“Damn it, Pops! Just help me move them! Please?”
When he reached the mess hall and saw Chloe sitting at the table, absently nibbling on something, it brought another memory to the surface—Chloe sitting cross-legged between him and Kane. When he could not sit up, when he could barely chew the food she gave him, she sat for hours tearing bread into tidbits small enough to swallow, dipping them in broth, and feeding him with her fingers. He still did not understand why she had helped him and Kane, but he had long since given up trying to understand Chloe. She was as much of an enigma to him now as she had been then, even though he understood far more than he had then.
Sensing his presence, she looked up at him, met his gaze, and smiled, and he forgot that he was pissed off with her for calling him friend when he wanted her to think of him as her lover. He did not know how he was going to make her look at him as she did that fucking fuck bastard! He did not know how he would make her think of him in that way, but he would if he had to think of some way to get rid of the bastard to do it!
* * * *
Chloe thought it was a good thing, overall, that Reuel had thought to bring up the Maritime Sex Act and put it into effect. By the time she and the other women had given out recreational sex to most, if not all, of the men, it seemed to her that the entire crew had changed dramatically. There were still fights from time to time, but attitudes in general had changed, and they didn’t have another all-out brawl—or hadn’t so far. There didn’t seem to be nearly as much tension overall.
She thought it was probably a good thing for her, too, although she was pretty exhausted. She supposed she should have realized after the night she spent with Jared that he wasn’t the exception but the rule and that that was why Reuel had figured they should plan on one night per man. To the good, though, she had been too busy entertaining her crew to do anything stupid—like fall for another one. If it had been left entirely up to her, she thought she would have confined her activities to Damon, Jared, and Kane and that probably wouldn’t have been good for her when she was already very attached to them. She thought she might have begun to feel too personal about it when, really, it wasn’t supposed to be. In fact, that was the entire reason for the Sex Act—to prevent actual relationships from developing that might be too distracting to the crew.
The men, due to their natures, were pretty well fixated on sex, especially when there were any females around. By not allowing things to get too personal and the parties to form bonds, by insuring that no one was left out or ignored, it kept jealousy and resentment to a minimum. It prevented couples from sneaking off to a dark corner to fuck instead of attending their duties when such activities carried the potential for disaster for the entire crew. And of course, it improved overall mental health since sex was a stress reliever and it was stressful to spend too much time in space. Sex also allowed for touch, and humans, at least, seemed to have a fundamental need for it. Sensory deprivation could drive them bonky faster than just about anything else and, unfortunately, without such an act that included all crewmembers, there were always some that were shunned for one reason or another. Those people, deprived of any sort of comfort, could become a danger by themselves, were many times more likely to suddenly snap and run amuck.
There was certainly no doubt in her mind that they had all been badly in need of sexual release! Again, her ignorance and lack of experience might have led her to false conclusions if she had had her way and refused to service her fair share of the men. Jared’s raw passion hadn’t exactly come as a complete surprise after that kiss in the corridor. She’d thoroughly enjoyed it even though she’d found it just a little unnerving at first, but she thought she had pretty much been expecting it. The problem was, she was naïve enough that she’d thought it was just for her. By the time Sebastian, Lucien, and Thor had pounced on her with equal enthusiasm, though, she’d tumbled to the fact that it was just plain deprivation.
The poor things! They had really, really needed some relief!
Under the circumstances, though, she’d had to revise her initial impression of her night with Jared, had been forced to see that it wasn’t her in particular, but need in general. It had still made her unhappy, but at least she hadn’t had time to get really carried away with her imaginings. It was bad enough that she was having to deal with trying to extract her emotions over Damon and get it into her head that he wasn’t anymore ‘in love’ with her than he had been with all of the women he’d had to service at the brothel. Their first time together wasn’t special.Shewasn’t special. Even if he’d been a real man and not a cyborg that wouldn’t have been the case, but it certainly was when hewasa cyborg.
She thought she was going to be alright—eventually. She thought the sex was therapeutic for her in a very real sense, although not in the same sense as it was for the guys. She thought it was going to help her bring things into perspective. It was just way too easy for her to let her emotions rule her and to try to attach herself to anyone that was kind to her or gave her attention.
She was probably a total basket case from spending way too much time in space and away from other people and she just didn’t realize it, but, to the good, she wasn’t alone anymore or even restricted to just a small handful of people. With the addition of Reuel and his crew it was almost like living in a real community. It was a little disturbing that Reuel seemed to be taking over, but when all was said and done she hadn’t had a choice about taking over after her father died and it hadn’t been something she’d ever thought about doing or wanting to do. He still gave her the courtesy of always discussing everything and asking her opinion or permission and she felt like he really did want her to be a friend, that he wanted her to think of his people as friends. So she hadn’t spent a lot of time worrying about it.
It was actually nice to see all the changes in the old ship. It looked better than it had in her lifetime and she was willing to bet, better than it had in her father’s. It had already been old when he had bought it, but it had paid off and then some. The business he’d run from the ship had not only eventually paid for the ship, but it had supported them comfortably.
She was ready to retire it—or at least retire from it. She figured the cyborgs might as well get some use out of it. It wasn’t as if anybody else was willing to help them—or that she was going to have a lot of need for it once she found a place to settle.
She thought she’d finally remembered enough about that long ago trip with her father to at least have a fair idea of where to start looking. As Reuel had pointed out, somewhat wryly, the quadrant she’d marked out was vast and she hadn’t narrowed down the possibilities by a hell of a lot. Shehadremembered that it was a star very close to Earth’s sun in size and magnitude and that the system had six planets. Those two factors narrowed it down some. She figured they could send out probes in every direction when they reached the frontier closest to the quadrant she’d marked off. She was well aware that it could take months even if they found it relatively quickly and that meant they were going to have to take on a lot of supplies.
Reuel had pointed out that they didn’t want their last stop to stock the ship anywhere near where they intended to go and she could see the sense in that. If they created a pattern by hopping from system to system, it wouldn’t be hard for the authorities to begin to anticipate their next jump.
She still wasn’t crazy about his plan, but he was a soldier. He understood these things a lot better than she did and, as uncomfortable as she was with the idea of pirating what they needed, she also had to agree that they were due compensation for their efforts for the Confederation—which they hadn’t gotten. They’d been left with no choice but to take to survive when that should never have been the case.
As her father had always said, two wrongs didn’t make a right, and she knew her conscience was going to bother her for agreeing to something that was wrong. She also felt like survival trumped laws that were formulated for a society that needed boundaries and rules, however. The people of such societies were rarely subjected to the need to affect their own survival. The society that created the laws saw to their protection. Reuel and his people fell outside that protection because they’d been forced outside it, not because they had chosen that road.
* * * *
Kane grinned broadly when Chloe opened the door. “It is my night.”
He looked so happy—poor man!—when he was nearly last that Chloe felt her chest tighten, but she couldn’t help but chuckle at his eagerness. Catching his hand, she pulled him into the room and closed the door.
He pulled free the moment she did, bent to scoop her into his arms and carried her to her bunk. To her surprise, he merely settled her on it and then lay down on his side beside her, studying her intently. She was a little disconcerted but since he seemed more interested at the moment in examining her body than getting right to the point, she studied him.
It was odd, but it made a world of difference to look at him as a potential lover than it had before. She supposed that was because it was impolite to stare, and she hadn’t really looked, certainly not at such close proximity. In any case, the few times she’d come upon Jared and Kane in the bathing facilities, she’d been so shocked to see so much naked flesh that she’d come away from the experience with little more than the impression of a wall of flesh.
For that matter, she hadn’t actually gotten the chance to study any of the others, even Damon. She’d been too nervous to capture impressions with her eyes with him and with Jared and Sebastian and too swept up in the way they made her feel to come away with much more than that. She hadn’t been nearly as nervous after that, but Lucien and Thor had been as near frantic to get down to business as any of the others and that had precluded much of an opportunity for familiarizing herself with their bodies.
The only significant impression that she’d gotten beyond the fact that they were dark or fair was that they were all massive, very tall and bulked with muscles—even Damon. They were not carbon copies of one another, though, she realized abruptly. They were all tall and heavily muscled, but beyond the skin tones and hair color, they were each as unique in build as anyone else. There was a difference in their proportions and even their shapes, she realized.
Damon, despite his large, well defined muscles, was of a more slender build than either Kane or Jared. Sebastian also seemed long and lanky compared to them and Lucien seemed shorter and stockier, although she doubted he could possibly be much under six feet tall if he wasn’t every bit of six feet.
Kane wasn’t as big as Jared, she realized, although she hadn’t before. His chest wasn’t as broad or deep and his hips were narrower. His skin, which she’d somehow had in her mind was sun bronzed, obviously wasn’t, for she saw now that his skin tones were even all over his body.
He had bruises, she saw as she examined his belly and chest—fresh bruises—and when she lifted her gaze to his face, she saw that his nose was slightly swollen and one cheek seemed more puffy than the other. Clearly, he’d been in a fight recently because it never took long for them to heal from the sort of ‘light’ battering they dealt each other when they were ‘sparring’.
Consternation filled her. It might not be much damage, but it had to hurt if he was bruised and swollen. “What happened?”
He looked blank for a moment, then she could see the thoughts churning in his head while he tried to decide what to say. “I tripped.”
