Supernova (20 page)

Rian had
promised to show her the bridge when it was quiet and he was on duty with a
couple of officers he trusted not to go tattling to the higher-ups. “Why would
they get upset?” she had asked.

“You don’t
work on the bridge,” he explained. “The admirals tend to get bent out of shape
when someone who doesn’t work there goes poking around.”

“I
wouldn’t do that,” she protested.

“I know
you wouldn’t, but Fleet doesn’t see it that way. I
will
take you, I
promise.” He’d looked at her over the rim of his coffee cup, the hint of
something more than a bridge tour in his eyes.

She
wanted to talk to him without the time restriction of a coffee break or curious
glances from other crew members. Her comm badge was lying on the nightstand,
and she tapped it lightly. “Stewart to Captain Marska.”

His
voice was crisp and professional. “Captain here. Is everything all right?”

What if
she had caught him at a bad time? “Everything’s okay,” she replied. “I just—are
you busy right now?”

“No, I’m
in my cabin.”

“Oh.”
She felt a little awkward and berated herself for it. Where else would he be?
He had said the
Defiant
didn’t have much in the way of entertainment. “Could
I see you?” she asked bluntly.

There
was a pause. “Of course,” he finally said, surprise edging into his voice. “Do
you know where the captain’s cabin is?”

Oh, dear
God, he was inviting her to his apartment.
Cabin
, she corrected herself.
“No,” she admitted.

“Deck
seventeen, cabin one. I’ll see you in a few minutes, then?”

She
nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “I’ll be right there.”

There
was a staircase beside the elevators at the end of the corridor, and she took
them, grateful that there wasn’t a total reliance on technology these days.
Cabin one was directly beside the elevator, and she pressed the small doorbell
set into the wall beside the palm pad. The doors slid open and she stepped
inside.

Rian was
waiting, a look of mild shock on his face. The door closed behind her as she
stepped forward. “Hi,” she said, damning the breathiness in her voice. This was
the first time she hadn’t seen him in a Fleet uniform. He wore a dark blue
shirt and what looked like this century’s version of jeans, well-worn and faded
at the knees. Behind him, in the living area, a TV played a news broadcast on
low volume.

“Hi,” he
echoed.

She
smelled food in the air, something unfamiliar but good. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I
didn’t know you were having dinner.” It was around eight in the evening, she
remembered. Not a good time to just drop in. “I should go.”

“No,” he
immediately protested. “I want you to stay.” Finally he moved and crossed the
room to the small kitchenette. He stirred a pot of something. “There’s enough
for two, if you want some.”

Lily
found herself nodding. “Okay,” she said. “Can I help with anything?”

He shook
his head. “No, you arrived right on time.” He gave her a small, conspiratorial
smile, and she felt her heart turn over. He set out plates on the table and dug
around the fridge. “I think I have a bottle of wine in here,” he said. “Do you
want a glass?”

“Yes,
please.”

He
produced a pair of glasses and a clear bottle of the same pale blue wine she
had had in the mess with Taz. “Sit down,” he suggested and pulled out a chair.
She obeyed and watched as he spooned a thick stew of meat, vegetables, and rice
on the plates. He took the seat across from her and poured the wine.

“You don’t
use your replicator?” Lily asked.

“Not
much,” he admitted. “I don’t have a big repertoire of recipes, but I can cook a
few things.”

“I’m a
good cook,” she told him. “I’ll figure out how to when I move.” Something
flashed in his eyes at the mention of her leaving, but it was gone when he
blinked.

He held
out his glass in a toast, and she raised hers. “What’s this to?” she asked.

He
touched the lip of his glass to hers. “To not feeling awkward,” he said. “You
keep looking around like something’s going to spring out and bite you.”

She
laughed and felt some of the tension ebb away. “It’s just different seeing you
out of your element,” she explained. “In your home.”

“It’s
not what you were expecting?”

“I didn’t
know what to expect.” She looked around the space, not much larger than her own
cabin. It was lived-in but tidy. A few framed pictures graced the wall opposite
the viewport, and there was a makeshift workspace set up beside the TV stand. A
computer screen jutted out from the desktop, like the one in Dr. Ashford’s
office. A few feet from the TV, there was a couch flanked by end tables bolted
to the grey-carpeted floor. An open doorway off the living area led to what
Lily guessed was his bedroom. She felt herself flush thinking about it. “I like
it,” she said finally. “It’s a lot homier than mine.”

They finished
their meal, and she asked him a few questions about him and his career in
Fleet. He was thirty-four and had known he wanted to command his own battleship
since he could walk. Until Lukas Kostin had been assigned to the
Defiant
,
he had held the record for being the youngest executive officer in Fleet
history. He and his twin sister were very close, and he laughingly described
how she always knew exactly where to find him whenever he was in deep space.

Lily
told him about her upbringing and described the tree farm. She hadn’t attended
church in years but told him the religious origins of the holiday and what she
had gleaned from Dr. Ashford and her datatab’s files in how it was now observed
on Earth. “It doesn’t seem as commercial as it used to be,” she explained. “It’s
more about the family and food, like it should be.”

When
they finished, Rian stacked their plates in a wall-mounted dishwasher. He
explained the complicated process of their cleaning and sterilization with
particle light, and she tried to understand. It still beat washing dishes by
hand, and she told him so.

Rian
hovered by the TV. “Do you want to see a vidshow?” he asked. “I downloaded a
few, and I haven’t made any time to see them.”

“Sure.
You like scary ones, right?”

“I do.”
He pressed a few buttons on the console, and they took seats on the couch. He
was hardly two fingers’ width away from her, and she was very aware of his
presence. This was the first time they had truly been alone. The attraction she
felt between them had grown into an electric current, keeping her pulse high
and catching her breath in her throat. She chanced a glance at him as he
brought the half-full wine glass to his lips. He was
gorgeous
. She
swallowed. He caught her looking at him and smiled, setting the glass on the
nearest end table. He leaned back on the couch and slid an arm around her,
drawing her closer to him.

Lily
sank against him. Her senses were on high alert, and she felt every intake of
breath, smelled the soap he used, and underneath it,
him
. His hand
rested on the curve of her hip; his breath lightly ruffled her hair.
Immediately her body responded, and her body tightened in anticipation. She
wanted his hands everywhere.

As if he
could read her mind, Rian’s fingers edged under the hem of her blouse until
they rested on her skin. She gasped audibly. It was maddening—who would think
that a light touch could have such an effect? His hand crept across her hip to
caress her abdomen, and she bit back a moan. He had made no other advances to
her, and she had to fight herself from climbing into his lap.

Shouldn’t
she?

She
turned her attention back to the TV. A science team was excavating an
uninhabited planet that was supposed to be cursed and had uncovered a gigantic
scaly alien, motionless in green sand. One of the scientists leaned over it,
exactly the way someone shouldn’t do in a movie, and the alien opened yellow
eyes and snapped its jaws at the scientist, latching its fangs into his skull.

Lily
started a little; Rian’s arm tightened around her and he laughed softly in her
ear, sending a shiver through her that had nothing to with aliens playing
possum.

“Now you
see why I picked this vid,” he murmured, and she felt his lips graze the skin
below her ear.

Now
they were getting somewhere.
That small kiss set off something in her that she didn’t know existed, and she
turned to face him. He looked caged, like he was ready to jump at her if given
half a chance. Lily wanted him to.

“You
really don’t know the effect you have on me,” he said softly.

Her
breath caught. He reached for her again, pulling him to her until she was
almost in his lap. “Tell me,” she whispered.

He held
her head in his hands and brought her face down in a slow kiss. “You’re all I
can think about,” he murmured against her mouth. “I don’t care about what the
crew complains about; I don’t think about how much I want to get off this ship.”
He kissed a slow line across her throat. “All I can think about is your smile,
and how we can talk about anything.” His fingers slid down her back and dipped
into the waistband of her pants. She gasped. She wanted him to touch her
without the restriction of clothing.

“So you’ve
found a new friend,” she tried to tease. She adjusted herself until she was
straddling him. She could feel his erection through their clothes, and it sent
a primal thrill through her.

“I don’t
think about doing things in my office with my friends that would get me
demoted,” he corrected.

A surge
of heat shot through her at that admission. “You think about that?” she
breathed.

“I think
about a lot of things where you’re concerned.” His hands found the fastening on
her blouse and he slowly unsealed it, revealing the plain black bra beneath. He
pressed his lips against her collarbone. “I don’t think about...” He trailed
off, as though he were about to let something slip that he shouldn’t. Instead
his hands crept lazily up her torso to softly cup her breasts, her nipples
beading into his palms through the fabric of her bra. She arched into his
hands, wanting more, but he slid them back down her body and over her hips,
slightly pushing down the waistband of her pants. He noticed the flower tattoo
on her hip and ran his fingers over it. “I like this,” he said. “It’s sexy.”
His blue eyes caught hers, full of uncharacteristic mischief.

Lily had
regretted getting inked within a year, but Rian’s reaction made her glad she
hadn’t had it removed. Her hands slid over his chest and shoulders, feeling the
expanse of slim muscles beneath the fabric of his shirt. She slipped her hands
under the hem, and his breath constricted as her fingers touched his skin.

He
kissed her fiercely, a harsh, possessive clash of lips and tongues, and she
impatiently shrugged out of her blouse. She tried to pull up his shirt, but his
hands lightly clasped her wrists, stilling her.

An
exaggerated, high-pitched roar blared from the TV. Lily couldn’t help but
giggle.

“And
that just reinforces it,” Rian muttered. He released her wrists and his arms
circled her waist. “I hadn’t planned on doing this on my couch,” he confessed.

“No, you
were thinking about your office,” she pointed out, a wicked grin spreading
across her face. He lightly nipped her earlobe, and she squealed in response.

“It
would be difficult to get there without anyone noticing,” he admitted. He
slowly kissed a trail down her neck to her throat. “My bedroom’s a lot closer.”

Their
lips met again, but Lily pulled away and stood up. “Race you,” she teased, and
bolted.

The open
door beckoned to her, and its dim illumination was as bright to her as the
proverbial light at the end of a tunnel. She barely made it through to the
doorway before he hauled her against him, her backside pressed against his
front. His breath tickled her ear. “I think I won,” he said, and his fingers
brushed against her abdomen. She unsuccessfully bit back a giggle.

“I’m
ticklish!” she protested.

His
touch immediately shifted to a light caress. “It would kill the mood if I had
you in hysterics, wouldn’t it?” he asked. His hands moved to tease her nipples
through her bra.

“Anyway,
I call a tie,” she gasped.

His
teeth grazed the back of her neck. “Are we really going to argue about this?”
Before she could answer, he turned her around so she faced him, and looped his
arms around her waist. His mouth descended on hers, and he reached for the seal
on her bra.

“Wait,”
she chastised him.

His
hands stilled, and he looked at her like she had lost her mind.

She felt
like a dolt for having to ask this, completely ignorant of the protocol. “Um, I
have my VD and birth control implants,” she said.

“Uh-huh,”
Rian said, and reached for her bra’s seal again. Catching the look on her face,
his hands froze at her back and he asked, “Is that a problem?”

“I just
wanted to let you know. So you don’t have to...worry about anything.”