Page 26 of Bernadette

The ship was quiet. Everyone was either asleep, on sentry duty manning the surveillance vids, or partying themselves silly on the station. She saw one other sleepless crewmember as she wandered. They exchanged pleasantries and continued on their separate ways.

She’d hoped to clear her mind as well as exhaust herself, but she was dogged with thoughts of Doljen and Halmiko. She was surprised to find the Nobek inhabiting her consciousness as much as her long-ago lover.

What wasn’t surprising, given how intensely she was thinking about him, was coming across Hal himself near the cargo bays. They both hesitated upon catching sight of the other, then slowly approached.

“You’re up late,” he observed, coming to a stop before her.

“You too. Everything all right?”

He shrugged. “I suppose. A bit crowded, what with extra people sleeping over.”

“Kom brought Larsen home with him, huh? He’d better have done that background check. If anything ends up damaged or stolen, it comes out of his pay. Along with his hide.”

“Despite how we found him, the kid doesn’t seem interested in taking stuff. Except space. And air. And Kom’s undivided attention. I think your head of security has it bad for that guy. It got a little uncomfortable for me with those two.”

“Were they, uh—?”

“They weren’t fucking. That definitely wasn’t the mood when I left. Just talking. Well, Kom was talking. Matt…did you know Larsen’s first name? He’s a sobbing, guilt-ridden wreck. A real mess. Damn if he doesn’t have Kom behaving like an Imdiko, petting and rocking him like a baby.”

Bernadette struggled to imagine her hard-drinking, fight-loving crewman in such a situation. “I knew he had it bad for him, but that’s pretty intense.”

“I heard enough to gather Matt was a guard on an Earther battlecruiser during and after the war. They’d taken Kom and the rest of his destroyer crew prisoners?”

“Yeah.” Bernadette started walking again, waving Hal to join her. “Nasty story, and Larsen was the only guard who treated Kom and the other captives with any decency. Though Kom was the prisoner in a cell, he said he always felt desperate to save Larsen. The guy was shaking apart even back then.”

“I have the feeling he’ll ask you to let him keep Matt around.”

“That was a foregone conclusion when he told me about his search for the guy. Talk about obsessive infatuation. Nothing short of Larsen pointing a blaster at his face would put Kom off.”

“That isn’t happening. If I hear Matt say ‘I’m sorry’ one more time…” Hal growled to finish the threat.

Bernadette sighed. Was there anyone in the universe who wasn’t an emotional wreck of some sort? Even Kom had come close to choking up during his bohut-fueled tale of Larsen two years prior, and Nobeks never cried.

“I could have coped with them screwing each other’s brains out with me in the room. It was the sobbing that was too much heart-wrenching drama to be around.” Hal rolled his eyes.

Yeah, as if you don’t have a ton of drama of your own. Bernadette managed to keep that thought to herself. “I guess you need another place to sleep.”

“You realize where I’d pick if given the choice,” he teased.

“What the hell. If my crew has to double up, it’s only fair the captain does so too.” She headed toward her quarters.

“Is it such a sacrifice?”

She looked him over, this handsome, scarred masterpiece of manhood. Damn if her panties weren’t already damp. “I’ll get through it. Somehow.”

* * * *

Bernadette was amused at how unembarrassed her unexpected roommate was about his eagerness to have sex. His erections tented his trousers, and he began stripping the instant the door to her quarters closed behind him.

“What gets you off? I mean,reallygets you off? I notice you enjoy being controlled, but if there’s more, I want to hear it.” Hal paused after he’d flung his shirt to the floor.

It was nice that he was interested in her preferences and her pleasure was important to him. Nicer still that she could tell him.

Doljen had been forced to learn the hard way, because Bernadette herself hadn’t known what excited her. He would have had to figure it out for himself even if she had understood her triggers. While she’d been his captive and at odds with him, she wouldn’t have admitted to any of it.

She considered telling Hal how lucky he was that his clanmate had found her first. She decided against it. “Being controlled is definitely a turn on. As is bondage.”

“I can tie you up in ribbons as a present to myself?” He grinned and shoved his boots off.

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