In Enemy Hands (13 page)

“My cabin is close by,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

The walk to her cabin was sedate enough, but they fell into each other’s arms the moment the door slid closed behind them. It was a storm unleashing, their lips clashing, tasting, sucking, separating reluctantly while items of clothing were unceremoniously disposed of, before coming together again. Moon felt hot and shivery at the same time as Srin pushed her onto her bed.

“I wish I could tell you I’ve thought of doing this a thousand times,” he said sadly as he stroked her hair. “I’m sure I have.”

She put a forefinger to his lips. “Hush. I just want you to kiss me again.”

He groaned and gathered her in his arms, the muscles tightening against her. He kissed the edges of her mouth first, planting the gentlest of caresses against the margins of her lips, before finally capturing her mouth again. The passion in his embrace made her gasp. Srin couldn’t remember the past few weeks of their relationship, but he made up for it in the way he kissed her, using his tongue to tease her, withdrawing then tightening contact, moving his hand down the back of her body until he cupped her naked backside and pulled it against him.

She felt his hardness everywhere, in the press of his chest against her breasts and the hand at her hip with its insistent pressure. She felt it in his arms as he held her, in his thighs as they strained against her, and in the erection that nestled in her groin. The only place she didn’t feel his hardness was inside her, as his tongue played coyly with hers, teasing and tantalising. She had never considered her mouth an erogenous zone before but could feel desire building within her as he continued his play, as if the rest of their bodies didn’t exist, as if every nerve of her being was concentrated on a small area of skin, soft and pliant on the outside, smooth and moist on the inside. She moaned and he deepened his kiss, becoming more demanding, and she finally felt the bite of his fingers against her flesh.

She moved her hands, letting them travel up the muscled striations of his arms, tracing the width of his shoulders before burying them in the softness of his silky brown hair.

“I want you,” she told him, moving her legs apart. “I want you inside me.”

He moved but, instead of his cock, his finger entered her, sliding smoothly on a thick film of lubrication that told him she was aroused and ready for him. He pulled out his finger, then slid in two. Moon felt herself stretch to accommodate him. Her spasm was reflexive, pulsing against him and he exhaled heavily at her clenched wetness. He gathered her wetness on his fingers and anointed her erect clitoris with it and she moaned at the heightened feeling her moisture provided, closing her eyes as he circled the sensitive nub of flesh, passing the erotic massage to his thumb while he plunged his two fingers back inside her.

Moon clung to his shoulders, her fingernails biting into his skin, unable to stop the shock of small convulsions that rocked her body. How long had it been since another person had touched her so intimately, since she had shared her body? She tried to stifle a cry but it emerged, startled and wondrous, from her mouth as she flung her head back.

“It feels…so wonderful…” she gasped. She wanted to say more, to tell him what he was doing was magical, not to stop, yes stop because she wanted a different part of his anatomy inside her, but the ability to string more than two coherent words together fled her mind.

She moved impatiently, thrusting against his fingers, lifting her hips off the bed in a blatant invitation, as another series of gentle convulsions rocked her body. She felt sexual release building up inside her, and her moans grew more frantic. Somehow, she needed to tell him that his fingers weren’t enough, but her brain wasn’t working. Still, there must have been some primal communication going on, because? as yet another series of soft convulsions rocked her? he quickly withdrew his fingers and replaced them with
him
.

His cock was hard and velvet-soft at the same time, a carnal pleasure-giving pressure that stroked along the slick walls of her sex. The coiling of intense feeling when he had withdrawn his fingers was building up inside her again. Srin’s long strokes were adding to the pressure, his movements pushing her buttocks against the soft coverlet beneath her, forcing herself to push back against him, heightening the climax-inducing friction of him thrusting into her.

And then it gripped her and she lost all sense of reality. The orgasm rippled through her body. She clenched her hands tightly against the flesh under her fingers, uncaring of any injury she caused, aware only of the waves of mindless pleasure that swamped all reason in its path. She was only dimly aware of Srin’s cries joining her own, of his own rhythm quickening as he, too, fell into the throes of a climax.

It didn’t go on for long enough; she wanted to lose herself in those sensually satisfying billows forever, but eventually she opened her eyes to the dimness of her cabin, Srin’s skin? now glossy with his sweat? still beneath her clenched hands. With an embarrassed half smile, she loosened her hold and tried massaging the flesh instead, contrite with her own thoughtlessness.

Still towering over her, Srin reached up with his right hand, grabbed her hand and kissed it, his lips landing a dainty caress on each of her fingers before he rolled onto his side. As she had known in reality as well as in her fantasies, he was considerate and sensitive, gently brushing errant tendrils of dark hair from her face and resting the weight of one heavy hand on her abdomen while he steadied his breathing.

“That was wonderful,” he said, nuzzling her ear. “Stupendous. Fantastic. So wonderful in fact—” he nipped at her ear lobe, “—I think I could try for a repeat performance.”

She pulled back and looked at him. The faint light picked up the contours of his features, highlighting his smile and making his eyes glitter.

“Are you sure?” she asked gently. She quirked one eyebrow in challenge and knew he saw it when he chuckled.

“Try me.”

They made love two more times that night, before Moon finally fell asleep. Despite the narrowness of the bunk, she never felt so relaxed or comfortable in her life. As she drifted off, she considered what they could do, and hoped something would happen soon that they could use to begin their escape.

She woke to the sensation of someone kissing her shoulder. She stretched, extending her limbs like a cat, then stopped with a grimace. Parts of her body ached, delicious and discomfiting at the same time.

“Is anything the matter?” a husky male voice asked from behind her, his breath tickling her ear.

She slipped out of his arms and got to her feet, grabbing the discarded tunic that lay on the floor, whether hers or his, it didn’t matter. She didn’t consider herself puritanical, but neither was she an exhibitionist. In fact, she felt shy.

“No, I just…” She shrugged hesitantly.

Now that he had the whole bunk to himself, Srin stretched out, eyeing her speculatively as he clasped his hands and placed them behind his head. He looked relaxed and was unaware of the effect he was having on Moon. The posture stretched his body, emphasising the muscles in his arms and his taut torso. She felt liquid build around her tongue? was her mouth actually
watering?
? as her gaze swept his body, over his solid thighs, well-formed calves and down to his bare feet. The highlights and shadows of his body invited more exploration. Considering he must be in his forties, he was in superb shape.

He was unashamed of his nakedness, unashamed of the arousal that rose temptingly from a nest of dark caramel curls. She had to hold herself back from striding forward and impaling herself on its length and riding him to climax. She had done that with him during the night, their gasps loud in the cabin’s dark stillness, and she yearned to do it again. She flushed at the direction her thoughts were taking, and Srin’s gaze sharpened.

“Could my intrepid scientist possibly be embarrassed?” he asked, a teasing glint in his eye.

She turned away, but knew she wasn’t fooling anybody. “We have to get to work.” She tried to say it crisply, but it came out more as a half-hearted plea.

He rose from the bed in seconds, coming to stand before her. “What’s the matter?” he asked gently. “Did I hurt you somehow?”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “It’s me.” She laughed brokenly. “You may not believe me, but it’s not often I find such an unabashed male body in my bed.”

He smiled and held her close. “And may you never be without, my darling Moon.”

They got dressed for work leisurely, in between long kisses. They joked over breakfast as Srin repeated the ritual of the night before, taking the used trays back to one of the ship’s canteens and returning with hot meals for them both.

The night had its effects on them. Srin was a leashed bundle of energy, even more so than normal. And it was with an uncharacteristic reluctance that Moon started work.

The dilemma of her research still faced her. She was even more certain now that she didn’t want to successfully complete her experiments and hand the Republic a weapon of devastating power. But neither did she want to jeopardise Drue. If only they could find a way to escape the Republic’s clutches in some way that didn’t involve Drue directly.

It was too difficult a problem to contemplate that morning, not while her body still ached from the previous night’s exertions. How could she have forgotten how wonderful it felt to have another’s hands stroking her body? All she could think about was another night of passion with Srin? and restarting the work she had come on board to complete. She was sure something would happen before the final test. It had to.

The diagnostics from the databanks came back clear. Moon pulled up the latest set of equations on one of the clearboards, comparing it to the most recent set of experimental data from the heavy-water tank. The scattered nature of the info-maps told her there was something wrong with her mid-line assumptions. It was still niggling at her after they broke for lunch and resumed work.

“I’m not happy with the gravitational wave calculations,” she mused, tapping one finger absently against her front teeth. “The data is still all over the place. We’ll need to be a lot more precise if we want this to work.” She swapped her attention from the theory to the results, then back again.

“The angular velocity was simple to compute,” she continued, thinking out loud, “so it can’t be that. Maybe it’s my tensor calculations.” She turned. “Srin, I wonder if we could—”

The words died in her throat.

Srin was at one of the far consoles, managing the tank’s inputs. He tried to flash her a reassuring smile, but failed. Even from metres away, she saw the tremors that wracked his body in waves, and the sweat oozing from his pores. There were dark patches on his clothes and his forearms were a mass of clenched cords, his fingers grasping the console’s edge, as if holding on for dear life.

Whatever she intended to say fled her mind as she rushed to him. She reached out to touch him and was surprised at how clammy his skin felt.

“What’s happening?” she asked, anxiously, but was afraid she already knew the answer.

No, please. It can’t all go wrong. Not when I’ve finally been shown a faint ray of hope.

“It must be the drugs. Withdrawal,” he said, swallowing convulsively. His hair was spiky with sweat, and his eyes dark with pain. She knew he was striving to make his voice sound casual, to lighten the effect of what he was saying, but his death-grip on the console’s edge and the tremors that continued to wrack his body told a different story.

“I need to get you to the infirmary,” she told him, moving to support his back and shoulders with one arm.

“No!” He was looking down at the floor, as though he was on the verge of collapse, but his voice was firm. “If you do that, I’m right back at the beginning.” His words were wavering, as he fought his body’s reaction to the drug’s withdrawal. “I won’t.” He grabbed a frantic breath. “Go back. To how. I was.”

“Srin, we don’t know what withdrawal means. You’ve been taking these drugs for almost twenty years.”

“Never. Willingly.”

“No,” she said, “I understand that. But,” she stressed through gritted teeth, “it could kill you.”

His voice was heavy. “I don’t. Care.”

Moon stepped back and took a deep breath, unsure of what to do next. Every instinct screamed at her to get him to a doctor, regardless of how he felt about it. She watched as the tremors got more violent, shaking him where he stood. She knew the only thing that stopped him collapsing on the floor was his clawed grip on the console. Never before had she so regretted her choice of study? if she had chosen a biotechnology field, instead of stellar mechanics, there was a hope that she’d know how to help him, find a way to lessen the shocks rippling through his body. But she was a physicist—her area of specialty was outside the human body rather than inside it. She was frantic. And useless.

“Come to my cabin,” she urged. “You can rest there for a while.”

He nodded, and let her help him walk across the lab and down the short corridor to her quarters. It was an indication of how weak he felt, how much the drug’s withdrawal was affecting him, that he let Moon bear his weight. She struggled, zigzagging her way to temporary sanctuary as she led him there.

Once safely in her cabin, she eased him onto her bed and brought the coverlet over his trembling body. He curled up instinctively in a foetal position, facing away from her. She heard his teeth chatter.

What should she do? At least now he was out of view of any casual visitors to the lab, but Moon didn’t know how long that could go on. She could make an excuse that he was checking something for her in the cargo bay, or getting some food, but she was sure the pretence wouldn’t hold for more than a day or so. Savic, for example, was bound to ask after him sooner or later.

But she understood his reluctance to go to the infirmary. Once he was back in the clutches of loyal soldiers of the Republic, there would be no hesitation in getting him back on his previous medication schedule. And he would be lost to her once more.

Still, she wondered as she watched him shake under the blanket, was that any worse than what was happening now?

Licking her lips, she exited the cabin and cast only one quick glance at the floor near the tank’s console. Luckily, the dark material was difficult to stain? there was no sign that someone had stood there, sweating profusely. She turned to the nearest clearboard, the one displaying the info-map of the last set of data results, but the dots and characters danced before her eyes. She blinked heavily, bringing everything back into focus. Maybe if she thought of something else for a moment, allowed her subconscious some room to cogitate, a way out of the current crisis would occur to her. Maybe if she got back to her tensor calculations, her subconscious would be free to work on a solution to Srin’s problem.

The afternoon ticked away on slow feet, with Moon having to restrain herself from checking on Srin every five minutes. After two hours, she was sure she looked as ragged as she felt. Her calculations had gone nowhere, her mind instead running round and round in circles. For the twentieth time, she ran through and discarded the small number of people who could be trusted to help her? Drue, and perhaps the medical doctor Jonez. Plus two of the engineers who had seemed sympathetic enough whenever she visited the crucible, although she knew that was stretching things a lot. She couldn’t attempt an escape via one of the emergency pods. Even if she knew where they were and could get there unseen, a pod would be picked up in minutes. And escaping while the
Differential
was in hyperspace just wasn’t an option, it was more like suicide.

She entered her cabin and stood at the door, staring down at Srin’s figure. He had fallen into a fitful sleep an hour ago but, even unconscious, his body continued reacting to the absence of the drug. He had also started running a fever and she needed to only approach him, put a hand close without even touching him, to know that it raged higher. She may not have known much about medicine but she knew that a sustained high temperature could result in brain damage. The Republic would not want him then, after the fever had run its course. What kind of life would be left to him?

Srin, without full use of that wonderful light-speed mind. It didn’t bear thinking about. Moon moved away softly, hating herself for what she was thinking. But it looked as if she had no choice.

Moon faltered at the lip of the infirmary, her steps slowing as she neared the door. Was there something she’d overlooked? Some small avenue of rescue or treatment that she hadn’t thought of? A soldier carelessly brushed against her as he walked past her along the corridor, snapping her back to the terrible present. No, there was no way around this. There was only one way to save Srin.

She took a breath, squared her shoulders and walked in. Jonez was the medical doctor on duty. He looked up from his desk as she entered, giving her a small, professional smile.

“Is there something I can do for you, Dr. Thadin?”

“Er, how is Dr. Savic doing?” She hated even having the man’s name pass her lips.

“Quite well. He should be well enough to be discharged in a few days, although his recuperation will be a lot slower.”

“No permanent damage then?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

“None that our technology couldn’t cope with.”

“Is he…can he accept visitors?”

Jonez rose from behind his desk. “He still tires easily, but I’m sure he’d be more than happy to exchange a few words with you.”

I wouldn’t count on it
, Moon thought to his back as Jonez led her to a small ward off the main patient reception area. There were only two beds in the room, and one was empty. In the other, Savic slumbered peacefully. His dark skin, previously bearing a sickly grey tone, looked healthy, a startling contrast to the pure-white medical sheets that were tucked around him and over his chest. The bunk was angled so he looked like he was half-sitting, and a squarish blinking tube taped to his upturned forearm indicated he was still under medication.

How much strength would it take, she wondered, to throttle the man to death? And could she do it before the rest of the medical staff came running? Lurid fantasies overwhelmed her imagination before she pushed them away. She tried pinning a smile on her face as she walked to the bunk, but it was clenched and gritted by the time she stood next to Savic. Behind her, Moon heard Jonez walk away.

“Dr. Savic, can you hear me?”

She had to ask a second time before Savic’s eyelids flickered open.

“Ye—” His eyes focused on her and his voice strengthened. “Dr. Thadin, is that you?”

“Yes it is. I hear you’re recovering well.”

“The medical facilities aboard this ship are impressive,” he said haltingly, but with a smile. “I’ll have to commend Captain Jeen on his crew’s efficiency.” He frowned. “How’s Srin?”

Moon’s hands, limp at her sides, clenched into fists. “Not well.”

Savic shook his head. “I’m sorry. I never expected the accident. He must be—what day is it?”

She didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. “Day four.”

“Four!” Savic looked agitated, his limbs thrashing, until an obvious slash of pain hit him, freezing him and causing him to fall limply back on the mattress. “No,” he said, and beads of sweat popped on his forehead. “He can’t go without his—”

Drug, fix, pharmaceutical control, choke chain
, Moon thought savagely.

“—medication for so long. He must be given….” He paused, exhausted, then exhaled noisily.

“Where is it?” she asked, not caring if anger coloured her question.

He looked at her, his gaze holding a mixture of puzzlement and distrust. “You would give it to him?”

“He’s got a high temperature, Doctor. There could be damage to him if I don’t do something soon. I need that drug.”

Savic closed his eyes and relaxed. His words came easier. “Of course. We retrofitted the fever effect and inserted it into his DNA. It’s triggered by three days of drug absence. If he doesn’t get his medication by the end of day five, his hyperpyrexia? a fever in excess of forty-one degrees? accelerates and permanent brain damage ensues.”