Dark Solstice (9 page)

She hadn’t expected to be taken up on the offer at all! Certainly not this damned quick! She wasn’t ready, damn it!

“I’m listening,” Raathe said when they’d moved deeper inside of the cell, away from the door.

Kyle sent a glance in her direction. “Two points for two points. A piece of the munch—and you take me when you go.”

The demand pierced Raathe’s iron control. Fury flickered briefly in his icy blue eyes. For several moments, he didn’t speak at all. “Where did you get the idea I was going somewhere?”

Kyle stiffened in response to the deadly threat in Raathe’s voice. “Grimes approached me.”

The urge to kill washed over Raathe and it took all he could do to restrain himself. He didn’t know who he wanted to kill more—the stupid bastard, Grimes, for approaching Justice, of all the men in the prison he might have chosen—or Justice himself. “Exactly what did Grimes tell you?”

Kyle shrugged, feigning nonchalance he was far from feeling. “Nothing, actually. He noticed I was standing close enough to the guard to see the code he punched in and told me I had valuable information if I could recall it. I put it together.”

“And you also happened to ‘overhear’ the arrival time of the next supply ship?” Raathe asked coldly.

“Actually, I didn’t. I used the code to slip out to get the information,” Kyle said coolly. “I didn’t think the code by itself would be very useful if we didn’t know when to go for it.”

Raathe studied him for several moments and finally forced himself to relax. He didn’t believe the fucking bastard for a moment. Just as sure as hell, he was a plant, and the fucking warden was on to him—because Grimes couldn’t keep his god damned mouth shut. It took little thought, though, to realize he didn’t have any choice. If the warden was on to his scheme to escape, he was fucked regardless, but there wouldn’t be one without the information Justice was holding. “Just so that we’re on the same page—if you’re lying, you’re a dead man,” he said coldly.

Justice met his gaze unflinchingly. “If I’m lying—or wrong—we all are.”

Raathe studied him a moment longer and finally nudged his chin in Rhea’s direction.

Justice followed the gesture, stared at Rhea a moment, and returned his attention to Raathe. “When?”

“Now.”

The two men stared at each other assessingly. “You gonna leave?” Kyle asked finally.

“The munch never leaves my sight,” Raathe responded coldly.

Rhea sucked in a sharp breath at that cold announcement but, just as his reference to her as ‘the munch’ as if she was nothing but a walking, talking vagina indicated her only value, her reaction had no more effect on them than if she’d been a piece of the furnishings. Neither man so much as glanced at her. Instead, they fought a battle of wills, trying to stare one another down. Finally, Kyle almost seemed to shrug and turned away from Raathe, moving toward her.

She wasn’t certain that she’d completely grasped, in the little time since he’d suggested it, that Raathe actually
did
intend to trade her sexual favors for what he needed except that on a subconscious level she’d realized the inherent threat in it—the unhappy realization that she wasn’t a person to him but rather a tool to be used. Even so, it hadn’t occurred to her for a moment that Raathe would watch. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it beyond shocked to her core.

Until Kyle reached the bunk where she sat and looked down at her. She knew
exactly
how she felt about it then.

Whether Raathe had insisted on standing guard to protect her or not, she wasn’t comfortable, at all, with the idea of having an audience—any audience—and most especially not Raathe.

Chapter Eight

To say it hadn’t played out the way Kyle had envisioned it was a serious understatement. He supposed he hadn’t really believed that Raathe would consider sharing Rhea at all. He supposed, in the back of his mind, he’d expected a prolonged negotiation, at the very least, with less than the desired results—eventually.

He hadn’t expected a capitulation the moment he’d voiced his demands.

He sure as hell hadn’t expected Raathe to decide to fucking watch him!

His thoughts were far too disordered for him to summon any sort of alternatives to mind or even
an
alternative as he turned away from Raathe to stare at Rhea.

The moment he met her gaze, however, he completely forgot he’d had another objective. He dismissed the niggling suspicion that this setup was some sort of trick. His back still prickled with the uneasy expectation of a knife in the back, but, with little more than a distracted glance back at Raathe, he dismissed that, too.

Rhea felt as if all of the air had been sucked out of the room as Kyle moved toward her and halted beside the bunk, looking down at her. She felt frozen, not with fear, but disbelief.

She’d never had sex as a transaction and the whole concept was so shocking she couldn’t think, couldn’t wrap her mind around it at all.

She might have felt a little better about it if Kyle hadn’t stared at her with that glazed look, but he seemed almost as disconcerted by the situation as she was—lustful, but completely thrown off guard by the way this was unfolding.

For a handful of moments that felt like an eternity, Kyle merely stared at her. Finally, though, his movements almost mechanical, he reached for the closure of his suit and began to unfasten it.

The urge to glance at Raathe struck Rhea forcefully—for guidance, or rescue—she had no idea. She resisted it, though, felt a flicker of anger that it had even occurred to her. The anger helped kick start her frozen brain—either that or she was working as mechanically as Kyle. When she saw him reach for the closure of his suit, she lifted a hand to her own.

The sense of unreality didn’t dissipate, but it was almost as if the mundane chore gave her mind something to grasp and hold on to. She slipped from the bunk and finished removing her suit. She had to fight the urge to try to cover herself with her hands once she had. She managed it, but she still moved stiffly as she returned to the bunk, felt awkward, ungraceful—unlovely.

Kyle followed her, crowding close before she had even settled. She flinched at the first touch of his hand as it settled on her shoulder, tensing all over. He ignored it, applying just enough pressure that she had to yield or fight.

Her throat closed at that thought. Fighting was useless. She knew that.

She’d agreed to it in any case, she reminded herself.

It wasn’t as if she’d never had sex with a man that was virtually a stranger to her.

She’d dated occasionally, despite the parameters of her job as a geologist that left her with little time for a social life and it wasn’t just socially acceptable to have sex with the person one dated, it was expected. One couldn’t build a relationship, after all, if that was the objective, until sexual compatibility was established and that was even more true if one was merely looking for a sexual partner.

Get a grip, Rhea!

Irritation flickered across his features, but it was hard to say if it was strictly because she was lying beside him as stiff as a post or if it was the fact that Raathe had refused to allow him privacy to attend his needs.

She discovered the hand he’d placed on her shoulder lingered there, that he was kneading the flesh almost absently, and abruptly it dawned on her that he had no intention of hurting her and she had no reason to be fearful. Setting aside the fact that it was obvious Raathe intended to watch to make absolutely certain his ‘munch’ wasn’t damaged, Kyle hadn’t indicated in any way—beyond the desire in his eyes—that he might lose control.

The unthinkable hadn’t happened. He hadn’t thrown her onto the bunk and forced himself on her with no regard for her feelings or the possibility of hurting her. He had, in point of fact, been surprisingly gentle and restrained.

Those thoughts helped her to relax fractionally and, for the first time, she actually focused on the man lying beside her.

He was staring at her body, not her face, although he’d made no attempt to touch her anywhere except on her shoulder as he’d pushed her down, his expression taut. As if he sensed her attention, however, he lifted his head and met her gaze searchingly, his nearly straight black brows forming a questioning tent above the bridge of his arrow straight nose.

His eyes were green, she realized in surprise, a dark leaf green, and surrounded by thick, curling lashes that made them surprisingly beautiful for a man’s eyes.

“I won’t hurt you.” His deep voice, lowered to little above a whisper, was gravelly, rough with desire and something else she was in no condition to decipher.

Rhea’s heart thudded uncomfortably in her chest when he spoke, but not with doubt, with unexpected warmth. There was desire in his eyes, but also earnestness in his expression that made her believe him, feel a tentative unfurling of trust. It eased her tension a little more, expanded her awareness of him.

She became aware of his size in a way she hadn’t been before. He was a big man and brawny besides, but although that had seemed threatening before, it appealed to her femininity, banishing the sense of unattractiveness that had washed over her when she’d felt so uncomfortable. He was hairy, maybe more so than Raathe—maybe not. It was hard to say but the darker hair on his chest and arms and legs were certainly more noticeable. His hard, muscular, hair roughened body in contrast to the softness and smoothness of her own boosted her own sense of appeal, particularly when coupled with the look of appreciation in his eyes and the faint tremors of desire she felt in him.

Resolutely, she closed her mind to everything else, straining to filter out the circumstances and shut herself away from her keen awareness of Raathe’s watchful gaze.

She wasn’t entirely successful. She became more aware of Kyle, but not really less aware of Raathe or the pique that slithered around the background of her thoughts that he didn’t care as she’d tried to convince herself he did, that the only importance she had to him was as some
thing
, not someone. The pique spawned the urge to wound him in return—somehow—and she realized she had the means at hand, maybe not to wound his feelings when he felt nothing for her, but to prick his ego.

He wouldn’t like it if she enjoyed it.

She knew, instinctively, that he wouldn’t.

Under other circumstances, she suspected she wouldn’t have the least bit of trouble enjoying his touch. Physically, he was just as appealing to her senses as Raathe. Moreover, he was a charming rogue and his attempts to break through her defenses, she realized, hadn’t gone completely unnoticed—at least subconsciously.

Under the current circumstances, she wasn’t certain she could, despite her attraction to him, but she could fake it, she realized—if she could just relax enough to make it appear believable when she commenced to moaning and writhing in ecstasy.

“Are you going to fuck or just stare at the munch?” Raathe growled irritably. “You been here so long you’ve forgotten where to put your cock?”

Kyle stiffened at the taunt, sending Raathe a narrow eyed glance, his expression taut. “I’ve been here long enough to know how to appreciate a beautiful woman,” he growled.

“Well if you ‘appreciate’ her until the alarm sounds for lockdown, don’t expect to come back and finish later. It won’t happen,” Raathe retorted coldly.

Kyle hadn’t acknowledged it until Raathe had said it that that was exactly what he was doing—stalling for time. The problem was, he
did
want to fuck her—so badly he couldn’t think straight, and had since he’d first set eyes on her. He would’ve liked to think it was only because the chance at a woman in Phobos was rarer than a prime piece of real meat—and she sure as hell out shone anything else available—but he had a bad feeling it was something particular about Rhea that was really going to knock him for a loop once he’d done what he knew damned well he had no business doing.

Anger flickered through him that the bastard, Raathe, had manipulated him into this situation, but he was in no state to grasp and hold on to that lifeline to aid him.

The truth was, he’d been lost before she’d stripped naked—and that had made him come completely unraveled. The only thing that had kept him from falling on her instantly was the fear in her eyes, radiating from every pore of her. It hadn’t exactly been a cold dose of reality, at that, but it had hit him hard enough to knock a little sense into him, made him realize she was going to hate his guts if he gave in to the animal lust scouring his insides like acid.

She probably would anyway, but he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think of any way around the fucking mess. All the blood from his brain was currently pooled in his dick and pounding so painfully he could barely breathe.