Well, darn, she couldn’t argue with that, not unless she wanted to risk getting booted from said training program before it officially started.
Despite the weird, unsettled sensations creeping under her skin, she nodded and turned, grip twisting around the energy drink as she headed out of the gym with Captain Alphin on her heels.
The silence stretched between them as they waited for the transit-porter. And of course the transit was empty when the doors opened. They stepped inside and Captain Alphin put in the destination of the recruit dorms. She focused her attention on the display that showed the transit as a red dot moving through a map of the ship, too aware of the man standing silent and impassive next to her.
The doors opened to several recruits waiting to board the transit, and she ducked her head as she stepped out, unable to decide if she was relieved that they were no longer alone or embarrassed that some of her fellow recruits had seen her escorted around the ship by their CO.
Quickening her steps, she headed along the corridor, concentrating on finding her assigned dorm. When she reached the hatchway, she turned. Captain Alphin had lagged several steps behind her, obviously not in as much of a hurry as she was. The few recruits who’d been loitering in the passageway disappeared in wake of Captain Alphin, leaving them alone yet again.
“Sir, thank you for the escort, sir.” She clasped her hands in a formal stance, hoping her get lost hadn’t been too obvious.
He stopped in front of her, glancing at the hatchway to her dorm room before his gaze settled on her.
“Trying to get rid of me, Wolfe?” he murmured in a low tone.
Her heart bumped against the inside of her chest. “Sir, no, sir.”
He leaned in a little closer. “You know, I think I’m starting to get a good picture of you. You’re smart, maybe smarter than most recruits who come through here. Smart enough to know when to follow the rules to the letter and smart enough to know when you can get away with screwing the rules.”
Though a sane person might have taken his assessment of her character as a warning—an assessment that was probably spot-on, despite the fact they’d only met less than twenty four hours ago—for some reason his words made her feel too warm.
She cleared her still-raw throat and tilted her chin up a little. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”
“Plausible deniability?”
She didn’t answer, but she did hold his intense gaze for a long moment, making her pulse rate kick up.
His expression relaxed a little into what could have passed for contemplation. “However long you last in this training program, I have a feeling it’s not going to be boring while you’re around.”
Now that she didn’t think he meant as a compliment at all, which only served to spark her temper. “Sir, I’ll do my utmost to be as dull as dishwater, sir.”
She clenched her teeth after the words slipped out. Damn it. Apparently she’d lost her common sense and her self-control since leaving the Farr Zero yesterday.
Luckily, Captain Alphin didn’t seem pissed off. In fact, she could have sworn she caught a spark of amusement in his gaze before he glanced away from her. However, by the time he looked back, any hint of what he’d thought of her ill-considered words had gone.
He shifted a step closer until she had to tip her head up slightly to keep her gaze fixed on his face. His hand landed on her shoulder, and then he urged her into a pivot to face the door.
“Get some rest. You’re going to need it.” His low voice trickled over her like warm syrup and sent a tremble tripping down her spine.
She froze, cursing herself because he had to have felt that, since he was holding on to her shoulder. For a second he stilled and she caught her breath, waiting for him to release her so she could flee to her bunk and hide under her covers.
“Leigh—” She didn’t know why his name slipped out on a whisper, that one word filled with far more than she should have revealed to him. But apparently it was enough to break the spell.
“Christ.” He let her go abruptly, leaving her off-balance.
Before she’d regained her equilibrium, he’d turned away and stalked off down the passageway, leaving her with nothing but cold shivers tracking under her skin.
Whatever his intentions in escorting her up here, she had a feeling that hadn’t been it. And instead of resolving the little infraction between them, somehow they’d gone and made it worse.
She covered her heated face with her hands for a long moment. Disaster didn’t begin to cover it. She had to get over this little burgeoning infatuation and start acting like the recruit she’d trained to be. She had plans for a career, and getting involved in an inappropriate relationship with a superior officer definitely didn’t factor into that.
Jesus Christ. What had he been thinking?
Leigh sat up, damp sheets pooling in his lap, sweat cooling on his body and breath too hard to catch. He glanced at the clock in the wall beside his bunk. Oh four hundred. Shoving a hand through his hair, he swung his legs off the bed and set his feet on the cold floor.
After he’d fled the recruit dorms last night, he’d locked himself in his apartment, too wound up and pissed off to be fit for company. He’d thrown himself into a cold shower, loathing himself every second. How could he have succumbed to such a moment of weakness that could put a short, humiliating end to the career he’d put his whole thirty-six years into? Never once in all the time he’d been training potential new pilots had he been attracted to a single one of them, not even the slightest bit. His position as their commanding officer had made it easier to view them impersonally.
Maybe the stress of knowing he possibly had a mole under his command had screwed with his head, and Mia presented as a convenient distraction.
Except that wasn’t fair on her, and made him seem like a shallow jerk. Okay, perhaps some of it came down to a weird sense of disconnection he’d developed ever since Yang told him one of the people he trusted with his life had betrayed him. Maybe he just wanted to feel connected to something or someone—
And maybe all this self-psycho-analysis crap was giving him a headache. He dragged a hand down his face, pressure building behind his temples.
Going to bed and laying in the dark had only intensified the problems. For one, that forbidden moment when he’d touched Mia’s shoulder had gone on live-action replay in his head over and over. He couldn’t stop it, as though his mind had imprinted the scene on his very soul. The feel of her soft, lithe body next to his. The sound of her breath catching. The exact curve of her lower lip. The light almond scent of her skin. The way she’d whispered his name, laced with darkly sensual things that were forbidden between them.
What would have happened if she hadn’t murmured his name and jolted him from the spiraling path of his thoughts?
He’d half expected Commander Yang to come pounding on his door, dragging him up to the command center to bring him up on charges of misconduct, among other things. Yet the night had crept by and eventually he’d fallen into a fitful sleep, plagued by his own stupidity.
But even more unsettling? The conflicted feelings warring within him. How would he face Recruit Wolfe today and pretend like nothing had happened? Somehow he had to drag himself out of the dishonorable place he found himself and put things to right.
After shoving the sheets off, he then stooped to grab a pair of sweats and worn T-shirt, before yanking on some socks and shoving his feet into his trainers. An hour on the treadmill to wear down his body and clear his mind was what he needed to regain some of his sanity and get through the day.
He headed out into the hallway and down to the transit. As he reached out to the control screen, the doors opened, revealing Commander Yang.
For a second his heart went into a free fall, until he remembered that Yang had recently moved into Dr. Sacha Dalton’s apartment on this level.
He clasped his hands behind his back and sent Yang a nod as he stepped out of the transit. “Sir.�
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“Alpha.” Yang returned the nod, though a little less sharply. The commander looked tired, his usually neat hair sticking out and tie pulled loose, while his rumpled jacket was slung over his arm. “Late night or early morning?”
“Early start. Wanted to get some time in at the gym before classes start with the recruits. You?”
Yang ran a hand over his hair and sent him an exasperated look. “Late night, but I’m sure you can tell.”
He sent Yang a quick half smile. “Of course not, sir.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’m hoping to catch a few hours sleep before the next crisis.”
Yang started to walk by him, but Leigh turned. “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, is everything okay?”
The commander paused, then looked back at him, a range of grim emotions passing through his expression before becoming carefully neutral. “You mean apart from the fact we have a number of unknown traitors in our midst and no idea what the CSS are planning?”
The betrayal he’d tried to avoid feeling about the possible mole in his squadron returned, lighting up to burn in his chest. If he felt this way at the prospect of facing a single traitor in his ranks, he couldn’t imagine what Yang must be feeling, all on top of the PTSD he was recovering from after his time as a POW.
Yang gave a short sigh and stepped back toward him. “There’s a lieutenant due to come over from the Farr Zero later today. To put it simply, his one task is to review the validity of my command.”
A deluge of aggravation surged through him. UEF and their bureaucratic BS. More than half the brass who made decisions for them hadn’t ever fought on the front lines. They were all about money, figures, and statistics, not about the actual lives of the people on the ground.
“So they gave you back command, but now they want to make sure you’re fit for duty?”
“I knew there were conditions when I agreed to take back my post.” Yang glanced over his shoulder, down the hall toward the apartment he shared with Sacha. “I just didn’t tell Sacha about it. She needs to concentrate on herself and the baby, not worrying about whether or not the UEF are going to pull my posting any day now.”
The irritation smoldered into anger on Yang’s behalf. “They can’t, sir. No one knows or cares about the Knox as much as you do. Commander Emmanuel did his best this past year and a half, but things didn’t run the same without you. If they put someone else in charge of this battleship again, we might as well fly off in surrender right now.”
Yang sent him the ghost of a smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m not blowing smoke, Yang, I’m telling it like it is.”
Yang reached out and clasped his shoulder for a moment. “When the lieutenant shows up, I’ll be sure to send him your way so you can tell him that.”
“Go ahead. Have him talk to every single person on board this ship. The only thing he’s going to find is dedicated support for you.”
“If it were a matter of the crew’s opinion, it’d be much simpler. But I get the feeling it’s going to be more about how my PTSD has manifested and whether or not it’s impacting my ability to command.”
Leigh crossed his arms, feeling cold at the idea of Yang under such scrutiny. There probably wasn’t a solider on this ship who didn’t have some small symptom of PTSD; even he struggled with nightmares occasionally. They’d all seen action, and this war had been dragging on for too many years. It made him wonder if this review wasn’t about something other than Yang’s ability to command.
“If there’s anything I can do—” The words rang hollow, because they both knew he had no part in this situation.
Yang smiled briefly anyway. “I’ll let you know. Thanks, Alpha.”
The commander turned and strode away, his bearing tall, straight, and still radiating authority, despite the slight limp from an injury sustained while he’d been a POW.
Leigh sighed and stepped onto the transit. If he’d wanted a distraction from thoughts of Recruit Wolfe, he’d definitely found one. Whatever the UEF were thinking in this review of Yang’s position, he got the feeling it didn’t bode well for the rest of the Valiant Knox’s crew.
Chapter Six
Oh four hundred. More like oh God, kill me now.
Mia stifled the third yawn in as many minutes as she dragged her sleep-deprived body out of her bunk and crept out of the dorm. At the UEF academy, she’d often gotten up around oh six hundred to exercise before classes at eight. Or get some extra study time in. She’d never had to get up and be at a class by oh six hundred before. So not a morning person. It always took her at least two hours to wake up properly, so if she wanted to be functioning on all levels by the time her first class started, oh four hundred was her new alarm time.
She grabbed a change of clothes and headed for the transit-porter, planning to hit the lap pools in the gym. There were only two of the small hydro pools on FP level, and she’d heard getting into one could be hard at peak times, because swimming was a good way to keep up muscle mass and lung capacity, especially for people who spent so much time in space. Hopefully because it was early there wouldn’t be anyone else in the pools, and she could swim out her self-recriminations in peace. She’d already spent half the night agonizing over the fact that she’d imagined kissing her CO.
Shock had washed through her on the heels of a deep-seated need to feel his mouth closing over hers. Would he be reserved and keep his passions frustratingly locked-down, or would he burn so hot underneath that reserved facade that he’d singe her and leave her nothing but smoke and ashes?
Dear God, just how dumb could she be?
There was no scenario in which anything good could come of this attraction that had ambushed her. But, there were many, many ways in which it could destroy both their lives.
Captain Alphin had a pristine reputation, no hint of scandal in his personal life whatsoever. Stuff like that never stayed secret very long, especially on a ship like the Valiant Knox, where everyone knew everyone and privacy wasn’t exactly an easy thing to come by. That right there was the number-one reason why she absolutely could not let anything happen between them. Someone would inevitably find out—which brought her right back around to all the ways in which this reckless little infatuation could destroy her life.
At some point in the small hours of the morning, she’d reasoned that her tired mind had been seeing things that just weren’t there. Maybe Captain Alphin hadn’t even realized the intimate manner in which he’d touched her shoulder. Maybe his low curse had been more about the fact that she’d slipped up and used his given name. Possibly when she saw him today, he was going to ride her harder than any other student simply because they’d become a little too familiar with each other.
The door to the transit-porter swooshed open in front of her. As if her thoughts alone had summoned him, Leigh stood toward the back of the transit, dressed down in a light gray pair of sweats and a faded navy T-shirt that stretched a little too nicely over his muscled chest, while his short hair was sticking out all over the place in a sexy, just-got-out-of-bed kind of way. Her next breath got caught in her lungs as her chest tightened, her heart feeling like it was being squeezed.
He looked up and straightened when he saw her, a flash of what could have been alarm crossing his features. Yeah, she was feeling pretty panicked herself. Maybe she’d just wait for the next transit to come by. She stepped back, but as the doors started sliding shut again, Leigh came forward and slapped a hand against the edge so the transit stayed open.
“We need to talk. Again.” His expression had settled into determined lines, though he glanced up and down the deserted passageway before nodding in a way that indicated she should join him.
She swallowed down the unsettling mix of apprehension and anticipation being around him created. With a short breath, she stepped past him into the transit and then neither of them said anything as the doors slid shut.
“Where are you headed?” Leigh asked without lookin
g directly at her.
“Gym. The lap pools, actually.” She glanced at the display listing destinations to see that the gym had already been selected. Was that where he was going as well?
For a long second they both stood there, not looking at each other, while a growing awareness of them shut in here alone, and the hours she’d spent thinking about him, grew within her.
Finally, Leigh scrubbed a hand over his hair, then turned to look directly at her. As soon as his blue eyes met hers, it was like a flash of lighting streaking from the tips of her hair all the way to her toes. No other man had ever been able to do that to her with a single look. Was this some weird forbidden-authority-figure thing, or was it simply Leigh that made her feel that way?
“I feel like I should say sorry about last night, except honestly, we both know nothing untoward happened between us. However, I’m sure you’re aware that for a moment there, things got a little hazy in terms of appropriate interactions. I apologize if I made you feel uncomfortable, and you can rest assured, it will never happen again.”
Wow. She’d heard Leigh was an honorable, straightforward, if somewhat hard soldier, but the fact that he was standing here, not trying to make excuses for what had happened surprised and impressed her. And she really didn’t need to be any more impressed than she already was.
“I’m not sorry either.” Yep, she had just said that, even though she probably shouldn’t have. But Leigh being so straight with her made it easy to face facts, and if he was going to give her the bald truth, then she would return the favor in kind. “I was just as responsible. I could have stepped away, I could have not slipped with your name. The next few weeks in the training program are going to be hard, and I need to give my all to that, not be distracted by—”
Leigh’s expression suddenly lost some of its tension and a grin transformed his features into somewhere around the level of mind-melting. Her damned heart skipped a beat, but she leveled a glare on him. “What’s so funny?”
Damage Control (Valiant Knox) Page 6