Below

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  The words sent a shock wave of sensations and emotions through Victoria, but she resolutely ignored it. “I don’t suppose Huggins had the grace to leave any of my personal effects while he and Grant were busy pitching our supplies out on the deck?”

  “Oh, he was a thorough son-of-a-bitch. I’m just surprised he didn’t park Clancy on the tarp before take-off,” Raphael replied, rising. Sliding a hand beneath one of her elbows, he urged her toward the door.

  Uncomfortable with the ‘escort’, Victoria straightened her arm abruptly, whereupon Raphael simply slid his hand along the back of her arm and grasped her hand. Victoria frowned. “Public displays....”

  Raphael nodded. “Are forbidden.”

  He released her hand and grasped her arm just above the wrist.

  The urge to remove her arm from his grasp was strong, but Victoria decided after a very little thought that that was likely to attract more attention than pretending she was unaware of his touch. Sharing sexual favors freely was encouraged. Emotional attachments were not. Emotional attachments were prone to create ripples of discord throughout a group and the company was against anything that might interfere with work.

  “This is considered a show of affection?”

  Victoria took a deep breath and decided to ignore the fact that he was reading her thoughts, as well. “Any touch that’s more than casual can be construed as a display of affection.”

  “This is more than casual?”

  Victoria’s lips tightened. There was amusement in his voice. If she’d doubted before that he was being deliberately obtuse, she no longer did. “Since I’m perfectly capable of walking without assistance, yes.”

  “Good.”

  Victoria glanced at him quickly, but since they had entered the rec room and were in full view of everyone who’d remained to look for a little entertainment before retiring for the night, she said nothing, merely quickening her step purposefully. For all that, she didn’t manage to ‘out run’ him. He matched her step for step, guiding her toward the room he’d chosen for them. It was no great distance, being situated about half way down one side of the rec room, but Victoria found her nerves were jumping long before they reached the privacy of the room.

  Raphael, Victoria saw when she flicked a glance at him, was studying her with a mixture of amusement and barely concealed heat. Feeling the blood rise in her cheeks, Victoria looked away quickly and made her way to the desk in one corner of the room.

  “There’s no need to be so nervous,” Raphael said quietly.

  Victoria didn’t turn to look at him. She was busy searching the drawers for pen and paper. “I’m not,” she lied.

  “You are.”

  Victoria drew in a deep, sustaining breath, trying to calm her jitters. “If I am, it’s because of our situation,” she said tightly.

  “Partly.”

  Victoria set the materials down and turned in her chair to look at him. She was more than a little disconcerted to see that he’d sprawled out on the bed and was lying with his head propped on one hand, studying her. “Don’t be shy,” she said dryly. “Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “You.”

  She hadn’t expected him to be quite that forthcoming. Blood flooded her cheeks. She opened her mouth to speak but discovered she couldn’t think of a thing to say. Turning away abruptly, she did her best to concentrate on the schedule, starting with a list of names. Her concentration was in shambles, however, and she discovered it was impossible to put names with faces, and abilities and specialties together with hardly any of the crew members.

  “I could help.”

  She hadn’t heard him cross the room. When he spoke, directly beside her, she jumped and dropped the pen from suddenly nerveless fingers. He knelt, picked up the pen and handed it to her, but he did not rise. Instead, he placed a hand on her knee. Victoria felt as if it was a firebrand, burning through the thin fabric of her uniform trousers.

  “You’re anxious, frightened. You’ve no need to be.”

  Victoria knew he wasn’t referring to their precarious situation on Kay, but she wasn’t ready to meet him head on on a personal level. “Of course, I’m anxious ... and scared. We’ve been abandoned on this God forsaken rock with no clue of what happened to the personnel that was here.”

  Raphael shook his head slowly from side to side. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  Victoria studied him, trying to decide how best to handle the situation she found herself in, but nothing came immediately to mind. She was accustomed to handling a variety of work related problems. She was even, somewhat, used to managing men and women seeking sexual favors. The latter created the least problems at all, for she had merely to point out that the was heterosexual and they usually gracefully withdrew. Men had rarely been a problem for her, as far as that went. In general, her demeanor alone was enough to keep them at a distance and even those who were attracted by the challenge of dominating a dominate female could be routed without a great deal of fuss simply by using her position in the hierarchy and assigning them to work as far away from her as possible.

  “It won’t work.”

  She discovered that Raphael was looking at her with amusement. “What?” she asked cautiously.

  “Trying to avoid me.”

  Victoria sighed. “It carries no weight with you at all that I’ve expressly forbidden you to read my mind, does it?”

  He frowned slightly. “I find it difficult not to. We are mind melded, you and I.”

  It was Victoria’s turn to frown. “You said that before. I still don’t understand.”

  His look was wry. “You are not telepathic. We should not have been able to meld at all.”

  Irritation surfaced. “That explains it so much better.”

  He chuckled. “You have a quick temper.”

  “I am perfectly even tempered,” Victoria said stiffly.

  His eyes gleamed with suppressed amusement, but in a moment, he leaned toward her. Victoria knew he meant to kiss her. She put a restraining hand on his chest, leaning away. “Don’t do that! I’ll become a mindless mass of quivering jelly and I won’t get anything done!”

  Instead of looking insulted that she’d pulled away, Raphael laughed outright. “That’s what I’ve always loved about you, Victoria. There is no subterfuge in you.”

  Conflicting emotions collided inside of her—doubt, pleasure and confusion—and Victoria felt her face turning red. “This is your way of saying, I suppose, that I’m not a woman of mystery.”

  “You are a complex woman, but you and I are linked—we melded when I emerged from the incubation chamber. No matter where you are, how far away, I know what you are feeling. I feel what you are feeling.” His expression became wry. “I don’t always understand it, or why you feel as you do, but I feel when you are distressed, angry—everything that you feel.”

  Victoria wasn’t certain she liked the sound of that. It sounded almost as if he was saying they were fused into one being. She found it hard to accept as a possibility. She found it even more difficult to accept in the sense of losing her individuality. Outwardly, she was a conformist, because she knew that was expected, and because advancement hinged on conformity. Secretly, she preferred to think of herself as completely unique. She wasn’t at all certain she could share her inner self. She was pretty certain, though, that she didn’t want to.

  Raphael frowned. After a moment, he rose and moved away, pacing the room. “Quinton and Albert are programmed machinists. They would probably be best suited to work on the communications tower.”

  Victoria blinked. It took her a moment to realize he’d changed the subject completely. Finally, she nodded and turned to the schedule, writing their names down. “Any others?”

  “None specifically programmed to work on communications, but Caroline and Barbara both know electronics and Xavier is an electrician.”

  Victoria added the names to her list, then frowned, set her pen down and flipped through the files on her c
rew. “We’re hopelessly understaffed without the crew that we were supposed to be joining, but I’ve worked with Brown and Tuttle before. They know their way around a processor. It shouldn’t take them long to figure out the setup here. We’ll need some welders to repair the access cover ... and I’d like to beef it up. I think we’re going to have to assume that whatever happened here, it’s something we’re going to have to contend with, as well.”

  * * * *

  Working on the schedules reminded Victoria that, although they had finally found the work logs, she had left them on the upper level when she discovered that Huggins had departed without them.

  Once she’d posted the schedules, she decided to go up to retrieve them so that she could study them. Without a word, Raphael fell into step beside her. Oddly enough, she found it comforting, rather than irritating. Distracted as she was, she would have gone up alone, even knowing that it was not safe for anyone to move about the habitat alone until they knew more about what had happened. Even if she hadn’t been distracted, she would not have liked to demand an escort. It was all very well to point out that, logically, every man and woman was at risk. It still smacked of fear to ask, which translated to weakness, which was something she could not afford if she was to retain control of the situation on Kay.

  She didn’t notice Roach until he spoke.

  “And there goes Ms. Tory with her faithful watchdog,” he muttered as she and Raphael passed on their way to the stairwell. Victoria stiffened. She would have stopped and confronted him except that Raphael urged her onward.

  “Why did you do that?” she snapped as they started up the stairs.

  “It’ll be best to ignore him.”

  “If you think that, then you’ve no understanding at all of the type of creature he is,” she responded tartly.

  “No, I don’t. Enlighten me.”

  Victoria felt her irritation vanish. It was difficult to get used to the idea that Raphael had so few experiences to fall back on. “He’s a bully. Ignoring him, or trying to, isn’t going to do any good. He’s spoiling for a fight. He’s not going to be satisfied until he gets one.”

  Raphael frowned. “Bullies are generally cowards.”

  “Bullies are always cowards,” Victoria responded. “But no two people handle fear the same way, any more than they handle any other emotion the same way. My instincts tell me Roach isn’t going to be satisfied until he’s convinced his fears aren’t unfounded.”

  “And what do you perceive as his fears?”

  There was a touch of amusement in his voice now. They’d reached the landing on the next level and Victoria paused, turning to look at him. “He’s not certain he’s man enough to control me, but he’s determined to have a try.”

  All traces of amusement vanished from Raphael’s expression. His eyes narrowed. “I won’t share you,” he said flatly.

  Victoria was taken aback. It was on the tip of her tongue to inform him that it wasn’t his decision to make. Instead, after wrestling with her temper for several moments, she merely shrugged. “Under the circumstances, there seems to be a very good chance that it’ll never be an issue.”

  It was obvious from his expression that her comment was neither expected, nor welcome. He frowned. “That’s not an answer.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you’d asked a question. You said ‘I won’t’. You didn’t ask me how I felt about it,” Victoria said shortly and pulled the door open, heading for the office where she’d left the documents she sought.

  “Because I know you have no desire to go to him.”

  “No, I don’t, but that’s beside the point. I make my own decisions, for my own reasons.”

  “So—decide.”

  Despite her irritation, Victoria felt amusement surface. Having reached the office, she stopped in the doorway. “You are bossy. You know that? Why do I get the feeling that as long as my decision coincides with yours, you’ll allow it?”

  His brows rose, but she could see his anger had vanished and amusement once more took its place. “Because it’s true?”

  She shook her head and set about retrieving the papers. By the time she’d finished, her brief sense of amusement had completely vanished. “It may still be a moot point,” she said grimly as she started back. “Unless we can figure out what happened here, and how to prevent it from happening to us, we may not be alive in two weeks to make any sort of decisions.”

  Chapter Seven

  By the time they reached their level once more, the rec room had emptied. Apparently, the crew had primarily been waiting for the schedule to be posted before retiring for the night. The total silence of a complete absence of habitation greeted them the moment they opened the door on the third level.

  It hadn’t occurred to Victoria until that very moment that she and Raphael were the only personnel in a position to occupy this level. Immediately tense, Victoria did her best to ignore it and strode purposefully toward their quarters.

  Raphael forestalled her intentions, removing the reports from her hands and dropping them on the desk. Victoria looked at him in surprise, but before she could object, he’d pulled her into his arms and lowered his head, brushing his lips lightly against hers.

  A flush of warmth went through her. “I really should look at the reports.”

  “They’re not going anywhere and neither are we.”

  He was right, of course, but it seemed wrong to put off anything so potentially vital to their survival.

  “Is there anything you could do, at this very moment, besides study them?”

  “I don’t suppose so.”

  “Then it’ll wait till morning.”

  Victoria looked down at her hands where they rested against his chest. “I’m nervous,” she confessed.

  “So am I.”

  Startled, Victoria looked up at him.

  He smiled wryly. “It’s my first time.”

  The comment threw Victoria into complete disorder. “Oh—Oh my God, Raphael! I’m so sorry. It was thoughtless of me.”

  Smiling faintly, he reached for her tunic, unfastening it. “Don’t worry. I believe it’ll come to me.” Removing the top, he dropped it to the floor and pulled her against him again, waltzing her backward.

  “Where are we going?” Victoria asked, uncertain whether to laugh with him, or cry for him. He was so incredibly sweet it made her heart ache. The thought of all that he’d missed out on, been deprived of, because of what the company had done to him hurt in a way she didn’t entirely understand.

  “To the bed. Unless you want to try it standing. I can’t vouch for my prowess, but I’m wide open to suggestion.”

  The mattress caught the back of her knees and Victoria fell backward with a little yelp of surprise. Shedding his own tunic, Raphael followed her down, lying half atop her. They gazed at each other for a long moment and then Victoria lifted her arms and draped them around his neck, tilting her face up for his kiss. After a moment, he leaned down, brushing his lips against hers. Victoria gasped at the desire that enveloped her in a hot wave at his first touch, opening her mouth to him. When he did not immediately seize the opportunity she offered him, she thrust her tongue into his mouth, caressing his tongue with her own, tasting him.

  Raphael settled closer, focusing completely on the feel and taste of her, fighting the urge to rush, to taste and explore and possess her completely. When she withdrew, he followed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth to explore her as she had him. She surprised him when she closed her mouth around his tongue and sucked. The sensation sent such a fiery rush through him that his pulse pounded, making rational thought an impossibility. Feeling that he would explode at any moment, he broke the kiss, gasping hoarsely.

  Victoria reached for the fastening of his trousers, gnawing a trail along the side of his throat with the edge of her teeth, kissing his shoulders as she fumbled with the resistant fastening. He pushed her hands away and unfastened it himself, then reached for her, searching for the key to removing her bra. Sm
iling faintly as she kissed her way down his chest, Victoria unsnapped it and shrugged it off, tossing it to the floor beside the bed.

  He pushed her onto her back, grasped her trousers and tugged at the fastening. His fingers, clumsy with desire, he succeeded only in binding the closure fast. Victoria gasped when he ripped it open and peeled away her trousers and panties, throwing them to the floor. She was far too anxious herself, however, to spare more than a moment of concern for the ruined clothing and immediately turned her attention to helping him strip away the last of his own clothing.

  She ran her hands over his chest when he settled beside her again, but he held her away when she would have moved against him, examining her body with his hands and his gaze. Noticing the contrast between her pale white skin and his darker skin, Victoria felt a little self-conscious, wondering if he found her as attractive as she found him. He glanced up at her, his eyes filled with hunger. “You are so beautiful to me, it makes me ache for you. Always.”

  He leaned toward her, kissed her long and lingeringly. Victoria felt a blinding rush of desire the moment his mouth covered hers, felt as if she was falling into a dark chasm. She reached for him, wrapping her fingers around his cock, spreading her thighs. Waiting might make it sweeter, but she found she didn’t want to wait any longer. She was so hot, her sex wet and aching for his touch, she knew instinctively that this time she would find what had always eluded her before, fulfillment.

  He moved between her thighs, thrusting his hips as she lifted hers and aligned his cock with her own body. A shudder went through him as he buried himself to the hilt inside of her. When Victoria looked up at him through half closed lids, she saw that he had squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as if he was in pain, his facial muscles taut. He opened his eyes and looked down at her. “My God! I didn’t know it would feel this good to be inside of you....”

  Heat suffused her, the muscles in her sex clenching in response to the desire his words evoked. Victoria moved her hips against him. He uttered a low, growling groan and began to move, slowly at first and then increasing the tempo, thrusting his cock inside of her and then pulling away in a rhythm that built the ache inside her to a fever pitch so that she was moaning incessantly, gasping, could feel her body hovering on the brink of release.