Malfunction, page 16
Then he sped up, and rational thought left him completely. His every cell concentrated on the sensation of pushing into her, pulling out, faster and faster. He was vaguely aware of her frantic movements beneath him. She was with him all the way, and a moment later, she went completely still then threw back her head and screamed.
Fucking awesome.
He released the last little bit of his control and felt the pleasure swell through his dick, his balls, filling his body as he pulsed inside her. She bucked against him, tightening her inner muscles, so he kept right on coming.
Finally, he was spent, weak, lost. Where the hell was he? Cupping her face, he lowered his head and kissed her. He felt the sting on his back where she’d clawed him and grinned.
“You’re an animal,” he murmured then collapsed onto her, rolled and pulled her so she sprawled on top of him.
She licked his neck. “More than you will ever know.”
What did that mean?
But he was too sated to worry. Closing his eyes, he let the sense of well-being wash over him. And for the first time, he accepted that, yeah, he was glad they had woken him up. Just for this one fucking awesome moment. Sleep was pulling him under, but he didn’t want to go to sleep yet, maybe never again. He wanted to savor the feeling. He wanted to know if Katia had found it as good. From that scream, he was guessing she’d enjoyed herself as much as he had. He hadn’t screamed, though. Maybe he should have, to show his appreciation. She felt good in his arms, all soft and small. Her breathing was even—had she fallen asleep?
He opened his eyes and found her sprawled across his chest, chin in her hand, gazing up at his face.
“I thought you were asleep,” he said.
“Time enough to sleep when you’re dead,” she said with a grin. “Or so Rico tells me.” She sighed. “That was amazing. You are one good fuck, Sergeant Farrell.”
He grinned. “Ditto, Detective Mendoza.”
She wriggled against him. “So what do we do now?”
He couldn’t do it again right now. No way. Then her hand slipped between them, wrapping around his dick, squeezing soft then hard. He came to attention under her touch, and he decided that maybe, with the right incentive, he could manage once more.
…
Her third—or was it her fourth—orgasm of the day ripped through her. For the second time that day, she was covered in sweat, but the effort had been worth it.
She twitched her hips, and a ripple of residual pleasure shot through her. They’d come together that time, they were getting in sync, and now he was sprawled beneath her, looking totally spent. She’d worn him out. She liked that idea.
She needed a shower before she fell asleep. Really, she did.
Beneath her, Logan’s eyes flicked open, and a slow smile spread across his face. “You are the best.”
“I need that shower.”
His hands tightened on her hips. “Not yet. Lie with me for a while. I like you dirty.”
“Okay.” That worked for her; she couldn’t actually be bothered to get up yet.
He was still lodged deep inside her, and she raised herself up so he slipped free. A sense of loss washed over her. She ignored it; she hadn’t lost him…yet. That was no doubt somewhere in the future, but one of the things she had learned in her long life was to enjoy the moment. She snuggled herself at Logan’s side, breathing in the scents of sex and sweat and something spicy, unique to Logan. “So talk to me,” she said, “or I’ll fall asleep, and I do want to shower first.”
“Talk to you about what?” He sounded wary, but she realized she wanted to know about him. Where he came from, who he was, what he wanted out of life. He came across as a mixture of cynicism and naivety. He’d told her he didn’t believe in dreams, but he believed in the hope of a brave new world for mankind. “You told me you didn’t believe in dreams,” she said. “Why? What happened?”
He was silent for a long time. Either he’d fallen asleep or he was avoiding the question. She poked a finger in his ribs.
“Ow.”
“Talk or I get up and shower.”
He heaved a huge sigh then dragged himself up a little so he was leaning against the wall, pulling her closer against him.
“When I was young, very young I mean, my mom abandoned me on the steps of an orphanage. I was three, I think.”
Aw. How sad. She remembered now that he’d mentioned it that first shuttle ride but then closed up. Was he willing to tell her more now? She hoped so. “I bet you were such a cute little boy. Those pretty eyes.”
“Well, they were all I got from my mom. I have one memory of her looking down at me, out of eyes like mine. She was telling me that I had to be a good boy. And that she was sorry. I never saw her again.”
“And were you a good boy?”
“For a little while. I lived in the orphanage for the first couple of years. They couldn’t put me up for adoption straight away, in case my mom came back for me. Of course, she never did. The orphanage was run by the Catholic Church, and let’s just say there were certain facets of my…personality that they believed needed to be beaten out of me.”
“I hate the church,” she said.
“I’m not too fond of them, either. But they had a point with me.”
She twisted a little so she could see his face. “What point?”
“I was different from other children. I felt things too much. I saw things in people that they usually didn’t want me to see. I would know if someone was good or bad, and I hadn’t yet realized that people usually didn’t want to know that sort of stuff.”
“But how? How did you know?”
He shifted, looked a little uncomfortable. “I found out later, a lot later, that I was an…empath.” He sounded almost embarrassed by the word. And she tried to remember what she knew about empaths. Not a lot. He was continuing, and she concentrated on his words. This was far more than she had ever thought she would get out of him.
“I went through a lot of therapy as a teenager,” he said. “They were trying their best to find out why I couldn’t fit in. One particular therapist had worked with empaths before. She recognized me right away, from the information in my files, but also from my eyes. Apparently, a high proportion of people with empathic abilities have pale purple eyes. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I was telling you about when I gave up on dreaming.”
She snuggled closer, resting her palm on the hard muscles of his belly. “Go on.”
“When I was six, I was adopted by a couple. They had a daughter about the same age as me. Apparently, they’d been trying for another child but had finally accepted that it wasn’t going to happen. So they would do their godly duty and adopt a little unwanted child of God. Me. They were nice enough people, took me in, tried to show no difference between me and Dora, their daughter. They were ‘good,’ and I had no problem with them. I thought maybe it was going to work. That I had a chance to be part of a real family. I relaxed.”
This wasn’t going to have a happy ending. She kept quiet, though, because she was guessing he’d never spoken of it before and that he needed to get this out.
“Mrs. Dobson had a brother. He turned up after I’d been there maybe six months. And he was not a good man. I learned later he’d been in prison, though I didn’t know then. I just got these waves of badness that rolled off him. I couldn’t be in the same room. I tried to tell my new mother. She said ‘someone like me,’ who’d spent years in an institution, should be more charitable. As though it was my fault my fucking mother had abandoned me. And the Catholic Church was no better than a prison—though she wasn’t far wrong there. Anyhow, she doted on her brother.”
He went quiet. “Go on,” she said.
“You really want to hear this crap? You wouldn’t like to see if you can get it up again instead?”
“Later. I want to know what happened.”
“Not a lot else. I started having dreams of fires. I knew they were something to do with the brother—my ‘Uncle Theo,’ as I was supposed to call him. I didn’t want to tell her. I knew it would make her mad. But I was so scared, sure something bad was going to happen. Wasn’t it my duty to try and stop that? So I told her that I thought Uncle Theo was a bad man and was going to burn the house down.”
“I gather she didn’t believe you?”
He grinned. “Hell no. She sent me to school with no breakfast and a stern admonishment not to make up stories about my elders and betters.” He stared into space for a minute then ran a hand around the back of his neck. He winced. “I remember the school bus dropping me off that afternoon. The sound of fire engines and the stench of smoke in the air. The fear. And I ran, still thinking I could do something to help. That someone would listen to me. When I got there, the house was engulfed in flames. Theo was sitting on the grass with a blanket around him. My new mother and father were sobbing on the lawn.”
He blew out his breath. “Dora was inside. They couldn’t get to her. Her mother blamed me. Somehow, I’d willed it to happen. I was the evil one. She couldn’t actually accuse me of setting the fire, I’d been at school and had plenty of witnesses, but I saw she would have liked to. She screamed at me. Called me a spawn of Satan, if I remember right. Theo was some sort of hero—he’d tried to get into the house to save her. I remember him looking at me, a smile on his face. It goes without saying that they sent me back to the orphanage. That was when I stopped dreaming about a family, fitting in, anything, really.”
Her eyes pricked, and she blinked. “So did you stay in the orphanage after that?”
“No. They decided they didn’t want me, either. Might be something to do with the fact that I told the priest that the head of the orphanage was buggering the little kids.”
“Jesus.”
“He never touched me. I think he was a little bit scared of me. As usual, with the Church, it was hushed up—anything to avoid a scandal. And I was shunted off to social services, ended up in and out of foster homes. They never worked for long. I was a fucked-up mess. One thing I learned later, though, by a strange twist, when they finally put out the fire at the Dobsons’, they found little Dora’s body was hardly damaged. She’d been raped and strangled. Theo had set the house on fire to hide what he’d done. Ended up back in prison where his sister dutifully visited him every week. Denial is a wonderful thing.”
“That’s a horrible story,” she said.
“All the real ones are.”
There was that cynicism again. He ran his hands through her hair, massaging the back of her neck. It felt so good, blurring her brain, but there was something else she wanted to know. “The empathy thing? Do you still get the feelings? Do you know if people are bad or good?” What would he see in her? Hell, what about Rico? Scary stuff.
He shook his head. “Not so much, unless I actively try, and I don’t. The therapist I met, she said she could help me control it. I didn’t want to know whether people were bad or good. I wanted to find out for myself—besides, it doesn’t mean a lot. Good people can do bad things and vice versa. She taught me how to build a wall around it, shut it inside the walls, build a big door with a big lock, and then throw away the key.”
“So it’s still there inside you?”
“I guess. But mostly it stays behind the wall.”
“So now you’re all nice and normal. No doubt you fit right in with all your nice, normal army buddies.”
He looked down at her, lips pressed together. “Truth?”
“Why not?”
“No. I’ve never felt like I fit in anywhere. I feel like there’s this great lump of difference inside me that will never belong anywhere that normal people are. And if anyone looks too closely, then they’ll recognize right away that I’m an impostor.”
“So you don’t let them look too closely.”
“No. And I’ve learned to pretend. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”
Liar.
He went silent for a moment. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“No sad stories to tell?”
“Plenty.” If he thought he had problems fitting in, he should try her life. “But we’ll leave mine for another time. Right now, I’m going to go have that shower and get some sleep.” She sat up, swung her legs out the bed, stood up, and stretched. She felt good. There wasn’t room in the bathroom for two, which was a pity. But there was something he could do while she was showering. “Why don’t you nip back to the galley and get me some more of that ice cream?”
He shook his head. “You are unbelievable,” he said, but he was already out of bed and pulling on his pants. “What flavor?”
Chapter Twenty
Logan couldn’t believe he had told her all that stuff about his childhood.
He’d never told anyone before.
But the sex had been out of this world. Hey, literally. He’d never had sex in space before. Maybe it was always that good—though somehow he doubted it would be anywhere near as good with anyone else.
He felt great and curiously optimistic. Katia was right. He’d never allowed himself to get close to anyone, because he knew they would see him as the fraud he was, a weird misfit. But Katia had appeared unfazed by his revelations.
He was eager to get back, and it wasn’t only because the ice cream was melting. Normally, at this point, he’d be working out ways he could extract himself without upsetting the woman he was with. But right now, all he wanted was to get back to Katia, crawl into bed, and watch her eat. Then curl himself around her and go to sleep. Then wake up and make love.
Maybe he could talk to Rico about getting that transfer to the Trakis Two.
Would Katia want him to, though? She didn’t seem any more into relationships than he was. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?
He wasn’t thinking permanent. Not marriage and kids or anything like that—although Katia would have cute kids. But after all, there was a seriously good chance that they weren’t going to last much longer anyway. How long until something on the Trakis One went really wrong? And while this ship seemed in better condition, could it survive alone without the back-up of the fleet?
Things to worry about tomorrow. Or the next day… Right now, he had a warm woman waiting for him.
He arrived at the door and juggled the two bowls of ice cream—he hadn’t been able to choose between cherry and chocolate—and pressed his hand to the panel. Nothing happened.
Balls. Had she locked him out?
Or was this yet another malfunction?
Some premonition of disaster churned in his gut. He did his best to ignore it. After placing the ice cream on the floor, he banged on the door. “Katia.” He couldn’t hear anything from inside. Were the rooms soundproofed? He didn’t know. He banged again. Nothing.
What the hell?
His heart was beating fast. He looked around as if he might find answers in the empty corridor.
Maybe she’d fallen asleep. But that bad feeling in his stomach was spreading. Swelling and growing and…
He punched a finger on his comm unit. He didn’t have a direct link to Rico but flicked through the possibilities. He pressed the bridge but got no answer. Then he tried the docking bay, and finally someone answered.
“What?”
Not Rico. “Is the captain there?”
“Yes.”
“Can I speak with him?”
Silence. Then a second later, Rico’s voice came over the comm. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
“I can’t get in the room. And Katia isn’t answering the door.”
“Maybe she’s had enough of you.”
“She sent me for ice cream.”
Rico was silent for a moment. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
He paced in front of the door then came back, banged on it again. Glared.
Down the corridor, a door opened, and Layla appeared. Didn’t look like she had gotten around to that shower yet. She peered at Logan, her eyes widening. “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”
“Katia. She’s not answering. I brought her some ice cream.” How pathetic was that?
“Maybe she’s asleep.”
God, he hoped so.
Rico appeared at that moment. He glanced between the two of them then shoved Logan out of the way and stepped in the ice cream. “Mierda,” he muttered, slamming his hand on the door panel. Nothing happened.
He took a step back and drew the pistol at his waist, shot at the door panel, sparks flying, but the door slid open.
Logan pushed past him. The bed was empty, so she wasn’t asleep. There was a strange smell in the air, and he coughed and choked and pulled his T-shirt up to cover his nose and mouth. Crossing to the bathroom, he pushed open the door, and she was lying naked, crumpled on the floor. For a second, fear held him immobile. He shook it off, crouched down, ran a trembling finger down her throat. Her pulse was racing. His own ratcheted up.
“Get her out of here,” Rico snapped from behind him.
Logan scooped her up in his arms, cradled her against his chest, mind blank. He spun around, almost running across the small space. Once outside the door, he laid her on the floor.
He swallowed, his throat constricted, his lungs tight. “Katia, wake up.”
“Let me see.” Rico pushed him out of the way and hunkered down, lifting her eyelids. “She’s out cold. What the hell? I’ll take her to the sick bay.” He picked her up, turned to Layla. “Go back to your room but stay awake and keep the door open.” He glanced at Logan.
“I’m coming,” he said before the other man could suggest anything different.
Rico snarled but didn’t waste any more time arguing, just turned and hurried down the corridor. Logan had to run to keep up.
Once in the medical center, Rico laid her on the gurney where Logan had sat only hours earlier. Katia appeared totally lifeless, but as he stared, he could make out the slight rise and fall of her chest. She was still alive, and there was always hope where there was life. He wasn’t a praying man, but he’d give it ago. He’d been so optimistic only minutes ago. Why hadn’t he remembered how quickly life could turn to shit? He searched his mind for anything he could do, but they had no clue what had happened. Some sort of poisoning, but how? Why?
