Billie couldn’t believe she had done it. She’d made the move on Medeus she’d been thinking about ever since that first kiss. She’d tracked him down when she’d become concerned by his absence at dinner. Sam was busy with his friends, staying over at one of the other cabins tonight, so she was free to do as she wished. And lately, all her wishes had revolved around Medeus…and his kiss. When she’d found him alone, she’d pounced. Well, maybe not pounced, but she’d moved closer and closer, and then, somehow, she’d found the courage to take a chance.
She was so glad, at this moment, that she’d done it. His kiss was all she’d ever wanted. His passion was incendiary. This was no polite joining of lips, soon to part. No, this was a claiming. A torrid inferno of desire that wanted what it wanted and wouldn’t quit until it got it. Glory, hallelujah!
The cargo hold was deserted, except for a few thousand plants. It was just the two of them, in an ever-dimming room. The sunset cycle had started a while back, and the pale yellow glow of the artificial lights had been programmed to give the seeds and plants the right growing conditions. What it gave the two people standing among the plant beds was an intimacy that was both unexpected and welcome.
In essence, night was falling…as if they were on a planet somewhere. It was romantic, in its way. And the increasing darkness also increased the intimacy of the moment.
When Medeus lifted her off her feet, his hands supporting her rump, she felt a pang of desire rise through her body. Where was he taking her? It didn’t really matter. He just had to keep holding her, kissing her, walking slowly, but with purpose…somewhere.
The answer came a few moments later when he placed her on one of the tables that had been set up adjacent to the plant area. It was just the right height, and the hold beyond the table was completely dark, now. Only a faint glow came from the lights over the growing beds. There were marker beacons around the edges of the hold that would stay on at all times to illuminate the hatches, but other than that, they were in a world of their own.
She opened her legs, and he stepped between as he kissed her, again and again. It was just about perfect… Except for all the fabric keeping their bodies apart. That had to go.
She pushed at his uniform. The cyborgs wore a mix of civilian clothing they’d found aboard the ship and their old uniforms, but Medeus always turned up for duty in his battle togs. She thought they were sexy, but just at the moment, they were in the way.
He didn’t seem to want to help her get to his skin, but he apparently had no compunction against ridding her of her clothing. Her top came off over her head with his help. Her bra didn’t last long, either. And then, she felt his fingers tracing the curves of her breasts, cupping, squeezing gently and touching in ways that made her gasp with pleasure.
He lifted her off the countertop briefly to remove her pants. She’d kicked off her shoes, so there was nothing to stop her pants from sliding right off over her feet and to the deck. She was naked, her cyborg between her spread thighs. He was still fully clothed, but she wouldn’t push him. She thought she understood his hesitancy to show her what had been done to his body, and that sparked her compassion. They had time…she hoped. She would teach him that she didn’t mind his scars—except for how they affected him.
For now, she just needed him to disrobe in certain areas so they could get on with the pleasure and put away the doubt. She pushed at his hips, fingering the waistband of his combat trousers with demanding motions. He kissed her and, at the same time, unfastened the waistband and lowered the closure that would allow his hard cock to spring free.
She was pleased to see that at least that part of him looked like original equipment. She smiled as she reached between them to touch his hardness. She wouldn’t make him wait long, but she wanted just a moment to savor this. She scooted forward on the countertop until she was in position for maximum penetration. She didn’t want to take this slow. No, she wanted it all. Hard and fast, and…breathtaking.
“Now, please,” she begged him, unable to form full sentences. He seemed to understand what she meant, anyway.
Taking only a moment to check her readiness—moment that made her squirm with want and nearly cry out with need—he removed his fingers and came into her slowly.
It wasn’t the hard, fast claiming she’d envisioned, but it was so much better. Hard, slow, deliberate. He watched the place where they joined and then looked up into her eyes, holding her gaze as he slid all the way home. Then, he waited. His gaze bore into hers as his body joined with hers for these delicious minutes.
“More,” she whispered, when the tension got to be too great. Billie saw, in his eyes, the split second that he gave into the need and began to move.
First slow, then faster with each delectable thrust, he came into her, again and again. She took all he would give and wanted more. So much more. She wanted all of him, but she’d take whatever he was willing to give, and be happy. If she could somehow get him to the point where he would trust her with the rest of his rebuilt body, she would count that a victory, but this was enough for now.
He pushed into her, over and over, driving her passion higher. She clung to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Strong shoulders that seemed to bear so much with such dignity.
She admired everything about him—the imperfections along with the strength of his personality and will. He was a good man, straight down to his core.
Her crisis came, and she shook with pleasure as he held her through it. He brought her to an even higher peak, in time, and when she could take no more, he joined her in climax, holding her close as their bodies strained together.
Medeus held Billie tight to his chest, never wanting the moment to end. The moment he’d rediscovered his manhood. His humanity…on the most basic level. She had given him this gift, and he would value her forever for it.
He still had a fear of hurting her, but being with her had become an imperative. Something he could no longer live without. He wanted her by his side at all times and he wanted to secure her affection in any way possible. It was both shocking and scary, but he could no longer deny what was within his rusty heart.
“Come back to my cabin,” she murmured, stroking her lips along his jaw, long moments later. “Sam’s sleeping at a friend’s tonight, so I’ve got the place to myself. I don’t want this to end, yet.”
He couldn’t lie to her. Not now. Not ever. “I don’t either,” he told her.
He stepped away, found her clothing and helped her put them back on. He liked her naked, but it would be risky to run down the corridor of the ship—even while everyone else was supposedly at dinner.
Dressed again, they walked, hand in hand, down the empty passageway to her cabin, which, thankfully, wasn’t far. He wasn’t sure how he would have reacted if anyone had seen them. He wasn’t concerned about cyborgs. They all knew something was up because he’d been out of touch for longer than allowable and had been answering inquiries over the silent comm with requests for privacy.
Chiron had intervened when others had worried, and Medeus had told Chiron the truth of what was happening and why he wanted privacy. Chiron had then gone on to tell the others to leave Medeus alone and not to worry. He wasn’t seeking privacy to do something drastic. Rather, he was getting lucky.
Such a juvenile term for what felt like a universe-altering event. When they got to her cabin, Medeus followed her to the bed. It wasn’t huge, but it would hold them both comfortably. He didn’t want to be a cad, though, so he simply sat with her for a bit. He wanted to talk with her—almost as much as he wanted to make love with her again. He craved the closeness of sharing thoughts and feelings that he hadn’t experienced with a woman in far too long.
All his fellow cyborgs were men. Military men. He had held one of the highest ranks among them, and there was a definite divide—even now—between the high-ranking officers and the others. He had tried to open up with Chiron and had been somewhat successful, but Medeus sensed he could say things to Billie that he couldn’t say to the others.
Whether she would hate him afterwards… Well, that remained to be seen.
There was still the giant stumbling block of her older brother between them, though she didn’t know it. He would save that for… Well…maybe never. He wasn’t sure if he could deal with the emotional fallout that was sure to come if he revealed his involvement in Alex’s demise.
Still, the longer she was on the bridge with him and the more he remembered his human existence, the more she reminded him of that other Latimer navigator he’d known. Quick witted and bright eyed. A natural nav—something that didn’t come along often and was to be admired and respected. Medeus had held Alex Latimer in high esteem. He felt the same about Alex’s sister’s skills on the nav station and was privileged to watch them come into their full power.
But, on a more personal note, he just liked her. She was efficient, smart and beautiful in every way. The more he got to know her, the more he loved her.
Damn. Love. That slowed his racing thoughts right down.
“I love what they did with the new ‘ponics section,” Billie said as she moved about her sleep chamber, clearing space for him—or so it seemed. “It’s going to be amazing when everything starts to really grow.”
“I always liked walking among the growth beds on my ships,” he admitted, “from the time I was just out of the academy until…” He trailed off. He hadn’t meant to bring up his last command, but he wasn’t thinking clearly. That notion of being in love with Billie had sort of shorted out his brain a little.
“Until your last ship, right? It was some kind of heavy cruiser?” she asked, innocently enough. She had no idea the verbal minefield he had to walk through to talk about the Vanguard—especially with her.
The military didn’t generally supply the nitty-gritty details of a loved one’s death to the family, but the Vanguard’s destruction had been enough of a sensation that the story had leaked out. The ship had taken enemy fire, but what really killed it was a methane leak.
Medeus had looked it up in the classified databases after he started to awaken. A few survivors in forward compartments told the tale. Debris had ruptured one of the oxygen lines and when leaking methane from the recycling system hit that, it blew the ship apart from within. The military had changed the design of that entire class of ships since the Vanguard’s demise because they finally realized the recycling systems were just too close to the oxygen tanks. Medeus lamented privately that it had only taken a thousand deaths to help them figure it out.
“It was a cruiser,” he told her. “The destruction of it took me by surprise, which it shouldn’t have. We were in battle and a lucky shot by the enemy in just the wrong spot caused irreparable damage that ultimately killed the ship and most of my crew.” He tried hard not to sound devastated but knew some of it leaked out, anyway.
She sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked at her and caught the compassion in her gaze. It was like a lifeline being tossed to a man lost at sea.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the simple words touching him deeply.
He moved closer, taking her free hand in his and raising it to his lips for a gentle kiss. “You’re too good to me.”
“You still blame yourself for the destruction of your ship, regardless of the fact that it was caused by battle damage?” She shook her head slowly. “You weren’t to blame. You did the best you could at the time. If you want someone to blame…blame the enemy.” She moved her hand from his shoulder to his cheek. “You were not at fault.”
He couldn’t make her understand without revealing too much. He didn’t want this time with her to end, though he knew it probably would in the not-too-distant future. He couldn’t keep lying to her by omission. Not when she was so understanding and kind-hearted. He couldn’t give her less than the truth… Even if the truth would drive her away from him.
But not just yet.
“You’re too forgiving,” he said quietly, and hoped she’d let the matter drop. “I just wish…”
“What?” she asked.
“Sometimes, I wish I had my old life back. That I was in command of something with a real chance to help send the jit’suku back where they came from,” he told her. “Part of me wants to go back and help fight the war, but I know I can’t.”
“Even after all you’ve been through, you still want to help fight the invasion?” she asked, seeming surprised.
“I’m still human. Or, rather, I was,” he said. “I’m not sure what I am, now, but the human part of me is still there.”
She tucked herself into his arms. “Of course it is,” she said with quiet belief in her tone. “You’re as human as I am, but you’ve been through hell and back to reclaim your identity.”
She got it. She really did. How had he ever been so blessed to find a woman who understood him, perhaps better than he understood himself?
They spent the rest of the night in Billie’s cabin, making love, talking and just generally getting to know each other. He kept his undershirt on, but she’d convinced him to take off his pants completely. She wasn’t afraid of his scars, but she also didn’t want to push him too hard. He’d already come a long way.
It was a special night that she enjoyed with every fiber of her being. And, when her alarm went off to signal the start of a new day aboard the Toby, Medeus was gone.
It still made no sense to her how a man that huge could move so silently. He’d left without waking her, but she knew he’d been there from the mussed sheets, and the single stalk of lavender he must have taken from the seedlings in the ‘ponics section and placed in a cup of water on her bedside table.
Evidence that he’d left and come back. And still, she hadn’t heard a sound. She shook her head as she breathed in the delicate scent of the rare bloom. There had only been a few lavender flowers, and they’d been in a protected part of the beds, to keep folks from taking them. Of course, nobody denied the captain when he wanted something, but she doubted he had actually asked anyone. He’d just used his cyborg-ninja skills to go into the cargo hold and spirit this bloom away.
She loved that he’d done that for her. A simple gesture that meant a lot to her. She might even start believing that he…cared.
Billie didn’t have time to ponder it too long because she had to get ready for her day. She wanted to check on Sam before he went to the big cabin they’d set aside to be the schoolroom. She had been so busy since they came aboard that she hadn’t spent a lot of time with her little brother, but by the looks of things, he was coping much better with their drastic change in circumstances than she was.
Sam hadn’t had a lot of friends his age on the station, but at least a few of those children had come aboard the Toby with their mothers, so he had a few familiar faces in his class as well as some new kids he hadn’t met before. He was at the age where he wasn’t quite so dependent on her anymore and was starting to stretch his wings. She was glad because she’d just been too involved with the ship and learning her trade as a navigator. She felt bad about it, but Sam didn’t seem to notice. He was happy here, on the ship, where he seemed to think every day was a new adventure.
She stopped in to see him before classes started and gave him a quick hug, though he had started shying away from displays of emotion a few months ago. She couldn’t help herself. Sam was the only family she had in the universe and she loved him, even if he was starting to show his independence. She left him with the teachers and went to the bridge, lighter of heart for seeing him. She had a full shift today, though she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to get through it without drifting off to fantasyland every time she looked at Medeus. He’d transported her to another world entirely last night. Several times.
Her cheeks heated, just thinking about it. She hoped she could control her blushes on the bridge, or the very observant cyborg crew might notice.
As she was approaching the bridge, a thought made her pause. The cyborgs had some kind of near-instant comms. Did that mean they all knew what she’d done with Medeus last night?
Her jaw dropped, and her cheeks went from flushed to pale as she looked at her face reflected off the shiny comm panel on the corridor wall. Damn. They probably all knew already.
She straightened her shoulders and started walking again. Well. If they already knew, then she wouldn’t have to worry about anybody figuring anything out on the bridge, where they were all cyborgs, anyway. No, she only had to worry about everywhere else on the ship where she might run into her fellow refugees. The women would gossip, as they had about Roxy and Chiron. Billie didn’t think she’d mind for her own sake, and she didn’t think anybody would hassle young Sam, but it might bother Medeus.
She didn’t want anything to frighten him off. Not gossip. And certainly not his past. She’d remembered a few things last night that made her suspicious about who he had once been. She already planned to do a bit of subtle database searching when she went off shift later, but if what she thought she remembered was true, then there might be more between them than a bit of grapevine gossip.
When she arrived for her shift on the bridge, Medeus was professional and courteous. So much so that Billie almost wondered if she had dreamed the passionate lover of the night before. But then, she’d catch him looking at her in a certain way, and all the heat of the night before would come flooding back into her veins.
She had it bad if just a smoldering look from him could send her from zero to ready-for-action in no time flat. She didn’t mind. Not really. Not now that she knew how good it could be between them. His gaze promised more, and she’d take all she could get, if he was willing to continue.
They’d been cruising around the system that was home to the Aziner Colony all day, looking for evidence of the raiders, but hadn’t seen much until late in the shift. At that point, Ajax picked up some traces of gravitational disturbances of the kind often left behind by badly tuned jump drives.
Medeus asked Roxy to take a look at the data, and she confirmed what they had surmised. A large ship with badly tuned drives had been in the area recently. What’s more, it gave them a way to trace its movements that Billie didn’t quite understand. Regardless, she was happy to plot the course information Ajax relayed, to come up with a visual of where the badly tuned drive had been traveling through the system…and where it had left.
Other than that single trace, no other evidence was found of any other ships traversing the system. With the interdiction message on all the buoys, that wasn’t surprising. Anyone who might’ve been on approach had been warned off from far enough out that they could just move along to their next destination without ever going closer to the colony. Whoever had left the traces hadn’t been concerned about the quarantine, which strongly indicated that they might have been the ones who put the buoys out in the first place. It was a long shot, but it was at least something. A faint trail to follow.
The question then became… Should they pursue?