Damage Control (Valiant Knox) (16 page)

“What’s going on?” She looked back at him to find he’d let his CAFF mask slip and transformed into the Leigh she’d been with last night. He rubbed a hand over his jaw, looking stressed and a little tired. Her heart squeezed for him, and she only just resisted the urge to go over and put her arms around him. “Do you really think it was a good idea to pull me out of class after last night—”

He shook his head. “No one has any reason to suspect anything. I told Bren I’d been in a meeting with Yang this morning and needed to ask you some follow up questions about your attack, which is actually true.”

Her ribs contracted around her lungs for a long second. “So last night…?”

He sent her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It seems we got away with it, if that’s what you’re worried about. But we’ve got another problem.”

“Okay.” She walked over and leaned against the front of a desk.

Leigh blew out a short breath. “I need to know if you saw anyone else or heard anything on the launch deck last night before I got there.”

She shook her head. “I think I was the only one there, but I did have my headphones in and music on, so I guess I can’t be sure. Why?”

He glanced away from her and paced a few steps, his expression becoming more haunted. “I got called up to see Commander Yang and a Command Intelligence agent, Stanton, first thing this morning. Several of the jets were tampered with, possibly last night. If the interference hadn’t been found and those jets had been taken out, I’d have another couple of dead pilots on my hands.”

She pushed upright, stepping forward to intercept his pacing. “I’m sorry, Leigh. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now, being responsible for all those pilots. I’ll get those profiles done as soon as I can and hopefully something will turn up. In the meantime, you have to find a way to maybe distance yourself, because if you burn out, you won’t be any good to anyone.”

He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his hair. “You’re right, but it’s just so damn frustrating, like we’re playing one step behind and losing ground every second.”

“We’re not losing ground. We’ll find him, I’m sure we will.” She stepped closer to him, feeling like her reassurance wasn’t enough, wishing there was some way to make this better for him. Obviously, the best way to help him was to finish building those profiles and discover who the traitor might be.

“Come on, you better get back to class. And I’ve got to get back up to the launch deck to finish checking over the jets with the maintenance chief.”

“Is that where you’ve been all morning?” She reached up and wiped her thumb over the smudge on his jaw, his short whiskers abrading her skin, but in a way that gave her a buzz.

“Yeah, getting grungy beneath the engines of the V-29s to make sure my pilots are all safe next time they’re out in the black.”

Her chest squeezed around her heart, breaking up the steady rhythm. Not many CAFFs would do that kind of work themselves. No matter which way she looked at him, Leigh was one of the most caring, dedicated men she’d ever met. And every day she fell that little bit harder for him.

With her hand still on his jaw, she went up on her toes, leaning against his chest to set a teasing kiss just next to his mouth. She went to move back, but his arms clamped around her, keeping her trapped up against his chest.

“What was that, recruit?” The demand was in that scary CAFF voice he was prone to using, but it didn’t do anything except turn her on.

She sent him an impertinent grin. “Sir, I believe I just kissed you, sir.”

“Wolfe, if you’re going to go around kissing your CO, at least make sure you do it properly.”

Before she could reply, his hand closed around the back of her neck as he pulled her up the few inches separating them and caught her mouth beneath his. The kiss wasn’t demanding or hard, instead his lips moved almost gently, leisurely over hers, as though he was learning and memorizing the almost palpable force flowing between them.

The kiss deepened, and the energy changed, amping up as his tongue slid against hers, sending a muscle-weakening shudder rocking through her.

Leigh pulled back suddenly, swearing on the unsteady breath he blew out.

“We have to stop now; otherwise I’m going to start thinking it’s a good idea to take you on that desk while a class of recruits and my XO are right across the hall.”

He let her go, and she took her own uneven breath, smoothing her hands down her uniform. Her clothes weren’t any worse off than when she’d walked in here, but she definitely felt rumpled and more than a little flustered from that heady kiss.

Leigh seemed to take a moment himself, then clasped his hands behind his back and walked over to push the door release. She set her posture as she marched back across to the PT room, trying to look as impassive as possible. At the doorway, Leigh waved to Lieutenant Brenner and then stepped back to let Mia pass.

She didn’t look up at him as she went by, but the shock of his hand brushing her hip sent a pulse of heat through her. She couldn’t help glancing back over her shoulder at him, and the gleam in his gray-blue gaze stalled her breath.

She tore her gaze from him and made a beeline for Kayla on the other side of the room. She’d never thought having any kind of relationship with him would be easy; in fact she’d been set against it until last night. And the awareness of everything that could befall him if they got caught was a constant niggle in the back of her mind. Sure, he didn’t seem that worried, but she was horrified by the censure and criticism he’d face if their relationship became public knowledge. And the worry over the traitor had just doubled as once again, the mole proved to be aiming to kill. As if Leigh’s day-to-day duties weren’t dangerous enough, knowing he had someone working against him from the inside made ice form in her chest.

She had to get working on those profiles, build them more quickly, before the traitor made another move. Because next time, they might not be lucky enough to find the trap before it snapped closed.

Chapter Sixteen

A
nother day had gone by and Mia was about ready to throw the datapad in frustration.

She was no closer to finding the mole—her program had completed three more profiles that revealed the pilots to be exactly who they said they were, with no dark secrets in their pasts. And, her torturously slow but thorough checks of the
Knox’s
systems hadn’t turned up anything out of the ordinary. She couldn’t believe what had happened in the transit was just a coincidence, yet she couldn’t find any proof of tampering either.

She glanced over the notes she’d taken for the day’s class, some of them sadly incomplete because she was so damn distracted—by her need to find the traitor and the man currently standing in front of the class. If she weren’t careful, she’d end up washing out of the program and find herself on the ground. Besides it being rather hard to access the
Knox’s
systems and help Leigh from down there, she also sure as hell didn’t want to get posted on the front lines.

A reminder icon flashed in the corner of Leigh’s datapad, and she automatically reached out to tap it up, even though she’d been strict about not snooping through any private files. But what if it was something important he’d forgotten about because he’d given her his datapad?

The reminder appeared in the middle of the screen.
Meeting: squadron officer’s wardroom, nineteen hundred hours—to discuss appropriate usage of fighter jets while docked on launch deck
.

Anyone else reading the reminder would have thought nothing of it, but considering where she’d been the night before last… She glanced up, looking directly at Leigh for the first time all day. It’d been easier to keep her thoughts straight by simply taking her notes and pretending he wasn’t even in the room.

The recruits all had their heads down, concentrating on some task she didn’t have the first clue about since she hadn’t been listening. Leigh held the ready room’s master datapad, which was obviously how he’d sent the reminder to his own device. When he caught her eye, he sent her a subtle nod, his lips kicking up on one side for a brief moment.

A message for her. Her heart tripped over itself and then sped into double time. He wanted to meet in the officer’s wardroom at nineteen hundred. Probably to check how her profiles were going. Better that was the only reason he wanted to meet her.

A swell of heat rushed up her chest as she dropped her gaze back to the datapad. Though her body might have other ideas about what it wanted to be doing while she was alone with him, her last shred of common sense sternly warned her that the more times they were together, the more likely they were to get caught.

No matter how good it had been, all logic was telling her it wasn’t going to end well. Whether they got caught or not, they didn’t have a future, especially since she’d firmed up her decision to ask for a position elsewhere once she made it through the rest of this program. They were over halfway through, and she still had that free pass up her sleeve. If she could just hold out for another week, if she could just stop herself from getting in any deeper with him, then maybe they’d both come out of this unscathed. Well, mostly anyway. She’d probably never see him again once she transferred to another unit, but she couldn’t take any chance of ruining his career.

The last hour of the class slowed to a crawl because she couldn’t help checking the time every few minutes.

For the second day in a row, Steve waited for her when she stepped out of class. Yesterday he’d asked her out again, if a girl could call an invitation to join him in his bunk after midnight a date. She so didn’t have the patience to deal with him again today. Gaining Kayla’s attention, she pointed Steve out, and luckily her friend seemed to get the hint, putting herself between them and then steering her to the outer side of the crowd, making some loud announcement about going to get an early dinner on commerce level instead of eating at the messdeck. The distraction worked, as a couple of others asked to join in. They’d managed to move off before Steve could approach her, though from the look on his face, he hadn’t liked being thwarted.

Early evening didn’t go any faster. She was distracted at the impromptu dinner at one of the fast-food joints on commerce level and then distracted when she hung out with Kayla and a couple of the other recruits at some bar. Finally, just before nineteen hundred hours, she came up with the excuse that she was still trying to catch up on the sessions she’d missed and made her escape.

The officer’s wardroom—off-limits to subordinates without express permission—seemed like a strange place for Leigh to ask her to meet. What if one of the senior fighter pilots like Lieutenant Brenner or Sub-Lieutenant Rayne or Sub-Officer Lawler came by and found them? Despite her misgivings about the meeting place, she trusted Leigh so none of the rest mattered.

She arrived on squadron level, the corridors deserted like the night she’d come up here and been attacked by the shooter. Except this time, the lights were still on, which meant there still must be FP personnel somewhere. She passed the darkened ready rooms, heading for the room at the end of the passage. The datapad in her hand chimed and she glanced down to see a message from Leigh, telling her he was running a little late, but to wait for him.

The lights were on in the officer’s wardroom and the door was open. She passed a quick glance over the central conference table, the amenities bar on the far wall, and the viewport showing the very edge of Ilari and the star-dusted blackness of space beyond.

She went to sit on the long couch set in front of the viewport, deciding she might as well get on with the profiles while she waited for Leigh. However, she’d only just tapped the screen to life when she heard footsteps. She glanced up, but the person appearing in the doorway wasn’t Leigh. Steve Robinson stopped when he saw her sitting there, his expression cold enough to leave shivers tracking over her flesh.

“What are you doing here?” She set the datapad on a nearby table and stood.

A calculating gleam in his gaze, Steve said, “Following you. Now it’s your turn to tell me what you’re doing here.”

Her mind flashed with a second of intense panic, because Steve was the last person she wanted to see. He was the type who would use her relationship with Leigh for maximum damage.

“I’m behind since I missed out on those sessions. Captain Alphin and Lieutenant Brenner wanted to speak to me about it, and I’m sure they’ll be here any second.”

Steve stepped into the room, his movements unhurried. “Really? That’s interesting, because I know for a fact that Captain Hard-Ass, along with Brenner, Lawler, and Rayne, are playing their weekly poker game in the common room, and everyone knows they’ll be there for hours. So what’s your real reason for being here, Mia?”

Is that what had Leigh running late, a
poker
game? Just how did he plan on getting out of that without raising suspicions, if he was playing with the other three instructors?

Well, no matter what, she had to get rid of Steve. He strolled farther into the room, rounding the end of the table.

“See, I’ve started getting a little curious,” he continued when she didn’t reply. “You’re kind of antisocial. I mean, first you don’t want to hang out with me, and in the last few days you always seem to be off on your own studying.”

He reached the end of the conference table and stopped a handful of steps away from her. Something in his demeanor, in the way he stared at her, set alarm bells off in her mind.

“You got me. I don’t want to be friends with anyone. I’m more interested in beating you all out for a spot in the FP squadron.” Never mind getting rid of Steve, she didn’t want to stay in this room with him any longer. She’d have to arrange to meet Leigh another time. Stooping down, she picked up the datapad. “So, sorry, but I’ve got more of that studying to do.”

She went to step past him, but he grabbed her arm, his fingers biting into her biceps hard enough to bruise. “We’re not finished talking yet.”

A trickle of fear skulked through her, but anger washed it away. “Let me go.”

“Not yet. Not until we’ve agreed to some terms, because the way I see it, you owe me for the free pass you picked up on day one. I could have beat you and Kayla easy, but I was trying to be a gentleman.”

She scoffed and yanked her arm out of his grip, wrenching her shoulder in the process. “A
gentleman
? That’s about the last word I’d use to describe you. I don’t owe you anything, so get out of my way before I decide to comm the MPs and make a complaint about you harassing me.”

He held his arms out wide, conceited grin spreading over his features. “Go ahead. Call the MPs. I’d love to hear your explanation about why you’re in the officer’s wardroom.”

Damn it, he’d called her bluff and from the expression on his face, he knew it.

“Whatever. Just leave me alone.” She sidestepped, intending to make for the exit, but he grabbed her shoulder, forced her back around, and shoved her up against the table. The edge rammed into her lower back with bruising force. Ignoring the sharp kick of pain in her lower spine, she dropped the datapad and pushed against his hold. Dread mixed in a tempest with fury, billowing through her in hot and cold waves.

“Let me go, or this isn’t going to end well for you.”

Steve’s grin turned into a leer as he kept hold of her shoulder and grabbed her wrist. “Actually, I think it’s going to end very well for me. Maybe not so much for you.”

She twisted her arm out of his hold and aimed a fist for his face, though she didn’t get much momentum behind it because of the way he clutched her. Still, it surprised him enough to loosen his grip, and when her other hand was free, she shoved him and followed with a second punch to the jaw, leaving her knuckles aching.

But it wasn’t enough to completely dislodge him and he came back at her, hitting her in the face hard enough to make her head spin, and this time throwing his whole body weight against her in a crushing hold. Blood trickled from a cut on his lip.

“You
bitch
. Now you owe me for that, too.” He changed his grip on her, twisting her around and forcing her facedown on the cold surface of the desk with a hand biting into the back of her neck. With his other hand, he reached down and grabbed the collar edge of her shirt, giving a sharp yank, causing fasteners to pop free and the material to rip. She screeched, bucking against him, but he only plunged his hand into her hair, yanking the strands at her scalp until her eyes watered.

“Don’t think I won’t knock you unconscious and do you anyway.” He leaned down, hot breath in her ear, making her want to gag. “It’s easier, but not as fun.”

Oh God
. Had he done this before? For a blind second, absolute terror surged through her. But then the anger returned, sharper and more desperate. She would not be another one of his victims. She snapped her head back, connecting with his face. While he was still reeling, she used her hands against the edge of the deck to propel herself backward, knocking him off-balance. She turned and, before he could regain any footing, kicked out at his groin. Her foot didn’t quite connect as hard or on target as she’d hoped, but it was enough to send him to his knees. She went to dash past him, but he reached out and grabbed at her legs, tripping her into the chairs by the table. One caught her in the ribs, another scraped the edge of her jaw. But she didn’t let it slow her down. She kicked at his hold, but missed completely and nailed him in the face—couldn’t have knocked him better if she’d been aiming for his head.

He let her go and she scrambled up, collecting Leigh’s datapad from the floor at the last second and sprinting out of the room and down the passageway. She didn’t stop running until she’d reached the transit. Glancing over her shoulder, she repeatedly tapped at the screen, knowing it wouldn’t bring the transit any faster, but doing it anyway.

The seconds rattled by, and she glanced several times between the display and the passageway behind her, sure Steve would emerge any moment for a second try.

An aftershock of panic rocked through her as various injuries started to ache. She wrapped an arm across her burning ribs, where she’d caught the chair as she went down, forcing herself to breathe slowly. She felt a trickle over her jaw and used her sleeve to wipe at the ooze of blood from a small split on her cheek where Steve had hit her.

She should report this. She
had
to report this. But if she did, everyone would want to know why she’d been in the officer’s wardroom.

Frustration pulsed through her, because she hated the idea of Steve getting away with it, even though he technically hadn’t done anything except knock her around a bit. But his confession that he’d done it before made a sick kind of fury twist up her insides. She burned to do something; she just didn’t know what. Her situation with Leigh and the fact that his career was on the line kept her hands tied.

The transit finally chimed as it arrived and she started to step toward the doors, but froze as she realized someone was already in the car.

Leigh stood there, hands clasped behind his back, waiting to get off the transit. Shock flashed across his features when he saw her, and he closed the distance between them in a few short strides, reaching out to pull her into him.

“Mia! What the hell happened?”

She grimaced as he grabbed her bruised arm in the exact same spot Steve had held her. For a second she clenched her jaw, indecision riding her. Part of her wanted to let everything gush out, knowing he’d make it all better simply by hugging her and telling her she was okay. But another part of her didn’t want to tell him the truth. Leigh was an honorable man, considering all that had happened between them, he obviously cared about her somewhat. She didn’t want him to go after Steve on her behalf, because that would only raise the suspicions about their relationship they were trying to avoid.

Except Leigh didn’t deserve her lying to him. More than that, she couldn’t lie to him, she just wasn’t that sort of person.