The Tracker's Dilemma: (A Mandrake Company Science Fiction Romance)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  He squeezed her, then let her go. Though he walked slowly, he walked with determination, first picking up the laser rifle he’d lost, then heading through the leaves, looking for tracks.

  Lauren watched him, emotion welling in her breast. He had nearly gotten himself killed going after Hemlock. All for her sister—someone who had called him a thugly mercenary. Even though Lauren and Hailey didn’t get along, and Lauren liked to pretend she didn’t have a sister most of the time, it meant a lot to her that Heath had been willing to risk himself like this. He deserved… she didn’t know what. A medal. A combat bonus. Something. Would Captain Mandrake realize that? Maybe Lauren could give him something, show her thanks somehow.

  “Over here,” Heath called, waving to her with his left arm. He kept the right one pressed close to his ribs.

  Vowing to find Ankari’s pack and dig for a first-aid kit, Lauren ran over to him. He pointed at something on the ground—she couldn’t see anything except a slight gouge in the mud—then strode with confidence toward the base of the ridge. She followed him, and a muffled moaning soon reached Lauren’s ears. Hailey?

  She raced past Heath, searching all around them. There. Hailey kneeled against a tree, her hands tied behind her back, a gag stuffed into her mouth. A rope around the trunk kept her from wandering away.

  Heath caught up with Lauren and withdrew his knife, the same one he had used to kill Hemlock. Even though he had cleaned off the blood, Lauren shuddered as he used it to cut her sister’s bonds. It seemed that a tool should be retired once it had been used to kill a man.

  With her hands free, Hailey yanked out the gag. To Lauren’s surprise, her sister flung her arms around her. Feeling awkward, Lauren returned the hug.

  “Good to see you well,” she said.

  “Good to be alive,” Hailey said.

  “You can thank Heath for that.”

  “Heath?” Hailey looked curiously at him.

  “Sergeant Tick, ma’am.” He smiled at Lauren and nudged her with his good arm. “You’re the only one who gets to call me Heath.”

  “Oh.” Lauren smiled back, feeling silly that the statement pleased her, but it did.

  Chapter 12

  Tick waited until Ms. Keys came out of the lab, liquid bandage smeared on the side of her face and hands, before he entered to receive his own first-aid treatment. He had received painful wounds in his battle with Hemlock, but it had seemed fitting to let a lady go first. A lady and their employer.

  The shuttle was just taking off—Ms. Flipkens, Lieutenant Sparks, and one of the mechanics from Mandrake’s craft had been working hard at repairs while Tick and Lauren had been tracking down Hemlock. A panel under the control console up front was still open, wires dangling, but apparently, that didn’t mean they couldn’t fly. Ms. Flipkens sat in the pilot’s seat, a toolbox on the deck next to her, and followed the two gray shuttles visible on the view screen out of the trees, over the cliff that had nearly ended the pink shuttle’s life, and out across the jungle again. They were off to check on Hailey’s second location, hopefully without interruptions from kidnappers or bounty hunters this time.

  Lauren also wore some of the liquid bandage, but she did not look too badly injured. She had washed up and was poking through the medical supplies without any apparent pain. When she looked up and noticed him, she smiled. His heart soared. It had been worth taking a beating if it meant she was smiling at him again.

  He made the mistake of returning the gesture—a scab had formed over his split lip, and it broke with the movement. Blood dribbled down his chin.

  “Sorry,” he said, wiping it with his sleeve, having a notion that he shouldn’t leave stains on a woman’s lab decking.

  “I’m not that practiced of a medic, but I’m fairly certain patients aren’t supposed to apologize to their doctors for bleeding.” Lauren waved him to the bed on one side of the lab. An exam table, he supposed, but calling it a bed seemed less clinical.

  “No? Seems like a man should try not to be a pest.” He put his butt toward the table and pushed himself up, then winced, wishing he hadn’t, because fresh pain flared in his ribs. “I don’t suppose you have a repair device?” he asked.

  “The shuttle is equipped with more than a rudimentary first-aid kit.”

  “I hope that was a yes.”

  Lauren started with a medical sensor, lifting his shirt and adhering it to his ribs so it could check him out. “Can you take your clothes off, or do you need help?”

  “All of them?” Hells, if she wanted to see him naked, he could tear everything off, injuries or not. The hard part would be not falling off the table in his enthusiasm to comply. “Because I can definitely do that.”

  She leaned close to read the sensor. “Maybe just your shirt. It doesn’t look like you have any significant damage to your lower extremities.”

  “Nah, everything down there is fine. I was the one to kick him in the balls.”

  Lauren glanced at his crotch. It was just a quick glance, doubtlessly inspired by his words and not any particular interest in what lay in his trousers, and her gaze soon moved back to the display on the sensor. That didn’t keep him from promptly thinking bedroom thoughts and wanting to ask if she was sure she didn’t need to see anything below the waist.

  Tick rolled his eyes at himself. He had internal injuries, had left half his skin on thorns in that jungle, and he was thinking about sex? With someone who’d already told him she had zero interest in sex? What a loon.

  Still, when she slid her hands along his sides, warm skin brushing warm skin as she helped him lift his shirt over his head, his entire body lit up like an electric fence disturbed by a critter in the night. Her familiar scent—oranges, mingled with the flowery shampoo, and the lovely underlying smell of a woman—filled his nostrils. Her sleeve brushed one of his nipples, and desire rampaged through him. He hoped she wouldn’t look at his crotch again, because his cock was doing its best to call attention to itself, utterly ignoring his admonitions that she wasn’t interested in sex and certainly wouldn’t, as the thought flashed through his mind, wrap her hand around it and start stroking him.

  Once his shirt lay on the table, Lauren bent over him to remove the sensor unit and affix the repair device to his ribs. He willed her not to look down at what had become a substantial bulge. If he’d had more room to maneuver, he might have shifted his legs to hide it, but he couldn’t do that without clubbing her in the ear, not while she was bent over him, adjusting the repair device. Inspiration struck, and he grabbed his shirt. He slid it over his lap, arranging it artistically.

  She glanced at it as she straightened, the repair device now humming, a light flashing on the display.

  “I can take that,” she said, reaching for the shirt.

  “No,” he blurted more forcefully than he intended.

  Her eyebrows rose.

  “My lap is cold,” he said lamely.

  Most women would know exactly what his problem was, and probably not care a whit one way or another, but if she was as inexperienced as her words had implied, she might not realize his penis wanted to take off like a combat shuttle. If she was as disinterested in sex as she said, she probably didn’t spend much time thinking of… combat shuttles. Either way, he didn’t want her to feel alarmed by seeing his interest, or think that he was condoning that interest when she had made it clear she didn’t want him.

  Her expression faintly perplexed, Lauren brought a blanket over and draped it around his shoulders. Thankfully, she did not try to remove the shirt again. She grabbed an antiseptic spray and unwrapped a sterile cloth for cleaning his wounds. He barely felt the sting of the spray as she worked on him, only being aware of the closeness of her body, of the way her hair tickled his bare skin. It had fallen from its typical bun sometime during the chase, and she hadn’t bothered putting it up again. He didn’t mind, not one bit. He wondered if she would think him an idiot if he flexed his abs, thus to make an appealing surface for her to rest her hands against.r />
  Not that she would find his abs or the rest of him appealing. Even if she were interested in having sex with men, would she have any feelings toward him after he’d gotten his ass beaten so soundly by a lowly corporal? True, Hemlock had come from a career of bounty hunting, and could have put up a good fight even without his weird brain powers, but Tick worked out with the captain all the time. He ought to be able to take down just about anyone in unarmed combat. Letting himself get hurled against trees… That was unacceptable. Mandrake never would have allowed that.

  He sighed.

  Lauren paused. She had been working on a deep gouge in his shoulder. “Am I hurting you?”

  Hurt? No, that wasn’t the feeling that kept his trousers uncomfortably tight across his lap. “No, I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”

  “For being injured?”

  “For allowing myself to be injured and for nearly losing that fight. That wouldn’t have happened if Captain Mandrake had tracked down Hemlock. He never loses fights.” Tick made himself close his mouth to keep more words—more whining—from spewing out. It wasn’t manly to complain to a woman.

  “Well, Mandrake probably would have had Ankari helping him instead of me,” Lauren said, frowning as she returned to cleaning the gouge. “She would have done a lot more than be a target.”

  It hadn’t occurred to him that she might be experiencing feelings of inadequacy too. That was hardly fair. She was a civilian, and she didn’t train in the gym with Mandrake several times a week.

  “You were much more than that,” he said. “You’re quite skilled with a tranquilizer gun.”

  She snorted, though her lips curved upward ever so slightly. Maybe she was pleased and a little proud of bringing that raptor down. She should be.

  “I mean it.” Tick clasped her hands between his, and she lifted her chin. “You were great.”

  He hadn’t meant to hold the gaze or keep her hands trapped between his, but she met his eyes steadily, not looking away or stepping back. Only a few inches of air stood between them, and he was acutely aware of the locks of hair brushing his upper arm, teasing his nerves, sending little jolts of desire through him. Dear Buddha, he wanted to kiss her, to brush his lips against hers, to slip his tongue out to taste her as he pulled her close, wrapping an arm around her and pressing her to his bare chest, maybe pulling her onto the table and into his lap.

  “I don’t care for kissing,” she blurted, breaking the spell.

  Tick cleared his throat and looked down at his hands. He smiled sadly, willing his libido to calm itself. “I know. You told me. You’re not interested in sex at all.”

  “Well...”

  Tick lifted his gaze again. She hadn’t backed away or tugged her hands free of his. She was looking at him curiously. More like a science experiment gone awry than some gorgeous display of man that she fantasized about, but hope sparked in his heart.

  “Well?” he prompted carefully.

  In the silence that followed, he grew aware of the hum of the shuttle, of a couple of conversations going on outside of the lab, of someone walking back to use the lav… He waited for her to squash his tiny spark of hope, but couldn’t help but think… what if she didn’t?

  She was still scrutinizing him. As if he was the mysterious one here. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out a man sitting on a bed with a shirt draped artfully across his lap.

  “Have you finally come to realize that my allure is… alluring?” Tick asked, smirking to let her know he was teasing.

  Lauren stirred. Unfortunately, she went back to cleaning his wounds and plugging them with liquid bandage. Surely, he could use the medical attention, but he couldn’t help but wish she would change her mind about sex. If she did, he would do his best to perform heroically, even with the busted ribs.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” she said as she worked. “I’ve started to think of you as a friend.”

  A friend? Tick shrank inward, imagining himself wilting like a flower stuck in an oven. Even his cock, which had been completely unaware of the conversation and only responding to her touch on his bare flesh, lost some of its tumescence.

  “Oh,” he said. He ought to say that was nice, or he thought of her as a friend too. The words were elusive.

  “You seem—you are—more appealing to me now,” Lauren went on, frowning as she took his hand and sprayed the antiseptic on a gash on the back.

  Once again, Tick did not notice the sting. He was too busy hanging on her words, hoping for more about his appeal. Though he didn’t quite know what that meant. That she was rethinking her interest in sex? Or just that she wasn’t repulsed by him anymore? Women weren’t usually repulsed by him, but she wasn’t the typical woman he bought drinks for in a bar, so what did he know?

  “Does that happen often for you?” he asked. “You become friends with a man, and he becomes more, uhm, appealing?”

  “No, but I don’t have that many male friends.” She met his eyes briefly. Wryly. “Or female friends. Colleagues, yes, but we’ve rarely bonded and become closer. I’ve seldom had any interest in the extracurricular activities my colleagues have invited me to engage in. Such as drinking and watching sports. Or drinking and shopping.” Utter mystification replaced the wryness, and she shook her head. “I can shop for tools and supplies on the network, or at least I could when I had a stationary address. I see no reason to wander up and down shopping complexes, being ambushed by pushy sales robots.”

  “I’ve heard some women have other hobbies.”

  “Nothing I was ever interested in. Since I always said no, people stopped asking me to do things with them. I wasn’t deliberately being standoffish. I just had no interest in those activities, and I informed them of that.” She shrugged. “I always had my work to keep me busy. It didn’t matter.”

  He tried to decide if she was admitting, or pretending not to admit, to a hint of loneliness. Tick liked drinking and sports, so he had no reason not to amble off with the other mercenaries after work, but at the end of the night, one went back to one’s bunk alone.

  “So, what’s the problem with kissing?” he asked, hoping to steer the conversation back to more pertinent matters. He wanted to hear more about how she now found him appealing. Appeal was good.

  The way her nose crinkled up would have made him laugh, if not for the fact that it meant he wasn’t likely to get a kiss any time soon.

  “Having another person swirl his tongue around in your mouth like a geneticist collecting samples with a cotton swab? Ew.”

  This time, he did laugh. He never would have imagined a scientist resorting to such imprecise terminology as ew.

  “If there’s laughing going on in there, I don’t think your doctor is using a firm enough hand,” came Striker’s voice from beyond the curtain.

  Ankari said something quelling to him, but Striker only snickered.

  Tick sighed, reminded that they were far from alone. The curtain gave a semblance of privacy, but it did nothing to block sounds. Any fantasy he’d had of Lauren casting her sexual inhibitions aside and climbing onto the table with him wouldn’t likely happen here.

  He lifted a hand to brush the hair dangling along the side of her face. She had finished patching his wounds and had turned a sour expression toward the curtain. Her attention shifted back to him. She did not pull away from his touch, and he traced her cheek and jaw with his fingers.

  “Technically, kissing isn’t required,” he said carefully, not wanting to push her somewhere she didn’t want to go.

  “No? In my experience, males always deem it ridiculously important.”

  “Oh? In my experience, it’s usually the women who are particularly interested in kissing. Men are most interested in inserting, uhm—”

  “Penises into orifices?”

  “Essentially. Some orifices are preferred over others.” He kept himself from making a pathetic joke about the desirability of her orifices, one in particular. She still had that faint crinkle to her nose. “It doesn’t
take much to get us ready for that.” He didn’t look down at the shirt in his lap. “If you were interested in a physical relationship—” he kept his voice down, not wanting to invite further mockery from the shuttle, “—it would be mostly about finding what does appeal to you to make sure you’re also… ready.”

  “You needn’t be so vague, Heath. I’m fully aware of how intercourse works, and that lubrication and arousal are desirable.”

  “Yes, of course. Do you have any idea what you would prefer to kissing? I once got a woman pretty excited with the fur tail from one of my caps.”

  Judging by the further wrinkling of the nose, she wasn’t that intrigued by the idea. Or maybe she didn’t want to hear him talking about other women. That was understandable.

  A long moment passed, and he worried she was about to step away and dismiss the conversation. She bit her lip and looked down at his chest, appearing uncharacteristically shy. A wave of heat coursed through him, centering around his cock. She wasn’t even touching him, but he could imagine her biting other things besides her lip. His things.

  “The massage was nice,” Lauren whispered, her cheeks flushing pink, as if the admission embarrassed her. Or maybe she was remembering it with pleasure? He could hope.

  “But not the ear nuzzling?” He had better get the boundaries figured out ahead of time, so he didn’t offend her again.

  “Nuzzling? Heath, you were slurping at my earlobe like an ice cream cone on a hot day.”

  This time, he flushed with embarrassment. “It was just a little taste. I thought you might like it.” He’d certainly liked it. “Do you want a massage now?”

  “We’re not that far from our destination.”

  As if on cue, Jamie said, “Ten minutes to the second canyon.”

  Tick thought about pointing out that much could happen in ten minutes, but perhaps he should go to his seat. Touching her would only arouse him further and leave him in a painful state once they landed. The captain would want to set him to work right away, and the only work he would want to do was on himself. Still, this could be an opportunity to explore what she was willing to do—to let him do. He was mildly encouraged that she hadn’t seemed horrified at the notion of “penises in orifices,” not the way she had been about kissing.