to be imagining that I hunted a complete stranger naked with a spear. I let out a slow breath and started to answer my own question. “It’s centuries old and long abandoned.” I closed my eyes and let my other senses guide me, needing them to spark something in my memory.

The rich scents of our meal drifted in the cool air. I picked out the delicate aroma of spiced apple as our dessert. My mouth grew wet, and I willed my body away from thoughts on my stomach. Another taste touched my tongue. The stale air had grown fresh and cut under it was the sweet taste of leaves. Yes, a working biomass filtration unit bursting with vegetation. I drew in more air and something about the scent of the plants slid a physical memory through my flesh.

It tasted of home. Deimos. The name James gave the drilling platform. Deimos ... somehow that name connected to my home too.

Under the table, my hands gripped tight to the smooth fabric of my black suit. It wasn’t my home. I knew that, but then I butted up against the solid blank wall of my empty memory.

I let the heavy silence of the refectory sink into me, willing it to calm my straining nerves. Only the thudding of my heart and James’ steady, relaxed breathing broke the quiet ... no ... there, almost lost under my heartbeat, thrummed the slow turn of generators. I focused. Dull, heavy, they had to be huge ... which meant this wasn’t a minor asteroid platform. It was a big one. Something on a massive industrial scale.

I winced. How could I know all of this and not know my own name? It was infuriating. “This drilling platform,” I said, staring at the silent man opposite. “It has something to do with my home.”

“You lived here?”

He was being deliberately obtuse. I itched to kick him under the table, and the gleam in his eyes said he knew it. “No one’s been here in decades, James. Why did you look for me here?”

“It’s where the trail ended.”

And there was that sinful smile that had my blood surging. I wanted to smack it off his face. “That’s not an answer.”

“Yes, it is. It’s just not the one you want. I sought you out for information, Katya.”

“What information?”

He sat back in his chair and absently smoothed his hand down over his tie. “If I knew what it was, you’d still be in the body-tube.”

I had to ignore the ball of frustrated anger curling tight in my stomach. Heat flushed my cheeks. “This is not funny.”

“This has never been funny.”

“Damn it, if you want this information, whatever it is, you’re going to have to help me with my memory.”

James picked up his knife and fork and stabbed at a mushroom. He waved it at me. “You’re an environmental geneticist.”

“I’m a terraformer?” I turned over my hands and the need for calluses and rough skin made sense. I stared at the flight-suit draped over a metal chair. I pulled at it, dragging the suit into my lap. Its metal collar clinked against the leg of the table, and I held my breath against the stink of rank body odour. The cuffs of my flight-suit had started to thin and stretch from the metal rim. It’d seen years of use. I threw it back over the chair. “I’m not a very successful one.”

James’ slow smile irked me. “I have to admit you’re in worse shape than I expected from the myth that surrounds you.”

A growl from my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t finished with my half-full plate. I picked up my cutlery. “I have myths?”

He pushed aside his empty plate and poured a rich amber liquid into a stemmed glass. He relaxed back in the chair, idly swirling the liquid, the overhead lights sparking in it. “The woman who turned Almaak-5 into a paradise? Yes.”

“And that’s what you want?” He didn’t answer. So for a few moments, I let myself eat as James watched me. Occasionally, he sipped from his glass. Another question gnawed at my gut, almost souring the rich food in my mouth. I swallowed. “How long was I in that tube, James?”

His face became solemn and his fingers tightened around the stem of the glass. “I can’t be certain. Twenty years. Maybe thirty.”

Thirty years? The platform had been empty for more time than I’ve been ... stashed ... here. Centuries more. What was so special about this place? But thirty years and no one had thought to look for me, only this sharp-suited stranger. My mouth dried, and a dull headache started to thud against my temple. I sipped at cool tea, wetting my parched lips. “So you’re still interested in such ancient information?”

“You’d be amazed at what I’m interested in.”

The promise in his voice flushed heat under my skin. Sweat edged my brow. I rubbed my jaw, trying to ease the sudden ache throbbing there. The reaction to James had me unsettled. Was it my overreaction or was he deliberately playing me?

I sat back, let out a slow breath ... but the bead of sweat ran from my temple to course my jaw. It made no sense. I tugged at the tabs securing my suit, letting the fabric drop open at my throat and chest. Shit, it was hot.

James gaze followed the expanse of my bared flesh, and his tongue tip wet his lips. His eyes found mine again, and I couldn’t mistake the curl of desire there. “Something I said?”

I snorted. “Thirty years in a tube? Aren’t I a little old for you?”

He leaned forward, and the sinful smile lurking on his mouth had my flesh tight. “Katya, you’re just right.” He lifted his glass to his lips and drained the rest of his drink. When he put it down again, his eyes had a hard intensity that filled me with the sudden need to fight, not fuck him. “Very right.”

The sharpness faded and the need in me flipped back. I wanted to lick the amber liquid from his lips, taste him, straddle him and deepen the kiss... Heat pulsed down through my flesh, and I squeezed my thighs together to deny the rising need. It didn’t help. Damn it, James Kinsare had me completely thrown.

Was this the usual reaction met when an occupant fell out of a body-tube? The desperate need to jump a very edible stranger?

I held back a sigh, drew in calming air ... and winced. It tasted dry, used. Now discomfort burned instead of lust, which was an improvement of sorts. At least it took my mind off wanting to strip James bare. Drinking what was left of my cooled tea eased my throat but didn’t help with the heat flaring across my skin.

I wiped my lips and dropped the knife and fork across my plate. My pulse thudded. I rubbed at my temple and found it hard to concentrate. What the hell had he done to me? Poisoned me with the best food I’d had in years?

Something caught in the corner of my eye. A faded red light pulsed high on the far wall above a sealed doorway. On automatic, I found more of them around the refectory, each one glowing red.

It wasn’t James. It was worse than that. Much worse.

Red.

Bad.

My head swirled. I pinched at my eyes and tried to think. I had the symptoms of something. I wasn’t a doctor, but I knew this. Knew it.

James dropped his glass. It bounced off the edge of the table to shatter on the metal floor. His head fell forward into his hands.

Dizzy. Cramping. Sweaty. We were on an asteroid, eating in a refectory built into an artificial platform... My pulse spiked and the wave of dizziness rocked me.

Shit. Shit. I was an idiot, and we were dead.

“James. Move!” I lurched to my feet and grabbed his arm. “We’re venting air!”