by Becky Black
He came to himself sprawled on the bunk on his back, with no memory of how he got there. Okay, this is new. Did he fall asleep or faint? He usually regained his senses quickly after coming, but this time he felt woozy and like he wanted to lie here for a few hours yet.
“Intense,” he said to himself, but Raine replied.
“Yes, it was.” Kit had to stretch around to see him coming out of the little bathroom, putting on his all too modest bathrobe, hiding his naked body. “The way you went limp afterward was quite flattering.”
“Take that damn robe off and come here.”
“I’m not sure I can go again yet.”
“Me neither, but I’m lonely over here.”
Raine shook his head, smiling. He joined Kit on the bunk, still with the bathrobe on, but undid it and wrapped them both in it when Kit pressed close to him. It felt good. Even in this warm room, the sweat drying on his skin chilled him, and it felt good to share body heat.
“I think I did my back in,” Kit said, shifting uncomfortably after a few minutes.
“Want me to rub it for you?”
Kit stared at him, surprised. “Um, really?”
“Something wrong?”
Kit shrugged. “Men like you don’t usually offer back rubs.”
“Well, I’m offering. You want one or not?”
Those big strong hands on his sore muscles? Hell yes, he wanted one. They shuffled their positions, Raine almost falling off the narrow bunk, making Kit laugh, until they got into a secure position. Raine knelt over Kit, who lay on his front, face pillowed on crossed arms. Raine started sweeping his hands over the long muscles of Kit’s back.
“You should do some strengthening exercises,” Raine said. “You’ve got a high center of gravity, which affects the way you carry yourself and affects the muscles.”
“I love it when you talk gym-porn at me.”
“Knock it off. I could draw you up a program if you like.”
“Yeah, sounds good.” He was no gym bunny, usually, aside from a treadmill session to burn off steam sometimes. But being in the gym would mean running into Raine more.
Did he want to? Didn’t he still find Raine an annoying bastard? He lay pondering this in silence for a while, feeling the last of the tension draining from his back muscles under Raine’s hands. The strong hands made a difference. Made it a real massage and not just a caress.
“Kit, what do you mean by men like me?”
“Mmm?”
“You said it before. ‘Men like you don’t offer backrubs.’ What type of man are you talking about?”
“You know. Authority figures. Guys who get to boss people around. The ones in charge who snap their fingers when they want you to jump…or bend over.”
“Oh.” Raine’s hands faltered for a moment. “And that’s what you think I am?”
“You’re the security chief. You’re an officer on this ship; you were an officer in the military.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Kit looked over his shoulder. “You weren’t?”
“I was only a sergeant.”
“Isn’t that an officer?”
“Of course not.”
“Okay, Sergeant Smug-boots, don’t roll your eyes at me. But even a sergeant does some bossing people around, right?”
“Oh, definitely. But I was an army ranger, and I spent a lot of time on long-range recon patrols, alone for weeks out in the desert sometimes.”
“Sounds pretty tough.”
Raine shrugged. “It’s just where I grew up. Guess I’m used to it. But yes, it’s an unforgiving environment. One wrong move and you’re dead. So anyway, the only things I got to boss around out there were rocks and lizards.”
“Oh. Okay.” Kit rested his chin on his arms again. “You get to boss people around in this job, though.”
“Yes.”
“But more like a manager than an officer.”
The hands faltered again, and Raine replied slowly, “I suppose.”
Yeah. Management. Like Jeff.
“You okay?” Raine stopped the massage. “You tensed up. Did I hurt you?”
“No. Keep going.” Raine was nothing like Jeff. Raine was Raine. He was…different. He gave back rubs. He let Kit take the lead in bed. He let Kit top. Had Kit been judging him by the wrong set of criteria? Or stereotyping him based on the kind of men he’d known so far? Raine had less to prove than some guy in a suit in an office. He’d been a soldier. Trained to kill. Built like a tank. He didn’t have to assert his machismo; he just had to show up.
“Of course,” Kit said, teasing again. “You like officers.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like Commodore Wright.”
“What about him?”
In a swift movement, Kit turned over and wrapped his legs around Raine. He grinned up at him. “I know a man crush when I see it. You don’t fancy him, but you’d follow him like a puppy, wouldn’t you?”
“Wright’s a fine officer.” Raine lay down at Kit’s side and gathered him in his arms. Kit pulled the blanket up over them, knowing Raine would be too cold, feeling goose bumps already on his skin.
“You were being his puppy, but it looked like Captain Dryden would have liked to toss him in a vat of reactor waste.”
“You noticed? Like I said, she has issues.”
“But Katie would happily pull him out and hose him off herself.” Kit smirked.
“Katie?” Raine said with a puzzled look, as if trying to place who Kit meant.
“Katherine Warner, dummy. You know, your deputy.”
“Oh. You call her Katie?”
“It’s her name, isn’t it? Anyway, she was following Wright with her tongue hanging out.”
“Are you suggesting Warner is attracted to Commodore Wright?”
“I’m suggesting she’d like to trip him up and break his fall with her body, yes.”
“Nonsense.”
“You were with them both for hours and couldn’t see it? You need an eye test.”
“I had other things on my mind.” He smiled the wickedest grin Kit had ever seen on him. “Like bending you over the meeting-room table.”
“You’re one classy guy, Raine.”
Maybe now he’d say, Call me… whatever. But he didn’t, and Kit sighed and nestled his head against the broad warm plane of Raine’s chest.
“Wake me at five thirty.”
He felt Raine tense. Yeah, I want to sleep here, Kit thought. He was tired, and his limbs were heavy, and he didn’t want to drag his carcass out of this bed and Raine’s arms to take a shower and get back to his bunk in time to get two hour’s sleep before his shift.
He wanted to stay.
Raine called out in the tone people used talking to the computer. “Computer. Alarm call at 0530. Lights off.”
“Alarm call at 0530 confirmed.”
The lights went off. Kit closed his eyes and buried his face against Raine’s warm skin. “Thanks,” he whispered.
Raine stroked one hand through Kit’s hair in a soothing motion. “Good night, Kit.”
Chapter Ten
Kit and Gracie wheeled two carts into the storage container. “Look at this lot.” She waved the picking list. “It will take ages. Bang goes our break before lunch.”
Kit wanted that break. With Raine off duty today, Kit planned to join him for a session in the gym, then leave him to simmer over lunch before another type of session in the afternoon. He took the list from Gracie and ripped it in half.
“We split up.”
“I knew you were useful for something. Okay, see you soon.” She checked her half of the list and pushed her cart away. Kit went off in the opposite direction. He had the bottom half of the list, which was arranged in the order of where they’d find the goods. If he started from the end and worked his way up the list, he’d meet up with Gracie when she reached the end of hers.
He leaned on the cart and yawned as he pushed it to the far end of the container. Should ha
ve brought a flask of coffee with him—he was exhausted. Though he had recovered from the especially late night a few days ago after the fancy dinner Raine had been to, they’d had several more since then.
Raine hadn’t let him stay again, and this didn’t bother Kit too much—he’d slept badly in Raine’s narrow bunk. But to at least be asked to stay was nice. Raine continued to worry about appearances, ridiculously so, in Kit’s opinion. There couldn’t be a single one of the Dawn’s crew who didn’t know about the two of them.
Raine’s security squad knew for sure. They gave Kit looks ranging from amused to suspicious when he arrived back in the bunk room after spending some time with Raine, but nobody said anything. They were an okay bunch of guys. He’d expected them to be dumbass meatheads who’d regard him as a fun chew toy to pick on, but they treated him fine—even before he started sleeping with their boss and put himself off-limits to any potential bullies. They kept their distance, though. None of them had tried to become closer friends. He’d spotted a couple of them checking him out, but they hadn’t made any kind of move. Not a good plan to try to horn in on the boss’s boyfriend.
Kit stopped. Boyfriend? When did he start thinking of himself in those terms? Didn’t that require some kind of connection beyond sex?
But they had one. He couldn’t fool himself about it. If they didn’t, Raine would have kicked him out and sent him back to his bunk the other night, however snuggly Kit had felt. But he’d let him stay.
Boyfriend. It had a nice ring to it.
No, it didn’t. He chided himself at once and got back to pushing his cart. He couldn’t become emotionally attached to anyone here. It would only make it harder to take a chance to escape. He’d find it heartbreaking enough to leave Gracie, the little sweetheart. He couldn’t let himself fall for Raine and risk the kind of pain that would slow him down.
A physical thing, he’d said. He had believed it. He still believed it. They’d get bored with each other soon enough. Any day… No, they were not emotionally involved. How could you be emotionally involved with someone who hadn’t told you his name? Turning his attention back to the job, he found the first crate on his list and lifted the lid.
The scream that echoed around the container made him drop it to crash back down. He snatched his hand away just in time to stop the lid crushing his fingers.
“Gracie?”
Another scream. He dropped his list, left his cart, and ran. What the fuck had happened? Had she had an accident? Had a crate come loose and fallen on her? He skidded to a halt at the end of an aisle and looked wildly around. Damn, where was she? The echo in the big space made pinpointing the sound nearly impossible.
“Gracie!” he yelled, hoping to make her shout again so he could get some clue. A couple of seconds later, she yelled back.
“Kit! Help!”
Left. And up the steps to the top level. He started pounding up the metal steps and froze as a figure appeared at the top. Not Gracie, but a man. Kit didn’t recognize his face, but he did recognize the overalls the ore workers wore.
“Get out of my way,” the man snarled.
For a second, Kit almost backed down. Easy to do so. The guy was bigger than him. Nobody would expect a skinny office boy to tackle him, surely. But this bastard had done something to Gracie, made her scream. If he got past Kit and if Gracie…couldn’t identify him, he might get clean away.
Not happening.
Kit stood his ground, and the ore worker came pounding down the steps, looking murderous and ready to toss him aside. Choosing his moment, Kit leaped up a couple of steps to tackle the man around the waist.
“Get off!”
“Gracie!” Kit yelled up the stairs. God, let her be okay. And someone had to call security. Kit could only slow this bastard down; he didn’t have the strength to hold him for long. A wild punch landed on Kit’s ear as the man lashed out, and Kit yelled with the pain but hung on. If the bastard wanted to run, he’d have to run with Kit hanging around his waist like a sash.
“Let go, you stupid fucker! Who the fuck are you, anyway?”
Kit wanted to yell, I’m the security chief’s boyfriend, so I strongly suggest you don’t fuck with me! But he had too little breath to spare from the struggle.
Fighting on the narrow steps had an inevitable ending. They overbalanced suddenly, and the world started going past backward. Kit must have hit the edge of every step on his way down, always on an especially painful spot. When they reached the grating floor at the bottom, Kit landed first, and his opponent’s full weight crashed down on top of him.
The air forced from his lungs, Kit lay helpless as the ore worker finally pulled away from him, scrambling to his feet. A kick from a steel-toed boot made Kit howl with pain and roll away until he came up against the steps. The guy would run, surely. The only smart thing to do, run back and lose himself in the crowd of workers back in the ore plant.
But this wasn’t a smart guy. The boot came at Kit’s head this time, and he only just got his arms up in time to protect his face. The boot struck his wrist instead, crashing into the tracker. Kit yelled as the metal and plastic dug into his flesh, but it probably saved him from a broken arm.
It couldn’t save him from broken ribs or a fractured skull, though. The steel-capped boots came at him again as he tried to scramble away, but the man only landed one more kick before a bansheelike shriek came from above. A figure in white hurtled down the steps and launched itself at him.
Ah, forget about Raine. Kit was Gracie’s friend. He’d strongly suggest that as a reason nobody should fuck with him.
The ore worker turned as Gracie came screaming at him like a missile, so he ended up with her on his back, hanging on with her legs and one arm. In her other hand, she swung a big bottle of what Kit recognized as dish detergent and battered the hell out of him with it. It caught him such a crack on the head, he dropped to his hands and knees, pitching Gracie off to crash to the floor.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Warner’s voice made them all freeze—all except Raine, who’d arrived with her and kept on coming. He flattened the ore worker and cuffed him, similar to how he’d restrained Kit the day they met. Kit much preferred the position of spectator.
Warner ran to help Gracie while Raine looked over at Kit, his eyes full of a flattering amount of relief. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“Fine,” Kit said. Something of a lie, since he felt as if he’d been worked over with a steel bat, but he wanted Raine to go on looking relieved to find him unhurt. “Did…” He gulped a couple of times, recovering his breath. “Did Gracie raise the alarm?”
Raine shook his head. “No. You did. Your tracker lost connection.”
Kit looked at it, the crushed and distorted metal and shattered plastic. The ore worker’s kick had destroyed it and brought Raine running down here—in his civilian clothes even, off duty. He must have been expecting to find Kit making some kind of escape attempt.
Raine’s relief wasn’t as simple as Kit thought.
* * *
Raine, Captain Dryden, Preston and Sullivan from the ore plant, and Kit and Gracie crammed Raine’s office. Kit and Gracie sat on the couch, Kit with his arm around her shoulders and a fierce glare on his face. Dryden crouched down, speaking to Gracie.
“You found him pilfering our supplies?”
“Yes, Captain,” Gracie said, her voice small and scared. “I wasn’t really going to do anything… I probably wouldn’t even have reported him. I didn’t know his name or anything.”
Taylor. Ron Taylor. He’d be in the brig for the rest of the voyage, if Raine got his way. Of course, Preston and Sullivan had marched into the security section demanding Taylor’s immediate release. They could whistle for it.
“But, he tried…” Gracie stopped, and her hand went to the torn shoulder of her shirt. “You know. Because I was alone, and he thought he could…”
Raine’s gloved hands clenched into fists. Forget the brig. Let’s bo
ot the bastard out an airlock.
“I understand,” Dryden said, squeezing Gracie’s hand. “What then?”
“I knew Kit was still in the container, so I shouted for help. When he shouted back, the…the man tried to run off, but Kit stopped him.”
“Well done, Mr. Miller.” Dryden nodded at Kit in acknowledgment.
“I didn’t do much, ma’am. He’s a lot bigger than me. But Gracie came to my rescue.”
Gracie giggled nervously. “I was scared. But I saw he had Kit on the deck, and he was kicking him. I had to do something.”
“She screamed a battle cry, jumped on his back, and beat the snot out of him with a bottle of dish detergent.” Kit pulled her closer against his side, and Raine had to hide a smile. Nice work, Gracie. And Kit too. Defending each other, as shipmates should.
“Who raised the alarm?” the captain asked.
“Mr. Miller’s tracking device was damaged,” Raine said, “which triggered an alarm, and I went to investigate immediately.” It had come up on his Link, and he’d run from the rec room without a backward glance.
“Tracking device?” Preston, the ore-plant manager Raine had forgotten was there, spoke up. “Your crew wears tracking devices?”
Damn, Raine thought. Damn. Me and my big mouth.
“Mr. Miller didn’t join the ship…” Dryden paused and considered before she went on. “In a conventional manner. He sneaked aboard unauthorized at Drexler. We caught him and put him to work.”
“He’s a stowaway?” Preston sounded incredulous. “He’s not a member of your crew?” Sullivan began to tap on her Link immediately.
“He is a member of my crew.” Dryden stood up and faced Preston. Raine went to stand at her shoulder. He was not going to let them push his captain around.
“Are you paying him?” Sullivan asked, not looking up from her Link. “Because if he’s unpaid, he has no standing on the ship.”
“No,” Dryden admitted. “He gets a bed, food, and use of the facilities until we reach Saira, where he’ll be handed over to the authorities. But Mr. Miller’s status is irrelevant. Your man assaulted him and Ms. Maddison. Taylor’s staying in the brig.”
