CHAPTER 8 LEE #2
Lee shook his can, letting the cappuccino swirl around like the dismal thoughts in his head.
“Ahem.” A teasing cough from behind them sent all three of them looking back. “Hello again, boys. And what are you three up to?”
Kat.
Beside him, Whistler angled his body towards her with a crooked grin. Zane crossed his arms over his chest in forgivable, halfhearted disdain. And when Lee finally turned around, he took his time dragging his gaze up from her sturdy black boots.
She wore the new suit. He knew it the moment he saw her.
This one hugged all the feminine curves of her hips and chest, made perfectly to her specifications like before.
But it seemed darker. Blacker, somehow. And against her vanilla-blonde hair, the freshly washed strands hanging wild and taunting well past her shoulder blades, her suit seemed to yank all the light from the room.
Mysteries he’d let his hands compliment later.
She was stunning.
She knew it too. She winked, letting some of that rogue spirit peek through her grin before she let her eyes graze past the other two boys.
“I’m out.” Zane sighed with an obvious impatience. He pushed off from the side as Kat rolled her eyes.
Whistler didn’t share the same inclinations and only excused himself when he got a message from Demi.
She took up Zane’s spot at the railing, cocking her head to the side. “You three—this is going to be a normal occurrence now?”
Lee huffed a laugh. “I have no idea.”
His eyes snagged again on her new suit, the heat rising to his lips. She smelled of fresh oranges still on the branch, her lips shining as she nibbled on the bottom one. Some of his focus flickered as she went to grab his drink from him, more wafts of orange blossom trailing in her wake.
She peered into the can and wrinkled her nose, drawing a breathless chuckle from him.
“Ew.” She didn’t return his drink, she didn’t move to set it down, either, but rather whirled herself in closer, teasing their balance against the railing.
“I like the new suit,” he said, voice catching as she peered up at him with sultry eyes.
“Yeah?” she asked, her breath caressing his chin. She had that sparkle in her eye again.
And then she was yanking him after her, drink abandoned, as she led him out through the Hideaway doors and down stairways. Melting through the floors and walls as they weaved through the ship. She halted them when they reached the first of the training levels, before they were moving again.
“This way!” she laughed.
Lee didn’t bother to make any apologies to the younger-level cadets they careened past as they zagged deeper into the training floors.
“This one?” she asked, peering around breathlessly as the door slid open.
Laughing, his heart pounding in his ears, Lee let her pull him inside, backing her against the wall, two fugitives on the run. His forehead pressed into hers as he held them there against the wall, the rhythm in his lungs far from steady. Her cheeks so flushed.
But he wouldn’t make it that easy on her.
Tongue between his teeth, still breathing erratically, Lee pushed away from her, snatching a couple of the energy bands from the shelf on the wall as he backed towards a set of rings drawn on the floor. “You versus me, Hanneman.”
“Oh, oh, is that what we’re playing?” She pushed off the wall, eyes like brightest fire.
“That’s what we’re playing.” His lips curved up into a challenge.
She took the bait, snapping up a couple of bands of her own as she sprinted, pitching herself into the ring farthest from them. She landed near the center in a shower of amethyst and gold sparks.
He left the wave analyzers and scoring off this afternoon. But he could feel the currents zing from wrist to spine as he stepped into the one opposite hers, his a splash of emerald and gold. As if they needed the titillation of more electricity zapping at the senses to spark their chemistry.
A game of control—or riding the edge. The ring’s energy sparked at either wrist, alive and thrumming outward from ligament to ligament, as he tracked his gorgeous opponent a couple of meters away.
“Let’s see what you’ve got, Hanneman.” He caught her eye before drawing up both arms in a balanced stance, the power stemming from fingertip to fingertip, and then he sent the wave of energy crashing towards her.
The brilliant purple sparked as she whirled, already absorbing its currents before she sent them hurling back. The zaps bit at his shins and elbows as he drew up a fresh wave.
They played with the currents, testing them, dancing between them, taunting the feel of them. And he imagined the feel of her.
Faster and faster and faster the currents flew, static in a lightning storm, until, at last, one of the currents broke free, singeing right up to her neckline. The wave sliced over her ponytail, billowing the vanilla hair back behind her like a flag in the wind.
“Oh!” she squealed, squirming her shoulders up to her ears as one of the currents rippled, tickling the sensitive skin below. She examined the strands where the wave had rushed her ponytail. Only once she had deemed it secure did she turn fiery eyes back on him.
“My turn.”
Lee didn’t even try to put up a front, a thrill shooting up his spine as Kat stirred up a stormy sequence, directing energy wave after energy wave to crest towards him.
And as they crashed, he braced his feet on the floor, absorbing the zaps in little prickling spirals up his body.
He would take whatever she could throw at him. Always. She was worth that.
When the storm slowed, Lee sank down to the floor, stretching spread-eagled on the floor as Kat cooed her little war cry. The sounds of her feet pounding the floor echoed as she sprinted towards him, flipping above him in an airborne roundoff.
She landed not a third of a meter from Lee’s head.
“Gotcha,” she panted, sending another little mini-current splashing over his chest.
“Hook, line, and sinker,” Lee said as he pulled her down into him to catch her own shock wave. And as the energy reverberated back up his arms and torso, he held her tighter, feeling each and every zap where the two of them collided.
There was only her body on his. Her and him against the world, and everything else was just white noise.
His lips bore into hers, teeth clacking, tongues clashing. Any games tore away from them, ripping through those mental barriers until there was just their need and that raw hunger. And that infinite drive to taste more. Try more.
Their kisses slowed to something more deliberate and claiming as they rode out this latest wave of longing. How many years he had waited for this, waited for her. He intended to spend the rest of his life exploring her and figuring out how her galaxy worked.
Minutes or hours later, they lay at the edge of the rings on their stomachs facing each other, lips numb and tingling, the skin hot under his suit.
The press of the mats were cool against his hands.
Kat was looking at something on her hyperband.
Lee was looking at her. She electrified him. She always would.
She frowned at something she was reading. Reaching over to bridge the fraction of space between them, Lee brushed his hand lightly across her wrist. Kat only pouted more as she glared back at him.
“What’s that look for?” Lee asked, arching a brow as he sat up.
She continued to glare at him, also sitting up, but he could see some of the competitive gleam re-entering the playing field with her gaze.
“What did I do, Hanneman?” Lee taunted, feigning interest.
She waved her hyperband in his face. “Thanks to your little showcase with the Laser Rounds the other day, Waters, I have been bumped down to number two!”
Lee busted up laughing, falling backwards with his head slapping against the mats, the gusty ache in his stomach a welcome reprieve. He didn’t even bother to glance over at the latest rankings as Kat read them off for him. “Kat Hanneman. Number two—right after Leland Waters.”
That initial burst quelling, he sat up, rolling his eyes lazily. “I imagine you’ll be back up there in a day or two.”
“Obviously. But a little more of a heads up next time would be nice. Give me a few days to get ahead before you go all sudden-death on me.”
“Whatever you like.” Lee returned his hand to her wrist, tracing looping swirls along the sleeve of her forearm. She relaxed the muscle there, lying still as he finished drawing the second word of a certain three syllable phrase over her upper arm.
He meant it too. He didn’t care about the rankings. He never had. Not so long as they put Kat where she belonged: Commander of his soul.
He looked down when the next message came in. He’d been expecting this one to come their way.
Squadron leads Leland Waters and Kat Hanneman are expected to report to Mission Assignment & Briefing at 12:00 hours, on the sixth day, in coordination with the lifting of raid restriction 7.2B…
Whether he was determined, or just keen to put this last week in their rearview mirror, the familiar epinephrine kicked into gear as he read through the concisely scripted wording once more.
And so it began.