Chapter 13
“You are consistent, aren’t you?” Roys was the biggest thing in his office.
Corporate didn’t believe in sending more than what was absolutely necessary, so they decorated the captain’s quarters minimally.
Roys’ desk couldn’t fit in the rectangular room without pressing the side against the wall, creating a hall that someone of his stature had to walk sideways through.
The clunky gray desk had a built-in holo screen, turned off the moment I walked into the room.
A single chair sat in front of the desk, and hooks on the wall held his supplies.
A console table by the door had his new exoskin folded on it.
On his desk, he had an open box of candy.
I lounged in the chair, hands in my pockets and head knocked back over the seat. “Consistency is key, they say, and I would hate to disappoint.”
“Ethin,” he said.
“Lucky,” I corrected.
He leaned forward, hands steepled on the desk.
He was in captain mode, entirely too stern and ready to lecture at a moment’s notice.
While that was annoying, his tone of voice was far from it.
The way his words seemingly clawed their way out of his throat like a growl made me want to press my lips against his neck and feel every syllable against my tongue.
“You don’t bring much luck to your team, do you?” he asked.
“They all survived, didn’t they?”
“You were more than willing to abandon them. Again.”
“Survival of the fittest.” I ran my tongue over the back of my teeth. “You read our reports. If we had kept standing there waving those flamethrowers around, the bugs would have killed us or the fire. Neither option sounds too damn pleasant, so I chose life.”
“And yet you theorized why those insects reacted the way they were. Probably would have deciphered it sooner if you had any patience, then maybe you would have formulated a plan that didn’t put Lilea’s life on the line.”
He feigned to have a lot of faith in me, and that was irritating. My voice came out clipped. “Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, that ain’t my job. So, what discipline will fall upon me today, Captain?”
“None.”
“None?” I repeated, thumbs tapping against my legs, counting, waiting in a silence that dragged and dragged. “My, my, aren’t you in a good mood this evening?”
“I’m no different from usual. I see no reason to discipline you because you will face the consequences of your actions without my intervention.” He gestured at the door. “You’re dismissed.”
That was disappointing, but I hauled myself out of the chair. My steps were slow to the door, waiting for Roys’ inevitable last word. He would have something to say, to go on about my lack of patience again, call me a coward, something of the like because that was how he truly felt.
I reached the door that slid open after registering my presence. An empty hall greeted me, but there was an itch, one I couldn’t scratch, that couldn’t be ignored.
Roys smirked when I stormed over to slam my hands on the desk.
“The fuck are you doing?” I snarled, giving him a once-over, then the room, half expecting a wall to disappear to reveal the whole troop watching our interaction for giggles.
Something was amiss, and it was prodding my brain.
“Why bother bringing me in here for a thirty-second conversation leading nowhere?”
“It’s mandatory for captains to speak to their officers individually after such an event, either for questioning, discipline, or support.
You don’t require any of that, so you’re dismissed.
” He gestured at the door again. “If it sets you at ease, I’ll be calling the others momentarily.
Lilea especially needs support right now. ”
The bastard was contagious, because my eye twitched. “Fuck you.”
“If you are trying to ease your guilty conscience by talking back to me, it won’t help. I suggest you talk to Lilea.”
He was practically using my words against me. It was a fair play, I’d give him that, but he was far too smug about it, and I would fix that.
I cut the space between us, leaning in and enjoying how he retreated. “Should you be pissing me off considering our little escapade in the caves?”
Finally, I got a reaction out of him — that twitch in his eye.
The world returned to as it should be; me annoying him.
That warmed the fire in me, adding fuel to a sputtering tank.
His eyes narrowed, making them ever so dark, like they were in the cave, and the memory had me licking my lips.
Roys noticed, his eyes betrayed him with a glance.
“That little escapade was a mistake that I am sure you already have or are waiting to collect on,” he replied, maintaining his signature frown. Honestly, for him, it was less a frown and more of a natural state of being.
“You think so?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you had contacted Corporate already to get me reassigned. They’d take time, but I am waiting for the order.”
I didn’t miss the twitch in his fingers. The urge for a fix. The candy on his desk that he couldn’t get without me noticing — that would be like admitting defeat to him, so I stalled a second, a moment longer.
“It’s nice knowing you’re worried about it, that I’m on your mind,” I whispered.
“Not necessarily you.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” I glanced at the box. So did he. “Is that why you let me stay at the habitat afterward? Hoping some kindness would keep me placated?”
“I let you stay because we survived a horrible ordeal and you are bad enough with a full night’s rest, let alone exhausted.”
“Does that make the third time you’ve shown care for me? Aw, sweetheart, you’re going to make me blush.” I laughed at the disgusted face he pulled. “Here I thought you were feeling shy after avoiding me for over a week.”
He scoffed. “I have nothing to be shy about. Feeling stupid, yes. We were riled up, scared, and you got what you wanted. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, but actually, I’m not all that interested in reassigning you, even if every moment you’re tempting me to change my mind.”
That had him tilting his head, curious and suspicious. Always suspicious. That twitching finger of his tapped to an erratic beat.
“What’s stopping you, then?” he asked.
I waited to see if he’d give in, switching my attention from his eyes to his hands. They clenched so fiercely his knuckles were bone white. Scowling, Roys dropped his hand into the box. He undid the wrapper, popped the candy in his mouth, then threw the wrapper at me.
I liked when he got a little petty, when the captain took a back seat and he showed his true cards.
“The game, dancing around the topic, waiting for you to bring this up, seeing what’d you say and what you’ve been thinking about this whole time, and of course, waiting for you to give in,” I finally replied.
“Give in to what?”
“Fucking me.”
That made his eyes widen, and he visibly swallowed. “What?”
“I’ve fucked all the guys in this troop that I was interested in already. Too many of them are far too interested in civilized conversation afterward. You, however,” I tapped his nose, “dislike me entirely, so why not make this three-month tour worthwhile?”
He blinked rapidly, mouth agape, made a strange noise of bafflement, then puffed out a breath. “I can never tell if you are serious or not.”
“I’m serious.”
“Why?” He was so suspicious it would be cute on anyone else.
“Because I’m bored.”
And it would be fun to sneak around, to get under his skin in an entirely different way, and I liked what we had done, so imagine what more we could do.
“That seems to be a common state of being for you,” he said.
“A curse of mine, I’m afraid.” I shrugged. “Yes or no, Captain?”
The urge was there, the thought, the memory and the promise of a future.
The stick in the mud he feigned to be wasn’t entirely accurate for him to have gone through with what happened in the first place.
A part of him that yearned for a thrill, set free in those caves, a craving for a different addiction, lived within the captain’s shell, not much different from the surrounding flora, a danger waiting to bloom. If given the right reason.
“It’s just sex.” I took a chance approaching him and nudged his chair away from the desk. When all he did was lean back, I settled on his lap, and he took a deep breath. “Pointless, incredible sex.”
I cupped him through his pants. The final push. “That we can partake in when the nights are long, and we want more than the monotonous days of flora and danger.”
I rubbed him and Roys hissed through his teeth, one hand having fallen to my hip while the other traced my bottom lip.
I took his thumb between my teeth to bite like I had in the cave, all that want returning with a vengeance.
He groaned when I tugged on his pants to free his cock and let my hand truly work.
Roys threw his head back, releasing restrained little moans after I swiped the precome from his head.
Stars, he sounded so hot. He shuddered when I spit in my hand and returned to the pace that had his breath catching.
Then he seized my collar to pull me in for a kiss.
I missed the beard, the brush of it against my cheeks and my neck but feeling up his chest made up for that.
The dark curls caught between my fingers as I tugged and played with his pecs.
The taste of cherry between our lips was bewildering; that candy, mixed with his unique taste, brought a thrill no synthetic could replicate.
I ran my tongue over the roof of his mouth, stole that candy, and bit his lip before he took over the kiss entirely.