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    FlashWired
    FlashWired
    FlashWired
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    FlashWired

    By Anna Butler

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    About this ebook

    One day, someday soon, Jeeze Madrid was going to wake up and realize just what he'd been passing up; he'd see what Cal Paxton was offering him so faithfully—"Faithfully, Jeeze! Even you can't deny that!"—and grab it. And they'd finally have what Cal wanted.

    Cal Paxton and Jeeze Madrid are the top scouting team on the Pathfinder-class starship, the Carson, on the very outer edge of Earth's expansion across the galaxy. A Pathfinder's job is to evaluate planets for colonization. Cal's and Jeeze's job is to find the planets for the Carson's scientists to analyze.

    Cal and Jeeze are wingmen, best friends... and lovers. Cal wants more than a casual relationship but Jeeze, recently divorced, is wary of commitment. When Jeeze is shot down over a planet inhabited by a race Earth has never before encountered, what will Cal find when the Carson can finally mount a rescue mission? Will he ever succeed in persuading Jeeze to take up that offer of hand and heart?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnna Butler
    Release dateApr 6, 2013
    ISBN9781301947959
    FlashWired
    Author

    Anna Butler

    Anna was a communications specialist for many years, working in various UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to organizing conferences for 10,000 civil servants to running an internal TV service. These days, though, she is writing full time. She lives in a quiet village tucked deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside with her husband. She’s supported there by the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockerpoo, who is assisted by the lovely Mavis, a Yorkie-Bichon cross with a bark several sizes larger than she is but no opinion whatsoever on the placement of semi-colons.

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      Book preview

      FlashWired - Anna Butler

      FLASHWIRED

      Anna Butler

      Copyright 2013 Anna Butler

      (Third Edition January 2017)

      Copyright 2013 Anna Butler

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, situations and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination.

      This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the author.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      About My Books

      FlashWired

      The evil that machinery is doing is not merely in the consequence

      of its work but in the fact that it makes men themselves machines also.

      Oscar Wilde

      Chapter One

      One day, someday soon, Jeeze Madrid was going to wake up and realize just what he'd been passing up; he'd see what Cal Paxton was offering him so faithfully—Faithfully, Jeeze! Even you can't deny that!—and grab it. And they'd finally have what Cal wanted.

      An offer? You have something to offer?

      My hand and heart, Jeeze. Cal considered being wounded by the cynicism, but hell, Jeeze’s caution wasn’t exactly a surprise. Only my hand and heart.

      Ah. The better part of three hundred yards of cold vacuum between them and Jeeze's amusement was still obvious. There are some people who'd say you don't have a heart.

      Because it's yours.

      No, I don't think they'd say that. I think they'd say that you don't have one to give.

      You know that's not true.

      No. And the amusement in Jeeze’s tone took on a different quality; softer, warmer, more affectionate. I do know it isn't true. But I also know your reputation is well earned.

      Cal grimaced at the sensor screens that surrounded him giving the illusion the scout ship’s canopy was clear and transparent. His faint reflection, surrounded by stars, grimaced back. I think it was suffering from a case of mistaken identity.

      If we're still talking about your heart, it suffered from several dozen cases of mistaken identity and they're just the ones I know about.

      But now it's yours, and yours alone. Cal rolled the scout ship to the right, looking for Jeeze's ship. There it was, a long slender shape matching Cal's own ship speed for speed, a dark silhouette against the star field behind them. Somewhere over there, thousands of miles behind Jeeze, was the Carson, the biggest Pathfinder-class starship Earth had. At this distance she was just a pinprick of light amongst all the other pinpricks.

      Along with your hand, Jeeze reminded him. I knew you were offering an appendage. Mind you, I wouldn't have put a bent credit on it being a hand. I thought it was farther south than that.

      I come as a package of fully functioning parts. And, even if I do say so myself, very nice parts in a package with devilishly handsome and sexy wrappings.

      Just waiting to be unwrapped?

      By the right person. Cal grinned when Jeeze laughed. Now you're getting the idea.

      There's some weird role reversal thing going on here. You aren't famous for commitment.

      No. But that was before I got a chance with you.

      What we have now is fine, Cal. It's enough.

      Not for me.

      ¿Por qué no? It's not like you to want more.

      Well, that was true enough. Cal shrugged at his reflection. I didn't want more from anyone else. They weren't you. I don't just want sex with you, Jeeze. I want the whole thing. You and me, love and marriage—sounds good to me.

      Been there, done that, still paying the alimony. I've been burned once. I don't want to get screwed over like that again.

      I'm not Pia.

      Jeeze chuffed out a laugh. Well, you don't have her child-bearing hips.

      They'll run to fat when she's forty. I'll still be stunning and slender.

      Jeeze sighed.

      There was a short silence. Cal fidgeted, waiting for a response. Are you thinking about it? Why not just follow your instincts?

      "Yes, I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about you and me, and I'm thinking about what we have now and I'm thinking about what you want. But mostly what I'm thinking is how very sorry I'll be if the Carson decides to monitor the comms channels right now."

      They'd never monitor our private channel. That'd be like blasphemy or something. It's perfectly safe to talk out here. Cal paused. Come to think on it, though, Pia might, if she took it into her head to check up on Jeeze. He wouldn't put it past her and hell, she'd love the excuse to overturn the custody arrangements for Verónica. At least out here no one can walk in on a man and put him off his game—

      Pia only did it once.

      It was more than enough.

      They'd been lucky and not actually up to anything. Ten minutes later and it would have a been a different story. A story that would not have ended well. Pia might suspect about him and Jeeze, but she didn't know.

      She has every right to ask me to take Verónica for the night. My kid, my responsibility.

      "Well at least she can't get to us out here. There's no one to overhear us, no one to interrupt. We're almost closer and more private out here with all of space between us than we are on the Carson."

      Oh. Poetic.

      Not poetic, just deprived. You should change your door code so Pia can't walk in whenever we're in your room for the thing we have that I'm not content with, but is all I have until you give me more.

      Don't push it.

      I never push. Still, that room of yours is private. It's quiet. Lock Pia out, and it's the best place in this entire galactic sector for nice appendages to be unwrapped. I'll even put a ribbon on it. Cal listened to Jeeze's laughter and grinned.

      Oh yes. One day.

      Someday soon.

      **~**~**

      Scout ship scanners didn't have

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