Chapter 14
“DAMIAN VAUGHN!” I roared.
Every single head on the bridge whipped to me in the doorway. Vaughn wasn’t alone like I’d anticipated. Both Ethan and Cassidy were with him. Great. I hadn’t expected an audience.
Despite their attention, mine was solely zeroed in on Vaughn, and he was furious.
“My office! Now!” he bellowed.
Ethan and Cassidy exchanged a nervous look, as I was frozen in the doorway.
When I didn’t move to follow him, Vaughn stalked over to me, grabbed my arm, and dragged me across the bridge into his office, locking the door behind him, before boxing me in, against the wall.
“Don’t you ever call me that again,” he hissed so close to my face that I could feel his warm breath upon my skin. “Do you understand me?”
Without thinking, my anger flared. I reared back and slapped him hard. The blood still pooling from my injuries left a red stain along his cheek and sent flecks of color across both our uniforms and the floor.
“Don’t you ever put me in danger like that again,” I mocked him, still seething from the entirety of the situation. “Do you understand me?”
Taking a step back, Vaughn’s eyes were wild, lips parted in shock as he evaluated me. I retained eye contact, my chest heaving, refusing to back down from the challenge.
He touched the tips of his fingers to his cheek, where the skin was beginning to redden from the impact of the blow. I wasn’t exactly proud of myself for slapping him, but I couldn’t say I regretted it either.
Vaughn seemed to be stunned speechless by the fact that I had hit him. As if in a daze, he pulled his fingers away from his cheek, and when he found them dotted with blood, his brow furrowed, and his gaze fell to my hand, still dripping on the pristine floor of his office.
“You’re hurt.” He exhaled, his expression softening.
“Thanks to you.” I scowled.
His shoulders fell, the consequences of his order sinking in.
“Your engine’s fixed for now, asshole, but you need to have a couple of replacement circuit boards and a new microfluidics conduit waiting for you at the port.
Thanks to Sully, this won’t be the last time this happens.
” I turned to leave, having made my point, but he caught me before I could disengage the lock, gently wrapping his hand around my shoulder and pulling me back to turn and face him.
“Let me patch you up,” he requested quietly.
“No,” I replied obstinately.
Vaughn cocked his head, his eyes raking over my face. The mark on his cheek was still inflamed, but the rest of his face had gone pale. “Please.”
I felt my jaw clench involuntarily, but I didn’t move.
Taking my lack of response for acceptance, Vaughn made his way over to his desk and sorted through his drawers until he located some first aid supplies, which he gently set on the desktop.
Coming back around to me, he lightly gripped my elbow and led me over to his chair, indicating that I should sit down.
And then he surprised me when he knelt in front of me, placing my injured hand in my lap, palm up, so he could assess the damage before treating it.
I was taken aback by how disarming the simple act of him prostrating himself in front of me was. The anger I’d felt was melting away, despite the fact that I was trying to hang on to it. He deserved my anger, but I hadn’t anticipated that he would be remorseful.
We’d been at odds for days, and I’d thought I had the man figured out.
He was stubborn as hell and determined to go it alone, despite being the leader of a team.
But there, on his knees, gently examining my hand, it was the first time I’d felt like I’d seen the real Vaughn.
Even I had to admit, I couldn’t help but like it.
But then the mood shifted when he provided the context I’d been missing for his boorish behavior and rash commands.
“There was a terrorist attack on Oberon this morning.” His voice was low and calm, but I could feel the turmoil beneath the surface of his repose.
And while he cleaned my wound, with such tenderness and care, despite our earlier spat, he told me what had transpired while he and I had been sleeping.
“It’s not an excuse,” he said while dressing the gash in my palm with gauze. “But I’ve had a rough morning, and I shouldn’t have asked you to repair the engine without powering down.”
His eyes met mine. And while so often his chocolate gaze had appeared cold and distant, this close, I could see the flecks of gold and the variation in tone in his iris. They were molten, and seeing what had happened as a result of his snap judgment was melting him.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ll never forgive myself for allowing you to be hurt under my watch.
” The words lingering between us were so much heavier than the tone with which they had been spoken.
Because he wasn’t just apologizing for my injuries, he was apologizing for everything that happened before too, and it kind of felt like he was asking for forgiveness with the same breath.
“I’m still mad at you,” I told him honestly, but there was no venom in my voice.
“I know.” He sighed. “You should be.” Still kneeling in front of me, he brought his palms up and rested them on my knees, his eyes trained on my bandaged hand, resting in my lap.
Silence permeated the air as the space between us filled with tension.
Finally, his gaze rose from my injury to meet mine. “All I can do is promise that I’ll never put you at risk like that again, while you’re on my ship, under my watch.”
I swallowed hard, trying desperately to ignore how my stomach flipped under his watchful and apologetic expression.
With me seated and his height, we were exactly eye to eye, and I think I might have seen the very moment that the thought crossed his mind…the same thought that had been infesting my own mind since the moment I’d first kissed him…that maybe there was potential here—between us—for something more.
And I think he and I both realized at the same time just how close we were, in his office, him kneeling between my legs and me seated before him, our faces a breath apart.
I was the one who leaned forward first, our lips meeting in a kiss that was soft and tentative. I felt his hands tighten around my knees a moment before he pulled back, a look of both question and concern on his face. As if to ask if I was sure about all of it.
But I was.
So when I fisted my uninjured hand in his uniform and pulled him to me again, our next kiss was much more like our first: uninhibited and frenzied.
Vaughn kissed me like a man possessed, pulling me to him as if he was experiencing his last moments on this plane of existence, and I was his salvation.
And me?
I was just desperate to be closer to him, so much so that I pushed forward in the chair and ended up spilling out of it, into his lap, straddling him.
His lips and tongue were everywhere, in my mouth, along my jawline and neck.
His hands were just as ravenous as mine, running over every surface, pausing to caress the side of one breast or squeeze my ass while I ground against him, unable to do anything but let my body and desire take over completely.
That is, until someone from the bridge buzzed Vaughn’s comm with a mandatory alert.
Vaughn reluctantly pulled away from me. Both of us were panting and the mood was immediately tense and awkward as the reality of what we’d just done sank in.
“I—umm…” He pointed to the comm up on the desk behind him, just beyond reach.
“Oh, sorry.” I dismounted him as gracefully as possible, given the circumstances.
Vaughn’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his eyes firmly planted on my bruised and wet lips before darting up to meet my gaze, when he realized I’d caught him looking.
A sheepish blush crept along his cheeks.
How cute.
“Go ahead,” Vaughn said into the comm.
“We’ve got an incoming transmission from HQ,” Cassidy said through the device.
Vaughn’s eyes darted to mine, dismissing me from his office.
“Oh, and you owe Chadwick a letter of recommendation. It was the only way I could get him into the engine room while it was still running,” I casually mentioned as I passed him.
He rolled his eyes, but I noted a hint of a smile as I turned and left.