by Becky Black
“Ma’am, I swear on my honor this will never happen again.”
She looked startled at the strongly worded and forcefully delivered pledge.
“Discretion, Chief. That’s all I’m asking for. You have a perfectly good cabin for your exclusive use.”
Yes, he’d left Kit down there in the bed when he came up here for the meeting. Kit stretching luxuriously, arching his spine, catlike. He’d be gone by the time Raine went back there.
Soon he’d be gone entirely. When they reached Saira, Kit would leave. With the authorities or escaping, he’d be gone. And this madness would fade like a dream. Raine would be back to normal, under control. The thing he’d started to dread—the end of the voyage—suddenly looked like his salvation. But it was weeks away yet. He had to take action before then.
When Dryden dismissed him, he paused in the corridor and brought up the live data from Kit’s tracker. Galley. He’d be doing lunch cleanup. Raine had better wait until Kit finished work before he talked to him. But straight away after that, no shilly-shallying.
So Kit would have time to recover before his next shift—after Raine broke up with him.
* * *
“Your boyfriend’s waiting for you, Kit,” Gracie said with a grin, bringing her broom back in from sweeping the mess deck.
“Raine?” Kit looked up from loading the mug rack of the dishwasher.
“Of course I mean Raine. How many boyfriends do you have?”
“One’s enough work for me. He’ll have to wait. I’ll be another few minutes.”
“He looks kind of funny.”
“Now, Gracie, none of us can help the way we’re made.”
“Oh, you pest.” She stowed the broom in its closet and came to help Kit finish loading. “I mean he looks, I don’t know, rattled about something.”
Kit frowned. He’d wanted to tease Raine by making him wait a few minutes, but her words made him change his mind. Had something upset Raine? Nobody upset his man and got away with it. Kit would…what, exactly, he didn’t know, but he would think of something.
“Go on,” Gracie said before Kit even spoke. “I’ll finish here. Go see what’s bothering him.”
“He’s probably upset because it’s nearly four hours since he last saw me.” He dried his hands and found himself a fresh apron, tossing the damp and dirty one he wore into the hamper. “He gets jittery if he goes too long without his regular dose of Miller.”
Ducking the sponge Gracie tossed at him, he headed out of the galley into the mess, where Raine sat at one of the tables. Raine didn’t even have a mug of coffee in front of him, just waiting there and looking—as Gracie put it—rattled.
“You okay, sexy?” Kit said, smiling, hoping for a smile in response. He got none. “Did the meeting go badly?” He knew Raine had been attending a meeting with the creeps from the ore plant. “Don’t tell me, Preston said something especially insulting to the captain and you’ve challenged him to single combat.” Still no smile. Raine stood up.
“We need to talk. Come with me.”
Shit. This couldn’t be good. Raine strode out so fast Kit had to run to catch him up.
“What’s wrong? Tell me! Did I do something? Go somewhere I shouldn’t?” His conscience was clear with regard to anything that would bother Raine in his incarnation as security chief. Something personal, then?
“Not here.”
It must be something personal, because Raine led the way toward his quarters, not the security office. Kit racked his brains to think what he could have done to upset Raine. Flirted with someone? Couldn’t be that; Kit flirted with everyone. If Raine got all scowly over it, he’d have developed new permanent frown lines since they met.
They reached the quarters. Raine looked around the room and gave a sigh. Kit had made some effort to clean up before he left, but he’d been running late, and his attempt to make the bed clearly didn’t come up to Raine’s standards. A towel he’d left draped on the back of a chair was picked up in a marked manner and returned to the bathroom.
Kit began to sweat, not from nerves but because he’d at least remembered to turn up the heat to Raine’s preferred setting of “fucking ridiculous” before he’d left. With Raine in this mood, he didn’t even think of starting his usual striptease.
“Tell me,” he demanded when Raine came back out of the bathroom without the offending towel. “What’s this about?”
“We have to stop seeing each other. Right now, I mean. Not after we dock at Saira.”
Kit gaped. The heat must be affecting his brain. He couldn’t have heard that, could he? Raine was going to accuse him of stealing something or accessing some off-limits area or trying to get someplace on the ship’s network. But he couldn’t possibly have said they had to stop seeing each other right now.
“I don’t think I heard you right.” It was a lame comeback but a desperate one. Let me be wrong. Let me be mishearing.
“Yes, you did. We have to stop what we’re doing. I’m sorry to spring it on you like this. I don’t know how else to tell you.”
“Don’t tell me at all. Or tell me you’re kidding. What the hell are you talking about?”
“I can’t see you anymore. Our relationship is entirely inappropriate.” He spoke in a horrible, flat, neutral tone.
“Has someone reinserted that stick in your ass?”
He intended to provoke a response, but the question caused no more than a muscle spasm in Raine’s cheek. He’d closed down. Frozen Kit out. Frozen? Some chance. Kit was sweating hard and didn’t know if he could blame only the heat.
“My seeing you is a threat to the safety of this ship,” Raine said.
“I thought we got past all that bullshit.”
“We did. We shouldn’t have.”
“Dammit!” Kit flew at Raine, grabbed his arms, shook him—tried to shake him. “Stop it. Come back outta there, Raine. Dan! Tell me what’s happened.”
“I can’t be around you, Kit. You make me…crazy.”
The smallest touch of a crack in his voice. A crack Kit should try to wriggle into and widen. But the words only made him angry, and he screwed up the tiny chance.
“I make you? Don’t make this my fault.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I don’t blame you. My attraction to you makes me behave unacceptably, and it has to stop.”
“Your attraction! You said you loved me.” And he’d said it back. Felt it. Put himself in Raine’s power. And paid the price.
“I will admit I’ve been infatuated. But we have nothing in common. This is only an intense sexual attraction. Nothing more.”
“What the fuck does it matter whether we have anything in common? You know what you feel. You’re lying to yourself.”
“I don’t think so.” He stayed so cold. His arms were at his side, and he seemed to be oblivious to Kit’s hands on them.
Kit wanted to pinch him or scratch him, anything to make him react. But that would be undignified. So would kissing him or grabbing his cock. Fear swept over Kit. Raine wasn’t backing down. He meant this. At least, he meant to break up with Kit. Whether he meant any of the rest, who could say? Kit didn’t believe it, but he couldn’t shake the truth out of Raine.
But Raine did love him; he felt sure of it. He’d got some kind of bug up his ass about something. Kit lost the fear and felt the anger surging in him. What had made him change like this?
“Why? Why now? What’s made you suddenly decide this? We’ve been acting unacceptably for weeks. Why are you only just trying to end it?”
“Because it’s gone too far.”
Because he was falling in love, he must mean. Falling in love with someone who couldn’t stay with him. He was ending it today to take the pain sooner rather than later, when it would be worse.
“Dan, please, I know there’s no long-term future for us. But we can enjoy the time we have. Make some good memories. Don’t end it now because you’re scared of how much it will hurt later. Please give us this time.”
/> Raine reached up and put his hands on Kit’s arms. Gently, firmly, he pushed Kit away.
“No.”
Just “no.” Not even a sorry. The heat struck Kit, and suddenly he couldn’t get a breath. He swayed and saw concern appear on Raine’s face.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not fucking okay!” But he wouldn’t let Raine think he was about to swoon over him, prostrate with despair because he didn’t get to screw the stupid bastard anymore. “It’s like a fucking furnace in here; I can’t breathe.”
Raine reached for him, but Kit stepped back. “Don’t touch me! You never get to touch me again. And Warner does all the check-ins, or someone else. Anyone but you.” His voice came close to hysterical. His head spun.
“That’s a good idea anyway,” Raine said, his voice calm, cool, infuriating. “For both of us.”
“Fuck you all the way to Hades, you cold-blooded bastard.” Kit could have screamed it. He felt close to doing so, but his voice barely rose above a whisper, and it matched Raine’s for ice.
Raine nodded as if Kit had confirmed something for him. He spoke again, even calmer, even more infuriating.
“I think you should go.”
Kit went. The cool air of the corridors felt icy after the heat of Raine’s cabin. He walked, barely looking where he was going, taking corners randomly, not caring if he went someplace he shouldn’t. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. Let them toss him in the brig. Force Raine to look at him every day. Unable to avoid him, but unable to touch him either.
His eyes were hot, his throat choked, and he despised the weakness in himself. He wouldn’t cry. He would not cry. Because Raine wouldn’t be crying. Too macho and too cold-blooded.
He reached the end of a corridor and found himself at the door to an elevator. He didn’t touch the call button, just stood looking at the closed door. Remembering. The elevator. The kiss. Infatuation, Raine had called it. Attraction. And nothing more. It had started with the elevator kiss, turned into more, and they’d tried to convince themselves it would pass. Would burn out in a few days. Weeks. Months. So far it hadn’t, not for Kit. What if it had for Raine? What if the whole exchange of I love you had made him take a step back and realize there wasn’t any more to this than sex?
Kit gasped when the elevator let out a ping, and the doors opened. Jon Parker stopped when he saw Kit. He faltered for a second and then came out of the elevator and reached back to keep the doors from closing.
“Are you getting on?”
“I…no. Sorry. Just.” Words choked off, and Parker looked at him with concern. He let the door go and moved to touch Kit’s arm.
“Are you okay?”
One of those coded questions, Kit thought. It meant “I know you’re not okay, want to tell me why?”
Did he want to tell Parker why? Why not? The guy was nice enough, and he wanted Kit. He’d be…easy. Easy, perhaps, to talk into helping Kit figure a way to escape from Saira. Clearly Raine’s offer of help had been withdrawn, but they were weeks away from the end of their voyage; more than enough time to wrap Parker around his little finger. Kit could be very persuasive. He could start right away. Parker wore civvies, gym clothes, so he must be off duty. Kit had hours before he had to go back to the galley.
He gave Parker a weak smile, and Parker returned it with an encouraging one. His hand on Kit’s arm felt reassuring, not intrusive, and his expression of concern seemed genuine. The guy clearly had the kind of warm heart Raine lacked. A man with a warm heart who also wanted to get into his pants? Kit could make him a slave.
He allowed his control to slip enough to let tears well in his eyes. They were real, the pain of Raine’s sudden rejection still shredding his heart. But they were strategic too. A move on the chessboard. And they worked.
“Hey,” Parker said. “It’s okay. Do you want to talk about it? Is it the chief? Did you two have a fight?”
“It’s over with him. I…I’m…fine. I guess I should get out of your hair.” He made a move toward the elevator, but Parker’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“You’re not in my hair, Kit. If you want to talk…” He made a gesture back down the corridor, toward the officers’ cabins. Kit waited. He counted—one, two—and on three, he spoke.
“Okay.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Sorry to call you all here on short notice,” Dryden said as the senior officers took their seats for an emergency staff meeting right after breakfast. “But you need to hear this immediately.”
Raine had a horrible suspicion he knew what she was about to tell them.
“I’ve had a directive from head office ordering me to comply with the ore company’s request. We’ll be increasing our speed to make our deadline for arrival at Saira.” She waited out the stir of voices and protests around the table, then raised a hand to bring the officers to order. “I know. I feel the same. Commodore Wright has agreed to allow one escort ship to keep pace with us. If we should come under attack, it will buy us time for other escort vessels to arrive.”
“And in the meantime, we’re at the mercy of pirates,” Quinn, the chief engineer, said bitterly.
“Chief Raine is already drawing up plans for our defense against boarding parties.”
“You expect us to fight pirates?” Jalota stared at the captain. “Will you be issuing us cutlasses?”
“You won’t be asked to fight,” Raine said. “All noncombatants will be designated places of safety to hole up in.”
“Anyone with military experience should feel free to volunteer to assist the chief,” the captain said. Raine nodded, not entirely happy at the idea—she’d probably volunteer herself, and how was he supposed to argue with her?
“We’ll be glad of the help.” A corporate sort of lie. Kit would be proud of him—if Kit didn’t hate his guts. As it had many times over the last two days, guilt stabbed through him as he remembered the pain on Kit’s face. It had weakened Raine’s resolve, but somehow he’d found his strength. He should be proud of regaining the control he thought he’d lost. He should be. But how could he be when he’d caused someone he loved so much pain?
No, not love. Infatuation based on an especially strong sexual attraction. Nothing more. He’d been strong when he broke off with Kit, and he’d stayed strong. He’d even resisted checking out Kit’s tracker data, even though he desperately wanted to know if Kit had been back to officer country, because Jon Parker kept giving Raine a look he could only call triumphant. What if Kit had…? It didn’t matter. Kit could go with whomever he wanted to.
But he might have gone to Parker to extract from him the same offer Raine had made, to help him escape. And so what if he had? Kit wouldn’t try to escape before the hearing; he’d keep his promise to Gracie. After the hearing, he’d stop being Raine’s problem. If Parker wanted to risk arrest for helping a prisoner escape, that was his problem. Raine shouldn’t care.
Shouldn’t, but he did. Because the thought Kit and Parker might have slept together made Raine want to drag Parker over the table and beat the shit out of him. He hated himself for such a stupid, vicious reaction, no better than his lack of control around Kit. Worse. Violent impulses were much less acceptable than not being able to rein in his libido around someone as eager as him.
“Chief?” Dryden interrupted his thoughts, and he turned from looking—to be honest, glowering—at Parker and tried to recall what she’d been saying. Parker smirked when the captain frowned at Raine.
“I said, could you please take us through the plans you’ve made so far.”
“Yes, Captain, sorry.” He pulled out his Link and brought up the plans, projecting them onto the meeting room’s video screen.
The Link only increased Raine’s frustration, because he knew he could get at Kit’s tracker data using it. A few taps and he’d know where Kit had gone after he left Raine’s cabin after the breakup and everywhere he’d been since.
But he wouldn’t look. Even after the meeting ended, he would
not look.
* * *
Kit came into the security section for his daily check-in with Warner. He wondered if she’d take long to become suspicious about Raine not doing any of them anymore. All routine and she ran through it quick enough. No questions about the time he spent in officer country. She must assume he was with Raine. She assumed wrong.
“The chefs are doing that lemon-chicken thing you like for lunch.” He forced on a smile. It came hard. “Don’t be late.”
“I won’t. You can go.”
Kit left the office and headed for the bunk room to take a nap—or at least to lie down and brood. He’d see Parker later, probably after dinner, and they’d be up late. Some preemptive rest was a good idea.
Parker had surprised him when he’d taken Kit back to his cabin after the breakup with Raine. Expecting a pass, Kit had been disconcerted when Parker instead made him some soothing herbal tea. Baffled but emotionally wrung out, he’d fallen asleep until Parker woke him in time for dinner mess. He left with an invitation to come back after dinner if he wanted to talk some more.
When he’d arrived late in the galley, Gracie made some teasing comments about Raine keeping him busy. He hadn’t contradicted her. She’d know soon enough. And she’d kill him dead on the spot.
He reached the bunk room, stepped inside, and stopped. Fuck. Raine. What did he want? He was standing talking to a couple of the guys, but he turned to look at Kit. “Look” hardly described it. Death stare might be more accurate. Ignoring him, Kit went back to his bunk and started brushing his hair, frizzy from the heat in the kitchen.
“You need to keep your bunk tidier.”
He froze at the sound of Raine’s voice but didn’t turn. After a moment, he resumed brushing.
“What is this? Inspection?”
“Yes. And I expect you to adhere to the same standards as the rest of your bunkmates.”
The bunk area could be considered a tad messy, but this wasn’t the damn military—a point he’d made to Raine more than once. But what Chief Stick-up-the-ass wanted, he got.