Deep (6 page)

Sean felt like he’d been slapped. “Not Selena.”

“She’s game, I can tell. Besides, if I’m stuck down here and you’re not going to play with me, I’m going to get awful bored.”

He understood. David was working him, like he worked everyone, but it was better than him trying to work the rest of the crew.

“What if I... you know.”

“You plan to distract me for the whole season?”

“If I have to.”

David pursed his lips. “Oh, Sean, you are really going to have to get creative. That Selena looks like she could be real fun, adventurous even.”

“Anything you want,” Sean said before he had time to change his mind.

David smiled triumphantly. “You know what that means, right?”

“I know,” Sean said, swallowing.

“You don’t have to. I’m not forcing you.”

“I know. I want to.” Sean closed his eyes, trying to convince himself that this was for the best.

“Prove it.”

Sean started to unbutton his shirt. His hands were shaking and his fingers fumbled against the buttons.
You can do it
.

“That’s it. You’re still such a little whore, Sean. What would your captain say if he could see the real you? Do you think he’d like you like this?”

Sean stood, pulling off his pants as quickly as he could. He could feel David watching him. David kicked off his own pants, freeing his cock. He rubbed it and beckoned Sean back to the bed.

“Tell me, what do you think Captain Riley would say if he could see you like this, begging for it?”

Sean turned away, but David caught his face. “Last chance, Sean. You know what it’s going to be like. If you don’t want to....”

“I want to,” Sean said. “So just fuck me already.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded.

David grabbed Sean’s hair, pulling him in for a brutal kiss. When he was finished, he pushed Sean back on the bed, pressing Sean’s thighs back, bruising his legs. Sean braced himself, ready for the pain.
You can do this
, he told himself again,
it’s just like before
. He closed his eyes as David forced two fingers into him. The pain was unbearable and Sean cried out, knowing from experience David liked to hear his discomfort. He gasped in familiar panic as David moved his hands over Sean’s neck and then squeezed, choking Sean with his free hand.
You can do this
.

IT HAD BEEN two days since Joel had seen the doc. He didn’t show up for meals, and the infirmary had stayed closed. There were noises coming from the doctor’s room, too, noises that made most of the crew feel pretty uncomfortable. Whatever was happening in there was happening almost hourly, and seemed to be getting louder and louder.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Mia said to him in the corridor as they listened to another wave of passion being pounded through the wall. “I can’t believe they’ve got the stamina for it.”

“At least it’s keeping that creep from snooping around our ship,” Joel said, trying to stay positive.

Mia grabbed his arm, digging her fingers into his biceps. “Did you ask Sean to do this?”

“What? No. Of course not.” He paused, realizing that he wasn’t totally innocent. “He suggested he might do it, that’s all.”

Mia’s eyes widened with horror. “And you let him? What the hell, Joel!”

Joel wasn’t sure why she was angry with him, but he was pretty sure she was going to tell him. “I don’t get what the big deal is. He’s a consenting adult.”

“Is he? Seems to me the doc would float himself if
you
asked him to.”

“Doc never does a damn thing I tell him,” Joel said.

“You’re kidding, right? Joel, that boy idolizes you and you’re letting him whore himself out so you can have a quiet life.”

Joel opened his mouth to object, but nothing came out. The doc had offered, hadn’t he? The doc who would do anything for the ship. The doc who sat in the cockpit, all inviting and vulnerable.
He’s not my boyfriend
. He’d been so adamant and yet he’d kissed David; he’d gone to bed with David. It dawned on Joel in a wave of nausea; she was right. His body went cold. How the hell was he going to fix this mess?

Mia shook her head the way she always did when he disappointed her. “I hope you sleep well at night.”

“Mia, wait,” he shouted, but she was already gone.

HE DIDN’T SLEEP well. He didn’t sleep at all. David and Sean whimpered and moaned from the other side of his wall. Each sound made Joel wince. He kept thinking back to the night in the cockpit with Sean. In a moment of madness he’d nearly kissed the doc, and now he was listening to sex noises through his bedroom wall like some kind of pervert. His treacherous body responded to each moan, and as his erection grew, so did his guilt.

He rolled over, keeping his hands firmly above his sheets, trying not to imagine what was happening in the room beside his. Would Sean have whimpered like that if Joel had touched him? And then Joel was imagining resting the doctor on his bed, running his hands over the younger man’s body. Pressing his lips against Sean’s. Joel’s eager hand slipped under the bed sheet and squeezed his erection. He let out a whimper of his own. His body urged him to continue. He squeezed again and then pulled his hand clear. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it.

The noises were stopping him from thinking straight. Grabbing his pillow, he went to find sanctuary in the infirmary. The spare bed was set up with clean sheets—typical of Sean, always prepared. Joel settled himself down and closed his eyes. The smell of disinfectant reminded him of the doc, but this time in a different way. He could see the doc stitching up his forearm when Joel had lost his footing with the hand drill. He could see the doc by Selena’s side after the nitrate explosion. They weren’t sure she was going to pull through, but the doc worked on her for three days solid, refusing to give up hope. Joel could remember watching him from the doorway, realizing for the first time that there was someone who cared about his crew as much as he did.

He was starting to drift off when the door opened. Not seeing Joel, Sean went straight for the supply closet. His shaking hands sent a bottle of disinfectant crashing to the floor where it bounced and rolled under the cabinet.

“Shit!” Sean cried, and kicked the counter.

“Easy there, kid, that’s my ship you’re trashing,” Joel said.

Sean jumped back, trembling. Joel waited for him to say something, but the boy just collapsed on the floor in tears. He’d never seen the doc break down like this. Joel sprang to his side. When he grabbed Sean he realized the boy’s throat was stained with purple bruises, as though he’d been strangled. Sean’s crying became uncontrollable. Joel gripped him tight, trying to cocoon him from whatever had upset him.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Breathe, son. Just breathe.”

This was all his fault, Joel thought, as he held Sean through his panic attack. He rubbed Sean’s back, trying to encourage him to calm down. Slowly, it worked. He felt Sean’s body surrender into him. His sobbing stopped, but he was still teetering on the edge of another breakdown.

“That’s it, you’re doing great. You’re doing great, Sean.”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Sean said between sobs. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Hey, you’ve got nothing to be sorry about.” He rested his forehead on Sean’s. “I should be the one apologizing.”

Tenderly, Joel touched the bruising on Sean’s neck. He didn’t need to ask how he got it. How many of Sean’s whimpers had been in pain? All that noise, all that time, and Joel had ignored it.

“I’ll be fine,” Sean said—a transparent lie. “I just need a moment. It’s difficult and I... I’ll go back in a minute.”

“Over my dead body. You hear me, Sean? You’re not going back to him.”

“I have to.”

“I won’t let you. I don’t need you to do this. I never needed you to do this.”

Sean glanced away; there was something detached about his focus. “You don’t understand. I know him, and if I don’t he’ll....” Sean stopped.

“He’ll what? Try to back me into a corner? Well, let him. I’m a fight he’s not going to win.”

“It’s not just you. He’ll go after someone else if he doesn’t get what he wants.”

“Let him; I’ll make sure he regrets it. You stay here. I’m going to have a chat with our unwelcome guest.”

Sean grabbed him. “No, please don’t.” He closed his eyes, his body starting to tremble again.

“What is it, Sean? What’s he got on you?” Joel was getting frustrated.

Sean shook his head.

“Look, I don’t care what you did. I don’t care what happened before you got on this boat. Nobody does. If you tell me now, then that asshole has no hold over you and we can sort this out together.”

Sean wiped his face. “If I tell you, there’s no way you’ll keep me on board.”

“Try me. I feel a rare moment of reason and understanding might be about to overtake me.”

Sean pulled out of Joel’s grip and huddled his knees to his chest. He kept his eyes fixed on the door, as if he couldn’t bring himself to look at Joel.

“Honestly, you can tell me anything and I promise it will change nothing between us. You will always have a place on this boat.”

It took a moment, but eventually Sean opened up. “The money I took. It wasn’t stolen, exactly. It was payment. Payment for services. My services. My father had debts; he always said it was because he put me through medical school, but he was a gambler, and I, well, I was a pretty face. The first time it happened it was by chance. I met a guy at a party my father was hosting. We slept together, and the next day the money my father owed him was forgotten about.”

“He whored you out.” Joel ground his teeth—another reason to add to his dislike of rich Earth folk.

“Not at first, but then it was like it was expected of me. My father was an opportunist. He realized he could get all the power, anything he ever wanted. And, well, I got... I got a reputation. A bad reputation. I was expected to just lay down, even when I didn’t want to. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t stop. Whoever wanted me paid my father and I was theirs for the night, then up for my shift the following morning. He made so much money off me. There was no way I could live a normal life, so I figured that, given the money should have been mine in the first place, I should take everything I could. It took two months to get everything I needed. Not just money but favors, too. David helped.”

“And I bet you paid him well for his troubles.”

“With more than money. When I was my father’s whore I had no control, but then I started doing those things myself. Things I’m so ashamed of. I let things happen to me that still haunt me. There were men, powerful men, and I targeted them especially, knowing they’d pay so much if I let them do....” He shook his head. “I hated that life, really hated it.”

“What happened back then is done. You’ve got a new life now,” Joel reminded him.

“Have I? Because last time I checked I was letting David do whatever he wanted to me to stop him from threatening the ship.”

A silence fell between them. It was heavy with Joel’s guilt and shame as much as Sean’s.

“Do you want me to leave?” Sean finally said. “I won’t hold it against you. You’ve already done so much for me.”

“Stop being an idiot; of course not,” Joel said.

“But you must think I’m disgusting.”

“I think you’re a pain in the ass. That you stress way too much about things that really don’t matter. I think you challenge my authority on a daily basis for no good reason. I think you’re the man who brought Selena back to life. I think you’re the man I come to when I’m hurt, or when I’m worried, or when I’m lonely. I think you worry too much about what we think about you, because we are all flawed and you don’t think anything bad about us.” Without thinking about it, he kissed Sean’s forehead.

THE INTIMATE GESTURE caught Sean by surprise. He expected the captain to sit in stoic silence, not comfort him like this. “I’m not proud of what I did,” Sean said, trying to remind the captain of the type of things he’d done, in case he didn’t understand.

“Don’t be. Be proud of the man you are instead. I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

Joel’s wide brown eyes were staring at him without malice or disgust, or anything other than genuine affection. Sean couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward, his lips brushing Joel’s. When he met with no resistance, he deepened the kiss. Joel’s mouth opened. Sean groaned as the captain pulled him closer. He was breathless when Joel moved away.

“I’m sorry,” Sean said, suddenly self-conscious. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I guess I didn’t exactly push you away.” Joel ran a hand through his hair—his tell for being nervous.

“At least now you can say you’ve tried.”

Joel let out an awkward laugh. “I suppose I can at that.”

Sean lowered his eyes. “Was it awful?”

Joel sighed, as though he was slowly surrendering. “No, it wasn’t awful at all.” He tilted Sean’s head, and this time he took charge, pressing against Sean’s mouth. This kiss was softer and more intimate. Joel’s lips moved tentatively against Sean’s, and as he pulled back, he reached up to cup Sean’s face. The two men looked at each other. Sean waited to see flickers of panic or regret in Joel’s face. But there was only want. Joel parted his lips again, inviting Sean in for a third time.

Accepting the invitation, Sean knelt forward, taking charge of the kiss. He slipped his hands around Joel’s broad shoulders and dove his tongue deeper into Joel’s mouth. The hesitancy was gone now. All that remained was lust and hunger. Joel grabbed his waist, and Sean moaned as his body pressed against the captain’s.

Tilting his head back, Joel gasped for air. Sean seized the opportunity and began to move lower, running his tongue over Joel’s neck.

“I’m not gay,” Joel said.

The simple sentence was enough to stop Sean. He pulled away, suppressing his burning desire. “You want me to stop?”

“No, I don’t. And that’s really freaking me out.” Joel brushed his fingertips through Sean’s hair. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Sean. I’ve never done this before. I’m really out of my depth.”

Sean let out a little laugh. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do anything.”