Armageddon (16 page)

* * * *

For the first time that he could remember, Dax gave up the relaxation of slumber with reluctance, drifting lazily in and out of awareness for some time before he finally recalled that he had duties to perform and opened his eyes.

Lena lay curled up against him, her cheek and one arm resting on his chest. After staring at her sleeping face blearily for several moments, he dropped his head on the pillow once more, closing his eyes against the memories flooding into his mind. They teased him anyway, refusing to be banished. The urge to roll her onto her back and wake her to his possession was so strong his gut tightened almost nauseatingly.

As badly as he wanted to, he couldn’t afford to indulge himself anymore than he already had.

He shouldn’t have touched her at all. It had been hard enough trying to keep his hands to himself before, when he’d only spent three quarters of his time brooding about fucking her six ways from Sunday. Knowing what it felt like sure as hell wasn’t going to make it any easier on him.

He might have asked himself what he’d been thinking except that he knew the answer. He hadn’t been thinking.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he rubbed the bristle on his chin, realizing he must have slept a hell of a long time to produce that much beard and finally eased out from under Lena and got up.

He’d abandoned his post in the middle of his shift and he hadn’t gone back.

There was no way in hell that that was going to slip by unnoticed, especially since he’d left the bridge in a thundering rage and everyone knew what his destination was. “Shit!”

he growled, heading for the facilities.

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She had rolled onto her back when he came out again. The sheet was tangled across her hips, but he glimpsed a tuft of the dark, curling thatch of her mound. He stared at it for several moments, feeling his mouth go dry, before his gaze seemed to travel up her body of its own accord, skimming her flat belly and rounded breasts and settling finally on her face. She looked almost painfully young in her sleep, fragile, innocent, and at the same time pure temptress.

If Morris had still been alive, he would’ve cut his heart out for touching Lena.

No doubt Nigel would be willing to take Morris’ place and do the honors.

Disgusted with himself, he moved to the lav and shaved quickly, then pulled a fresh uniform from his locker and dragged it on. She stirred as he shoved his feet into his boots and he froze, half hoping she would wake up and half dreading that she would.

She didn’t, merely rolled onto her belly, and he relaxed again.

Moving to the door, he paused, staring at her for several moments and finally left, mentally kicking himself all the way to the bridge.

Rodriguez made the mistake of grinning at him when he flung himself down in his chair. “You got something on your mind, Rodriguez?” he snarled.

Rodriguez’s eyes widened. “No, Sir!”

“What’s our status?”

“Twenty four hours. The communications officer tried to hail base, but there was no response.”

Dax frowned, feeling his gut tighten uncomfortably. “They must have a black out. Give it six and hail them again. Any sign of stalkers?”

“That’s a negative, Captain.”

Nodding, Dax retreated into his own thoughts. It wasn’t really that unusual for base to go silent. In fact, they didn’t respond almost as often as they did. The idea was
not
to be predictable, because there was always a chance the enemy might get hold of the frequency and try to hail them so that they could triangulate the beacon.

His gut was telling him it was a bad sign though. Unfortunately, not only was there not a damned thing he could do about it, right or wrong, but he wasn’t even sure he could trust his instincts at the moment.

They sure as hell hadn’t kicked in when he needed them or he would’ve left the fucking cabin before he succumbed to idiocy.

Sighing heavily, he propped his elbow on the armrest and dropped his chin onto his balled fist, staring balefully at the blackness of the viewing screen. He should have worked off his frustrations on one of the female crew members, he thought irritably.

There were at least two that wouldn’t have minded scratching his itch, and if he’d taken care of the problem, it wouldn’t have gotten to be a huge problem.

He might have been able to exert a little more control.

Doubtful, he decided.

It she’d just kept running instead of deciding to stop they would’ve both been better off.

Now he had a hell of a fucking mess on his hands.

He had no business with Lena, at all, for any reason. She didn’t belong in his world, couldn’t have fit in if she’d tried, and it wasn’t hard to see she didn’t want to try.

And he sure as hell didn’t fit into her world.

Not that he thought there was any likelihood that she would consider such a thing

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even if he would.

She was probably in the shower now scrubbing herself raw and trying to erase him from her body and mind.

He didn’t know why she’d let him--probably that soft heart of hers--but she was bound to regret it as soon as she’d had time to think it over.

Twenty four hours and she’d be off his hands.

Twenty four hours and he’d probably never set eyes on her again, not in this life time anyway because, sure as hell, the minute her feet touched down she was going to be off like a cat shot in the ass.

That would be a relief. A real fucking relief. It was just a god damned shame he hadn’t had enough brains to keep his dick in his pants in the meantime, because it was going to be hell trying to put her out of his mind.

* * * *

The bed was cold when Lena finally cracked a wary eye and glanced around the room. Without a great deal of surprise, she saw that Dax was gone. Stretching, she lay frowning at the ceiling for a while, wondering what had possessed her to provoke Dax when she’d seen he was struggling against his needs. She shouldn’t have pushed it. She should have left well enough alone. He didn’t
need
her. He didn’t need anyone and it had been stupid and sappy of her to think that it was her he needed when all he’d really needed was to get laid.

She didn’t blame him for something that had been her own decision, regardless of what he’d seemed to think at the time, and she certainly didn’t hate him. It had been every bit as wonderful as she’d known it would be and she was going to try to look upon the experience in a positive light.

She’d wanted him. He’d wanted her. They’d had wild, fabulous sex, and that was that.

It wasn’t going to develop into something more meaningful, not for him anyway.

She knew that. She’d known that all along, and she’d also known that she was too susceptible to becoming emotionally entangled with him to risk it without also risking terrible emotional pain. If she suffered the consequences she had no one to blame but herself, but she thought she was going to be all right. They couldn’t be very far from home, now, she knew. How deeply could she fall in so short a space of time?

* * * *

Lena discovered for the first time since she’d boarded the ship that she was bored.

That was her first indication that her outlook had changed radically. The second was when she realized she kept checking the time and wondering when Dax would go to the mess hall.

She hadn’t willingly left the dubious security she’d felt being in Dax’s cabin since she’d been with the rebels. It disturbed her to realize that she wanted to leave it because she wanted to be with Dax and she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to go up to the bridge.

She didn’t find it particularly comforting to realize that nothing had changed, really, except that Dax had said he knew her. One vote of confidence out of an entire crew, especially coming from a man like Dax, shouldn’t have been enough to give her the sense of security she felt now. Of course, he was the captain, and she knew his crew would obey him, but she also thought she knew Dax pretty well. If it served his purposes, he would lie, and do it very well.

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He might only have told her he believed her and knew she was who she claimed to be because it had suited him to do so at the time, maybe for no other reason than to knock a hole in her defenses so that he could get a piece of ass.

She didn’t think that was the reason. She thought he’d told her the truth, but she didn’t know. It could just as easily be another mind fuck to see how she would react, because she’d figured out that that was what that conversation with Mel had been about.

She knew why they’d done it. She knew Mel had probably only been following orders from Dax, but she hadn’t forgiven either one of them for scaring her out of her wits.

She blamed Mel most, even though she knew it was unreasonable and that she should’ve been blaming Dax.

And that worried her. Wanting to be with him plus wanting to forgive him for anything and everything equaled stupid female falls for totally inappropriate male, because he was dark, dangerous, wounded, sexy as hell, and she’d been itching to mount his rod since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

Morris would have had a brain seizure if he’d ever heard anything like that come out of her mouth, let alone discovered she thought that way. He certainly would have had a stroke if he’d had any clue that she’d thrown ‘lady’ Lena to the wind the moment she’d gotten the chance to get into Dax’s bed.

And Dax was a cauc. Morris had expected her to respect her heritage and find some nice, wholesome, well educated neg who was a gentleman to settle with and make babies.

If Dax had been a neg, Morris would’ve been furious about her taking up with him, because he wasn’t a gentleman, he was probably self-educated at best, and he was never going to hold an upper class job or live in an upper class neighborhood.

Dax wasn’t going to be hanging around long enough to produce any breeds, though, and Morris wouldn’t be around to see it. He wasn’t going to be around to enjoy any of the grandchildren he’d always talked about, but she didn’t doubt for one moment that Morris had loved her without reservation. He might have been disappointed in her if she’d chosen to marry outside her race and produce breeds, or even if she’d decided she was in love with a man that wasn’t upper class, but he would still have loved her and them.

As long as it wasn’t Dax.

She had known Morris well enough to know that he must have loved his son deeply and been proud of him, but he’d never spoken about Dax to either her or Nigel, and he wouldn’t allow Dax anywhere around them. That couldn’t have been because he was worried about anything happening between her and Dax because she wasn’t old enough for that sort of problem to cross his mind. The only reason that she could think of was because he’d made up his mind that he was going to keep her and Nigel away from the sordid side of life that was the only thing Dax knew.

Except for worrying about pleasing or displeasing Morris, on a personal level, she didn’t care. She never had cared in spite of the fact that Morris had tried his best to instill a class snobbery upon her and Nigel, sent them to the best schools, made sure they got the education they needed to find positions that would place them in the upper class economy and social hierarchy.

And she hadn’t cared because Morris, bless him, didn’t fit into that society. She

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supposed he’d never figured that out, never realized that if he’d succeeded she would have been ashamed of him and her beginnings.

She’d assumed a façade that would please Morris She had walked, talked and behaved like a lady because he was determined she was going to be one, but, deep down, she was still Morris’ baby girl. She was shy, but she wasn’t particularly squeamish about the more sordid side of life because as carefully as Morris had tried to shield her, there probably hadn’t been a whole lot that she’d missed about the world she’d grown up in.

Drugs or no drugs, if she’d been a ‘real’ lady, she should have been revolted about the incident in the jail cell--maybe not at the time because she hadn’t had her wits about her, but certainly afterward. She’d had plenty of time since to piece it all together and feel shame if she was going to feel any, or horror. If she hadn’t been drugged, she probably would have been terrified at the violence. She knew she would’ve been humiliated past bearing to be mounted in full view of so many men, as if she was no more than an animal, but she hadn’t really been aware of that at the time and she supposed that was why it still didn’t particularly bother her.

Not that she supposed it really mattered how she felt about it or that Morris wouldn’t have liked it if he’d discovered she was mooning over Dax.

And it didn’t really matter how she felt about it, because she knew Dax lived by the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, not the laws of societal man. He wasn’t going to feel any sort of obligation to make things right because he’d taken what he wanted--which she didn’t mind because she would’ve hated that. But sex probably didn’t mean any more to him that relieving bodily need and he also wasn’t very likely to think he just couldn’t live without her only because it had been good.

For that matter, she didn’t know if it had been particularly good for him. She’d been too busy enjoying it herself to think much about pleasing him.

That anxiety occupied her mind for a while, but she discovered trying to recall wasn’t very helpful. Details were hazy and mostly centered on how she’d felt about everything.

Besides, dwelling on it very quickly had her nearly as on edge and needy as she had been
before
she’d been thoroughly pleasured by the man.

Deciding when she saw that it was meal time that it would be better to brave meeting up with Dax in public view than to stay in his cabin and dwell on her mostly unpleasant thoughts, Lena left the cabin and went to the mess hall. There were a number of people gathered there, some already settled, others still selecting their food, but she didn’t see Dax among them. Disappointed, and finding that she wasn’t nearly as comfortable about joining the crew as she’d thought she would be, she was tempted to turn around and leave again. Unfortunately, she knew she’d been noticed and she didn’t want them to think that she’d only come to look for Dax.

Her paranoia had kicked in, and she was instantly certain that they’d know that food was the last thing on her mind.

They’d probably spend the rest of the day ribbing Dax about his conquest with the mousy wall flower.

Stiffening her spine, she entered the mess hall after only a brief and, she hoped, largely unnoticed check at the door. She wasn’t certain of where to sit once she’d filled the tray, but finally she spied the tino man she and Dax had sat with before.

He didn’t flag her over, but there were two empty seats at the long table and she

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decided to take the corner seat that she’d taken before.

She had only managed to swallow a couple of bites of food when a sort of tension seemed to ripple through the room. Glancing up, she saw that Dax had just stepped through the doorway. Their gazes collided. Without thought, she smiled at him tentatively. He stopped as if he’d hit a brick wall. For several panicked moments Lena thought he was going to reverse engines and leave again.

Her cheeks flamed.

Hastily, she averted her gaze to her tray, trying not to look as horrendously uncomfortable as she felt. There was no way to look unconcerned. She knew that, and she could just imagine what sort of thoughts were running through the minds of everyone that had noticed that byplay.

She was so focused on trying to pretend to be unaware of Dax that she jerked all over when his tray landed on the table next to her, spilling the water she’d just picked up to drink all down the front of her suit.

Setting the glass down again quickly, she grabbed her napkin and dabbed at the water before it could soak through. When she looked up from drying the puddle that had formed at her crotch to see if Dax had noticed, she looked him right in the eye … sort of.

His gaze was actually on the dark spot on her crotch.

As if he wasn’t even aware that he’d been sitting perfectly still, staring at her crotch for long enough that everyone sitting at the table had noticed, he finally glanced at his tray and picked up his fork.

“Hungry today, eh, Captain?”

The tino’s teasing grin flat lined when Dax looked up and glared at him.

The remark drew Lena’s attention to his tray, though, and her eyes widened.

Dax slid a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. Dark color started at his neck and moved slowly upward until it disappeared beneath his hair line.

The blush caught Lena completely by surprise, shattering her defenses. When he flicked a gaze at her, she smiled at him tentatively as she had before.

He scowled, rubbing his chest absently as he looked away again.

Rebuffed, again, Lena struggled to focus on finishing her meal so that she could leave without giving the appearance of flight. It might have been sawdust for all she noticed anything about the flavor.

There was nothing quite like being relieved of all doubts, she thought morosely, wondering why she’d allowed herself even a tiny sliver of hope that something had changed in their relationship. She should have known by the way he’d sneaked out and left her asleep that he was trying to avoid any sort of confrontation.

It was a good thing she’d gone though, she decided after a few moments, forced him to publicly snub her, because now she knew beyond any doubt where she stood with him and she could put the whole thing behind her as experience.

“I guess you didn’t manage to hail base camp?” the tino asked after several moments.

Dax glanced at him. “Still nothing. You can give it another couple of hours and try again. Next time, though, instead of trying a hail, just send the ‘package retrieved’

code. If they’re listening, but can’t broadcast, they’ll know it’s us and that the mission was a success.”

It didn’t take Lena more than a split second to figure out that cryptic remark. She

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was a package, Lena thought indignantly?

Finishing her meal, she got up abruptly and left the table, disposing of her tray, utensils, and her glass.

She was so hurt and angry that she didn’t realize the tread she was vaguely aware of behind her was Dax until she’d stepped into the cabin.

The door slid half closed and then popped open again, jerking her out of her abstraction. Dax caught her even as she whirled to face him.

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