Safe Passage, page 17
part #1 of Black Flag Series
I held up a hand. “Thanks, doc. I’m not embarrassed. We’re not a couple. We’re just friends.”
He and Ginny exchanged glances. It was clear they didn’t believe a word of it. “Okay,” he said mildly. “My mistake.” He handed me a hypo. “This’ll help you sleep. Adjust the dial here-” He broke off to tap a tiny wheel on the side of the device. “To set the number of hours. It’s in two-hour increments. So if you want to sleep for eight hours, choose the fourth setting.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
“Of course.”
“Well, I’ll let you two get back to ‘work,’” I grinned.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ginny smirked. “We’re just friends.”
Fredricks’ hypo worked. My rest was long, deep and dreamless, and I awoke feeling refreshed. My mood was a little better too. I’d already accepted the inevitable, and for however briefly I might have entertained ridiculous hopes the day before, well, I was back to reality now.
We started the morning with a briefing in Maggie’s ready room. We went through the plan again, rehashing every step from what we’d do when we entered Deltaseal space – send the identification codes, wait for authorization to proceed – to what we’d do when we left – take out the targeting system, blast off. None of it was new. We’d been over this plan time and time again, looking for flaws, searching for points of failure, planning for the unexpected. We were as ready as we would ever be.
We were ushering out when Maggie said, “Katherine, could I have a minute?”
I glanced up. She was still seated at the head of the table, and her eyes returned to her notebook when mine reached her. “Uh…sure.”
Frank’s eye caught mine as he left, and he flashed me a reassuring smile. I didn’t feel reassured. Maggie was studying her page with an effort that did not seem natural. But her countenance was lowered. I had no idea what she was thinking.
My own heart hammered so heavily I was surprised the crew couldn’t hear it. It’s probably something about Deltaseal, my mind argued. Just business. I took a breath, trying to steady my nerves. What if it isn’t? Then, I remembered her weeks of cold shoulders. Don’t be stupid, Kay. That’s over.
When the door slid closed and the last crewmember left, she glanced up. “Take a seat, Kay. Please.”
I moved to a chair several spots down from her. Her brow creased, but then she got up, leaving those notes she’d been so intent on, and sat beside me.
“Thank you,” she said, studying her hands, “for staying.”
“You’re the captain.”
She glanced up at that, meeting my gaze. “I…I didn’t ask you to stay as the captain, Kay.”
There it was again, that thunder in my ears, in my chest. “Oh.”
“I…I talked to Frank.”
“I know.”
“Oh.” She seemed nonplussed. “Then…then you know what an imbecile I am.”
“Maggie,” I said, “tell me what’s going on. Please. I…I can’t keep guessing.”
“I’m apologizing, Kay.”
“Oh. Okay.” I sucked in a breath of air to steady my nerves. It was less than I’d hoped for, much less. But at least I knew where I stood. “Okay. Apology accepted.”
I moved to get up, but she stretched out a hand to mine. “Please. Don’t go.”
My heart fluttered in my chest again at her touch. “What do you want from me, Mags?”
“Diane? The woman at the bar? I…I didn’t go home with her, Kay.”
I blinked. “The blonde?” I didn’t know her name.
She nodded, admitting, “I was going to. I thought that would help. But when you left, I…” She shook her head. “It wasn’t her I wanted, Kay. It was you.”
I was stunned. “God, Maggie. What are you doing? I’ve gotten nothing but three weeks of cold shoulders from you, and now – the day we’re going to rob this damned bank – you tell me this?”
She flushed, her face turning as red as her hair. She looked miserable, and I almost regretted my angry words. “I know. I’m sorry. I just…I thought you and Frank were…well, you know.”
I frowned at her, less sorry for what I’d said. “And what if we had been? You dumped me, Magdalene. You dumped me, and were all over some rando in a bar. Why the hell shouldn’t I do the same?”
There was a mist in her eyes as she nodded. “I know, Katherine. You’re right. I just…” She swallowed and took in a great breath of air. “When Irene dumped me, it was for a guy. A guy she’d known for years, a ‘friend.’ But they’d…they’d been fucking all along. When I saw you coming out of his room? You guys were such good friends, and I knew he liked you. I…well, I thought it was Irene all over again. I thought you’d lied to me, when you said you were nothing more.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Kay. I know I was wrong. And I know my timing’s shit. I just…I wanted you to know.”
“Why? Dammit, Maggie, why?” This was more openness than I’d seen from her in all the time we spent together as friends, and in our brief time as girlfriends.
“Because…because I still care about you, Katherine. And I know maybe I blew my chance. I know I don’t deserve another. But I don’t want to go out there today knowing that you hate me.”
“I could never hate you, Magdalene.”
“Could you ever forgive me?”
I studied her, the ruts under her beautiful green eyes, the flush of color in her pale cheeks. Forgive her? I guess I’d already done that, hadn’t I? My heart was full of nothing but warmth and concern. “You know I will. But I can’t keep going back and forth.” I took her hand, and looked her straight in the eye. “You need to make up your mind, one way or another, Magdalene Landon. Because if you do this again, I don’t care how much it breaks my heart, there will be no more second chances.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
She’d cried in my arms after that, and I felt the last vestiges of my anger wash away with her tears. I’d never seen Maggie so raw, so vulnerable, so trusting before. I knew it cost her in pride.
When her tears dried, she told me of her conversation with Frank. “He told me I would have to find a new helmsman,” she laughed, “if I didn’t get over myself.”
“He said that?” Frank had told me bits and pieces of what had been exchanged, but not this.
She nodded. “Yes.” She ran a hand down my cheek. “He said he couldn’t stand to see me breaking your heart.”
I felt my cheeks flush. I could only guess how much such a speech must have cost the Kudarian, when his own feelings were so entwined in the mix.
“He called me a coward.” My eyes widened, but she smiled. “And if it had been another situation, I would have put him in medbay for it. But he was right, Katherine.” She moved her lips to mine, kissing gently. “I have been a coward. I’ve been so terrified of repeating the mistakes of the past that I couldn’t see the blunders I was making in the present. But no more.”
“Tell me about Irene,” I said.
There was confusion in her features, but then she nodded. “Alright. What do you want to know?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. How you met. What made you fall for her.”
“We met on a job, working a freighter. The Outlander. I was crazy about her from the first time we met. She was beautiful and confident and smart. She had a kind of aura about her, that drew you in. It took me almost a whole run to work up the courage to ask her out, though.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “We dated for three months. I was in love.” She smiled. “She was not. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. I still don’t know why. It lasted for just over two months.” She shrugged. “And I woke up one morning to find her stuff gone, and a note. It wasn’t what she wanted. She was sorry. So on and so forth.
“And I found out, after we were divorced, that she and Adam, one of our mutual friends, had been hooking up even while we were dating.” She shook her head again. “And I hadn’t had a clue.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.” She held my gaze. “But it’s no excuse for what I did to you, either.”
I leaned in and kissed her. “I’ll never hurt you, Mags.”
“I’ve already hurt you, Kay,” she said, and her tone was sad. “But I’m done being a coward. I want you. I want to make this work.”
“Does that mean you don’t want me off the Black Flag when the mission’s over?”
“You know I don’t.” Her eyes were tender. “Will you stay, Katherine?”
“You know I will, Magdalene.”
Our reconciliation made, we returned to the bridge. She wrapped an arm around me as we walked, and made no effort to hide it when stepped on deck.
Frank first shot us a furtive glance as we entered, as if to ascertain what had transpired, and then grinned. He seemed almost relieved. I was reminded again what a damned good friend he was.
Then, though, he turned to Maggie, and was all business. “Captain, we’re about three hours out of Deltaseal airspace.”
“Copy that, Frank.” She pressed a button on her panel for the comm. “How’s it going, Kereli?”
“It’s ‘going,’ Captain. Are you ready?”
“Me?”
A sigh came over the comm. “We discussed this already, Magdalene.”
“Alright, alright,” she grimaced. “I’ll get changed too.”
“Good.”
“What’s that about?” I asked after she disconnected.
“Kereli says I need to ‘look the part.’”
“What does that mean?”
“Apparently,” she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste, “no self-respecting Esselian would be seen with me. Not without a makeover.”
I snorted. “They’d be so lucky.”
She smiled at me, then punched the comm again. “Corano?”
“Here.”
“You ready?”
“Almost, Captain.”
“Okay. Meet on the bridge when you are.”
“Copy that.”
“Well,” she sighed, standing, “I suppose I better get this over with. Time to go put on a dress.”
“Be brave, Captain,” Frank smirked. “You’ll pull through.”
“I advise you to hold your tongue, Frank. Or we’ll be swapping roles.”
He laughed. “I’m game. As long as you got a dress in my size.”
“I said roles, Frank. Not clothes.”
“Come on, where’s the fun in that?”
She shook her head but paused by me. She brushed my hand with her fingers and lowered her voice. “You want to come with me? Help me find something?”
I felt my heart tremble a little. “You sure that’s a good idea?”
“Probably not,” she grinned. “Do it anyway?”
I should have said no. My head was already reeling, and I was having a hell of a time concentrating on the mission. But, of course, I said, “Alright.”
“Good.”
“Not to ruin anyone’s plans…but we are on a schedule,” Frank reminded us.
I flushed, and Maggie rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said to me. “You can help me with my hair.”
She slipped her hand into mine, and we walked back to her room. “So how dressed up do you have to be?” I asked. She and Corano were playing the role of Kereli’s mates. Esselians didn’t have a concept of marriage, exactly. Each male and female was head of their own family unit, and could be a member of as many units as they liked. Occasionally, partners would combine units – that is, all the partners in both units would be bound to all the partners in the other. But it was far from uncommon for mates to have mates of their own, who in turn would have more mates of their own.
The living dynamics of this sounded complex enough to my human ears. Adding to the equation that, while there was theoretically no upward limit on the number of mates an individual could accrue, Esselian society had a very fixed hostility to separations, and it all seemed a bit too much trouble to be worth it. Hell, I could barely keep up with one relationship.
Maggie, meanwhile, was nodding. “Apparently, she’s expecting me to be rather done up. Esselians are very particular about the presentation of their mates. It is a reflection on them, and the other party’s perception of their relationship.”
“Ugh.” I shivered. “That sounds like it would get almost competitive.”
“Yes. Kereli says it sometimes does, between two partners and between tertiary partners.”
“Well,” I needled her, “that’s what you get for cheating on me with an Esselian matron.”
She laughed. “That is a fine way to start a relationship, isn’t it?”
“Not even an hour in, and I find you with another woman.” I shook my head. “What am I going to do with you, Magdalene?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Maggie pulled a dress out of her closet. “Ginny lent me this.”
I laughed. “Don’t you have any dresses of your own?”
“Just a few sundresses. Alas, not what this mission calls for. What do you think? Is this okay?”
She held Ginny’s dress up in front of her. It was a slim, belted black pencil dress, somewhere in that perfect sweet spot between sultry and all-business. I nodded. “I think Kereli’s about to be the luckiest damned Esselian alive.”
She rolled her eyes but smiled. “Alright, I’ll get it on.”
I turned to give her privacy, feeling terribly out of place all of a sudden. I heard her clothes hit the floor, piece by piece.
“You can look, Kay,” she said, and I started at the sound of her voice. She was near me, very near.
“What?” I cast my eyes in her direction, and there she was, a few steps away. I glanced aside as quickly, but not before I saw enough to make me flush. She was wearing nothing but a bra and panties, and she looked better than I’d imagined.
“What’s wrong?”
“Wrong? God, Mags, I’m supposed to be concentrating on this damned mission. Not…not you.”
“We’ve still got time,” she said. I felt her hand on my chin, turning my face to hers. “Plenty of time.”
I gulped and met her eyes. They were smoldering with desire. “Oh God, Maggie, what are you doing?”
She touched her lips to mine, gently at first, then with more urgency. “Anything you want, Katherine. Anything at all.”
My last resistance faded. The mission was a million lightyears from my mind. All I knew, in the moment, was that I wanted her, needed her, more than I’d ever wanted anyone. I kissed her in return, reaching for her bra clasps. She pulled my jacket off, and then my shirt.
Piece by piece, we unwrapped each other. I trembled as the air hit my naked body. I felt a bit ridiculous to be standing next to her. She was firm and flat where she should be, and full and round in all the right places too. I was less toned, skinnier and flabbier.
She didn’t seem to mind. She wrapped me in her arms and guided me back to the bed, kissing me as we went.
She was strong; very strong. And feeling the muscles in her back tense, feeling the strength of her arms as she lifted me onto that bed, made we weak with desire. “Oh Maggie,” I said.
She hovered above me, drawing a hand over my stomach. My body screamed at her touch. “Well, Katherine?” She pecked at my lips playfully, teasingly. “What do you want?”
I reached up, wrapping an arm around her and drawing her to me. “Goddammit, Mags, what I’ve wanted all this time: you.”
She didn’t tease me after that. My body didn’t need teasing. Neither did hers. We spent a long while exploring and re-exploring our need for one another, and satisfying it.
I was less certain in my lovemaking than she, but she guided me to where she needed me to be. There was something almost as satisfying in watching her pleasure, in knowing that I could bring her to such moments of ecstasy, as in my own.
Almost, but not quite. Maggie found her way around my body quickly, and once acquainted – well, it was a hell of an acquaintance.
Still, eventually our time together ran out. “I need to get going, Kay.”
“I know. I wish we had a week.”
She grinned, drawing her fingers over my stomach so that my skin danced under her touch. “Just a week?”
I kissed her. “It’s a good start, anyway.”
She got out of bed, and so did I. One by one, the garments we’d discarded were retrieved and put back in place.
“Do me up?” she asked, once she’d slipped the pencil dress on.
She pulled her hair out of the way, and I obliged, kissing the back of her neck as I closed the zipper. The fabric ensconced her as it closed, conforming to her curves and dips. “God you’re gorgeous, Mags.”
She turned around, wrapping her arms around me, the greens of her eyes sparkling as the hair fell back around her shoulders. “I’m not sure what you think all this flattery’s going to be able to get you,” she murmured, “that I haven’t already given you.”
I grinned, running my hands down the length of her back and derriere. “More of the same sounds good to me.”
Maggie smiled too, putting a kiss on my lips. “Let’s go rob this place, Kay. So I can have you to myself again.”
The crew was assembled when we reached the bridge. Frank rolled his eyes at both of us. “Oh, look at that. They are alive.”
Kereli threw a critical glance over Maggie, then nodded. “You’ll do.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. Mags was stunning in the figure-hugging dress and knee-high boots. Her hair was pinned back in a bun, with tendrils of red spilling out here and there. She damned near took my breath away.
“Our standards would be lower,” the Esselian was continuing, “for a human anyway.”
“Thanks, Kereli,” Maggie laughed. “You look good too.”
She was dressed in a more traditional ensemble. She wore a loose dress of embroidered green and blue silks, tied at the waist with a black sash, and a headdress replete with sparkling gems of an alien composition. She looked every bit a wealthy Esselian matron, the powerful head of her family unit. From the disdainful cast of her eyes to the upturned tilt of her nose, she lived and breathed her role. Gia Areli, a woman of great wealth and exotic tastes, was born.
