His shoulders tensed. “Stop messing around. I get you don’t like me, but we need to focus and work this out.”
“Focus on what?” I held out my arms, gesturing to the cavern that would be identical to the next and the next. He took the opportunity to snatch the candy and had it in his mouth.
“We’ve been walking for hours,” I went on, trying not to look away from him because then I’d have to face the walls, endless, endless walls. “Our commlinks can’t communicate above the surface. We’re low on food. The water canister will keep us going for a while, but by tomorrow we’ll be too exhausted to do more than lie here and die.”
“Shall we start early then?” Roys turned off his scanner and flashlight. He gestured behind us toward the open cavern. “Let’s take a seat. You can tease all you want until we fight over the food, where, I promise, I will bash your face in on the wall.”
“You just said we shouldn’t be irritating each other, and I’m fairly sure that was your attempt to irritate me. Futile at best.”
Roys dropped the shirt to run his hands through his hair, eyes pinched shut but still twitching.
I grinned and hit the final button. “Really need your fix, huh?”
Roys shoved me against the wall, where I lost my grip on the water canister. I had it half slung over my right shoulder, so it crashed against the soil. The sound resonated further and further and further, making us both tense in the realization he refused to voice.
“What the fuck is your problem?” He genuinely looked curious, albeit pissed off.
I would have commented on how impressive it was that he cursed, but he had his hand wrapped so tightly around my collar that I choked.
“You are the most insufferable bastard I have ever met. Stubborn, self-absorbed, and a downright piece of shit that wants to make everyone as miserable as you are because, at the end of the day, you are a complete coward.”
When I dared to move, his hand fell from my collar to my throat. I shuddered for entirely wrong reasons. We stood there, silent, him fuming, showing more than apathy, which was impressive for him. But he was all I saw, and that was all that mattered. For this moment, I could pretend we were anywhere else, that everything was perfectly fine.
“What’s wrong? No witty retort? Did I touch a nerve?” Roys let go and dared to turn his back on me. “Stop starting problems for the sake of them.”
Roys was turning his flashlight on when I lunged. He called me a coward, and I wasn’t interested in disproving that. Cowards often lived the longest. But Roys genuinely believed I was one because he saw the move coming. He spun to catch my fist. I brought my knee against his stomach. His palm cracked against my nose, not as hard as it should have been. That same hand caught my neck while the other pinned my fist to the wall. He knew as well as I did that this so-called fight was all half-hearted at best.
He jostled me, like he thought that would knock some sense into my head. “What is wrong with you? You’re… if you put any genuine effort into anything, you could do incredible things.”
“Like you, Captain?” I mocked.
“No, and that’s the saddest part.” His voice dipped, sending a chill up my spine. “Are you going to behave now?”
“Don’t know. Still thinking about it.” My eyes fell to his lips, parted to show that shiny piece of candy, like a little treasure, between his teeth. My fingers caught in the belt loops of his pants peeking out of the remains of the exoskin.
“What are you doing?” he whispered, eyes darting to my mouth and then away.
“I’m bored.” I couldn’t see anything but him. There was no cave, no darkness, no tomb. Just us. His frustration. Mine. A need to do anything, to think of anything other than a worthless inevitable end.
“Fuck off,” he growled.
“Can’t really do that with your hand around my throat.”
His fingers jerked, and there was no way he could miss my shudder. The light from my visor fell across the cavern wall at his back, illuminating him, but not his eyes. They were deep and dark and entirely unreadable. He was tense and soft all at once, fully against me yet a thousand clicks away. There was a tremble in his hand, not so dissimilar from mine, as if all the tension, all the fear, all the realization hit us at once.
I tested that boundary, that little thread that could snap, and leaned in to catch his bottom lip between my teeth. Roys shoved me back. His grip on my throat tightened. I didn’t hide my moan or the one after when he kissed me.
08
Roys’kisslackedallthe patience he previously complained that I didn’t have. When I dared not to part my lips, he slammed against me and got what he wanted. His tongue ran over the roof of my mouth, bringing that enticing taste of cherry. The candy caught between our tongues, a flavor that became entirely him.
He took my bottom lip between his teeth to bite hard because we couldn’t possibly be soft. We were all hard edges, imperfect, scraping against one another like metal on metal. My hands found his waist, his stomach, feeling every panting breath, curling in his dark hair and roving up to those glorious pecs. Having him against me, something solid, kept me from thinking of an endless dark. Though our tongues had been lethal, like this, they melted, a pool of pleasure to share. I clung to his back, bringing him in.
The pain had Roys hissing. He retreated, shaking his head. “That was… we shouldn’t be doing this. It’s stress. We’re scared and you’re…”
I brought his hand back to my throat. “Why not?” I kissed him and sucked the candy back into my mouth. “Are you worried I won’t like what you have to offer?”
“Is pissing me off the only way you know how to communicate?”
