Save for Shardae (6 page)

“Slow your approach,” she ordered with a push backward.

He nodded. “You keep tempting me.”

She frowned at him. “I’m going to ignore that. Listen, keep your mind on the tasks before you. Not what’s behind me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She laughed. It made him feel incredibly high -- like the first time he flew a spacecraft. “You’re not what I expected.” Pushing herself off the wall, heading toward the turbo lift, she added, “That last notwithstanding.”

He walked beside her because she kept talking to him. Could this last? This light, airy chitchat? He wanted the moment to extend forever, but laughed at how ridiculous that sounded.

“You believe I’m a womanizing jerk. That’s what you expected.”

Some of his annoyance must’ve seeped out because she gave him a funny look. Like before, the expression vanished before he could pin it down.

“Honestly, yeah, I expected, well, never mind,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Just get down to medical. Get your meds. Stein has your orders.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, unable to halt the large smile on his face.

Chapter 8

Shardae hated the wobble in her voice, but whenever Zander fixed those bedroom eyes on her, her stomach melted. She watched him trot up the stairs toward medical with her heart pounding. Yeah, she’d played it casual, but inside she went spastic. Did he just try to kiss her? Was he mad? Was she mad, because she’d wanted him to?

Clutching her stunner’s handle centered her. She made her feet walk away from the stairs, away from Zander and away from the temptation he extended. Did he operate like that all the time? Her belly had dropped when she’d spied him with Porter. The red-haired woman’s body language told everyone in the café that she was available.

Zander’s blatant rejection had nearly caused the hot-tempered Porter to knock him one. Porter had been in disciplinary trouble in the past. Shardae couldn’t say she liked her. Her making moves on Zander didn’t sit well either.

Her comm buzzed in her ear. Before she could answer, Private Tate said, “You’re needed at the brig.”

“I’ll be right there.” She hurried down the corridor and thrust her hand between the almost closed doors of the turbo lift. Four men stood shoulder to shoulder in a half-arc of masculinity. All worked in Engineering, including Lieutenant Mackerel. Automatically, she clenched her teeth to the razzing she knew he’d subject her too. One of Shardae’s casual acquaintances, Vivian Ortega, hinted the 6' 3" Mackerel had a crush on Shardae, hence the constant teasing.

“There she be!” Mackerel’s deep and rich voice announced -- like the other three couldn’t see her. “The guardian of our safety.”

“Or the means to our demise,” chimed another engineer.

The other men in the lift broke into muffled snickering.

Shardae let it unfurl for a few minutes before saying over her shoulder, “There’s a reason why engineers aren’t funny.”

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” Mackerel asked, a smile on his lips.

“You.”

The doors opened just in time for her to escape. The eruption of bolder chuckles filled the compartment. She smiled. Nice to be able to ruffle the engineers’ feathers.

Her good mood crumbled when she reached the outer doors to the brig. She headed in with her head abuzz with possible issues but stopped at the control box, a rectangular glass-encased room that contained the control panel -- one of the two security consoles to the brig.

The prisoners weren’t acting as though they were about to spend the rest of their lives doing hard labor, but none of her staff had any evidence of plans to escape.

“Sergeant Simmons!” called a frantic voice from behind her.

Private Porter stalked toward her, Zander behind her. “This, this --” Porter pointed at Zander, “--
pilot
said he’s on our security team. Where’s O’Leery?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Shardae saw Lee hovering close to the force field securing the entrance of his cell. A grin crossed his face, his gaze drinking in every detail. Wonderful.

Shardae steadied the geyser of anger spewing inside her. Porter had called her authority into question. That couldn’t go unpunished. Not in front of the others and definitely not in front of the prisoners.

“Crewman Porter,” Shardae said, voice full of ice. “Did you receive a promotion I didn’t know about?”

Porter frowned, searching for an answer. “No, ma’am.”

“Then I’m still chief of security,” Shardae continued, stepping forward. “That means I don’t answer to you. If you want to continue working for me, you’d best start remembering who you’re talking to and quickly.”

Porter swallowed so loud, it echoed in the corridor. She looked Shardae in the eyes. “Yes, ma’am,” she said tightly.

“Now, for your information, Pilot Reyes has been assigned to security…”

“Why?” Porter rudely interjected.

Shardae stepped closer still until she could feel the woman’s hot breath on her face. A red haze filtering from her fury drifted over everything. If Porter wanted to get her ass beat down, well, okay. Shardae snarled, “I’m not going to explain a damn thing to you. You got issues with that?”

“Yeah, I do, ma’am,” Porter barked back, her face scrunched up in anger.

“Talk to Commander Ashe,” Shardae said coldly. “For now though, you’re relieved of duty until further notice.”

“What?” Porter screeched. “You can’t do that! I’m going to talk to the commander!”

“You do that,” Shardae snarled. “Don’t forget to mention the charge of insubordination I’m bringing against you.”

With that Porter spun on her heel and stalked down the corridor, nearly plowing into Zander.

“Reporting for duty, ma’am,” Zander said breezily.

“Get back to stations,” Shardae snapped before pinning her annoyance onto Zander. The rest of the team members returned to work. Hot whispers and the rumbling of conversations resumed. She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Lee. He’d slunk back into his cell.

“Follow me,” she ordered to Zander. They needed to talk -- privately.

Seething, she led him to the security doors outside the holding cells. Only the turbo lift and camera were in the hall. Once away from the eyes of her security team, she asked Zander, “Why are you here?”

“I’m ready to be part of the team, ma’am.”

She tried to stay angry, but she couldn’t. He was so handsome -- cheeky bastard. The smile sprang on her face. “Eager, aren’t you, pilot?”

He inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

The air thickened. Noise fell away when Zander spoke to her like that. It’d been driving her batty all day long. Even in sleep he taunted her with his infectious smile, his carefree manner. Her blood raced through her veins, half propelled by adrenaline with her verbal interchange with Porter. The other, enhanced by Zander’s smoking sexiness in close proximity to hers.

“Look,” she said, ignoring his grin. “It’s been a long day for you -- being new to the vessel.”

“Ma’am?”

“Go back to your quarters. Rest, eat, relax.”

Zander nodded, but his rigid stance told her he didn’t want to go.

“Go on, Reyes. You’ll have plenty to do tomorrow.”

His eyes met hers. The thin tingle in her pussy beat faster, making her wet with want. “Can you come with me?” His voice was so low the corridor’s security monitors wouldn’t pick them up.

“What?” she hissed. He did
not
just ask her that!

“Coffee and bagel,” he said, his eyes locked on hers.

“I -- I -- that wouldn’t be appropriate,” she choked around the rising regret in her throat. She fled back into the console’s cube. Running away from Zander, away from the heat he stirred inside her, and far away from the terrible, but strange feelings he caused inside her heart. She shuddered at the fluttering in her belly. Suppressing a giggle, she took in a big gulp of air.

Lies, treachery, and betrayal, these she knew well. Shardae dove back into the familiar, cold arms of spacecraft security.

Chapter 9

One week later

The last week had been comprised of nothing but monitoring, extinguishing small fires, and steering the spacecraft up to Titan’s orbiting outpost. A small research and development division of the IGO occupied the upper floors of the outpost. Rumors had it the R&D scientists used the prisoners as lab rats. Either way, Zander found the flight boring with a capital B. The only saving grace that kept him even remotely conscious floated before his mind’s eye now -- the bodacious Sergeant Simmons.

“Pilot Reyes,” came the icicle-encased voice of Commander Ashe from behind him. “You with us?”

Zander’s attention snapped back to the present. “Oh, yes, ma’am,” he replied dutifully, not meaning any of it. He had the faint impression she’d said something important. He had blocked her out in his lust-filled vision of Sergeant Simmons.

He swiveled his seat around to face the commander.

Commander Ashe’s inquisitive cold green eyes met his. Unsmiling, she put both hands on the armrests of her commander’s chair. “Then repeat what I just said to the crew.”

“Yes, ma’am. You were discussing orders for when we arrive at the outpost next week.” A shot in the dark, but hey, it sounded close to home.

Chuckling rippled through the senior crewmen on the platform at his response. Okay, so maybe he didn’t ballpark it at all.

The front of
The Explorer
was shaped like a V with the point of the letter slicing into the cold arms of space, the command center. Both junior commanders rotated the duties of overseeing the crew while Ashe did other things. For the most part, he’d come to like both Junior Commanders Stankiewitz and Henderson.

He didn’t like how both were laughing at him right now though. Shooting them both stunner beams with his eyes, Zander grimaced as they laughed more.

“No, Pilot Reyes,” Commander Ashe replied coolly. She ignored the rest of the crew. “I said for you to report to security. Sergeant Simmons requests your presence down on the brig.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Zander nearly jumped out of his seat in his haste to get to Simmons. That’s news he liked hearing!

Commander Ashe said dryly, “Perhaps she can hold your attention better than I.”

He didn’t confirm it for her, but he headed onto the turbo lift. JC Henderson took his place at the helm in his stead.

He liked being on the security team, but he only had one more week. By the time they got to Titan, O’Leery would be back on duty, all healed up. Zander didn’t like to think about not being able to see Simmons, but he wrestled the slight stitch in his chest back into the corners of his mind.

“Sergeant Simmons?” he asked, a bit out of breath from both his haste to get down to her and his adrenaline-induced excitement. The doors of the turbo lift closed behind him, but his favorite sergeant wasn’t outside the brig to greet him as she had been on previous occasions.

Zander’s hair rose on the back of his neck. This didn’t follow, her not being here, waiting. The corridor’s illumination flickered as if in agreement. “Sergeant Simmons!”

“Why are you shouting?” Sergeant Simmons came around the corridor carrying a pair of V.R. goggles in her right hand. “You have an earpiece.”

“Yeah, I do,” he said with a rush of relief at finding her safe and sound. “Just about to use it to find you.”

“Why?” she asked. “I told Tate to tell you to meet me at the brig.”

“I thought something had happened to you.”

She shook her head.

Every day he found her more breathtakingly beautiful. Yeah, the word had been overused, but it wasn’t his fault the language didn’t have a word to describe the simply stunning Sergeant Shardae Simmons. He cleared his throat. “What’s with the goggles?”

“You and I are heading to the virtual reality hologram deck,” she explained, sweeping right by him. He fell into step with her. “You’ve got to pass your stunner certification because somehow it elapsed.” She winked at him. Goodness, when she brightened, she lit up the whole damn corridor. “You don’t recognize them?” she asked, holding them out from her body. “Surely, you haven’t been that many years out of academy.”

Zander recognized the gaming goggles. At academy they used them for combat trainings. “Combat trainings,” he said, with puzzlement of his own. “You and me? You can’t be serious.”

“You scared of a little tussle?” she teased.

“No,” he said with a laugh. “Not at all.”

“Good. So come on.”

A few other soldiers entered the hologram center with Zander and Shardae. Three males gave Simmons very interested looks. One in particular whispered that she had a nice ass.

“Shut up!” Zander barked before he could stop himself. No one touched his woman, his sergeant. No one talked about her ass.

One of the soldiers turned around to him. “Mind your business, Reyes,” he shot back, a snicker still on his mouth.

Simmons glanced over her shoulder, then turned around to face them. “Mackerel! Don’t talk to my staff like that.”

“I can say whatever I want,” Mackerel said. “You get your boy toy in there and train him right.”

“Boy toy? I’ll show you boy toy,” Zander seethed. He snatched the V.R. goggles from Simmons. “I’ll beat your tail.”

He knew exactly what Mackerel thought about Simmons because he had the same thoughts himself. He despised the hungry looks Mackerel kept giving his woman. Sure, she didn’t know she belonged to him, but Zander saw Mackerel as a rival suitor -- one who needed an ass whipping fair and square. Plus a little extra since the man had called him a toy.

They both headed into one of the numerous rooms set aside for virtual enjoyment. She came in behind them. Inside the white walled place, Zander’s aggravation escalated. Mackerel’s cronies continued their verbal assault, which had Simmons pissed.

Shardae snatched Zander’s jacket and jerked his ear down to her mouth. “We’re going to beat the shit out of them.” Her thumb jutted to the trio of men.

Zander saw the glint in her eyes. A fire of competition burned and it explained how Sergeant Simmons had managed to scale up the IGO ladder.