It occurred to Philip he might be dreaming. Except, in his dreams, she was never hesitant.
“Rya?” he repeated.
She pulled at the zipper of her shirt—his shirt. She drew it back over her bare shoulders, then let it slide down her arms, her gaze locked on his. Just like in sick bay. Just like damned near every other time they were within feet of each other.
He could see the med-broches dotting her skin and the faint dark areas that were bruises. But he could more clearly see her breasts—full, nipples peaked. Perfect. Soft.
Her shirt slid to the floor.
His body heated.
She unhooked her weapons belt and, as it dangled in one hand, unfastened her pants. With an agonizingly enticing wiggle, she skimmed them down her hips. Her naked—
Oh, God and heaven. His breath hitched, his body hardening. Paint peeled off the bulkheads.
She stepped out of her pants. Her weapons belt fell on the pile of clothing with a muted thunk. “It’s that damned impending doom,” she said, her voice husky. “It makes me self-indulgent.”
She almost lost her nerve. Right between unzipping the shirt Philip had given her and unbuckling her weapons belt—why was that always her security blanket?—Rya almost bolted from Philip’s quarters. Good thing the lights were low. That masked her shaking fingers, the heat she knew flamed on her face.
It was far from the first time she’d seduced a man. But it was the first time it mattered so damned much.
It took every bit of her ImpSec training—show no emotion, breathe only on command—to get through the striptease she’d run over and over in her mind for the past two hours. She’d read Mather’s logs on the now nicely functional deskscreen system. She’d heard Sparks’s facts on what the ship could not do. She knew what they faced on the other end of the jumpgate: they would either be destroyed upon exit or be captured.
Either way, she was dead. So was Philip, and she could not—would not—let her life end without giving him her all, everything, now, tonight. She never gave much thought to an afterlife, but if there was one, she didn’t want to be sitting there without the experience of loving Philip Guthrie as one of her memories.
And if there wasn’t an afterlife—if things simply ended—then she wanted things to end this way: making love to her long-lost always-forever dream hero. Who had somehow become a real man with needs and fears, mistakes and triumphs. There was still an element of hero worship when she looked at him; there always would be. But the real Philip Guthrie overshadowed that. She’d made him laugh. She’d felt his desperation, his anguish. She’d shared his joy.
She connected with him, and where a few hours ago it angered her that he didn’t share that connection, that he was willing to transfer her off his ship, she no longer cared about that.
Life was all about giving. Not about what she would get in return.
She stepped over her pile of clothes and his. He was angled up on his elbows, sheet pooled around his waist, watching her, his expression unreadable except for the brief moment when she shimmied out of her pants. She swore she saw his lips part in surprise. In anticipation.
She hoped that’s what it was. Not those damned thirty—
Shut up, Rya. Don’t think about that, don’t lose your focus. It’s now or never. You know you can do things with your hands, your mouth, and he won’t care what you weigh …
“Rebel, you shouldn’t—”
Rebel. He called her Rebel. A small spark of confidence surged. She knelt on the edge of his bed.
“—be here. I, that is, you could—”
She moved toward him on all fours, her hands now on either side of his legs, trapping them under the bedsheet. He stopped speaking and, closer now, she read uncertainty in the way his gaze zigzagged. His lips parted. Another protest about to be launched.
She lowered her face and nipped his bare stomach. His muscles rippled. She circled his navel with her tongue.
He groaned, collapsing back, thrusting his hands in her hair.
She brought one leg over his, her tongue moving lower over his flat abdomen, when he suddenly grabbed her shoulders, quickly releasing her right shoulder—the injured one—to pull her up with his left hand, his right hand now at her waist. There was an insistence in his grip, in his fingers drawing her up but at the same time pushing her against him so she could feel the heat of his body, the coarseness of his chest hair against her breasts, the hard length of his erection against her thigh.
She clearly saw smoky desire in the darkening of his blue eyes, half hooded now.
Then one hand was back in her hair and his mouth found hers, his kiss bruising her lips. She opened her mouth, her tongue tasting his, her fingers desperate and seeking. She clutched his shoulders as his hand pulled out of her hair to caress her back, knead her hip, and hold her more firmly, tighter …
He broke their kiss. “Oh, sweet God. Rya.” His words were a hoarse whisper so filled with longing that her heart stuttered, her breath sped up. He rubbed his mouth across her cheek until he reached her ear. He nipped her as she’d nipped him minutes ago. Then he continued downward. She arched her throat, wanting the heat of his mouth everywhere.
He pulled her up farther so she straddled him, his gaze once again intent yet searching. Her hands gripped the hard muscles of his shoulders as he took the tip of one breast into his mouth, his tongue teasing an already hard nipple, creating exquisite sensations that shot straight between her legs.
Eyes closed, she rocked against him, wanting more, wanting everything.
He ran his hands up the column of her neck, threading his fingers into her hair, and brought her face down to his. Her eyes fluttered open, the desire she saw on his face quickening her pulse.
“Slow down, beautiful,” he breathed against her lips. “We have a lifetime.”
They did. The whole one and a half shipdays that were left of it. And, wonder of wonders, he called her “beautiful.” The man was clearly delusional. She intended to keep him that way.
His kiss this time was slower, deeper, a deliberate torture by a man who knew how to heat a woman’s soul. A low moan filled her throat; she knew he heard it and felt it, because his body trembled slightly. Then he was ripping the sheet away, the last bit of impediment, and it was all heated skin against heated skin.
He clasped her against him, one arm across her back, one around her waist, moving her easily as if she weighed nothing. He rolled her onto her back, his mouth bruising hers again. Now it was her fingers finding the muscles of his back and shoulders, then up, threading through his short, thick hair.
Hot, wet kisses trailed down the side of her neck, then found her other breast, sucking gently. She arched against him. His hands slid down her hips, cupped her rear, and only as he lifted her slightly did she realize he was the one intent on giving.
No, it was supposed to be her seduction of him!
“Philip,” she gasped. His answer was a soft, throaty laugh against her belly. Then a gentle nip on the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. Then a mouth and tongue that kissed, stroked, and teased until she was gasping for breath, biting back cries of pleasure that could, if she released them, wake the whole damned ship.
She tugged at his hair. Hard. He slid up her body, his kisses once again fierce against her mouth, his breathing as ragged as her own. Then, with damnable perfection, he slowed, his kisses and touches teasing, and she knew that she was prey and he the hunter. He had the experience, he had the patience, and—
God and stars!
—his fingers found every pleasure center on her body with unerring accuracy. She arched into his hand, breathless. And more than ready.
His gaze locked on hers and she sensed possession, need. He slid deeply inside her, still controlled, but now the muscles of his shoulders trembled under her fingers. She moved with his thrusts as he filled her, using every bit of her body to draw him deeper, to offer him everything, to give him all she had. His hand tightened on her hip. She could feel him
fighting for control, so she brought her legs up around his waist. Her reward was his hard exhalation of pleasure against her mouth, not quite a gasp, not quite a moan. And a kiss—intense, demanding, and desperate.
“Now, beautiful,” he rasped out, shuddering into her, thrusting deeper, heat and pleasure racing through her in response. She clenched her body around his and lost herself in the feel of him, the scent of him, and in the heat generated by their sweat-slickened bodies. In the sound of her name on his lips as he cried out in release. In the feel of his mouth against hers as her passion crested along with his.
Until their breathing slowed, his touched gentled, and the discordant rumbling of a cat purring was the loudest sound in the room.
Rya’s eyelids fluttered open as her brain informed her of her surroundings: bed. Man on one side. Cat on the other. The clock on the nightstand told her it was 0545. It all seemed terribly normal.
Her whole universe was upside down.
The cat and the clock she understood, but the man was Philip Guthrie, and the bed was on a ship that would shortly face Imperial forces intent on its destruction.
She felt wonderful. She felt terrified. She felt confused. She felt—perhaps for the first time in her life—at peace.
And her shoulder hurt like hell.
She should leave, quietly, quickly, before the proverbial heat of passion wilted under the proverbial light of day. Even if that light of day was artificial shiplight. More so because it was shiplight, but, damn, Philip had made love to her and, damn, she just wanted a few more self-indulgent minutes—
“You’re frowning.” A man’s deep voice rumbled in her ear. “Was last night so terrible?”
Not just a man. Philip Guthrie.
Warm lips found the side of her neck. Warmer kisses brushed her skin. Hands slid over her hips in a slow, seductive massage. Warmth threatened to turn to heat.
She closed her eyes, trying to still her rapidly beating heart and her screaming brain that said, yes, sweet God, she’d slept with Philip Guthrie. Slept. Not just had sex. She’d had sex with lots of men. She never slept with any of them. Never woke up with any of them next to her. When the sex was over—even if it was 0400 hours—she left or he left. Always.
Yet here she was with Philip. And it felt wonderful. Right. But she couldn’t explain that without telling him about all the other men
“My shoulder hurts,” she said lamely.
The tantalizing massage stilled. Now he was frowning. “God, Rya. I’m a selfish bastard. I’m sorry.” He levered up on one elbow. “Turn over. Let me see if you’re bleeding.”
His genuine concern tore at her. “I’m not. That is, I’m sure I’m not. It just throbs a bit.”
“Turn over, Subbie, or I will beat you with my cane and then you will really hurt.” He pinned her with a narrow-eyed gaze, lips twitching.
That made her giggle, uncharacteristically so, but he appeared so comically fierce—and this was Philip “Scruffy” Guthrie. And he was, oh, God, yes, so beautifully naked. Better she not look at him any longer than she had to.
She turned over and, seconds later, strong fingers prodded her back and shoulder. “A little bleeding. Damn it all. I should have never—”
“I’m fine,” she said into the pillow. “Honest.”
“I’ll get one of the meddies down here—”
“Not Dugan the Sadist!” she wailed. “Anything but that.” Plus, she didn’t want a med-tech finding her in Philip’s bed. Even if they only had a day left to live, it was a small ship.
Warm lips once again pressed against the back of her neck. “I’d never hurt you, beautiful. Believe that. But we do need to get you to sick bay and have someone replace those patches.”
The sheets rustled, the bed jiggled. Captain Folly let out a raspy meow. “I’ll hit the lav first,” Philip’s voice told her while her face was still buried in the pillow. “Then I’ll make coffee—and feed the cat—while you get dressed.”
She listened to his uneven steps fade into the lav opposite his bedroom, heard the door close. She rolled over with a sigh.
No, he’d never hurt her. He’d just transfer off his ship and out of his life. If they lived that long.
It was 0610 and Philip found himself in his office, sipping coffee alone, unless Captain Folly counted as company. Rya insisted she’d get herself to sick bay. “I’d rather not have any witnesses when I clock Dugan the Sadist,” she’d quipped, finishing her coffee. There was time for only one paint-peeling, coffee-flavored kiss before she headed out the door.
He couldn’t discount the truth in her statement, but he was also a little disconcerted—okay, his male ego was bruised—by her abrupt departure. That left him with time to think about what happened last night. He wasn’t fully sure analyzing it was the best thing to do right now, and not just because the litany of Cap’n Cory is going to kick my ass wouldn’t stop.
He had a lot more-pressing problems than why Rya Bennton showed up in his bedroom. Cap’n Cory notwithstanding, Philip should have sent her away. Any other time, Lieutenant Philip Guthrie or Captain Philip Guthrie would have. His relationship with Chaz had developed much more slowly.
But this—Sparks was right. Paint peeled off walls.
The reality was, he could not have sent her away. He wanted her too badly. The question then became: why was she there? Last desperate fling before impending doom? She’d thrown his quip back at him. Trouble was, that might be more fact than quip for her.
If there was one good thing about the Imperial firing squad they’d face coming out of jump, it was that Philip could die believing Rya honestly cared for him. Not that he was some way of atoning for her father’s death or that she’d wanted to add an admiral to her list of conquests.
There was, he couldn’t forget, a barrister named Matthew Crowley back on Calth 9.
Worry about that after you destroy the Imperial Fleet, Guthrie.
With a snort of self-derision, he pushed himself out of his chair and headed for the bridge. He had a few minutes yet before his meeting in the ready room. He did his best thinking on his feet. Even if that thinking once again raised options he knew his officers wouldn’t like.
There was one very clear solution to the problem. It all depended on how badly the Empire wanted Philip Guthrie.
And how fast the Folly could run.
Con Welford was leaning over the navigation console when Philip came onto the bridge. Corvang sat helm, Dillon and Tramer at engineering.
“Admiral’s on the bridge,” Con called out.
“Seats,” Philip replied, catching everyone halfway up. Protocol was nice when there was time for it. There was no time for it.
Con remained standing. Philip came up to him, catching what his XO had on the screens. The same thing Philip had in mind: the old trader routes from data from Sullivan’s Boru Karn. Routes and jumpgates the Empire didn’t have. If the Folly could lose Imperial ships long enough to get to one, the Empire would not only not know where she went, but they’d not know where she’d come out. It would delay their arrival at Ferrin’s, but at least they’d have a chance to get there.
“Great minds,” Philip intoned over Con’s shoulder, then moved away, stopping behind Corvang for a moment before passing the empty station at communications where Mather used to sit. A new commo would take that seat as soon as they neared the gate. Then he stood at the XO’s console for a few minutes, right next to the command chair, and stared at ship’s data flowing across the multitude of screens, most of which the day before—because of Mather’s interference—were incomplete or blank. Now the Folly was awake, alive, moving, functioning. God willing, she should keep doing so. With or without Admiral Guthrie.
At least for a while. There was always the chance Philip could escape from wherever the Empire imprisoned him before they decided to execute him. He felt fairly certain Chaz would be behind some rescue scheme. If she and Sullivan found out in time.
Then again, maybe Sparks had unearthed
a miracle. Philip glanced at the time stamp on the closest deskscreen. “Ready room, Mr. Welford.”
He hit the palm pad, not surprised to find Rya and Sparks already there, heads together, talking quietly. He waved one hand, indicating they should keep their seats, though his gaze stayed on Rya a lot longer than it should have.
“How’s the shoulder?” he asked her. “Moreover, is my sick bay still in one piece?”
Her small smile warmed him. It was an innocent enough question. Her injuries were common knowledge. But only she and Philip knew he’d kissed those same injuries.
“Dugan’s still among the living,” she said. She no longer wore his shirt. Evidently she did more than just visit sick bay. Martoni came in from the corridor just as Philip sat.
“Sorry,” he said, sounding a bit breathless. “I was running some sims in divisionals and lost track of time.”
“You have slept, haven’t you, Mr. Martoni?”
“Yes, sir. Couple hours.”
A couple technically meant two. Not enough, but then, Philip hadn’t had all that much sleep himself. He wasn’t going to challenge the younger man on the point.
Con closed the door to the bridge, then sat.
“We have twenty-six hours, a little more than a shipday,” Philip said. “We need all ideas and options on the table now.”
“The biggest thing in our favor,” Martoni said after a short nod from Con, “is whoever is waiting for us at the gate doesn’t know that Mather’s dead or that we know what Mather’s done. Lieutenant Bennton and I went over a few scenarios after our last meeting. She feels—if Welford can duplicate the codes—we might be able to fake a message from Mather to the waiting ships. We—as Mather—could tell them he’s just about in control of this ship, but they need to delay, back off until he gives them a signal.”
“The closest trader’s jumpgate is about two hours away at top speeds,” Con said. “But top speeds might look too much like we’re running—which we would be. They’d get suspicious.”
Hope's Folly Page 29
