Captivated (The Verge Book 2)

by A. C. Thomas

  Mindfulness, Dr. Park Min-Seo would have reminded him in that light, disheartened tone he reserved for his only son.

  Discipline.

  Focus.

  Jun closed and locked all traces of the notes and tucked the hard copy away in the small uncrackable vault he had sourced from a first sector bank. Sourced, selected, extracted, and rehomed aboard his ship.

  “Stolen” was such an ugly word.

  As riddled with regret as his misspent youth may have left him, there were some skills he couldn’t have learned any other way, and for that he was grateful.

  He’d still shoot his ex-captain in the heart if they ever came face-to-face again, but he was grateful for the lessons. Captain Barnes had been keen on instilling harsh lessons in his Crew. Prided himself on his callous, bloody mentorship of wayward youths like Jun had once been.

  Kill or be killed. Trust no one.

  How to take a hit without slowing down. Larceny and smuggling and the delicate art of infiltrating the data stream without detection.

  Betrayal.

  All important lessons, leaving him with as much self-loathing as self-reliance.

  It was a fair trade.

  Jun absently traced over the disconnected circuits on his neck, pressing against the phantom itch of data he was no longer plugged into, the remembered pain of disconnection keeping his touch wary.

  He’d have had the empty circuits stripped from beneath his skin, but the process was as expensive as it was time-consuming, and time was the one commodity he was desperately low on.

  Money was a close second.

  He turned his head at a knock on the door of the command center, tucking the disabled pad away, down a hidden pocket of his pants.

  “What,” he barked, hoping an aggressive greeting would be enough to forestall whatever bullshit awaited on the other side of the door.

  The door slid open, the heavy clomp of tiny feet in giant boots telling him he was out of luck before he even got a look at Boom’s ticked-off face. “So we’re trading Dolls now, Captain? I thought you left your old Crew because you couldn’t stomach the business.”

  Jun turned away, pulled up a surveillance data stream of the surrounding area, and pretended to study it, still clinging to the hope that she might go away. “Not trading. And he’s not a Doll.”

  Boom sauntered over with her distinctive aggressive sway and hitched her hip up onto the console next to him. She stared him down. “Hmm, looks like a Doll, talks like a Doll, kept by some asshole against his will like a Doll, must be a fucking duck, then.”

  Jun groaned. Giving up on the pretense of working surveillance, he met her sharp gaze. “It’s temporary. I need him to interpret the last of my notes. So we can finally move forward. Then I’ll set him free.”

  Boom shot him a scathing look as she flicked her fingers to load a charge of her wrist blasters, the augments glowing ominously brighter. “Yeah. I’m sure lots of houses tell the Dolls it’s temporary. Because temporary enslavement is just fine, right? You’re a regular hero, Park.”

  Jun set his jaw and turned back determinedly to his screen, each of her words salt in the wound of his guilt. “It’s none of your business. Keep your mind on security, and you’ll get your cut.”

  Boom sneered as she leaned into Jun’s space, her augments whining with the building charge. Half his size and not an ounce of fear. Although that was probably because Boom was, arguably, his best friend.

  If Jun had the time for friends.

  Or the disposition.

  “Me and Marco don’t want a cut if it comes out of Doll trading. Either you set him free, or you admit that you’ve started a collection here on our ship so I can go ahead and slit your lying throat.”

  Closing out of the surveillance projections to give his hands something to slap away, Jun snarled, “My ship. And you’re dismissed, Valdez.”

  Boom hopped down from the console, nose to sternum with Jun and eyes ready to set him on fire. She held a hand to his throat, weaponized fingers resting against his windpipe. “Get stuffed, Park.”

  Boom glanced pointedly down at the knuckles of Jun’s Honor hand while he silently counted to ten and then twenty and then gave up and growled, earning only an unamused glare in response. “Not terribly honorable, is it? Taking advantage of a scared little Doll under your authority? I’m disappointed in you, Captain.”

  She removed her hand with a low drone of it charging down, and Jun turned to walk over to the navigations console. He pulled up their trajectory in an attempt to make it look less like the retreat that it was. “I’m devastated.”

  Boom’s silence was worse than her angry tirade, weighing down the center of Jun’s chest while he waited for the hammer to drop.

  “I saw his face,” she said finally.

  Jun didn’t have to look up to know her expression had hardened, to see her mouth set with fury.

  “What happened? Did he try to resist? Disobey orders? Too much backtalk for big, bad Captain Park? He can’t weigh half what you do, you prick.”

  Jun snapped his head to the side, matching her furious tone with a hard stare. “I didn’t hurt him.”

  Jun would have loved to have been able to say he hadn’t touched him at all, but—

  That ship had sailed, at fucking hyperspeed.

  Because Theo was a beautiful, brilliant brat. And Jun was an asshole with, apparently, no self-control despite years dedicated to building it up.

  All of that hard work, and his control melted like candy in the rain under Theo’s slightest advance. Jun had never met anyone who could have such a profound effect on him.

  It was terrifying.

  Boom lifted her chin, her heart-shaped face sharp with challenge. “That bruise says you’re a liar.”

  With a breath of frustration, Jun turned to give Boom raised eyebrows. “That bruise says his seat on the dinghy collapsed into spare parts.”

  Fury melted away into consideration on her face, the steel loosening from her spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. “Oh. Yeah, Marco mentioned you brought it back in pieces.”

  Jun’s expression said “no shit,” but he kept his words civil. “Barely made it back across.”

  Boom stared at him with that weighted, expectant silence, and Jun leaned back against the console with a sigh.

  “You know I don’t run Crew with a raised fist, Boom.”

  She nodded and slid a small blade from her thigh holster. Picking at her fingernails with it, she made a perfect picture of threatening nonchalance. It made Jun grin like an idiot, his lips curling up at the corners before he could tame them down again.

  “Yeah, but I also know you used to run with the big boys. You learned your leadership skills at the knee of a fucking sadist. I’ve seen you take down a man for looking at you wrong. Why would you be different with some Doll?”

  Jun dropped his poker face, overcome by a rare wave of vulnerable honesty. “I’m different with you. And Marco. And even Axel, which is a daily struggle.”

  Boom shrugged, slipping her blade back into place. “Well, yeah, but we’re—” She closed her mouth around words that might have started to veer too close to sentimentality for comfort, both of them relieved by the restraint.

  An unholy light started to gleam in her eye; her full lips stretched into an evil smile. “Oh, I see. He’s not just some Doll, is he?”

  Jun tried to cut that line of thought off as quickly as possible, standing up straighter in alarm. “I told you; he’s here to work.”

  Boom examined him up and down as if she might find clues written out across his body. Jun resisted the sudden urge to check his fly, arranging his face back to antagonistic blankness.

  “Not just that,” she continued, not giving him a chance to continue. “You’ve picked up another stray for your little ragtag band of misfits. Our ugly little family. You like him, don’t you? You like-like him. Look at your face. That’s adorable, Park. Really cute.”

  Jun pushed away from the console, opti
ng for a strategic retreat. “Fuck off.”

  As he passed, Boom patted his cheek with a throaty laugh. “Adorable!”

  Jun refused to respond as he made his way down the hall to the makeshift brig.

  The fact that it was really just the first mate’s cabin with three extra layers of security helped to alleviate the guilt of putting Theo under lock and key when he had done nothing wrong.

  Among the endless line of dead philosophers Jun had been made to study, there was an ancient scholar who’d said something about ends justifying means.

  Jun’s end was so important it could justify far more than locking an innocent professor away for a few weeks.

  According to Jun’s moral compass anyway. Which he’d been assured was in very poor condition, but fuck it.

  When he weighed destruction and death for countless, faceless innocents against unwarranted upheaval in the life of one man, he chose the lesser of two evils. No matter how appealing the man had turned out to be.

  Seven hours, four minutes.

  Jun had never gotten ocular or cerebral augments, but it felt like he had a digital timer in the top left corner of his brain, flashing numbers as the time scrolled by. Every morning, he opened his eyes to the new set of numbers, dreading the chunk of time carved away by the necessity of sleep.

  He entered the code that activated the bio-locks and opened the chamber door without knocking.

  It was his ship, damn it. The captain shouldn’t have to knock. Boom could shove her personal privacy bullshit down the garbage chute.

  Jun wasn’t lurking. Boom always claimed he was, while throwing objects at his head when he entered a room without announcement.

  He was the captain, and this was his ship. Simple as that.

  Theo lay on his stomach on the bed, nude from the waist up, bare feet crossed at the ankle and swaying in the air above his pert little bottom as he lazily paged through a book.

  He glanced up at Jun’s entrance, tossing his silky hair over his shoulder, beautiful face a picture of unconcerned inquiry.

  Jun’s heart made an excellent impression of a battering ram at the cut of light across the delicate shadows of his collarbones.

  Maybe he should have knocked.

  Theo looked back down at his book, and Jun’s skin grew tight with displeasure. He wanted Theo’s attention as much as he wanted to put him right back where he had found him, and the conflict between the two made Jun irritable.

  He stalked over to the bed, snatched the book, and held it up over his head. “Where did you get this?”

  Theo sat up on his knees, feet tucked elegantly beneath him as he felt along the sheets for his discarded shirt. He held it up against his chest in a show of modesty that was far too little, far too late.

  Jun had once been able to go about his days, blissfully unaware of the exact delicious shade of strawberry-pink of Theo’s nipples.

  He could kiss that goodbye, now. There wasn’t a padlocked box big enough to contain all the images of Theo’s perfect body seared into Jun’s brain.

  He was going to see creamy, freckled skin and bright, silky hair in his stars-cursed sleep.

  Theo blinked wide, innocent eyes up at Jun as though he hadn’t been deep-throating his cock like a rusted professional not an hour before. “Axel gave it to me. He didn’t wish for me to die of boredom while you decided how long I was going to be locked away. He’s quite a jocular fellow; I can see why you would want him on your crew.”

  Irrational jealousy threatened to rise in a surge of undeserved possessiveness. Axel was a good guy, if a little heavy-handed with his humor. He was personable in a way that Jun never was and never could be.

  Despite knowing full well Theo was in no way Axel’s usual type, Jun had to suppress the urge to stake a claim.

  Theo was his. Jun had him first.

  A guy like Axel wouldn’t know what to do with him, wouldn’t be able to give him what he needed. Wouldn’t be able to make him shiver and cry out and roll those beautiful, intelligent eyes back in bliss.

  No. Focus. No time for that.

  Padlocked box, locked in the basement, flooded with ice water.

  Jun dropped the book on the bed, pulled out the pad, and placed it alongside.

  Theo let his shirt fall to his knees as he picked up the pad, his face an open question.

  “There are five passages on that pad. Translate them. Tell no one what you find. Keep all notes on that pad only. I am the only one you can discuss this with. Is that clear?” Jun needed to keep this short, eager to leave before he did something he would regret. Again.

  Theo fired up the pad, nibbling on his lip in a way that made Jun tighten his thighs against the urge to pounce and nibble it for him. “Nothing about this is clear, I’m afraid. You are something of an enigma, Captain Park.”

  Jun had heard that before, from men he had picked up for the night. Waxing poetic over how mysterious he was. People never seemed to realize that sometimes a person didn’t talk about themselves because there was nothing good to say. “Get it done. I’ll be back in the morning.”

  Theo sputtered out a protest that Jun allowed to bounce off of his back as he strode out the door. He locked it and sagged back against it in the empty hallway.

  Six hours. Thirty-seven minutes and ten seconds.

  Nine seconds.

  Eight.

  Theo’s eyes were so green. Jun hadn’t known eyes could be that vibrant without augmentation. He hadn’t known eyes could reach inside you like that, shining a light on all of the places Jun worked so hard to hide about himself. Soft, vulnerable places he tried to cover up with plates of armor and hard expressions.

  Places that didn’t deserve to be seen, that he had hollowed out himself with a rusty spoon like a prisoner attempting escape.

  Theo had cracked him open without even trying, and Jun was—

  Six.

  Five.

  Four.

  He was so. Fucked.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I thought you said you’d be back in the morning.”

  Theo congratulated himself on his nonchalant tone, keeping the tremor from his voice by sheer will alone.

  If there was one thing at which Theo did not excel, it was being quiet. If there were two things, they were sitting still and being quiet. If there were three things, they were sitting still, being quiet, and being left alone.

  There were actually many things at which Theo did not excel.

  But those were the top three, easily.

  The hours had seemed endless as he stared at the four walls of the empty room, too shaken to focus properly on his translations.

  “Eat,” Jun said, dropping a laden tray onto the small desk in the corner of the bunk where Theo sat.

  Theo examined it, pleased to find better fare than the protein bar he had choked down that morning.

  There was even some kind of fresh fruit, round and shiny green with thick, pitted skin. Citrus, perhaps, though nothing he had ever seen back home.

  Theo looked up at Jun, who appeared to be settling in to watch him eat as he leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed.

  His holster was still loaded. Theo’s heart sank at the sight, his continued status as a captive unignorable.

  He shoved the tray away, the metal clanking hard against the wall. “What, no knives, Captain? Don’t you trust me? Precisely how far do you think I could get on your ship when all of you are armed to the teeth? It’s not as though I would even be able to make my way back home, even if I managed to escape.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.” Jun watched him with faint traces of humor lining his eyes and coloring his tone.

  The easy humor sent something tumbling in Theo’s chest, something with the sharp edges of rage banging against his ribs. He glared at Jun, straightening his posture in his chair. “No, that’s your job, isn’t it?”

  Jun’s whole body jolted. He pushed up from the wall with a wave of concern crashing over his face
. “Did I hurt you? When I—” He stared down at the floor for a full three seconds, then looked back up at Theo and walked over with sure, decisive steps.

  He curled his hand softly around Theo’s throat, but it didn’t feel like a threat.

  It felt like the opposite of a threat.

  Like a comfort.

  Theo’s pulse leapt beneath the warmth of his palm; his eyes fell shut as though a switch had been flipped, all of the rage draining away.

  Jun’s hand slid up Theo’s throat to cup his jaw, and his thumb brushed across his lips.

  “Did I hurt you?” Jun’s voice was soft and deep, and Theo felt himself falling into it like a warm bath. “Answer me.”

  Something beyond the phantom warmth of Jun’s hand blocked Theo’s throat, and he had to let out a breathy sound before he could speak. “No, you didn’t. Not in the way you mean.”

  Jun pulled his hand away, but Theo bobbed closer as he tried to chase the contact. Jun crossed his arms tightly, the hand that had been touching Theo now balled into a fist.

  Jun’s face was solemn, mouth set in a determined line. “You know you don’t have to do those things with me. I only want you of your own free will. I will never ask for more than that.”

  Theo sighed and picked up the fruit. He tried to remove the peel but failed to lift any of the edges from the stem, the peel waxy and slippery in his grasp. “I know. Difficult as it may be to believe, I can assure you I have a knack for only doing things I want to do. I’m rather notorious for it back at home.”

  Jun took the fruit from him and deftly dug his thumbnail in beside the stem to lift up a thick strip of peel. “Tell me if you don’t like something”—he addressed his words to his hands, keeping his face hidden—“if I push too hard or… Or anything. I’ll always stop when you ask me to.”

  He continued to remove the peel until the pale-green fruit segments were revealed, coated in white, pithy threads. He pulled some of them away, broke off a cleaned section, and held it out to Theo.

  Theo leaned forward and bit into the fruit, spilling tart juice down Jun’s hand. Jun’s eyes widened, his lips parting on a sharp exhale as Theo’s teeth scraped against his thumb.