Becca

by Mima

  That was her, the sexiest rescuer in the cosmos. Her hands a mix of goo and soap, knees smarting, cheeks burning, Becca had no idea what to say about blindly bringing him pleasure. So she went with the silence and managed to tear her gaze from his plump scrotum.

  Grimly, she reached for the soap and kept working. In a few moments, he awkwardly and stiffly began to lather his hair. It was obviously quite long, much longer than was fashionable on York, at least. The water shut off just as she finished rinsing him. He leaned on the two sinks heavily as she dried him off with the towel.

  “Your name,” he gritted.

  She shot him a look. “Becca Sharpin. Yours?”

  “You don’t know?” He seemed stunned.

  “No clue.” She shrugged. “Who are you?”

  He shook his head.

  What did that mean? Did he have amnesia? She dressed quickly. “I’ll get you a flight suit.”

  She rummaged in all six lockers and took the one that looked biggest. This guy was way tall and broad shouldered. She took a pair of socks—they would have to do. The sleeping person’s boots looked smaller than her own.

  Back in the bathroom, he was using someone else’s tooth cleanser. While she helped him get dressed she explained, “We have to get up one level and down two hallways. We’re going to be noticed if you can’t stand on your own.”

  “Won’t be able to do the stairs, but I can do the halls.” His voice was less rough. He bent and drank water out of the sink. His face slackened and his eyes slitted, like the stuff was ambrosia instead of recycled metallic condensation.

  While he leaned on the sink, she put his socks on and said, “Let’s go.”

  He moved slowly and stiffly, but did fine. Several people passed them, but no one even looked twice at them. Becca walked a little ahead, playing with her plax-page. At the stairs, he used the railing and she held his hand. They managed to look somewhat normal, despite the fact he almost crushed her fingers, using her arm as a brace to climb. At the top, he leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

  She was alarmed. If he fell, she’d never get him up. He was much too big.

  “Breathe slow,” she urged. She tried to be patient, understanding he was incapable of the hurry her instincts were urging. A person clattered up the stairs toward them and she froze, sure it was Djetivoch.

  The cryo man reached out and pulled her into him, wrapping his arm around her neck and burying his face in her damp hair. His snarled hair was cold and wet against her cheeks, but he smelled clean. They stood like that and she let him, sure he was just trying to cover his inability to move on.

  “Becca Sharpin,” he whispered. “You’re risking yourself and you don’t know me.”

  She hugged him. “I’m risking us both, with little planning. This is stupid.”

  He pressed a kiss to her head. “This is beautiful.” He let her go.

  She stood and noticed the person passing before had gone. He began to walk using the wall, and after a few paces, managed to get upright. They did fine the rest of the way to the small dead-end corridor. She reached up and opened the ceiling panel. He looked at the opening into the overcrawl and then at her with patent disbelief. She bit her lip.

  She dropped to her hands and knees, forming a bench with her body beneath the opening. “Try. You’ve got to try. We’re running out of time.” The memory of his gooey orange footprints filled her with terror.

  He reached his hands up and used his grip on the ceiling to steady himself as he stood on her back. She gritted her teeth. He was freaking heavy. She felt her spine shift and pop. Her arms trembled. He rocked on top of her and then with a grunted “Ho!” he jumped.

  She scrambled upright, gripping his legs and trying to boost him up through the hole. He’d got his shoulders and ribs up, but his waist and legs hung down.

  “Get back!” His voice echoed in the overcrawl.

  “Shhh!” she hissed.

  She let go and he kicked wildly, flailing his way up into the space. As soon as his feet disappeared she leaped, grabbed both sides, and tucked her hips up, turning herself upside down. She walked her feet across the ceiling and tucked them inside the overcrawl. Using her abs, she drew her shoulders up, wiggled her butt onto the ductwork, and set the grate back in place. He lay panting at the corner of the shaft, staring at her in disgust.

  She grinned. “Childhood trick I learned on the monkey bars. Easy peasy.”

  That was the last easy-peasy bit of getting him into the nest she’d made. It took another half hour for him to drag his body to the place she’d cut through. His shoulders trembled with strain every time he moved his elbows forward. Then she had to go first, to try and help pull him up into the undershaft of the floor above, even though the opening was only shoulder-high. While heaving his body forward, he ended up cutting himself on the rough edge.

  “Oh!” Becca gasped, clamping her hand on the long, thin gash down his arm. “I’m sorry!” She wondered how to get a bandage and disinfectant—

  “Becca. It’s fine.” His hand covered hers. His face was pale and sweating.

  “I should have wrapped a blanket over this edge. I didn’t have time to smooth it off.”

  He touched her lips. “It’s just a scratch.”

  She slumped. “I know it must sting. I’ll go get—”

  “Will you stop? This pain is nothing. How much farther?”

  She blinked at him, horrified by what cryo must have been like. “You’re very close. Maybe two more meters, and then you’ll be home sweet home.”

  He nodded. “But we’re not in any greater danger of being found here, like in the hall?”

  She considered the close ceiling above her head. “You’re close to the wall of the lounge. I think you’re safe.” She explained her plan of hiding their life readings among the crew’s constant presence in the lounge, and how they were basically underneath it.

  He sighed. “Then just let me stay here a bit.” He was standing on the floor below, the one they’d crawled along, with his shoulders and arms above the hole to the next level. His head almost brushed the ceiling.

  There was a demanding gurgle. They stared at each other, then his mouth tipped. She realized it was his stomach. Then hers gave an answering murmur. They both laughed.

  “I’ll get some food,” she said. She backed down the passageway to the juncture-box cave that held her supplies. She took some juice and an apple and brought them to him. “Here you go.”

  He drank the juice first and she blushed at the look on his face. She chewed on her lip while he bit into the apple, determined not to ask personal questions. His name, however, was not personal.

  “Can you tell me your name now?”

  He looked at her. “Silas.”

  She knew at once it wasn’t his real name. There was something in his tone that told her. Perhaps he didn’t trust her, and even though it stung, she didn’t blame him.

  He bit into the apple with relish, licking his lips and slurping at the juice. “Can you tell me what the date is?”

  She told him. He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

  It was beyond her ability to keep the question back. “How long?”

  “Almost five months.” He banged his fist on the metal. “It might as well have been five hundred years. I’ll kill them. I’ve already planned it all out.”

  She covered his fist in hers. Would she stay sane after five months in cryo?

  He shook his head. “What’s your plan, Becca?” He turned his hand and gripped hers.

  She shrugged. “London Moon is six days away. In the meantime, we hole up here and pray they don’t find us. Getting off ship is going to be hard.”

  Three nights later, they lay quietly talking. She’d rigged something for a bathroom down another undershaft and had had to make two forays out for food and supplies. They were
n’t eating well, but what she’d gotten the second time should hold them until London. She had deactivated her plax-page, and there were times it felt like she’d become trapped in her own mind without it. But it was too risky to use. Her location would be easily traced. By now the captain, the security chief, and the cargo crew would be scouring the ship for her and Silas.

  At first, talking to him when she couldn’t ask him about himself had been stilted and difficult. She’d talked about herself instead, at his urging. Then he began to share bits of himself with her, personal things that didn’t do much to help her place him. Still, through his stories, she knew he’d been surrounded by people, been a man of responsibility, and had a loving family, including two brothers and a sister.

  “Tell me about your brother,” Silas asked.

  She grunted. “Eh.”

  “I’ve already gleaned you’re not close. Tell me more.”

  “I’m proud of him, but I don’t want to be like him. I couldn’t ever achieve his path, so it’s best I set up another career for myself. It is hugely exhausting having to follow in his sacred footsteps.” She lay on her back drawing on the ceiling—really the floor of the lounge—with marker. They’d both left many doodles there.

  “If you didn’t have a brother, would you be interested in the military?” He propped himself on one arm, and, as usual, his hands were constantly stroking the blankets they lay on.

  She hesitated. “I’d still want to be involved with starships. I might have gone more toward the research route, and the best track for that is the military, but then again, I don’t want to be designing warships and weapons.” She rolled her head to look at him. Even in the dim lighting of their nest, his emerald eyes always looked so vivid. “What about you? Would you have gone into a different field if your family was different?”

  His face twisted in humor. “Definitely.”

  “What would you be?” This was a safe question, since it didn’t involve him sharing what he was now, which she imagined to be some sort of manager or, considering the cryo, a very important businessman.

  “A pilot.”

  “Military?”

  He shrugged. “Could be fun. But there’s enough danger in space that I’d enjoy simply running cargo. I could be happy in something like this ship.”

  Remembering the charming, observant captain from the office four days ago while studying this thoughtful, quiet man, she could actually see a resemblance. “Silas, Captain of the Cider Pot. It has a certain ring. Who knows? Maybe that will work out someday and I’ll be your senior chief engineer.” Her doodle became a cliff, with twisted pines at the crest and waves below.

  He stroked a big hand down her arm. She’d stopped pausing at his light touches on the first day with him. He touched often and never to coerce. “Someday.”

  She rolled onto her side to face him. He was handsome. His long, dark hair brushed over his shoulders in thick waves. His face had interesting planes and his lips were fascinating. It was hard to keep from staring at his mouth. It made her marvel at how she’d ended up here.

  She marveled that she’d thrown away her internship for a complimentary captain. Marveled at how she’d thrown away that opportunity to investigate a smuggling operation she should have had no part of. It made her marvel how her life could be forfeit for a stranger . . . and at how lucky she was that the stranger seemed noble, educated, and generally an awesome human being. She was in a mess due to stupid sympathetic instinct, but she wasn’t sorry. Mostly.

  “If we survive this, I’m going to have to research another internship for when the investigation clears.” The investigation he’d said would begin his revenge against his enemies who had kidnapped him and put him in cryo. Hopefully, the investigation that would leave her with a reputation on which she could still build a career.“It’s really annoying that I can’t begin that project now. Six days just wasted. It’s so frustrating. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so useless . . .”

  His face darkened, and she realized not having a plax-page was a far cry from being in cryo, awake and in pain and paralyzed.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you had to suffer that and I’m glad you were strong enough to survive.” They’d both been amazed that his health seemed to be perfect. She brightened her voice, trying to change the subject. “It’s so weird how I just found you and got you out so easily. I’ve got us crammed in here, and I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”

  His lashes swept up and he pinned her with green intelligence. “Becca. Lying here with you these past few days has been something close to perfection.”

  She blinked. “Oh . . .”

  “The sensory deprivation of cryo was total. The severity of the pain would come and go, but it was a constant. I had no body, no limbs.”

  She licked her lips, “Silas, don’t—”

  “I’m not going to burden you by describing it.” His eyes zeroed in on her mouth. “But I want you to understand what lying here, seeing, touching, smelling you, has meant to me. It’s life. And all the more special because it’s life reborn. Even this.” He lifted one hand and nodded at the fading thin red scab on his forearm. “It’s entirely, every moment, deliriously special. Because of your courage.”

  Her throat swelled with emotion. She shook her head. “No, we’re not going there. We’re living on horrible rations, trapped in this dim undershaft, with laughable bathroom facilities a three-minute crawl away. And we still have to get off ship. Don’t set me up as special. This rescue operation is a joke.”

  He inched closer to her and she held her breath. She always did. He smelled so good it made her self-conscious. His silky, shoulder-length black hair curtained across his face and he tucked it behind his ear. “Let me ask you something. What did you make of my orgasm in the shower?”

  She smiled. “I was surprised.” I have relived how lovely you were a thousand times. “But it didn’t bother me.”

  “Putting my arm around you, when I left the cryo bed, almost made me cry. The scent of you, the silky fabric of your flight suit, the blond of your hair, the cream of your skin, the blues of your eyes—you may as well have been a vision of heaven.”

  She laughed, too loud, and slapped a hand over her mouth.

  His fingers coasted over her jaw and curled around her neck. Her hand lowered to rest hesitantly on his very wide, smooth chest, exposed because the flight suit she’d stolen for him was a little too small, so he wore it unsealed. “And when I stood under the warm water, it was like a thousand hours of sex in one instant.”

  She shivered. “Overload.”

  “Yes. Then you slid your soapy hands across my back and legs, firm and sweeping. I’m astonished I didn’t fall. Even the sight of you watching me, your gorgeous body folded down by my feet—it was too much. Rebirth.” His hands massaged the base of her skull, toying with her hair.

  “But the thing is, that hasn’t gone away. Every moment, everything I see, it’s so good. While you were sleeping before, I stared at that junction-box panel, mesmerized by the lights and shapes of the controls. It’s amazing.”

  Her lips trembled between humor and sympathy.

  “And then there’s you. Your scent. Your mouth. Your hands, your body near mine. I’m hard all the time, and it hurts, and I want it.” He pulled his hand from the back of her neck and stroked over her lips with his thumb. His breath pulled in sharply. “I want you.”

  “Wow.” Becca’s mouth tingled and she didn’t know what to say.

  She’d stuck this poor man in here with her when he desperately needed stimulation. Of course she’d help him. Gladly. It certainly wouldn’t be a hardship, because she’d found man-treasure in the cryo box. She leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips pressed against his and stroked with soft sweeps. He shook, his hand gripping her shoulder.

  “Silas. I’d be honored to share sex with you.” She s
poke to him through kisses, flicking little licks against his lips.

  He jerked his head away. “Becca.” The way he said her name, choked full of emotion, made her tears well up. “If we do this . . .”

  “No worries, Silas. No strings. Just feel.” She reached to put her own hand behind his head, but he grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

  His eyes clenched closed. “Let me touch you. Please. I need . . . Let me.”

  She understood. He wanted to control the sensation. She rolled onto her back and opened her flight suit’s seal, leaving it gaping from throat to belly. Then she crossed her hands under her head, relaxing. “I’m all yours.”

  She should really be more careful of her words. After the first hour or so, she drifted into a state of pure pleasure. There was no time, no thoughts. There was nothing but flesh, and Silas. He explored her face with fingertips, nails, palms, wrists, and knuckles. Every part of his hand was a tool of seduction. Her twitches and gasps became constant sighs. Then he turned his lips, tongue, and teeth on her neck. Her body rocked, aching. Her shoulders, clavicle, and upper chest were the focus of his hands again, and then his mouth returned when he bared her breasts.

  Somewhere during the time he spent on her ribs, she came. Her nipples throbbed and her pulse pounded. Her lips sizzled and her tongue ached. Her fists clenched beneath her head, holding tight to her own hair so as not to reach for him. He watched her come, studied her jerking hips and writhing thighs, still covered with the ugly, slightly baggy navy flight suit. He stared at her face while her mouth stretched wide, and considered her damp chest. Watching him watch her pleasure made it sharper.

  Then he reached out and pinched both of her nipples in firm clamps of thumbs and forefingers. He said simply, “Again.”

  His voice rasped low. His lips were swollen and gleamed wetly. His grip tightened to the point where her breath caught. Twin trails of heat roared down to her clit. Staring down at his intent face where he lay beside her, she did go again. Her body arched, tight, until warmth crept through her after the fading fire. When she finished, he rolled on top of her, body lying between her thighs, hugging his arms along her torso, and buried his face in her belly. He just lay there and shook.