“Just because my body is stupid doesn’t mean I want anything to do with you. You force me to have sex with you, and that’s what it’ll be. Force.”
“I wasn’t going to—that’s not what I had in mind.” He sounded stung.
A part of her wanted to ask what he had had in mind, but she shoved that part away. It was being completely unhelpful here. “That’s not what your prick says. Now, why don’t you do the right thing and let me go?”
“That... I cannot do.”
She thought he meant he would continue, that he would find a way to force her to answer his questions, but he released her and stepped back. After drawing in a shaky breath, he waved for her to fasten her trousers. He sat her in a chair, the one secured to the deck in front of the powered-down environmental control panel. He pulled out handcuffs, not flex cuffs or anything modern that used an energy field, but a pair of gleaming steel handcuffs. He snapped one end around her wrist, pulled it behind the chair, and found a bar to snap the other end around.
Makkon stepped back and considered her, his chin clasped in his hand. Then he turned toward the communications console, knelt in front of it, and tore open a panel with a bunching of his muscles and a wrenching of metal. She gaped as he glanced at a schematic on the back of the panel, then reached inside, pulled a few wires, and withdrew the fist-sized power supply. All of the displays and indicators on top of the console went dark.
Apparently, he didn’t want anyone sending messages until enough time had passed that they might receive an answer to theirs. Not that she would have been able to do so while handcuffed to the chair. Maybe he was thinking of Porter.
“Going somewhere?” Tamryn asked when he turned toward the door. She wondered why he would leave her here instead of returning her to the lounge with the other prisoners. It would be nearly two days before they could expect an answer to their message, and the comm system was clearly out of order now. What reason did he have for keeping her here? Would she be locked in here alone for the next two days?
“Yes.” Makkon returned to her chair and rested a hand on the side of her head. “I doubt you’ll think it the right thing, either, but I’m going to find some interrogation drugs.”
Ah, she wouldn’t be alone for the next two days. Just until he returned to get his answers.
Tamryn glowered up at him and lifted her free arm, intending to shove his hand away. But she paused when she saw his face. At some point, she had come to know it well enough to see more than the fierce tattoo and the hard jaw. Now, she could read the wryness in his expression, how it was mingled with sadness. He didn’t want to do this; that’s what his face said. Maybe it was an act, but why would he bother? There was tenderness in his expression, too, and that shocked her most at all. Why would he care anything about her? She’d been fighting him since she met him, and she’d done her best to kill him.
“Tamryn,” he said softly.
A jolt went through her at the familiarity in his voice.
“At least I know your first name now.” He rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment, then lifted it back to her head, letting it slide through her hair, which had fallen out of its regulation clip long ago. His hand lingered when he reached the ends, rubbing her locks between his fingers, then he let go of her. By the time he reached the door, the determined hard-to-read face had returned, and he didn’t look back.
Left alone, Tamryn swallowed and stared at the floor. Interrogation drugs. If she blurted secrets under the influence of some drug, it would still be deplorable, but it wouldn’t feel like such a betrayal. No, the betrayal was that a part of her wished she had let him continue, that she’d found out exactly what he’d had in mind.
“Traitor,” she mumbled, glaring down at her body.
Part 2: Seduction
Chapter 8
After Makkon left Pavlenko handcuffed to the chair in the communications room, he strode to the lift. He ought to retrieve the interrogation drugs swiftly, so he could return before she found a way to free herself, but he stood there and planted a hand on the wall for support. For the first time all night, he was barely aware of the pain in his leg. All he could think about was what he had wanted to do in there with Pavlenko—with Tamryn. What he had almost justified doing.
Oh, he hadn’t planned to take her, as much as his cock had wanted him to—it still pressed painfully against his trousers, trying to spring free. He had thought he could bring her to an orgasm, pleasure her with his fingers, his mouth, make her want to tell him everything she knew. No, that had been his excuse. What he’d really wanted was to make her want him. And then maybe, in the aftermath of her pleasure, she would have turned around and slung her legs around his hips to ride him. Brax’s request had made it seem acceptable to touch her to try and get answers, a part of their mission, nothing more. And it had excited him that her body had responded to his touch, even though he’d known her mind hadn’t; he’d felt her struggle with herself, with him. No matter how intense his fantasy, he hadn’t quite been able to forget that she was a prisoner and that his actions were deplorable.
Even now, knowing and accepting that he’d been wrong, he couldn’t stop thinking of her, the feel of her hot body in the comm room and the way the scent of her sweat and shampoo and arousal had made it hard to think of anything except animal desires—lust. He remembered stalking her through those tunnels, the way she’d never given in to her fear, the way she’d tried to drive him away, then to fool him. The fact that she’d shot him when none of the other soldiers had managed it. She’d impressed him from the start, and everything that had happened since had only reinforced that feeling.
Makkon growled to himself, unable to calm his desire.
Why couldn’t she be someone on his team instead of someone on the other side? He wished he could explain everything to her and that she might understand or even sympathize with him, but history proved that never happened. If she found out what he was, who his ancestors had been, she would want nothing to do with him. No, if he had any hope of winning her sympathy, it couldn’t involve revealing too much.
But right now, he needed to get a handle on himself and return his mind to the mission, on interrogating her in a more acceptable manner. Even as he told himself that, his thoughts returned to the comm room, to the position they had shared, him behind her, pressed against her back. He imagined yanking her trousers down, bending her over that console, and taking her.
“Damn it,” he muttered, hating himself for fantasizing so inappropriately, but he gave up and hit the emergency stop button.
He unbuckled his belt and took his straining cock in his hand. He had no lube and was too ashamed of his fantasies to feel anything but frustration, but he needed the release. He jerked his hand up and down, unable to drive the image of himself ramming into Tamryn out of his mind, and not sure he wanted to, no matter how out of line it was. He came with a roar, frustration, shame, and desire exploding from him with a final pump of his hand.
Panting, Makkon leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the wall. He wasn’t sure he felt better, but at least he didn’t feel like a volcano waiting to erupt. He might not be able to look Tamryn in the eyes later, but maybe now he could concentrate on his mission. Especially since his mission involved getting those drugs and returning to her. A part of him wanted to quail away from the task, to find someone else to question her, but his hackles rose at the idea of letting Brax or anyone else near her, someone who would be indifferent to her comfort and who might hurt her. Whether she hated him or not, he couldn’t stop thinking of her as his prisoner, and he would protect her.
Makkon buckled himself back into his trousers and thumped the button for the engineering level with the side of his fist. Back to work. He could do this.
• • • • •
Even if the cold metal handcuffs weren’t as technologically sophisticated as flex cuffs, they did their job effectively and kept Tamryn attached to the chair. She had, however, managed to contort hersel
f, nearly twisting her shoulder out of its socket, so she now stood behind the chair instead of sitting in it. That gave her more reach. She couldn’t touch the communications console, but that didn’t matter, not with the power supply missing, so she decided she’d try to reach the locker by the door, the one she’d armed herself from earlier. She couldn’t remember what remained inside of it—she knew she had given Wu all of the grenades in there—but there might be something she could use to lubricate her wrist or perhaps cut the metal.
Unfortunately, no matter how she stretched and strained, her fingers missed the latch by an inch. Frustrated, she looked around the base of environmental console. That had been where Wu had set his trap, one that had clearly been disarmed. She wished these invaders were as dumb as they looked, with their brutish clothing and tattoos, but unfortunately, that hadn’t proven the case so far. She thought of the way Makkon had gauged Gruzinsky without knowing anything about the man, assessing him and deciding he could get close enough to disarm him. She remembered the way he had coolly and calmly proceeded to nullify those explosives, any one of which would have killed them all if it had gone off. His fingers had been deft, sure. Much as they had been when they had stroked her breasts, creating exquisite sensations even through the fabric of her shirt. Even now, her body flushed at the memory, her core tingling as she wondered where those fingers would have gone after unbuckling her belt, if she hadn’t objected.
Tamryn growled at herself. “Stop it. He’s a monster, and he’s the enemy.”
She returned to patting along the textured decking and peering into the corners. It was wishful thinking, hoping to find a discarded grenade lying in a corner, but maybe there was something. Her practice dummy from her knife-throwing session lay on its side, on a console in the corner of the room. If she could get out of here, it might be useful as a distraction later, but she couldn’t reach it now, nor could it help free her.
She glimpsed a coil of thin, broken wire on the floor in the corner. Ah, that might prove useful. She couldn’t reach it with her hand, but managed to drop to the deck and nudge it over with her foot. It was the remains of the trip wire Wu had set. Though less than a millimeter thick, the wire was strong, and she had about two feet to work with. Her first thought was that there might be some lock on the handcuffs that she could pick with it, but she didn’t see a hole. Though they looked primitive, they might be fingerprint activated.
Tamryn made a loop with the wire, then leaned toward the locker again. Using it, she could reach the latch. Had the door been locked, she would have been out of luck, but she had been in a hurry earlier and hadn’t bothered. It took a couple of minutes, minutes she worried she didn’t have, but she managed to hook the wire and tug open the latch. The door swung open.
As she had feared, all of the weapons had been removed. There were a few more ration bars, which she wouldn’t mind ravaging, but her gaze alighted on a couple of spray bottles and a floor-mopping robot on the bottom. The closest bottle was clear with some yellow substance in it. As an officer, she didn’t usually get stuck on cleaning duty anymore, but she thought there might be glycerin or something else slick in the container, so she got on her knees and tried to loop the bottle with the wire. This proved as challenging as the latch, since it was secured in a holder on the side of the locker. She kept glancing at the door, expecting Makkon to walk in at any moment.
Finally, she tugged the bottle free. She knocked it over in the process and cursed when it tried to roll toward the back of the locker and escape her. A final lunge with her wire lasso caught it. She squirted her wrist liberally with the stuff, hardly caring if it turned out to be something toxic that made her swell up with hives. She didn’t know how many minutes had passed since Makkon left, but if he had gone to his ship and knew exactly where those drugs were, it wouldn’t take him long to return.
The cold liquid did not feel particularly slick, but Tamryn worked it all over her wrist and the back of her hand. Since the metal cuffs did not conform to the width of her wrist the way flex cuffs would, she hoped she might be able to squeeze out. Her hands weren’t that big.
She twisted and pulled, the metal biting into her flesh. Just as she was about to give up, one of her joints popped, and her hand came free. The pain of whatever she had dislocated brought tears to her eyes and a gasp of pain to her lips, but she hardly cared. She lunged for the door.
The memory of nearly crashing into Makkon the last time she had exited Comm and Control flashed into her mind, but the corridor still lay empty. She ran to the right, away from the lifts. As much as she dreaded the idea of crawling back into the maintenance shafts again, especially without her tablet full of maps to guide her, she dared not take any main corridors or elevators. Makkon wasn’t the only one she could run into out there, and nobody else had mentioned keeping her alive if she cooperated. And since she wasn’t exactly cooperating now, even he might decide he’d grown tired of her and shoot.
As she reached the intersection and paused to make sure it was empty, a faint whisper of sound reached her ear. It had sounded like a door opening somewhere behind her. The lift?
She hoped it was her imagination, but she slowed down. Someone would hear running footsteps. She forced herself to step quietly and headed toward a different entrance into the maintenance system than she had used before. She could only hope that Makkon couldn’t track her a second time.
Chapter 9
Makkon almost laughed when he walked into the empty comm room. When he’d locked Tamryn up with the handcuffs, he had wondered if she would be able to find a way to free herself. He’d thought she might—or that she would find a way to call her comrade to rescue her—and that was why he had removed the power supply from the console.
He wasn’t too concerned about finding her again—by now, her scent was indelibly imprinted in his brain—and he’d even had the thought that she might lead him to the other missing person. When he spotted a puddle of liquid on the deck under the dangling handcuff, he realized his tracking job would be even easier than he had expected. He’d caught the pungent scent of the cleaning agent before he had even opened the door. If she had doused her arm with it to facilitate her escape, she would smell strongly of it until she had time to wash—and probably even after.
Makkon returned to the corridor and pocketed the syringe with the interrogation drug that he had brought. He wouldn’t need it yet. In truth, he was almost relieved she was not here, as he had dreaded the idea of using the drug on her. Perhaps it was foolish, but he still had this notion that she might become a sympathizer, someone he could trust—and someone who trusted him. It would be hard to earn her trust—or any other regard from her—if he was the one who forced her to divulge secrets.
The citrus-scented soap hung in the air of the corridor. He had never had citrus fruit in his life, but he knew what it smelled like, and he followed the trail as easily as if someone had painted arrows on the deck. He told himself to take it slow, that he wanted to give her time to connect with her comrade. Also, he didn’t want her sensing him close—or hearing him if he had to open some ridiculously loud hatch. If she did, she would choose another route, try not to endanger the other person. Still, he couldn’t loiter too long. It was possible she was heading straight down to that auxiliary comm station instead of trying to find her ally. He couldn’t let her send a message to her superiors that gave away all the intel she had gathered. Brax had managed to delete the other one, and the less their government and military knew about his people, the better.
Despite the advice he gave to himself to give her a head start so she wouldn’t panic and alter course, Makkon struggled to keep his pace sedate. Judging by the strength of the scent, it hadn’t been long since she had gone this way. He wagered she was still on this level and that she had escaped from the room less than a minute before he had arrived. A big part of him wanted to break into a sprint, even if it meant causing her to run and starting a chase. His groin twitched at the idea of stalking her aga
in, seeing what traps she might lay for him this time, finally capturing her and pulling her into his arms...
“Makk,” he groaned, disgusted at himself.
He rubbed his forehead. He’d been a hunter his entire life, and the opportunity to chase dangerous prey had always excited him, but not sexually. Of course, ice tigers and woolly bull-chargers didn’t have a tendency to get his libido going.
He shook his head and stared at the floor for a moment, forcing himself to stand still and take a few breaths—and to accept that he had a problem. Maybe an obsession.
His comm beeped.
“Makkon,” he responded, hoping the rest of the men weren’t having any trouble. He felt guilty that he’d spent this much time with Tamryn when others were pulling guard shifts and hunting for the missing person. There might be other threats to deal with, as well.
“You finish questioning her?” Brax asked.
Makkon hesitated. He had a lead on the information... “I should have Pavlenko’s mysterious comrade shortly.”
“Oh? Good. You ask her about the secret too? I’ve questioned several of the scientists. They’ve all blathered about alien artifacts that some linguistics officer is studying. You get that out of the girl?”
Makkon found his fingers curling into a fist. Brax had gone down and questioned—interrogated—the civilians? If he’d planned to do that all along, why had he tried to get Makkon to do... what he had very nearly done?
“Alien artifacts?” Makkon said, aware of Brax waiting for a response. He didn’t know who was around Brax, so he didn’t want to argue over the comm, but later, he would have words in private for his co-commander.
“She didn’t talk about that? I’d like to know from a soldier’s mouth why they’re here. It’s hard to imagine the military caring about guarding artifacts, not when they’re all over the tunnels down there. I could question these other soldiers, but they’re all so injured, I don’t know if they’d survive an interrogation. And I wouldn’t want you getting crabby with me for killing your hostages.”
Frost Station Alpha 1-6: The Complete Series Page 9