Damage Control (Valiant Knox) (15 page)

Pleasure rippled through her, and it was all she could do not to lose herself to a hard and fast climax. Leigh set his hands on her upper thighs, just below her hips and gave her the pace, taking control of the moment, despite the fact that she was on top of him.

She let him build a steady rhythm, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding on for dear life as the momentum built inside of her. He tilted her face and caught her mouth in an impassioned kiss, the sheer emotional depth behind it spearing straight into her soul. The final onslaught ripped her over the edge, and she cried out against his mouth.

Leigh clamped her harder to him, and she experienced the shuddering release overtaking him in every place their bodies touched, even as she felt the hot spurt of him coming deep inside her. She’d had sex before, but none of those encounters had been anywhere near as intimate as this single moment, where she realized that
this
was what people meant when they talked about making love.

She sighed as he loosened his hold on her a little, breaking the kiss, but resting his forehead against hers. For a long moment, they simply breathed together, and with every pound of her heart, a contentment the likes of which Mia had never experienced before spread through her, like the rosy glow of summer sunset.

Too soon, reality began creeping back in, along with the slight chill of the air against her damp skin. But she couldn’t let him go, not yet. She sank against him, her limbs shivery and limp. Leigh altered his hold on her until they were hugging, with her cheek against his chest and his arms wrapped securely around her.

Okay, so she’d get up in a few minutes, once she was sure her legs would cooperate. And if she slipped into a sated doze, then he’d surely wake her up in a little while.

She tightened her embrace and let her thoughts fall into comfortable silence.

T
he pins and needles in his hand were starting to get critical, but Leigh didn’t want to move, enjoying the slight, sweet-scented weight of the woman on top of him.

Mia
.

His heart skipped a rushed beat, and he lifted his free hand to run a light stroke over her mussed golden hair. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this exact depth of peace.

It was a far cry from the head-aching stress he’d been walking around with all week. Since the incident in the transit yesterday, he’d had a sense of things being incomplete. Like there was something he needed to do, he just couldn’t work out what it was. He’d put it down to the lingering adrenaline in his system and the stress of knowing there was a traitor hiding in plain sight.

When he’d come up to the alpha level launch deck, he hadn’t been looking for Mia. He’d had no clue she was up here. He’d been planning to do some maintenance on his jet, get his hands dirty and shut his mind down with a menial task, something that had worked well for him in the past. Instead, he’d found temptation sitting inside his jet, and all the reasons for resisting his attraction to her had simply fallen away, leaving him with the certainty that in that moment, Mia had been the only thing he needed.

Now, he felt like the pressure had lifted and he could breathe again, like when the cool fresh air had flooded into the transit car yesterday. The relief inundating his system at finally giving into his need for Mia had been much the same.

With a slight shift and a reach forward, he tapped the screen of the jet and glanced at the clock display in the corner. Oh one hundred.

Damn it, there was a night patrol due to come through at oh one thirty. They probably didn’t have much time—sometimes the night patrol ran late, but occasionally they ran early. The last thing he needed was to be found half naked in a fighter jet with one of his recruits even more naked and perched on top of him. Yeah, his career would never come back from that.

He’d have to wake her up and get them out of here, but the last thing he wanted to do was go back to an empty bed alone. For half a second, the totally insane thought of taking Mia back to his apartment crossed his mind. Except there was no way of getting her there without someone seeing them, even at this time of night. They’d get caught, and then he’d be hearing from Commander Yang later today. And then probably be looking for another posting. However, while he had Mia in his arms like this, he couldn’t dredge up as much concern for the prospect as he should.

“Mia.” He whispered her name against her ear, smoothing a tangle of hair from the side of her face. “Wake up, sweetheart. We can’t stay here any longer.”

She murmured, but simply snuggled deeper into his hold, her face in the crook of his neck, plump lips brushing his collarbone.

Treacherous pleasure trickled beneath his skin, seeping downward and pooling in his groin.

“Mia.” He stroked her back and told himself he was trying to wake her up…and not thinking about starting all over again.

Okay, he totally did want to start up all over again, despite the fact that they could get busted at any second. The only thing worse than being caught naked with one of his recruits? Being caught naked
and
in the middle of making love to one of his recruits.

“What time is it?” Mia grumbled, before yawning.

“Oh one hundred.”

She sat back, gaze all sleepy and grouchy as she looked at him. “Couldn’t you just let me sleep for another half hour?”

He grinned at her as she pushed her hair back and fumbled for the elastic, which had slipped free to tangle in the ends of her silky strands.

“Sure, if you wanted to be found sleeping naked on top of your commanding officer by the night patrol.”

“That would make us both bigger idiots than we already are.” She frowned and caught her hair up, the movement doing interesting things to her beautiful breasts. He had no idea when or if he’d ever get the chance to be with her like this again. That, of course, was the only reason he sat forward and kissed a line across the top of her chest, then spanned his hands between her shoulder blades and pressed her closer.

“Leigh.” She sighed, her fingers sliding into his hair, sending a shudder down his spine.

He caught a nipple between his lips, and knew he was lost. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d just been thinking how catastrophic it would be if they got caught, he wouldn’t be leaving the cozy confines of this jet until he’d stolen one last moment of pleasure with his Mia.

His Mia
. No one else’s.
Just mine
. After the attack a few days ago and then finally giving in to his desires tonight, that one notion had become achingly clear. He had no clue how this would all end—actually he did: in disaster—but no matter what happened, he would protect her. And maybe, just maybe, he could find a way to keep seeing her.

“We can’t; we’ve already risked too much.” Mia rocked against him, her body telling him what she wanted, despite her words to the contrary. “We should get out of here while we still can.”

“I can’t let you leave. Not yet. Not until—” He caught her mouth, plunging recklessly into a consuming kiss that stole the very breath from his lungs.

Mia kissed him back, desperation edging into the frenetic movements between them. Leigh tilted his hips forward, urging her up and then bringing her back down. He groaned as she enveloped him to the hilt, and then started to ride him with an unbearable cadence.

Last time, he’d taken control of the moment, but now, he couldn’t have been more content to give her free rein. He took his time to touch and memorize every dip, plane, and curve of her luscious body. But the suspended stretch of time between beginning and end couldn’t last.

She shortened her tempo and the ecstasy burning through him intensified. As she moaned, her body tightening up all over, he had no hope of drawing things out any longer. Even while he let go, he felt Mia shatter around him, making it all that much better.

“Oh God.” Mia sank against him again, lowering her forehead to rest on his shoulder. “We shouldn’t have done that again. Or at all.”

A prickle of disquiet pulsed through him, but he shoved the unpleasant sensation away and cupped her face, urging her to look at him.

“Mia, I know this was unexpected and beyond complicated given our situation, but I have no regrets.” He stared into her soulful, velvet eyes and swallowed down the other words crowding his throat, words about feeling and emotions. He’d never been very good at expressing those kinds of sentiments. And when things were so new, uncertain, and definitely forbidden, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything that might get her hopes up.

Mia stroked a hand down the side of his face. “No regrets.”

He nodded and leaned up to kiss her briefly, sweetly, and nowhere near as deeply as he wished he could. Not if they wanted to get dressed and out of this jet before the night patrol came by. He broke the kiss, but held her for a moment longer and finally let her go.

Mia slid back, groping for her bra that was hanging half over the open edge of the cockpit. He took a moment to refasten his pants, then helped her retrieve the rest of her clothes and get dressed.

“You leave first,” he murmured, once she was decent again. With her gaze all bedroom eyes, her hair in a sexy tousle, and clothes irreparably rumpled, anyone who saw her between here and her bunk wouldn’t need half a guess at what she’d been up to. With any luck, no one would see her, and then there wouldn’t be any speculation as to whom she’d been with.

“I’ll see you at oh six hundred. Get back to your bunk and snooze for a few hours.” He helped her up, so she was steady.

“If I sleep in and miss the start of the lesson, you better not put me on laundry duty again because it’s half your fault,” she grumbled as she climbed over the side of the jet.

“Hey, I was just going to do some routine maintenance on my jet, you’re the one who came up here to lie in wait for me. And I won’t put you on laundry duty, I’ll put you on CAFF duty, and you can’t begin to imagine how torturous that is.”

Guilt slipped beneath the gratification he was rocking. He’d keep an extra eye out for her today and make sure her exhaustion didn’t cause her to mess up. If that meant he was playing favorites, then screw it. He owed her for all the extra work she’d done, if nothing else.

She paused on the outer side of the jet and sent him a sweet smile, one that speared right through the middle of his heart. “Bye, Leigh.”

Before he could catch his breath long enough to reply, she’d slipped out of sight.

He blew out a long breath and dragged a hand down his face. For better or worse, he’d just taken his whole life and tossed it out the hatch, exposing it to the destructive vacuum of space. But never mind that, right now he had to find his shirt and get out of here before the night patrol came along and wondered why the CAFF was sitting half dressed in his fighter jet.

Chapter Fifteen

L
eigh paused at the threshold of the ready room as his comm beeped. His heart skipped a beat as audio identified the caller as Commander Yang. For half a second, a sense of doom rushed through him, thinking that somehow, someone had found out about Mia and him, leaving him wondering where the hell he was going to end up posted once Yang finished raking him over the coals. But instead of imagining the worst, he took the message ordering him up to the command center.

Ah, hell
. As he turned on his heel, he sent a message to Bren, asking her to take over the morning session with the recruits. Of course, Bren might be taking over every class for the rest of the training program while he settled into his new role as grunge monkey in the bowels of the
Knox
.

By the time he’d arrived outside the commander’s wardroom, he’d worked up a damned decent cold sweat beneath his uniform. Getting caught seducing one of his recruits would be a humiliatingly inglorious end to what had been a pretty kick-ass career he’d made for himself in the UEF. But he’d known the risks, and he’d gone ahead with it anyway.

The commander’s assistant, Command Officer Olivia McAllister—a datapad-wielding sentinel outside Yang’s office, who also happened to be Colonel Cameron McAllister’s sister, motioned him straight through the open door of the wardroom. With a short breath, he clasped his hands behind his back and straightened his spine as he stepped into the room. If he was about to get taken to task over his relationship with Mia, then he sure as hell was going to own it.

Except Commander Yang wasn’t alone. Stanton was already seated in front of Yang’s desk.

“Sir.” Leigh stopped and saluted as the door whooshed shut behind him.

“Alpha.” Yang motioned across the desk. “At ease, take a seat.”

“Thank you, sir.” He went over and lowered himself into the only other free chair in the room, next to Stanton.

“Has there been a development about the person who attacked Recruit Wolfe?” He tried to set himself into a relaxed posture, as if the answer wasn’t vitally important to his peace of mind.

Yang leaned back in his seat, bracing an elbow against the armrest. “Not in terms of identifying him, but we may have confirmed the intel that suggests there is a mole in FP squadron.”

“How?” His stomach churned heavy and slow, as though he’d had rocks for breakfast.

“Stanton’s had an agent looking into what our mystery person might have been doing in the ready room before Recruit Wolfe interrupted him. It seems they were trying to send out the schematics of our V-29s and other sensitive information on training and squad movements from your master datapad on an encoded, almost untraceable comm line. We’ve got no way to tell how much this person sent or where it ended up.”

“But I’ve got assets on the ground looking into it,” Stanton put in. “And then there’s the matter of the V-29 fighter jets themselves.”

Stanton’s expression took on a suspicious edge, and Leigh tried not to shift in his seat, since the agent seemed to be examining him.

“What about them?”

“The first-shift maintenance crew were doing a routine check of the logs this morning,” Yang took up. Leigh turned his attention back to his CO and hoped to hell he wasn’t looking as guilty as he felt. “And they noticed that logs show you were on launch deck last night, between midnight and oh one hundred?”

He nodded, trying to make the movement confident, like he had nothing to hide. “Yes, sir. I often do routine maintenance on my jet, no big deal.”

“So you didn’t see anyone else while you were up there; otherwise I assume it would have been reported, as protocol dictates?” Stanton pressed.

He looked over at the agent, and from the terrier-like gleam in the guy’s gaze, got the sense that the agent possibly knew far more than he was letting on.

“No, I didn’t see anyone else,” he returned, working to keep his words slow and calm. “Why? Was there evidence of someone else there last night?”

A grim shadow passed over Yang’s features. “After the maintenance crew noticed your logs had been accessed, they decided to do a full check of the fleet. They found four of the jets had been tampered with.”

He straightened in his chair, shock zapping through him and making the rock sensation in his guts that much worse. “Tampered with?”

Yang dragged a hand across his lower jaw. “To the point that if anyone had taken those jets out, they wouldn’t have come back alive or in one piece.”

“God
damn
.” Leigh braced a fist against his mouth as the implications sank razor-sharp talons into him. He could have lost four pilots only a few weeks after a dirty firefight with the CSS that had seen one of his men killed and one permanently benched from his injuries.

And the person responsible for that was hiding right under his nose.

A burning kind of ferocity seethed through him. “Could Kerrin have done this before—”

Yang shook his head. “All of the jets were thoroughly checked over immediately after Kerrin was detained. This has been done within the last twenty-four hours.”

All they seemed to be doing was taking blows. How the hell were they ever going to get the upper hand? “We have to find the son of a bitch responsible before he hurts someone else.”

“On that we can all agree.” Yang leaned forward again and clasped his hands on the neat surface of his desk. “So I need you to think, Alpha. Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary when you were up on launch deck last night? Anything that might not have even seemed important at the time. It could be the clue we need to out the bastard.”

He clenched his jaw, casting his thoughts from when he’d arrived on launch deck to when he’d walked over to his jet and found Mia sitting inside. Of course after that, his attention had shrunk to a single focus. Had the traitor been up there tampering with the jets while he’d been distracted with Mia? The thought left a trail of frost through his veins. For half a second, he considered telling Yang the truth. But with the stakes getting higher every day, he needed Mia’s skills to find this bastard now more than ever. For a moment, Mia’s presence in his jet struck him as entirely suspicious. But he dismissed the ridiculous thought just as quickly. It couldn’t have been her; she definitely hadn’t attacked herself in the ready room.

Finally, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything that seemed out of place. But I’ll keep it in mind, and if anything comes up, you’ll be the first to know.”

Yang sent him a respectful nod. “Thanks, Alpha. If you can spare a little more time, the maintenance chief wanted to go over the condition of the jets with you.”

He pushed to his feet. “Yes, sir, I’ll head straight up. I’d like to check for myself that the rest of my squad is going to be safe out there in the black.”

“Dismissed, Captain.” Yang saluted him, and he returned the gesture before turning on his heel to stride out of the room.

He’d have to be dead not to notice the suspicious glare Stanton sent him as he exited the wardroom. Did the agent think he had something to do with the mole, or worse, that
he
was the mole? It would make a twisted kind of sense, because who would ever suspect the CAFF of being CSS? But in a thousand years, he would never consider joining the religious zealots who thought piety and living an honest, good existence meant keeping people in poverty and denying them the opportunity of a better life.

As he left the command center, he let his shoulders drop, though tension still hummed through him. It would take all day to do the most basic checks of every V-29 in service on the
Knox
. Though he trusted the maintenance crew, he still needed to see for himself what kind of tampering had been done and how the repairs were coming along.

However, as soon as he could find a few spare minutes, he needed to track down Mia and ask her if she’d heard or seen anyone else on launch deck last night. A jolt of cold nausea hit him. Hell, she was probably lucky whoever had tampered with the jets hadn’t found her, because they might have finished what they’d started the night before in the ready room.

Whoever it was, once he found them, they were going to wish they’d never infiltrated his pilots.

M
ia covered her mouth with her hand and yawned for the millionth time, the chatter going on in the PT room battering her already aching head.

“I’m sorry, Recruit Wolfe, are we boring you again today?” Lieutenant Brenner asked as Mia stepped up to grip the weights of a nearby machine.

“Sir, no, sir. I stayed up to late last night, sir.”

Brenner eyed her more closely.

“Studying, sir. I was trying to make up for the classes I missed, sir.” A rush of heat flared through her.

The lieutenant nodded and then moved off to set another recruit up at a weight station.

“You
so
weren’t studying.”

Mia turned to where Kayla was pushing and pulling against the weights in the machine next to her.

Kayla shot her a mischievous look. “Don’t think I didn’t notice how late you came back to your bunk last night. Just please tell me you weren’t with a-hole Steve.”

Mia glanced away as the heat in her chest crept up her neck, leaving her face burning. “I wasn’t with Steve.”

Kayla made a sound of relief. “I knew you were smarter than that. So, come on, spill. Who were you with?”

She concentrated on meeting the weight requirements with each set. “I wasn’t with anyone. I really was studying and then I fell asleep. I woke up with a crick in my neck and decided I better get back to my bunk.”

“Pft!” Kayla finished her set. “I understand why you’d want to keep it quiet. It’s easy for a girl to get a reputation around here. But I wouldn’t ever tell. You can trust me. Just let me live vicariously through your apparently exciting love life. I can’t remember the last time I had a guy get me off good and solid.”

A laugh ambushed her at Kayla’s choice in words, and her new friend sent her a grin.

“I wish I could tell you something exciting happened, but I really was glued to my datapad. You want to know where I was? I snuck up to port level alpha to get another look in one of the fighter jets.”

Kayla shot her a glance that was part scandalized, part admiring. “You didn’t! Score one for Mia. I didn’t think you had that kind of rebel inside of you.”

What would Kayla say if she knew the truth of what else she’d been doing in that jet? And with whom. One of the other recruits called out to Kayla, who sent her a quick wave when she crossed the PT room.

As Mia walked over to the next testing station, she glanced around. And if she was searching for a certain head of coffee-dark hair, an unmistakable swagger, or the intense regard of gunmetal-blue eyes, well, it was her weakness. After last night, she was willing to wear the flaw.

She hadn’t seen Leigh since she’d left him in the jet. He hadn’t made an appearance at messdeck, hadn’t been present for role call and review of the previous day’s activities, and hadn’t joined the other instructors when they’d moved onto another round of rigorous physical testing.

As the day wore on, tendrils of anxiety had started creeping in under her calm belief that the two of them had gotten away with their assignation. What if someone had seen them and reported it to Commander Yang? What if, even now, Leigh was up in the command center, trying to explain what had led him into seducing a young recruit? What if they shipped him off in disgrace and she never saw him again?

Panic clamped around her chest, but she made herself breathe long and steady to release to tightness. If the worst really had come to pass, surely she would have heard about it by now, surely they
all
would have heard about it by now.

So instead of giving in to the gnawing urge to ask one of the other instructors where Captain Alphin was today, she forced herself to concentrate on each task. She was already tired; adding any more distraction was just asking to wash out.

The instructors organized for a meager lunch to be delivered to the PT room, and the break was too short. Her limbs burned, head felt heavy, and body worn down in a way she’d rarely experienced. But, despite her lack of sleep, she didn’t seem to be faring any worse than the rest of the recruits. The endless drills and demanding regimes were pushing everyone outside their limits. On top of all that, they still had to learn and retain the theory, not to mention pass random tests on any of the subjects they’d covered since training had begun. Already that morning, three people had given up and made the choice to wash out.

As the instructors announced that lunch was finished and ordered activities to resume, amongst a quiet chorus of groans and mumblings, the CAFF finally made an appearance, striding into the gym with his usual don’t-mess-with-me walk and stopping next to Lieutenant Brenner, no doubt for a report of the day’s proceedings. However, he wasn’t looking his usual impeccable self. His uniform was definitely on the rumpled side, streaked with dust, while a smudge of what looked to be engine grease smeared his jawline. Yeah, he was looking rumpled, but in a sexy, getting-his-hands-dirty-with-some-hard-work way, which only made her breath that much harder to catch as she recalled exactly where he’d had those hands last night.

“Recruit Wolfe.” At Lieutenant Brenner’s call she straightened, training her gaze ahead and not letting herself focus on anyone. “The CAFF requires your presence in ready room one one.”

Her heart bumped against the inside of her chest, and she strove to keep her expression neutral. What the heck was Leigh playing at? Singling her out in front of everyone and then taking her off for a private chat was not the way to keep their relationship secret. Nonetheless, she sent a respectful nod to the lieutenant, then clasped her hands behind her back and followed Leigh across the mats, feeling like every gaze in the room bored into her.

They crossed the hall and entered the ready room directly across the way, the lights flickering on as they entered. As the door slid shut behind her, she came to a stop and glanced over her shoulder. Leigh took a moment to enter what she assumed were his officer codes, meaning no one would be getting into this room unless he wanted them to. Her pulse accelerated from fast to light speed, but she determinedly ignored the foolish organ. He wasn’t going to try anything here in the middle of the day. At least she
thought
he wouldn’t…