Chapter 35 #4
It’s far too close to his cock. He sucks in a breath, closes his eyes, a sound escaping his throat. “Kit.”
“It’s stitched up again,” she whispers, but doesn’t remove her hand. “I should let you sleep. It’s not…you shouldn’t be worked up like this.”
Task barks a laugh. “Too late. And if you don’t fucking touch me right now, Kit, I swear to Odite, I will —”
His voice cuts out as she slides her fingers under his waistband, brushing the tip of his cock.
He jerks and she looks smug, reaching more fully into his trousers to grasp him.
When she touches him, it’s like being lit up from the inside.
He’s on fire, burning in the best way. She runs her fingers around the tip of him, spreading the moisture at the top down the head towards his base.
She pumps him once and he bucks into her hand.
“I want to fuck you,” he gasps out as she fists him again. He didn’t think her hands on him would feel like this, that he’d be on the verge of losing his mind over her if he doesn’t get inside of her this instant.
She bites her lip. “Not here,” she says. “Not while you’re hurt.”
“But somewhere else?” Task asks, his eyes rolling back in his head as she reaches in with her other hand to cup his balls.
“If you’re lucky,” she says.
“Goddammit, Kit.” Task is already losing his mind, was already walking a fine line before she started touching him like this, moving over him, rubbing her breasts against him.
He’s going to erupt any minute. She twists her wrist as she pulls up on him and he groans.
He grabs her face and kisses her as she pumps him between their bodies, bucking into her hand over and over again.
He’s about to explode, thinking about how many times he can do this to her, how many ways, where on the ship he can take her —- his entire body is coiled tight, the stitching in his abdomen pulling taut, and then she pulls his orgasm from him, come spurting from his cock as he releases, leaning back heavily on the small bed.
She looks at him with those forest green eyes, dark lashes fluttering gently against her cheeks as she wipes off his stomach with the blanket. She goes to wipe off her hand, but he grabs it. He slides her pointer finger into his mouth, licking himself from her.
She makes a sound in her throat, and he grins. “That was completely irresponsible of me,” she huffs, snatching her finger back from him and pushing the hair that’s escaped her bun behind her ears.
Task leans back on the pillows behind him with a self-satisfied smirk, looking like a cat who got the canary.
He did get the canary, or some of it, anyway.
And now he’s not sure he will ever be able to think of anything else, not when he knows what she looks like when she comes.
The sounds she makes. But she’s making the rules right now, and he is technically wounded.
A pulse of pain shoots through his abdomen as if to remind him.
Kit climbs off the bed, unpinning her hair. It falls in unruly brown waves over her shoulder, and Task lets out a heavy breath. When her hair is down, it does something to him. “Leave it,” he pleads, before he knows what he’s saying.
She gives him a puzzled look and then smiles. “It’s better up when I’m working. But noted. Now let me dress the wound.” She twists her hair back into its signature knot, grabbing a roll of gauze and a set of metal scissors from the chest across the room.
Kit
The air is heavy between them. Kit’s face is still pink as she bandages Task’s wound. The scar looks red and angry, but the skin remains knitted together. She’s thankful she was there, that she was able to step in and tend to Task almost immediately after he was stabbed through.
She’s not sure if he remembers much of what happened, and she still doesn’t know who the attackers were.
What she does know is that she’d behaved stupidly, both five minutes ago and five hours ago.
She shouldn’t have run into the middle of the attack, but as soon as she saw him there, outnumbered, she couldn’t stop herself.
And what was she thinking, throwing herself at him like that?
When he was wounded, no less? She couldn’t have waited?
She’d behaved so recklessly, and she should know better as a Luminary.
She’d broken all kinds of rules and codes just now, but something about him makes her a little crazy.
She sighs, loudly, and tries to avoid meeting his eyes as she presses fresh dressing over his wound.
“Hey,” Task says, his hand on her arm.
She looks up at him, her blood thrumming in her veins. She’s still trying to calm down after coming all over his hand, after feeling him in hers, but it’s more than that, too.
His eyes are soft, no hint of the usual cold fire that burns within them. It melts her, a little bit. How he looks when his walls aren’t up, when he’s not trying to keep secrets from her.
“Thank you,” he says, serious now. “But don’t ever do that again, Kit. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“You could have died!” Kit says, indignant. “You’re lucky I was there. Otherwise, I’d probably still have you in the operating theater, transfusing the blood you lost and trying to stitch up the organs the surge-saber cut through.”
Task grimaces. “Appreciate the vivid imagery.”
“I’m just trying to express to you the gravity of the situation.”
“And the attacker?” Task asks. She knows which one he’s asking about. The one she drained life from in order to give it to Task.
She doesn’t know if she should lie or tell him the truth.
She couldn’t kill the attacker, despite how he’d wounded Task.
She took just enough from him to make sure Task would survive until she could get him to the medical bay, where she and Oswald spent two hours regrowing parts of Task’s internal organs.
She could have taken more from the attacker, could have made it so that surgery wasn’t required, but she’s not a killer.
Didn’t want to become one in that moment.
“Weak, but he’ll survive,” Kit says. “One of the Guardians took him to the brig for questioning once he’s…improved.” Nevis is tending to him at the moment, which Kit is grateful for. She’s still figuring out the boundaries of her power, what it does, how much she can take.
“Worse off than me?” Task asks. He readjusts his position, trying to keep his weight on his good side.
“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Kit says. “I still am not certain how this all works. This is all so new for me. I don’t understand it. You were hurt and I did it without thinking.”
Task nods, pushing a blonde lock of hair out of his face. “Please don’t do it again. Not for me.”
Kit’s breath catches in her throat. What the hell is that supposed to mean? “Of course I would do it again.”
He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back on the pillow, shaking his head. “I’m not worth it.”
Kit finishes redressing his wound and sits down on the small bed next to him. She pushes his hair off his brow, and he slowly opens his eyes, staring up at her. She studies the sharp angles of his face, the deep blue of his irises, the curve of his bottom lip.
“You are,” she says softly. She knows there are things she still doesn’t know about him, that he’s kept behind lock and key, but all of the parts she does know suggest to her that he is precious.
To her and to Nexarium, and to all of the citizens on board this ship.
She doesn’t think there is anything he could reveal to her that would make her feel differently.
He sighs loudly, breaking eye contact with her, staring up at the ceiling. “Promise me you won’t put yourself in danger for me again.”
Kit moves her hand to his jaw, cupping his face.
“I can’t promise you that.” She won’t promise him that.
She won’t let harm come to him if she can stop it; she doesn’t think she could physically withstand the grief of standing by and doing nothing again, not after the grueling years she spent trying to repair herself after the loss of her mother.
She looks at him with raised brows, her thumb rubbing along his jawline, daring him to argue with her again. He closes a hand over her wrist, stopping her movement. “Kit, the entire population of Lumaria is counting on you. You can’t put yourself at risk like that.”
She considers his words. He isn’t wrong. Her actions today were reckless, put all she has worked for in the balance. They’re so close to finding an antidote, and if she can make a bit more progress, she’ll be able to save her planet, her family. Prove herself.
But she couldn’t have done it without Task.
He’s been integral to her research, but also to her on a level she has a difficult time putting into words.
She can’t imagine losing him. But he’s stubborn, and stuck on something, and she knows he won’t move off it until she agrees.
Finally, she looks at him, and she lies. “I promise.”
He lets out a breath and sags back into the pillows. “Good.”