by Becky Black
Good point. Kit’s last plan had been terrible. But he had plenty of time to come up with a better one.
“I’ll make sure he knows I’m keeping a close eye on him, ma’am.”
* * *
“I’ve missed these little get-togethers.”
Raine scowled at the grinning Kit, who had come into the office for his check-in the day after he resumed his duties and dropped into a chair without waiting for permission.
“Welcome back,” Raine said. “So let’s see what you’ve been up to.”
He ran through it all, marrying the data up with Kit’s account of his day.
“You went to the observation deck?”
“It’s nice up there,” Kit said. “I like to look at the stars.”
Raine smiled. Kit had been up there over an hour, until close to midnight—after he finished the after-dinner cleanup, presumably. Most people got bored with watching a star field after a few minutes. He and Kit might have something in common. All those nights Raine had spent under the big desert sky came back him. How often had he dreamed he had a lover at his side to watch the stars with him? If Kit made a habit of going up there after work, perhaps Raine would happen to chance along one night.
Which would be wrong. Don’t think about it.
“Are your colleagues in the galley glad to see you back?”
“They’re a bit off with me,” Kit admitted. “Gracie was pretty hurt. Understandable.”
“I gave her the note you left.”
Kit looked up sharply. “You did? Thanks. I wasn’t sure anyone would bother.”
“I think she’s been let down by a lot of people in her life.” He didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation, but Kit clearly took it as one.
“And I’m the latest bastard to do the same. I know. You don’t have to rub it in.”
“I didn’t mean that. You were—”
“Only thinking about myself. Same as usual, I guess.” He stood. “We done?”
No, don’t go yet! He wanted Kit here, wanted the scent of the cleaning fluids he carried on his hands and his clothes, because the scents were him. Wanted him here. Wanted him.
“We haven’t quite finished. What about after the observation deck?”
“It’s there on your screen. I went back to the bunk room and went to bed. I was there until I went to work this morning. Do you need to know details of how long I was in the shower?”
Don’t picture him in the shower. “That won’t be necessary.”
What else could he ask to make Kit stay? He didn’t have to ask anything; he could order it. But that would be hollow. He could order Kit to stay, but he couldn’t order him to do what Raine really wanted.
And the longer they were in here behind a closed door, the more people would talk. Wait, the door was closed? He hadn’t noticed before. Kit must have closed it when he came in. He’d never done so before. Why this time? What did he expect to happen? What did he want to happen?
It didn’t matter what Kit wanted. They weren’t doing it again. It was entirely unacceptable.
“So, ah, where are you going now?” Raine asked, grasping at anything to ask.
“The gym,” Kit said. “Got a couple of hours to kill before lunch shift, and I have got a shitload of energy to burn off after being in your dungeon for a week.”
“It wasn’t a week.”
“Felt like it.”
“Since you slept most of the time, I’m not sure how it would feel so long to you.”
“Watching me, were you?” He shrugged. “Lying down with my eyes closed doesn’t mean I was sleeping. Just…thinking.”
Brooding? Or planning? Kit rolled his shoulders, a movement which should not have been in any way sexy, and yet the smooth action of muscles and the way the white fabric settled back against his skin made Raine want to rumble a growl low in his throat. His cock started to fill, and he cursed it, feeling like a teenager, not in a good way.
“So I think I’ll take a good long run on a treadmill and then a steam.” He winked at Raine. “Love a good long steam, don’t you?”
“Don’t be late back on duty.” Raine kept his voice as neutral and as cold as he could manage. Which was to say, not cold at all. The image came unbidden, unwanted, yet irresistible. Kit lying on a bench in the sauna, naked. Sweat beading on his long, lean body, hair heavy and damp, sticking to his neck and shoulders, falling down over the edge of the bench.
“Why don’t you come and join me?” Kit said.
“What?”
“Unless you can think of a better way for me to burn off the excess energy.”
“Stop it.” Raine stood. The sultry expression vanished from Kit’s face, surprise displacing it.
“Stop what?”
“Trying to…distract me again. I know what your game is, and it won’t work.”
The fact it had worked twice already gave lie to his statement. But Raine ignored this inconvenient fact and tried to summon up the proper righteous indignation at being so cynically manipulated. He quickly found it was impossible to feel righteously indignant while he had an erection.
“You still think I’m trying to distract you?” Kit shook his head, looking disgusted. “Man, you are either the most suspicious bastard alive or you have an issue with self-esteem.”
“What the hell does self-esteem have to do with it?”
“Hasn’t it crossed your mind I might want you? I kissed you because you’re hot. I let you fuck me because I’d been dreaming about your cock for two damn weeks, and I had to have it in me.”
Raine stared and wished to God he could believe it, but it couldn’t be true.
“You’re a liar.” He heard a tiny trembling in his voice. “Why would someone like you want someone like me?”
“What, are you fishing for compliments?” The impatient tone made Raine angry right alongside his surging desire. “You’re hot.”
Raine snorted and turned way. “Now I know you’re a liar.”
“Of course you’re hot, you bull-necked idiot. How can you not know this? Don’t you have a mirror in your quarters? How do you shave?”
“Stop trying to…to butter me up.”
“Butter you up?” His voice sounded amused, and Raine looked back at him to see him grinning. “Interesting idea. I have access to butter, as it happens.”
The grin was too much. It took Raine over the edge. So cocky, so cheeky, so damn sexy. He took a couple of quick steps and, before Kit could react, pulled him close, kissing him hard. He raked a hand through Kit’s hair. Hair Raine spent long hours thinking about, imagining it sweeping across his chest.
“Oh, please God help me, Kit. I need you.”
“You’ve got me. You’ve had me since you said ‘who the hell are you?’”
The first words Raine had spoken to him. They’d made Kit want to answer “yours” even back then. If only they’d had time, they’d have fucked right there in the elevator. Kit didn’t want to desire Raine—it couldn’t end well. But he couldn’t ignore it any more than he could ignore an itch or hunger.
Raine lifted him, the big lug, hands under his ass. Kit locked his legs around Raine’s hips. He’d had the urge over and over to fold himself around the guy, seeking his strength. Raine deposited him on the desk and grabbed for the belt of Kit’s apron. Kit leaned back to let him get at where it was tied at the front, and Raine immediately made a mess of getting it untied and jammed the knot instead.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
“Oh, get off it, you damn fool,” Kit said, taking over, pushing Raine’s big hands out of the way and quickly unpicking the knot himself. He pulled it free and tossed the apron aside. Raine managed the shirt easily enough. He grabbed the hem, and Kit raised his arms to let Raine pull the shirt off.
He leaned back again, wincing when he put one hand down on something hard, but then he smiled an invitation. Raine took him up on it, first kissing him fiercely, then moving down his neck and chest, finding and sucking on a nipp
le and making Kit grind his hips involuntarily. Raine needed no more encouragement. He slipped his hand under the elastic waistband of Kit’s baggy pants, and he made a small sound of surprise.
“No underwear?”
“Would you wear borrowed underwear?”
Raine spluttered out a laugh. “Guess not.”
Kit supposed he hadn’t noticed the absence last time—he’d been in too much of a hurry. He stroked his big strong hand up and down Kit’s cock, making Kit moan, head back, hair sweeping over his naked back.
“Tell me what I can do for you,” Raine said.
Nice to be the one asked first. “Fuck me. Right here on your desk.”
He feared he’d made a mistake; reminding Raine of where they were could have broken the spell and revived those annoying scruples of his. Would he pull back? Kit wouldn’t let it happen. He took hold of Raine’s fly zip and started to pull on it. Raine responded instantly, any momentary doubt he might have felt apparently forgotten or ignored.
He was clumsy, which should have been annoying but which Kit found somehow endearing, forgivable. Since Raine usually restrained his considerable strength so well, seeing him without the control made him like some unleashed animal. Powerful and yet unused to his freedom.
He turned Kit over on the desk and yanked down his pants. Bent naked over a desk with a fully clothed man about to fuck him had Kit both thrilled and scared at once. He pulled back enough to give his cock some room and stroked it to help soothe his nerves and relax himself.
“Lube,” Raine said, and for a second Kit thought he was asking for some—which Kit realized he didn’t have—but instead a finger, slick and cold with the lube, slipped into Kit’s ass to prepare him. He gasped and shuddered with the shock of it, then moaned.
“Yes, good.” Lube. Good. Raine hadn’t had lube and condoms in his office the last time. Had he laid some in since then? Kit giggled at the thought and then frowned. Taking it for granted he’d get to fuck Kit again?
Raine withdrew his finger and said, “Ready?”
Ready? Of course he was fucking ready. He glanced back over his shoulder. “Do you mind if we pop out for brunch first?”
Raine made a nice growling sound, one he apparently kept for when Kit particularly annoyed him, and he pushed in. Kit gasped at the momentary sting of it. God, he had to get a better look at Raine’s cock. It must be big. He’d caught a glimpse of it when he looked back a second ago, the head of it, sheathed and shiny, poised over Kit’s ass. But he’d been too busy presenting his ass to it to appreciate it properly, both last time and this time.
Raine didn’t last much longer than he had their first time. Too wound up before he started, that was his trouble. Ready to pop before he got his pants off. They needed to do this properly—long and slow. There was a lot to be said for a nice soft bed rather than a hard desk with office supplies sticking to his sweating chest.
Raine gripped Kit’s thighs, steadying him as he thrust faster and faster into him, reaching his tipping point quickly, strangled sounds coming from him, not daring to cry out as he surely wanted to.
Kit had to grit his teeth to stay quiet too. Raine wouldn’t want his staff outside to hear them. Kit didn’t care so much. He’d walked out of a manager’s office to the sight of an outer office full of smirking, knowing faces often enough not to give a damn. But it clearly bothered Raine. He kept it down.
“C-coming…” The word was soft, yet seemed torn from Raine. The word became reality as he thrust once more and then stiffened, rigid as a statue, and released. Instinctively, Kit clamped his ass around the throbbing cock, and Raine groaned, the loudest sound he’d made so far, one Kit would love to hear more of.
So he was disappointed when Raine withdrew quickly after coming. Aw, damn. Kit sighed and stood up, wincing at overstretched muscles. Raine was already zipping up. He was also muttering to himself and shaking his head.
“What?” Kit said. “What’s bothering you?”
“We shouldn’t have…” He turned back to Kit, and his eyes widened. He stared at Kit’s still hard and ready cock. “You…you didn’t…”
“I didn’t come yet, no.” He grinned. “Come on over here and let me make some nasty stains on your uniform.”
Horror came into Raine’s eyes at the invitation. Even so, he moved closer, though slowly.
“Come on, Raine, for fuck’s sake. You can’t leave me like this. You came too quick.” Whoops. Shouldn’t have said that. Poor guy looks mortified. “I mean, I’m nearly there. Please.” He stroked his cock with a light touch, painfully sensitive. His breath came fast. He needed Raine to finish it.
“You’re my prisoner.” Raine took another step.
“If you keep saying that, I’m going to think you want to tie me up. Please, Raine, I need you.”
And he wanted it, Kit knew. Raine stared, not at Kit’s face, but at his cock. When he finally came close enough, Kit expected him to use his hand, but instead Raine suddenly dropped to his knees and engulfed Kit’s cock with his mouth.
The pleasure quickly grew unbearably intense. Kit climaxed within a minute, Raine barely having to do a thing for him beyond the warm, wet embrace of his mouth. He came shuddering and shaking, with one hand on the desk and one on the back of Raine’s head, stroking his bristly hair gently. As the wave of pleasure ebbed, Kit sighed and leaned back against the desk, knees trembling, while Raine stood up.
“Was that okay?” Raine said.
Kit grinned. “You ever have a blowjob that wasn’t?”
Raine smiled. “Guess not.” He grew serious again. “We can’t keep doing this.”
“Sure we can. Look, it’s probably just a physical thing. We’ll get it out of our systems in a few days.” He dried himself off with his apron, found his pants, and pulled them on. “Don’t worry so much about it.” His picked up his shirt from the desk and put it on. “Same time tomorrow?”
“No!”
“I meant for the check-in.”
“Oh, I, yes, I guess we have to.”
“I’d better go.” Kit balled up the apron. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Feeling wicked, he sniffed and then smirked at Raine. “You’d better get your air freshener out again.”
Chapter Eight
When Kit arrived for his check-in, he found Warner sitting behind Raine’s desk. She gave him a cold look. Another one who hadn’t forgiven him for his escape attempt.
“Where’s Raine?”
“Off duty.”
He hadn’t said anything about being off duty today when Kit had said “same time tomorrow.” He might have been distracted. Kit was good at distracting him. But Warner had taken his check-ins before. Yes—before. When Raine had been avoiding him.
Thought he could do so again, did he? He had another think coming. Kit had condoms and lube in the pocket of his apron, because he’d felt sure Raine would be up for it again. He still felt sure and wasn’t going to go and nap on his bunk. He had to find Raine. Though this was a big ship, there were only so many places for the crew to hang out while off duty. He knew where to look first.
As soon as Warner dismissed him, Kit headed for the gym. A man didn’t stay looking like Raine by hanging out in the rec room with his feet up. Sure enough, he found Raine sitting on a bench doing bicep curls with some ridiculously huge hand weight Kit couldn’t have picked up without a block and tackle. He didn’t go in at once but froze by the door, admiring Raine. Kit hadn’t seen him with so few clothes on before. He wore long pants, but he had on a sports shirt, his big arms entirely bare. Sweat stood out in beads on his muscles, catching the light as he moved, making him appear to be dusted with diamonds. He wore a look of fiercely focused attention. Who knew it took so much concentration to lift weights?
“Need a spot?” Kit asked after standing unnoticed in the doorway for a couple of minutes. Raine started at the sound of Kit’s voice and looked over at him.
“Ah, no, not for bicep curls. A spotter is only needed when there’s a chanc
e of dropping the weight on yourself if you lose—”
“You think I came here for a lesson in weightlifting?”
Raine glanced around nervously. They were alone. He lowered the weight to the deck and stood when Kit came in. As Kit approached him, Raine grabbed a towel and scrubbed it over his head, where sweat glistened in the bristly crop. More avoidance, Kit thought. He approached close enough to startle Raine when he stopped pretending to be busy with his towel.
“I just did the check-in with Warner,” Kit said.
“Um, good.”
“She’s pissed with me.”
“A lot of people are.” Raine started to gather up and rack the weights.
“You’re avoiding me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Sure you are. You think we shouldn’t be fucking, and you think not seeing me will mean you’ll stop wanting to fuck me.”
“You need to get over yourself. I’m off duty today and have other things to do besides orbit around you.”
The tone was a forced attempt at casual. It didn’t fool Kit for a second.
“You’re right about one thing.” Raine locked the weights down with a safety bar. Kit supposed one didn’t want heavy weights floating around if the gravity failed, ready to fall down and damage someone or something when the gravity came back.
“You’re right, we shouldn’t be…” He stopped, glancing around again. “We shouldn’t be fucking. And especially not in my office.”
“If the office is what’s bothering you, then let’s go to your quarters.”
Raine scowled at him. “Did you miss the first part of what I said?”
“No. Look, why shouldn’t we be fucking? What does it matter? And don’t start giving me your shit about me being your prisoner.”
“I’m the security chief, and you’re a stowaway and a thief. How much more inappropriate can it be?”
Kit almost snapped back to deny being a thief but remembered Raine emptying his duffel bag onto the desk. Finding the medical laser.
“Nobody else on the ship cares. You tell me to get over myself, but what about you? What makes you so sure everyone is watching to see who you’re going to bed with?”
