Moonstruck (11 page)

F
INN SAT UP
as Brit leaped out of bed. The bathroom door crashed shut. Was she off to fetch birth control of some sort? No, advanced tech prevented pregnancy as well as disease. She was safe
from
him, if not
with
him.

Aye, not safe at all. Chuckling, he laced his fingers behind his head and waited for her return.

The door remained closed. He wished she’d hurry and get her sexy ass back in bed. He wanted to hold her for a bit before he fell asleep and recharged for round two. And round three, if there was enough time before she had to be back on duty.

From inside the bathroom came the sound of water. She was running the water. And running it and running it. No one ran water longer than he did, but that was in the shower, not the sink.

He hopped out of bed and walked to the door. The water didn’t quite drown out a soft, unhappy groan.

He folded his arms and leaned against the door. “It was good for me,” he teased. “Was it good for you, too?”

She groaned out a curse, sounding even more pained. A flicker of worry invaded, then. “Brit, open the door.”

“Please go.”

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m…not feeling well.” The water turned off and a cup clattered.

“Do you think it’s something you ate?”

“What do you mean?”

Of course she wouldn’t know what he meant. Nanomeds took care of food poisoning or viruses. No one had been sick since they’d come on this ship, thanks to Dr. Kell. “Never mind. Come out and I’ll give you a back rub. That’ll make you feel better.”

She groaned.

“Perhaps it’s what you haven’t eaten. You skipped dinner. You expended a lot of energy just now on an empty stomach.” He chuckled. The water came back on. Then he heard splashing, as if she were throwing it on her face. “Tell me what suits your fancy, and I’ll order. I for one have worked up an appetite.”

“I’d rather you go.”

“You want me to leave….”

“Yes. Please.”

You always did have a way with the ladies, Rorkken.
Exhaling, he picked his scattered clothes off the floor and dressed. “I’ll wear my PCD to bed,” he told her, pulling on his boots. “I don’t do that for just anyone, but I’ll do it for you. I want you to call me if you feel any worse. I’ll make sure you get to the sick bay.” What was he talking about? She was the commander. “No, Dr. Kell will come
to you
—even if I have to carry him from his bed to here.”

“Don’t do that.” Her disapproval of that idea gave strength to her voice. “I’ll be fine. Just leave.”

The sound of splashing started all over again.

Sighing, he shrugged. Never had such great sex ended so badly. Finn rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Are you laughing now?” he muttered to the gods. Someone up there must have a sense of humor.

He trudged away from the bathroom and let himself out, waiting until he’d heard the security lock in her door move in place before he walked down the corridor to his quarters.

Once inside, Finn stripped out of his clothes and walked directly into the shower. He stood there for long moments with deliberately cold water drumming down on his head. It wasn’t enough to keep him from reacting physically to an image of Brit writhing under him as he’d made love to her. Gods, he was hard again. He fisted his hands to keep from grabbing his cock and finishing the job. Doing so would somehow cheapen what he’d experienced with her. Instead, he forced his thoughts to the way she’d embraced him right before she climaxed, pouring her soul into that kiss. The memory blazed in his mind.

He didn’t understand why she’d fought so hard to avoid looking at him before that point. For him, it was the emotional connection that he craved during lovemaking. He didn’t get to experience it much, but when he sensed it was there to some degree, it added exponentially to his physical pleasure. He hadn’t wanted his time with Brit to be “just sex.” He’d wanted it to be different from his past encounters. It
had
been in the end, gods, far better than those other times, but not without some work. She was so blasted stubborn!

It was almost as if she’d wanted to avoid interacting with him. It wasn’t shyness. He didn’t know what it was.

The first reason that came to mind was her possible awkwardness with their being shipmates. He himself had violated his golden rule of no fraternization with a crew member. What about her? Yet, they’d assured each other before he’d ever stepped into her quarters that whatever they did in private would happen outside protocol.

Then another reason surfaced. He wasn’t of her class. Aye, that was more likely it. He was raised an urchin, and she, if he made an educated guess, hailed from high-born origins. To become the equivalent of an admiral in the Drakken world, a Battle-Lord, you needed a wealthy, powerful family backing you, like Brit probably had.

She was the kind of woman he’d thought out of his reach in his old life, and for good reason. She was powerful, smart and rich, and he was a former starving pickpocket. She likely saw him as an object of lust. No chitchat, nothing extraneous—just sex, nothing more.

He cracked a smile as water sluiced over his body. An object of lust—him? When it came to men and women, didn’t the female usually have such doubts? Well, he liked to help out others when he had the chance; if sex was all Brit Bandar wanted from him, he’d be happy to accommodate her. Very happy. But he’d be no whore, no indeed.

He thought better of himself. Aye, were he in the position to be a mate to a woman above his station—or below it—he’d be a worthy one. That he knew.

She wants to keep you at arm’s length.

So be it. He’d chase Brit Bandar’s true affections the way she’d chased him through the Borderlands. Only she’d not escape him like he’d escaped her. If she made the task of winning her over difficult, all the better. Finn Rorkken had never been able to resist a challenge.

W
HEN SHE WAS SURE
the warleader had left, Brit emerged unsteadily out of the bathroom. She found the box on the shelf above her desk. Her sacred box. She hadn’t opened it in so very long. Good girl, Hadley, putting it in the same relative place as in her old quarters on the
Vengeance
.

Her hands shook as she lifted the lid. It hurt too much to look at the precious things inside, and so it was rarely that she did. Her throat closed at the sight of the soft pink blanket. Tears were already tracking down her cheeks by the time she dug out the
Agran Sakkara
from under it. She pressed both keepsakes to her cheek. They were all she had left of her children. She’d had them both such a very short time. All too briefly they’d blessed her life. “My babies. My precious babies.” She wept because it hurt so much, the missing them, the pain never dimming after all these years.

Sometime later, drained, she placed the blanket and bible on her lap and found Seff’s gift at the bottom of the box. Reverently, she slipped the bracelet on her wrist. “I’ll never forget the day you gave me this.” She smiled wanly. “We’d just found out I was pregnant for the second time. Remember? You wanted me to know that no matter how big our family grew, you’d always be my true love.”
Me and you forever. Seff.
Her chest convulsed with a sob. She pressed her fist to her stomach, fearing she’d be ill all over again. “I’m sorry, husband. I’m so sorry….”

It was as if Seff were there in the room with her, forever young and watching her with his perpetually smiling eyes as she confessed her betrayal. “It was a weak moment,” she whispered when she could speak again. “You know I don’t have those often. I needed him. I needed him to hold me the way you used to hold me.” Weeping, she fingered the bracelet. She remembered it covered in Seff’s blood. She’d never seen so much blood, then and since. She had been bathed in it, clutching his broken body to hers. “He’s one of them, the Horde, and yet he’s not. He’s not a murderer. I made sure. He’s…different.”

She grabbed her forehead, inhaling on a sob. It had been nothing but sex with Finn Rorkken. At first. Then…then something had changed. What started as the slaking of physical need ended suspiciously like lovemaking.

No! You feel nothing for this man.

This Drakken.
“Seff,” she cried out in the silent room. “Help me. Keep me strong. Don’t let me repeat tonight’s mistake. I miss you so much that I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m so horribly lonely. I’m tired of being alone. Forgive me my weakness.”

Her dead husband offered neither absolution nor advice. Weary and sick at heart, Brit took the blanket to bed. Wrapping it around her shoulders, she cried herself to sleep.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
,
the telltale signs of weeping and passionate kisses—puffy eyelids and lips—had vanished, thanks to an application of derma-cream. Happy to dive back into her work, Brit led a virtual journalist on a tour of the ship. She knew by the news streams courtesy of the palace that the
Unity
and its mission were of interest across the galaxy. In the past, she’d avoided dealing with the press. As a hunter-warrior, she didn’t often have to; there was too much potential of upsetting the public with her seemingly coldhearted focus on exterminating Drakken. She never understood that. War wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t fun, yet the military’s public affairs machine insisted on it being reduced to a form benign enough for mass public consumption.

Hands clasped behind her back, her Triad uniform perfectly crisp, she led the journalist onto the bridge. “Here is where I command the ship. On our Triad Alliance bridge you will find service members from Earth, from the former Coalition, as well as from the former Drakken Empire.”

For a panicky moment, she feared Rorkken would be there, smiling his wicked smile, pumped up with the knowledge of what they’d done last night and the memory of her coming apart in his arms. She needn’t have worried if she hadn’t revealed so much of herself to him, but she had, and now she’d have to suffer the consequences, awkward as they were. She knew she’d have to see him, only she hoped not yet, and not unexpectedly. She needed a little extra time to fortify the wall she’d built around her.

At Brit’s direction, Lieutenant Berkko described the various stations of the bridge as the virtual journalist nodded—a flickering image of a real woman, pretty, reddish-haired, and light-years away, recording the data as it streamed in. When Hadley reached the pilot’s chair, even though the Earthling wasn’t in it, her frown deepened and her eyes flashed with hurt. Brit sighed to herself and made a mental note to start hardening the girl, beginning with more tasks that challenged her. Leading a virtual journalist around the ship didn’t come close.

“Come,” Brit told the journalist. The ghostly image followed her to where Vinnson Yarew sat in the command chair.

“Admiral.” He rose, offering a snappy fist-to-his-chest salute at her arrival, acting his part for the show.

“This is Star-Major Yarew, overseeing command of the ship while I am on break. We work a tri-shift day. Warleader Finnar Rorkken—” she hoped no one detected the slight change in her tone “—is the other senior officer as well as the next-highest-ranking officer here after me. Now that I am on duty for my shift, I will relieve Star-Major Yarew of his command. But first we exchange information from the previous hours in our change briefing.”

As Yarew rattled off the mundane details of course and track, Brit paged through the records logged on the star charts. How dull, she thought, not having any Drakken ships to pursue this morn. She’d hoped some of the rogue vessels talked about would have surfaced by now. Zaafran’s intelligence people would be calling in shortly as they did each day at the beginning of her shift. Maybe they would have better news. Peace bored her.

Discreetly, Yarew slid his data-vis under her eyes. He’d typed a message. NEED 2 TALK IN PRIVATE ABOUT LAST NIGHT.

To her horror, she blushed deeply. It spread before she could do anything about it. Luckily, he’d turned away, and Hadley wasn’t looking. Dry-mouthed, Brit swallowed and cleared her throat. “Lieutenant Keyren, escort our journalist to the engineer’s station and discuss some of the duties performed there.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The two walked away. Brit turned to Yarew, her wall firmly in place once more. “What is it, Star-Major?”

“There was a fight last night in the crew bar. An ensign was injured—one of ours. The Drakken were drunk on sweef and got out of hand. Warleader Rorkken came down and took care of it. He advised me not to say anything to you. He said he’d brief you on the incident himself.”

“I see.”

“He didn’t inform you?”

“No.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. I wrote up a full report per ship’s rules since security had been called. It’s loaded in your data-vis.”

On one hand, she was delirious with relief that “last night” hadn’t meant, well,
last night.
On the other, however, it infuriated her that there had been a fight before Rorkken showed up in her quarters, and this was the first she’d heard of it. He’d said nothing. Why, because he wanted her focus on him and not shipboard matters? Probably. All he’d cared about was getting laid, apparently, and to hells with everything else.

“Thank you, Star-Major Yarew. I’ll look at the report during my shift. Good work. Is there anything else?”

“No, Admiral. Other than that, it was dead around here.”

“You are dismissed.”

“Yes, ma’am. Have a good shift.”

“I intend to.” Anger simmering, she smoothed her uniform and returned to the journalist, making sure she wore a good face for the camera.

T
HAT MORNING
,
his
morning—time of day was relative on a tri-shift ship—Finn took a quicker than usual shower at the end of his sleep period. A colder than usual shower, too. Since he’d left Brit last night, she’d invaded his thoughts and his body. When he wasn’t worried about how she was feeling, he was thinking of what they’d done,
feeling it
as he hobbled around in an almost constant state of semihardness last night and now. Sex with Brit Bandar had been erotic, hotter than the deepest hells, and over too soon.