Outer Bounds: Fortune's Rising (50 page)

Milar.
  Tatiana shuddered
and clenched the colonist’s big leather jacket in white-knuckled fists.  For a
long moment, she just huddled there, listening to him breathe, taking strength
in having him around her.  Then, cautiously, he moved above her, pulling away gently.
 Dropping his head to meet hers, he touched her chin with a big, callused
finger and lifted it.  “You okay?” he asked, his honey-brown eyes flickering to
the thing in her forehead.

Tatiana whimpered and looked
away.                         

Milar’s face darkened. 
I’ll
kill them all, I swear to God.
  “Who did that to you?  Nephyrs?”

Tatiana shook her head, feeling
tears stinging her eyes.  “Little girl,” she whispered.

“A little…girl.”  Milar seemed
confused. 
She must’ve been drugged.
  “You sure?”

She nodded.

Delicately, he offered, “You sure
you weren’t drugged, princess?”

“Robot.  Anna.”

Anna. 
Every muscle in
Milar’s body went stiff around her, like rigid steel.  “Brown eyes?  Short
black hair?” 

Just thinking about the little
girl’s face made Tatiana’s next breath come out in a long, terrified whimper.

He cursed.  “Don’t worry,
sweetie.  Whatever it is, we’ll get it out.”

“No!” Tatiana screamed, lunging
away from him and scrabbling backwards across the alien plant-life.

Immediately, Milar groaned and
put a hand to his temple. 
Wideman was full of shit.  She’s gonna kill me. 
Wincing,
he said, “Okay!  Calm down.  Please calm down.  We’ll leave it.  Okay?  We’ll
leave it.”

But Tatiana was shaking all over,
dragging her knees back to her chest.  “What’s happening to me?” she whimpered.

Milar met her gaze under the hand
on his temple and she saw him scared for the first time since she’d met him. 
“I don’t know.  But we’re gonna find out, okay?” 

“You know Anna?” Tatiana
whimpered.  “What is she?  A robot?  She told me to stay away from you.”

Milar’s face darkened to a
thunderhead.  “She did?”  
That little bitch.  I’ll kill her.

Tatiana nodded through tears. 
“She said you were hers.  Told me not to touch you or she’d make it worse. 
Turn on the blades in my brain.”  She felt herself start to hyperventilate
again, remembering.

His eyes flickered to the thing
jutting from her forehead.  “That’s got blades—” he winced and held his head again. 
“Okay, sweetie, no offense, but let’s talk about something nice again. 
Butterflies and rainbows and nonsensical bullshit, okay?”

Remembering the doctors and
Nephyrs and security personnel that had collapsed around her, Tatiana squeezed
her eyes shut and nodded.

Milar inched closer to her and,
almost timidly, pulled her back into his warm embrace.  “Okay,” he said against
her skull, “what do you want to talk about?  Something happy, right?” 

Her forehead started throbbing
where his throat touched it, and Tatiana once again saw the little girl
standing over her, lecturing her on the stunted brains of lab rats as she cut
at her forehead with a scalpel.

“How about movies, you watch
movies?”

Tatiana shook her head and once
again felt the whine building in her chest.

She’s gonna fry me like a
toaster.
  For a long moment, Milar said nothing.  Then, “The first time I
saw you, I was three.  We had kids.  Nice house.  Land.  Good life.  Happy.  No
war.”

Tatiana swallowed, dragged from
the memories of surgery out of sheer curiosity.

“When I was five, I saw the two
of us playing chess on the floor of a ship.  I remember feeling bad because you
were bleeding and I hadn’t offered you any bandages, so I gave you my shirt. 
Didn’t even realize where I’d seen that one before until my shirt was halfway
off and you were staring at my dragons.”

Tatiana continued to listen, the
sound of his voice forcing off the whine of the bone-saw.

“Saw your escape before, too,
except I remembered it as I was tucking your cast under the blanket.  Gave me the
holy willies when I did, let me tell you.  Thought I’d keep you from rabbiting
by leaving you naked and reading a book on the sofa beside you.  Much to my
surprise, you did it anyway.  Tart.”

Tatiana felt herself give a weak
smile into the cotton folds of his shirt.  “Ogre.”

She felt Milar’s arms tighten
around her. 
Oh thank God.  Thank God, thank God…
  His big body started
to shudder.  After a few minutes, she heard him sniffle.

“Don’t you know that snot and open
wounds don’t mix?” Tatiana whispered, after a moment.

He sniffed and lifted an arm to
wipe his face.  “Nasty stuff, snot.”

“All germy and gross,” Tatiana
agreed.

“Really gross.”

“So Wideman’s been having people
draw me for a long time, then?”

She’s gonna find out sooner or
later.  Grow a spine, you coward. 
“My dad didn’t carve you until I was twelve.”

Tatiana frowned.

“Everybody says I’m crazy and
they think Patty’s the only one,” Milar whispered, his hot breath against her
skull, “but I’ve been dreaming about you a really long time, Tat.  The things I
saw…”  He kissed the top of her head.  “Worth waiting for, you know?”

He’s telling me he’s…psychic?

“Runs in the family, I think,”
Milar said.  “First Dad, then me and Pat.  I didn’t get the whole shebang,
though.  Just dreams.”

Tatiana was so stunned she
couldn’t speak.

She’s gonna freak out.  She’s
gonna freak out and kill us both.
  “Now before you—”

“I’m not going to freak out,”
Tatiana said, leaning back to look up at him.  “Did you just say you
dreamed
about me?”

Milar licked his lips as he met
her stare.  “Uh.”  Then, quickly, he babbled, “I don’t know who they came from,
or why, but I know we’re supposed to have kids together.”

For a long moment, Tatiana could
only stare at him.  After waiting for him to recant his words—which he
didn’t—she finally croaked, “That’s the worst come-on line I’ve ever heard.”

Milar laughed, his amber eyes
nervous.  “Uh…yeah.  Sorry.” 
She doesn’t believe me.
  He looked away.

“I believe you,” Tatiana said.

Milar jerked his head back with a
frown.  “You do?”

“I dreamed about you, too,”
Tatiana said.

Milar froze.  “You
did
?”

“Yeah,” Tatiana said, feeling a
tentative grin stretching her lips.  “When I was in solitary, after they read
me the charges.  I had to sleep a lot, and it got…interesting.  I think I
popped your virgin cherry, oh, twenty or thirty times.”

He blinked at her a startled
moment, then slowly grinned back.  “Squid.”

“Brute.”  Then, cocking her head
up at him, she tentatively offered, “You saw us with kids?”

Immediately, his eyes flickered
to the thing in her head and fiercely, he said, “Sure the hell did.”

“Then this isn’t going to kill
me.”

“Not a chance.”

Tatiana cleared her throat. 
“Well, that’s…comforting.  You dream about anything else?”

Milar’s eyes flickered back to
her and he gave a nervous chuckle. 
Just don’t tell her about the crash.

“What crash?” Tatiana demanded.

Milar froze.  “Did you just…” 
His eyes narrowed and he glanced at the thing in her forehead, then back at her
face.  He stuck a finger out and poked her in the chest.  “There somethin’ you
wanna tell me, squid?”  He leaned closer, until they were eye-to-eye, his voice
low and dangerous.  “Like something
important
?”

“What crash?” Tatiana insisted.

He narrowed his eyes at her. 
“You’re on a need-to-know basis.”

“Did I die?”

“No.”

“So I
do
crash.”

“Squid,” he warned.

“Tell me!” she cried, slapping
his chest.

“
No
,” he snarled with
startling vehemence.  He grabbed her wrist and held it in a vice, dragging her
face to meet his.  “Some things are better left unsaid.”

After a minute or two of Tatiana
glowering up at him, his eyes flickered nervously to the thing in her
forehead.  “All right.  Tell me the truth, now.  How much are you picking up?”

“All of it,” Tatiana said
immediately.

His nervous look fell away and
Milar grinned.  “Oh really.”

“Yeah.”  She stuck out her
tongue.  “Collie.”

She’s clueless.
  “So why
aren’t you blushing?  Hmm?”

Struck by the triumph in his
face, Tatiana said, “Uh.  What?”

“‘Cause I was just reminding
myself what a naked coaler looks like under all that goo, and I’m pretty sure
I’m hard as a rock.”

Tatiana felt her face heat. 
“Oh.”

His grin became predatory and he
lowered his voice to a husky rumble.  “So what was that you were saying about
popping my cherry, coaler?”

Tatiana felt a little thrill
under his intense stare.  She swallowed, hard.  “Uh, we are sitting in the
smoking remnants of a massive aerial battle that may or may not be over—”

“I always got the idea that
danger turned you on.”

She gaped at him, feeling herself
heat in all the right places.  “I was just molested by a five-year-old with a
bone-saw,” Tatiana babbled.  “‘Not in the mood’ doesn’t
begin
to
describe—”

Milar muffled the rest of her
retort with a kiss.

When he let her back up for air,
Tatiana gasped and sputtered something about malfunctioning robots.  With a
rumbling growl, Milar pushed her backwards onto the blanket, pressing her into
the ground and nibbling on her ear.  “Scaalllllpels,” Tatiana moaned, melting
into him.

Oh my God, that stuff tastes
disgusting. 
Above her, Milar hawked and spat into the alien grass. 

Tatiana narrowed her eyes and
un-flexed her body, dropping her butt back to the blanket.  “Did you have to do
that?”

“Uh,” Milar said, reddening
instantly.  “I got a bug in my mouth.”

Immediately, Tatiana felt a wave
of inner evil.  “Oh?  That’s it?  Come on, then, gogogogo!”  She grabbed his
head and wrenched it back to her ear.  “Right there, baby.  Mmmm, oh yeah.”

Milar didn’t nibble on her ear. 
In fact, he lifted his head and gave her a narrow look.  “Squid.”

“You know, it really turns me on
to get licked.  Yeah, I love that.”

He narrowed his golden-brown eyes
at her.  “Licked, huh?”

“Yeah,” Tatiana said.  “Licked
all over.  You can start with my feet.”  She pointed, for his clarification.

Milar didn’t look.  He leaned
down, very close, until their noses were touching. 
So how much can you
hear, coaler?
  His amber eyes scanned hers with interest.

“Uuhhh,” Tatiana swallowed. 
“Wow.  That was weird.”

Heard that, then?

“Umm.  Yes?” she squeaked.

He lowered his weight on top of
her and put his elbows to either side of her face, studying her. 
So can you
send back?  Or just receive?

“Uhhh,” Tatiana giggled
nervously.  “I’d actually rather not experiment on the oaf who weighs like six
times as much as me and is pinning me to the dirt.  I killed some people, I
think, and you’re
heavy
.”

I can stay here all day,
coaler.

She narrowed her eyes at him. 
Then, thinking as hard as she could, she thought,
You knucker.

Milar winced and said, “Point
taken.”

She raised a brow.  “It worked,
then?”

“I’d say,” he grimaced.  “A
little harder and I think I’d be drooling.”  Then he slowly relaxed again and
looked at her once more, his amber eyes glinting with mischief. 
You know,
this could get fun.

Tatiana made a nervous laugh.  “I
told you I think I killed people, right?”

We could totally screw with
Patty’s world.

“Yeah, let’s
not
tell
anybody, okay?” Tatiana said.

We’d be awesome at poker.

“I don’t play poker,” Tatiana
said.  “They accuse me of cheating.”

Totally unstoppable at
charades.

“I’m already unstoppable at
charades.”

He gave her a long look,
grinning. 
Twenty or thirty times, huh?

Tatiana felt her face heat. 
“Uuhhhm.  Something like that.”

Care to demonstrate?

Oh, did she
ever!
  To get
this kind of hunk into bed was like, totally beyond any of her expectations. 
Considering the billions of little black check-marks she’d lodged under Too
Cocky For Her Own Good, she had always been sure she was gonna end up with a
warty, buck-toothed hillbilly with bad breath, just to get laid.  But
this
… 
This was like, too good to be true.  But she couldn’t tell him that, huh-uh. 
It would pop his already-pressurized ego like a ten-ton hydrogen balloon.  If
he didn’t simply catch fire and explode right on the spot, she’d never hear the
end of it. 

“Sorry,” Tatiana said, “like I
was saying before, I was just assaulted by a demonic child—”

Milar began to grin at her evilly. 
“Hunk, huh?” he said.

Tatiana felt her mouth fall open,
realizing that he must have heard part of her brainless, sex-starved inner
monologue.  “N-No,” she blurted.

But his grin only grew more
devious.  “You know,” Milar said, as she sputtered, “I could get used to that.” 
He bent down and kissed her again.  Against her ear, he breathed, “You have any
idea how long I’ve been waiting for this, squid?”

“…this?” Tatiana managed, feeling
her face heat.  She could actually count the days since she’d been aching to
get in his pants—hell, the hours.  She’d been craving it ever since he’d
stepped out of the alien jungle and his sexy beetle-green sunglasses had looked
so cool in the firelight.

Milar lifted his head and gave
her a thoughtful look. 
Now’s a good time to ask.
  “Tell me something,
coaler,” he said, meeting her gaze.  “And think about it long and hard before
you answer.  There’s no going back on this one.”