veronica_rich (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
veronica_rich) wrote2007-01-14 10:40 pm
veronica_rich) wrote2007-01-14 10:40 pm
"Breaking Command" Part 4
A week later, Kathryn sat patiently as the sound technician adjusted a tiny microphone under the lapel of her jacket. As talk-show hosts went, Myra Spokes was relatively harmless; in fact, Kathryn had seen her shows before and thought them rather clever and fun. She expected no problems with this satellite-transmission interview.
Before the cameras started rolling on the live show, she was hooked directly into Myra’s studio and talked with the hostess herself, a gracious, slightly plump older Chinese woman who seemed to put everyone she was around immediately at ease. “Don’t worry, Katie-girl, we’ll take good care of you,” she assured Kathryn as would a mother calming her child. “There’s only one strict rule I set down: You have to laugh at all my jokes, whether they’re good or not.” They both chuckled over that, and the captain was good to go.
Myra opened with a fairly standard introduction, with a sly twist — “Now all you wealthy men out there, keep in mind that Kathryn is single,” smiling benevolently — and set about to asking a set of light questions, which Kathryn easily met with equally shallow answers. “So tell us, is that Harry Kim as cute in person as all the ladies know he is on camera?” she asked at one point.
Kathryn laughed. “Yes, he’s just as sweet, too. You couldn’t ask for a better junior officer or a nicer boy.” Then the captain chuckled at herself. “Oops — guess I’m showing my age with that one.”
“Don’t worry about it, Katie,” Myra gently admonished with a wink. “Us older women got all the young ‘uns beat hands-down. We just need to convince those wily old rascals of that.”
They continued their banter a few more minutes, and then Myra asked, “So tell us, Kathryn: What was the scariest thing you encountered in the Delta Quadrant? I’m sure most of us can’t imagine anything more frightening than the Borg, but we didn’t have your experiences, either.”
The captain thought that one over. There was so much to draw from. Finally, she answered, “Well, I think anyone’s worst fear is the unknown, more than anything. What scared me the most wasn’t what we had already run into — I mean, there were painful experiences, but at least afterwards we knew what to look for and how to guard against it happening again. I think not knowing what was up ahead was probably the most frightening part of the whole seven years. And, well ... it was the greatest thrill, too, as I’m sure many of my crew would tell you.”
“Good answer.” Myra nodded enthusiastically. “I know I wouldn’t have handled it well, not even as well as the most junior of your ensigns, that’s for sure.” The woman paused as Kathryn took a drink of water. “By the way, I didn’t mean to offend you with my remark about the Borg. I understand that one of your crew, in fact, is a refugee from the Collective.”
Kathryn nodded. “Seven had just growing pains with the crew at first, and they with her, but we stuck it out and eventually they learned to accept and get along with one another.”
“And we understand she’s been seen around with your handsome first officer, Chakotay, lately.”
Again, Kathryn nodded, betraying none of the minor bitterness she felt over this match. Over the years she’d developed a fondness for the former Maquis leader and had believed it returned. But, like other relationships in her life, it hadn’t worked out; perhaps she’d dawdled too long, waiting for the right moment to approach Chakotay. Maybe there wasn’t a right moment and you just had to do something when you felt it, she had concluded, noting with some sadness that particular opportunity would likely not come around again. “We’ve had some interesting matches in our crew, that’s for certain,” she answered. “Such as Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres. If you’d told me seven years ago they’d be married with a baby someday, I would have frankly told you that you needed eyeglasses. They didn’t get along at all.”
Myra laughed. “So does the captain of Voyager have a special someone, then?”
Kathryn only smiled enigmatically and shook her head. “Romance is for the young, Myra, and I had plenty of suitors in my girlhood to make me happy for the rest of my days.”
“Bite your tongue, Katie-girl! I’m still looking.”
“In that case, I can recommend a couple of admirals you might be interested in.”
“Now you’re talking! And admirals! I need to make better friends with you, I have a feeling.” Myra finished chuckling. “Kathryn, if there was something you could go back and do differently — other than knowing about and avoiding the vortex in the first place seven years ago — what would it be?”
And without even a preamble in her own mind that it was going to happen, Kathryn’s eyes filled with tears and her breath shuddered, and she put her hand to her face to stem the flow of emotion that question produced.
On her end of the transmission, Myra’s eyes widened in surprise, then worry. To the side she made a cutting motion with her hand to the technician, then turned back to her own camera to address her audience. “I’m going to give my guest a moment to think of this very difficult question. In the meantime, another of today’s guests, Chef Neelix, is going to show you how to prepare that perfect intergalactic stew.”
Back in the San Francisco studio, Neelix glanced back in alarm at the director on that end. “Please, just five minutes!” he pleaded, an arm around his friend’s shoulders. The woman nodded, and Neelix turned back to Kathryn. “Oh, that was a horrible thing to ask on live holovision!” he sympathized. “Are you all right, Captain?”
Over her own private feed, Kathryn heard Myra’s slightly alarmed voice. “Kathryn? I’m so very sorry for that; I didn’t realize it would bother you so much. Are you all right?” Kathryn could only nod.
“Captain?” from Neelix.
“Neelix, go on, I’ll be fine.” Kathryn sat up, taking the tissue the Telaxian offered. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. Go on, you have a segment coming up.”
He looked conflicted. “Oh ... but Captain, I can’t just leave a friend in need! You say the word and your morale officer will do what he can to make it right.”
She sniffled, intensely embarrassed by her loss of face on intergalactic holovision; even in front of one person was bad enough, but trillions? “What you need to do to cheer me up is to get yourself over there and make a good stew so nobody’ll regret making it at home!” she admonished, joking weakly. “Now go.”
Neelix only gave her a strained half-smile, as if warring within himself. “One minute, Mr. Neelix,” a stagehand called, and he spent the next fifteen seconds making his decision. “Call me if you need anything,” he told Kathryn, taking her hand briefly and squeezing it before running off to the kitchen set-up twenty yards away.
Another stagehand approached from the side. “Ms. Spokes says if you don’t want to continue the interview, you don’t have to,” she informed her gently.
For a moment, Kathryn opened her mouth to dismiss that notion, never a quitter. Then, something Reg had told her took on new meaning: Those attacks — they’re not going to just go away because you want them to. They’re there so you’ll deal with whatever your mind is trying to tell you. Maybe her mind was trying to tell her to stop these damned interviews, or take a break — or at the very least, put an end to this one soon.
“Please, thank you,” she told the assistant instead, already thinking of going home and hiding under her bed for the next week. She waited patiently as the assistant arranged her transport.
*****
Reg rang her door buzzer for the third time in as many minutes. He was trying to be patient, but ever since seeing that holovised interview nearly an hour ago, he’d been worried for Kathryn. Not that she didn’t need to have a good cry like everyone else on occasion, but she was the absolute last person he would have expected to do it during such a critical, potentially-embarrassing moment.
Finally, from within, he heard an acerbic, “Who the hell IS it?”
“Kathryn, it’s me, Reg. Open the door ... please? I’m by m-myself.” He didn’t know what to say to get her to open up. “I just wanted to check on you,” he added, figuring it would take a team of targs to pull open the door; he was deluding himself if he thought he ranked any higher than one of her own crew for getting her to talk, and when he’d called to talk to Neelix, the Telaxian had told him she’d even brushed off own morale officer. “I was just-”
To his surprise, the door slid open. He backed up a couple of steps, then caught sight of her standing there with a black bathrobe clutched around her, belted and knotted tightly. He could see material poking above the cowl and deduced she was still in her clothes under it. “Oh, Kathryn,” he murmured in sympathy, seeing the slightly haunted look in her eyes. “Can I come in?”
She moved to the side and he stepped through gingerly, far enough inside so the door would close. “I — I brought you some tea.” He held up a small brown bag of leaves. “Does wonders for stress. Apricot.” She still said nothing, just clutched the front of her robe. “Okay ... how about I go in the kitchen and make you a cup? You sit right down over there,” he motioned at the sofa, “and I won’t be but a couple of minutes.”
He bustled around her large kitchen, then emerged several moments later with a small tray of tea and light victuals he’d replicated. Setting it on a nearby table, he took a seat about three feet away from her. “Well ... here we are again,” he joked weakly, indicating the couch and the tea setup. “It’ll just take longer to cool. Real boiled water is like that.”
She looked over at the cups and finally spoke. “Why didn’t you just replicate it?”
“Brewed tea is better for you. The leaves actually contain the healing herbs for which you’re drinking it, and the closer you are to the source, the better they work. My grandfather used to tell me that. And these are about the best you can get — I grow and dry them myself.”
She grew quiet for a moment, then sighed. “I ... um, guess you were watching today.” He nodded. “How bad did I really look, Reg?”
“Kathryn, I have yet to see you look bad. Except maybe in that bathrobe. Black is not your color.” Lifting her head, she looked over at him, and he smiled, hoping to cheer her out of her funk. “Aren’t you hot in that thing?”
She shrugged. “It’s comfortable,” she responded, and he could swear she’d almost whined.
“It’s your home and you do whatever makes you feel good,” he soothed. “You’ve had a hard few years, and today hasn’t been a lot better. Your constitution can only handle so much stress and pain before even it wears thin.”
She tucked her chin down into the cowl of the robe and it took a moment to see that she had started crying again, silently, by the slight shake of her shoulders. He watched, uncomfortably, for a couple of minutes, then on instinct, scooted closer and put an arm around her back. “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this, Kathryn. All that pressure just hasn’t been fair for one person.”
To his surprise, she turned and burrowed against his chest, and he automatically wrapped his other arm around the huddle. He rested his cheek against the top of her head and sighed, patting her back and rubbing large circles on it. “Go ahead and cry, it’s okay,” he assured her. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I ... d-don’t even know why I-I started crying,” she sniffled into his uniform shirt. “I didn’t know I would — she just asked, and we were doing fine, and then I just started ... there’s just things I wish I c-could go back and fix, and can’t ... and they bother me when I think too long.”
“You can’t beat yourself up over that,” he told her, still quietly rocking her in his arms. “Can’t let self-doubt get the best of you. Even the hearing board told you none of them would’ve done things differently in your place, and if they can’t think of anything better, why should you have?” She shook her head, whether in disagreement or more self-recrimination, he didn’t know. After a few more minutes, he felt her arms loosen and slide around his midsection as she returned his embrace, and he closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her palms flat against his back. He didn’t know what shampoo she used, but he would gladly have stolen the bottle and taken it home to inhale the clean scent every day, to remember how she felt against him just now.
“And then,” she began quietly, the tears having subsided but the depression still there, “when she asked about Chakotay and Seven — it made me angry. I don’t know why; they don’t bother me, together. It’s just that ... for awhile, I thought there might have been something between us. Something I liked. But he found her instead. I don’t blame him; she’s younger and prettier, and has that blonde hair ...” She trailed off with a muffled sigh against his shoulder.
He angled his mouth down so it was close to her ear. “Kathryn,” he murmured, “if he picked another woman, it wasn’t because you’re lacking anything, believe me.” He closed his eyes and inhaled her mixture of scents and skin, then exhaled softly. “You are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, in so many ways. You’re brilliant, and strong, and funny, and I can’t imagine any man who wouldn’t be thrilled to ... just spend time around you. He was a fool to not try with you.”
And then he realized what he’d been saying, and waited for her to shove him away for impropriety or presumptuousness. But she remained where she was, making no move to put distance between them, and he had no intention of releasing her until she was ready. It had been so long since he’d been near a woman like this, and he could never remember having held one in this fashion before, for this long. It was both comforting and surprising that Kathryn would trust him enough for this.
Almost five minutes later, she stirred, and he loosened his hold to let her back away, sorry to lose her so soon. She blinked and lifted her eyes to his. “You don’t know the whole story, Reg. You don’t know that she wasn’t more attractive, for sure.”
“I know she’s not to me.” Lifting a hand, he smoothed some stray hair back off her cheek. Her blue eyes searched his, and on an impulse, he closed the distance between them and brushed his lips against her own.
Instantly regretting what he’d done, he began backing off, except that she followed and bridged the distance again. Her soft mouth invited exploration, and he parted his lips to envelop hers, to pull her lower one between his. It was sweet and full, and he released it only to give both his attention once again. They kissed like this for what seemed minutes; he lost track of time, listening only to to the occasional soft noises from her as she returned his kisses, her hands sliding up to muss his hair. He was restless, wanting to touch her. He wanted the thick robe gone, wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her like this for hours, until she understood how precious, how desirable she really was.
“Kathryn ... Kat,” he managed between kisses, his own voice husky and deep with emotion.
“Mmm?” she responded with a gravelly purr, her tongue parting his lips. As the tip of her tongue ran up along sensitive ridge behind his upper teeth, he groaned with an indefinable need — or perhaps one he just wasn’t ready to give a name, yet, despite his overwhelming urge to give in to something beyond kissing.
“We ...” Their kisses shifted suddenly, going from gently probing and sweet to needy, and deep, and ... and hot. Carefully, he disengaged himself and pulled away, panting for breath. It had required every ounce of willpower, and still his eyes were shut so he wouldn’t have to see her and change his mind. “We need to stop. Y-You’re feeling b-bad right now, and it’s n-nice to get attention, but I d-don’t want you regretting something later on.”
He cracked an eye open as he felt movement, and saw that she’d gotten to her feet. “I think you should leave now.”
Actually, Reg thought the same thing himself, but he could tell by the way she said it they were on different wavelengths. “Kathryn, all I meant was-”
“Good-bye, Lieutenant.” Her voice was back to normal command mode, and she faced the door, as if pointing it out to him.
Swallowing his nervousness, he stood and straightened out his uniform jacket. “Please ... get some rest and calm down, and we’ll talk. Later,” he urged, before striding around the table and toward the door. Turning to face her before going out, he appealed one last time. “I didn’t mean t-to overstep my bounds, I-”
“Leave now.” She fixed him with such a hard stare that he nodded and immediately turned and obeyed.
*****
Part 3
Part 5
Before the cameras started rolling on the live show, she was hooked directly into Myra’s studio and talked with the hostess herself, a gracious, slightly plump older Chinese woman who seemed to put everyone she was around immediately at ease. “Don’t worry, Katie-girl, we’ll take good care of you,” she assured Kathryn as would a mother calming her child. “There’s only one strict rule I set down: You have to laugh at all my jokes, whether they’re good or not.” They both chuckled over that, and the captain was good to go.
Myra opened with a fairly standard introduction, with a sly twist — “Now all you wealthy men out there, keep in mind that Kathryn is single,” smiling benevolently — and set about to asking a set of light questions, which Kathryn easily met with equally shallow answers. “So tell us, is that Harry Kim as cute in person as all the ladies know he is on camera?” she asked at one point.
Kathryn laughed. “Yes, he’s just as sweet, too. You couldn’t ask for a better junior officer or a nicer boy.” Then the captain chuckled at herself. “Oops — guess I’m showing my age with that one.”
“Don’t worry about it, Katie,” Myra gently admonished with a wink. “Us older women got all the young ‘uns beat hands-down. We just need to convince those wily old rascals of that.”
They continued their banter a few more minutes, and then Myra asked, “So tell us, Kathryn: What was the scariest thing you encountered in the Delta Quadrant? I’m sure most of us can’t imagine anything more frightening than the Borg, but we didn’t have your experiences, either.”
The captain thought that one over. There was so much to draw from. Finally, she answered, “Well, I think anyone’s worst fear is the unknown, more than anything. What scared me the most wasn’t what we had already run into — I mean, there were painful experiences, but at least afterwards we knew what to look for and how to guard against it happening again. I think not knowing what was up ahead was probably the most frightening part of the whole seven years. And, well ... it was the greatest thrill, too, as I’m sure many of my crew would tell you.”
“Good answer.” Myra nodded enthusiastically. “I know I wouldn’t have handled it well, not even as well as the most junior of your ensigns, that’s for sure.” The woman paused as Kathryn took a drink of water. “By the way, I didn’t mean to offend you with my remark about the Borg. I understand that one of your crew, in fact, is a refugee from the Collective.”
Kathryn nodded. “Seven had just growing pains with the crew at first, and they with her, but we stuck it out and eventually they learned to accept and get along with one another.”
“And we understand she’s been seen around with your handsome first officer, Chakotay, lately.”
Again, Kathryn nodded, betraying none of the minor bitterness she felt over this match. Over the years she’d developed a fondness for the former Maquis leader and had believed it returned. But, like other relationships in her life, it hadn’t worked out; perhaps she’d dawdled too long, waiting for the right moment to approach Chakotay. Maybe there wasn’t a right moment and you just had to do something when you felt it, she had concluded, noting with some sadness that particular opportunity would likely not come around again. “We’ve had some interesting matches in our crew, that’s for certain,” she answered. “Such as Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres. If you’d told me seven years ago they’d be married with a baby someday, I would have frankly told you that you needed eyeglasses. They didn’t get along at all.”
Myra laughed. “So does the captain of Voyager have a special someone, then?”
Kathryn only smiled enigmatically and shook her head. “Romance is for the young, Myra, and I had plenty of suitors in my girlhood to make me happy for the rest of my days.”
“Bite your tongue, Katie-girl! I’m still looking.”
“In that case, I can recommend a couple of admirals you might be interested in.”
“Now you’re talking! And admirals! I need to make better friends with you, I have a feeling.” Myra finished chuckling. “Kathryn, if there was something you could go back and do differently — other than knowing about and avoiding the vortex in the first place seven years ago — what would it be?”
And without even a preamble in her own mind that it was going to happen, Kathryn’s eyes filled with tears and her breath shuddered, and she put her hand to her face to stem the flow of emotion that question produced.
On her end of the transmission, Myra’s eyes widened in surprise, then worry. To the side she made a cutting motion with her hand to the technician, then turned back to her own camera to address her audience. “I’m going to give my guest a moment to think of this very difficult question. In the meantime, another of today’s guests, Chef Neelix, is going to show you how to prepare that perfect intergalactic stew.”
Back in the San Francisco studio, Neelix glanced back in alarm at the director on that end. “Please, just five minutes!” he pleaded, an arm around his friend’s shoulders. The woman nodded, and Neelix turned back to Kathryn. “Oh, that was a horrible thing to ask on live holovision!” he sympathized. “Are you all right, Captain?”
Over her own private feed, Kathryn heard Myra’s slightly alarmed voice. “Kathryn? I’m so very sorry for that; I didn’t realize it would bother you so much. Are you all right?” Kathryn could only nod.
“Captain?” from Neelix.
“Neelix, go on, I’ll be fine.” Kathryn sat up, taking the tissue the Telaxian offered. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. Go on, you have a segment coming up.”
He looked conflicted. “Oh ... but Captain, I can’t just leave a friend in need! You say the word and your morale officer will do what he can to make it right.”
She sniffled, intensely embarrassed by her loss of face on intergalactic holovision; even in front of one person was bad enough, but trillions? “What you need to do to cheer me up is to get yourself over there and make a good stew so nobody’ll regret making it at home!” she admonished, joking weakly. “Now go.”
Neelix only gave her a strained half-smile, as if warring within himself. “One minute, Mr. Neelix,” a stagehand called, and he spent the next fifteen seconds making his decision. “Call me if you need anything,” he told Kathryn, taking her hand briefly and squeezing it before running off to the kitchen set-up twenty yards away.
Another stagehand approached from the side. “Ms. Spokes says if you don’t want to continue the interview, you don’t have to,” she informed her gently.
For a moment, Kathryn opened her mouth to dismiss that notion, never a quitter. Then, something Reg had told her took on new meaning: Those attacks — they’re not going to just go away because you want them to. They’re there so you’ll deal with whatever your mind is trying to tell you. Maybe her mind was trying to tell her to stop these damned interviews, or take a break — or at the very least, put an end to this one soon.
“Please, thank you,” she told the assistant instead, already thinking of going home and hiding under her bed for the next week. She waited patiently as the assistant arranged her transport.
*****
Reg rang her door buzzer for the third time in as many minutes. He was trying to be patient, but ever since seeing that holovised interview nearly an hour ago, he’d been worried for Kathryn. Not that she didn’t need to have a good cry like everyone else on occasion, but she was the absolute last person he would have expected to do it during such a critical, potentially-embarrassing moment.
Finally, from within, he heard an acerbic, “Who the hell IS it?”
“Kathryn, it’s me, Reg. Open the door ... please? I’m by m-myself.” He didn’t know what to say to get her to open up. “I just wanted to check on you,” he added, figuring it would take a team of targs to pull open the door; he was deluding himself if he thought he ranked any higher than one of her own crew for getting her to talk, and when he’d called to talk to Neelix, the Telaxian had told him she’d even brushed off own morale officer. “I was just-”
To his surprise, the door slid open. He backed up a couple of steps, then caught sight of her standing there with a black bathrobe clutched around her, belted and knotted tightly. He could see material poking above the cowl and deduced she was still in her clothes under it. “Oh, Kathryn,” he murmured in sympathy, seeing the slightly haunted look in her eyes. “Can I come in?”
She moved to the side and he stepped through gingerly, far enough inside so the door would close. “I — I brought you some tea.” He held up a small brown bag of leaves. “Does wonders for stress. Apricot.” She still said nothing, just clutched the front of her robe. “Okay ... how about I go in the kitchen and make you a cup? You sit right down over there,” he motioned at the sofa, “and I won’t be but a couple of minutes.”
He bustled around her large kitchen, then emerged several moments later with a small tray of tea and light victuals he’d replicated. Setting it on a nearby table, he took a seat about three feet away from her. “Well ... here we are again,” he joked weakly, indicating the couch and the tea setup. “It’ll just take longer to cool. Real boiled water is like that.”
She looked over at the cups and finally spoke. “Why didn’t you just replicate it?”
“Brewed tea is better for you. The leaves actually contain the healing herbs for which you’re drinking it, and the closer you are to the source, the better they work. My grandfather used to tell me that. And these are about the best you can get — I grow and dry them myself.”
She grew quiet for a moment, then sighed. “I ... um, guess you were watching today.” He nodded. “How bad did I really look, Reg?”
“Kathryn, I have yet to see you look bad. Except maybe in that bathrobe. Black is not your color.” Lifting her head, she looked over at him, and he smiled, hoping to cheer her out of her funk. “Aren’t you hot in that thing?”
She shrugged. “It’s comfortable,” she responded, and he could swear she’d almost whined.
“It’s your home and you do whatever makes you feel good,” he soothed. “You’ve had a hard few years, and today hasn’t been a lot better. Your constitution can only handle so much stress and pain before even it wears thin.”
She tucked her chin down into the cowl of the robe and it took a moment to see that she had started crying again, silently, by the slight shake of her shoulders. He watched, uncomfortably, for a couple of minutes, then on instinct, scooted closer and put an arm around her back. “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this, Kathryn. All that pressure just hasn’t been fair for one person.”
To his surprise, she turned and burrowed against his chest, and he automatically wrapped his other arm around the huddle. He rested his cheek against the top of her head and sighed, patting her back and rubbing large circles on it. “Go ahead and cry, it’s okay,” he assured her. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“I ... d-don’t even know why I-I started crying,” she sniffled into his uniform shirt. “I didn’t know I would — she just asked, and we were doing fine, and then I just started ... there’s just things I wish I c-could go back and fix, and can’t ... and they bother me when I think too long.”
“You can’t beat yourself up over that,” he told her, still quietly rocking her in his arms. “Can’t let self-doubt get the best of you. Even the hearing board told you none of them would’ve done things differently in your place, and if they can’t think of anything better, why should you have?” She shook her head, whether in disagreement or more self-recrimination, he didn’t know. After a few more minutes, he felt her arms loosen and slide around his midsection as she returned his embrace, and he closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her palms flat against his back. He didn’t know what shampoo she used, but he would gladly have stolen the bottle and taken it home to inhale the clean scent every day, to remember how she felt against him just now.
“And then,” she began quietly, the tears having subsided but the depression still there, “when she asked about Chakotay and Seven — it made me angry. I don’t know why; they don’t bother me, together. It’s just that ... for awhile, I thought there might have been something between us. Something I liked. But he found her instead. I don’t blame him; she’s younger and prettier, and has that blonde hair ...” She trailed off with a muffled sigh against his shoulder.
He angled his mouth down so it was close to her ear. “Kathryn,” he murmured, “if he picked another woman, it wasn’t because you’re lacking anything, believe me.” He closed his eyes and inhaled her mixture of scents and skin, then exhaled softly. “You are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, in so many ways. You’re brilliant, and strong, and funny, and I can’t imagine any man who wouldn’t be thrilled to ... just spend time around you. He was a fool to not try with you.”
And then he realized what he’d been saying, and waited for her to shove him away for impropriety or presumptuousness. But she remained where she was, making no move to put distance between them, and he had no intention of releasing her until she was ready. It had been so long since he’d been near a woman like this, and he could never remember having held one in this fashion before, for this long. It was both comforting and surprising that Kathryn would trust him enough for this.
Almost five minutes later, she stirred, and he loosened his hold to let her back away, sorry to lose her so soon. She blinked and lifted her eyes to his. “You don’t know the whole story, Reg. You don’t know that she wasn’t more attractive, for sure.”
“I know she’s not to me.” Lifting a hand, he smoothed some stray hair back off her cheek. Her blue eyes searched his, and on an impulse, he closed the distance between them and brushed his lips against her own.
Instantly regretting what he’d done, he began backing off, except that she followed and bridged the distance again. Her soft mouth invited exploration, and he parted his lips to envelop hers, to pull her lower one between his. It was sweet and full, and he released it only to give both his attention once again. They kissed like this for what seemed minutes; he lost track of time, listening only to to the occasional soft noises from her as she returned his kisses, her hands sliding up to muss his hair. He was restless, wanting to touch her. He wanted the thick robe gone, wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her like this for hours, until she understood how precious, how desirable she really was.
“Kathryn ... Kat,” he managed between kisses, his own voice husky and deep with emotion.
“Mmm?” she responded with a gravelly purr, her tongue parting his lips. As the tip of her tongue ran up along sensitive ridge behind his upper teeth, he groaned with an indefinable need — or perhaps one he just wasn’t ready to give a name, yet, despite his overwhelming urge to give in to something beyond kissing.
“We ...” Their kisses shifted suddenly, going from gently probing and sweet to needy, and deep, and ... and hot. Carefully, he disengaged himself and pulled away, panting for breath. It had required every ounce of willpower, and still his eyes were shut so he wouldn’t have to see her and change his mind. “We need to stop. Y-You’re feeling b-bad right now, and it’s n-nice to get attention, but I d-don’t want you regretting something later on.”
He cracked an eye open as he felt movement, and saw that she’d gotten to her feet. “I think you should leave now.”
Actually, Reg thought the same thing himself, but he could tell by the way she said it they were on different wavelengths. “Kathryn, all I meant was-”
“Good-bye, Lieutenant.” Her voice was back to normal command mode, and she faced the door, as if pointing it out to him.
Swallowing his nervousness, he stood and straightened out his uniform jacket. “Please ... get some rest and calm down, and we’ll talk. Later,” he urged, before striding around the table and toward the door. Turning to face her before going out, he appealed one last time. “I didn’t mean t-to overstep my bounds, I-”
“Leave now.” She fixed him with such a hard stare that he nodded and immediately turned and obeyed.
*****
Part 3
Part 5