Not For Me

By Indygodusk

Chapter 3

Shazza drove those who wanted to come along to and from the wreck in the sandcat to retrieve the single power cell for the test. Back at the shuttle everyone quickly got bored of watching Fry swear over fittings not working the way she'd hoped and left her alone to her work. Making the shuttle agree to take the power cells from the Hunter-Gratzner took some creative programming and a newly rewired housing console, but she finally got the two systems to integrate and set it up so the other cells could be quickly and easily installed later.

Holding her breath, she flicked the power switch. With a buzz and rattle the screens lit up and the environmental systems started expelling years of sand from the vents and filters. "That's right!" she gloated, flicking more switches. Everything looked good. She licked her lips and blew out a breath. "Time for the moment of truth."

Closing the hatch, she started the hull integrity test. If the shuttle wasn't airtight it wouldn't keep them alive in space. She wished she could do a main drive run-up too but would have to wait on the other four power cells. "C'mon, work," she encouraged, flipping switches and checking readouts. Shoving back her chair, she pivoted to her feet to check the systems in the back and jerked to a stop in shock, gulping.

Like a ghost, Riddick stood in the heavy shadows at the back of the cabin. With his goggles on she couldn't see the expression in his eyes, but from the set of his shoulders and the slight curve of his lips in the faint light coming through the forward windshield he seemed pleased with himself and her strong reaction.

She was locked in here with him all alone until the shuttle tests finished. He must've planned this. Why? Since he could hear her racing heartbeat she didn't bother hiding the scared and wary expression on her face. What was the point?

"Looks like you're a few short," his voice rumbled from the shadows and rubbed across her body like ice-cold velvet, making her hair stand on end in both discomfort and pleasure. She pressed her lips tight and told her body to get with the program. Riddick was scary, not sexy.

"Power cells," he drawled, stalking forward slowly like she was prey that might bolt at any second. Of course, with the hatch locked there was nowhere for her to bolt to to avoid getting eaten. She wished that was a euphemism, but the closer he got the more she heard Johns's threats echoing in her mind about all the ways Riddick would kill them if he ever got the chance. Her heart was trying to jump out of her chest as sweat beaded and slid down her skin, pooling in the hollow of her throat. His nostrils flared and his lips parted, making it obvious he noticed her reaction, noticed and liked it.

It made her mad. Carolyn Fry was not any man's prey. "They're coming," she said evenly, reaching up and switching off the monitor overhead so he wouldn't be able to see how the peripheral systems fared during the test. The monitor with atmospheric integrity was on the main screen behind her but at least it was partially blocked by her body. She didn't care if she was being petty.

Despite the dimness of the cabin, Riddick kept his goggles on. It made him seem robotic and almost inhuman. It wouldn't bother her as much if she could sense his emotions. She should be healed by now but her gifts had gotten stuck just out of alignment. They constantly buzzed like a fly stuck between a windowpane and curtain.

"It seems strange not to bring all the cells up to test the main drive. Unless…" Riddick trailed off.

As he moved closer she felt more and more claustrophobic. She flipped a few more switches overhead to keep herself busy and tried to slide around him towards the back of the cabin where there was more room. Riddick moved into her path, stepping onto the open floor panels and closing them with a BANG BANG that rattled her bones and made her jump.

"...he told you how I escaped. Is that what happened, Carolyn?"

Stomach tight, she put a hand on the back of the pilot's chair. "We're naturally worried about a repeat. Can you promise we don't have to be?" Reaching out for his emotions got her nothing but an increase in the buzz and a spike of pain in her head. Abandoning that tact, she went to search his eyes instead and saw only the black surface of his goggles and the pale reflection of her face.

Riddick tilted his head and leaned forward to loom over her. "What do you think? Can you trust my promises? Can I trust in yours?" He examined her face.

She didn't think he even cared about her answers, he just wanted to get a reaction. It made her want to hit him, especially because some stupidly instinctual part of her wanted to answer yes to his questions. She'd rather punch him than give him the satisfaction. Of course, hitting him might make him snap and slit her throat so she wisely restrained the impulse.

"Why do you care what I think? Do you want me to say you scare me? Because you do. You scare me, Riddick." She looked at him evenly. "So can I get back to work now?"

She could tell that her forthright answer was making him rethink his next response. Hoping to knock him further off guard, she gave him her back and moved forward, checking the monitor and turning on another system to see if the single power cell could handle the load. The hull integrity test was only at thirty-five percent. She silently urged it to go faster.

"Most of your work is already done while the test runs. Besides, I have been meaning to catch up with you alone," she could feel him moving closer, "unrestrained." He stepped to the side where she couldn't avoid seeing him and braced his arm just behind her head. If she turned to look over her shoulder her cheek would press against his bulging bicep. She wished he would move back and stop crowding her. He smelled spicy and male.

"Do you think I can trust Johns? Trust in his promises to cut me loose?"

Looking away, stomach dropping, she swallowed and fought to keep her voice steady. "Why? What've you heard? He's a Sentinel, isn't he?"

"Is he?" Riddick hummed thoughtfully, dropping his arm and moving around behind her until she could feel the heat of his body almost pressing up against her back. "I guess if he were an Online Sentinel he'd do the just thing and ghost me. Kill me for the good of the tribe. But," he leaned forward until she could feel his hot breath fanning along her cheek, "the payday for me is twice as much if he brings me in alive."

Flustered and uncomfortable, her mind raced, trying to make sense of his words while ignoring his proximity.

"Didn't you know? Johns ain't a cop. He's a merc." The push of breath as he pronounced that hard C made her hair blow back from her neck and sent a shiver down her spine as certain things began falling horribly into place. "His nickel-slick badge is as fake as his suppressed Sentinel status." Riddick slid to her other side to speak more awful words into her ear, the heat of his body bringing an uncontrolled flush to her cheeks even as the implications chilled her to the bone. "Sure he takes drugs, but not for that. You should ask him why you had to blow out your gifts helping your buddy die in only slightly less agonizing pain. Ask him why he's more worried about keeping his payday alive than about keeping this little tribe safe, more worried about me than about keeping a Guide like you safe and... satisfied." The way he lingered on the word satisfied sent a tingle down her back that felt too scorching to be blamed entirely on fear. "Greed is his god and the only thing he protects is his bank balance."

"Don't waste my time," she said sharply, holding herself rigid and trying not to think about the implications of what he'd just said about Johns because she didn't want Riddick to know how much he was getting to her. "I'm not turning on anyone for you."

He didn't flinch at her words, but the way he went abruptly still and the hitch in the breath sliding across her skin were their own clues.

After a moment he slid even closer if that was possible. He obviously had no concept of personal space. "Maybe not for me… maybe not for those people out there," her hair caught and slid along his stubbled cheek as he drawled huskily against her jaw, "but a Guide without a tribe needs to look after herself. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive, am I right?"

Pricked, she closed her eyes and scrambled for a reply. "You only know I'm a Guide because you're a Sentinel."

"Well, you know what they say about people like you and me…" trailing off, he finally slid back and gave her some breathing room. She could feel her hair catching and falling away from his jaw.

Fisting her hand, she pressed it against her aching middle. She didn't need to think about what "they" said. It wouldn't help. Eyes opening, she looked over at the computer screen. Everything was looking good, but the hull integrity test was still only at eighty-one percent. Before she could second guess herself, she swung around. "How long's it been since you even had a Tribe, Riddick?"

Expression going blandly pleasant, he shrugged. "Too long to bother remembering."

"Don't you ever miss it? Being a part of something bigger than yourself?"

"There's no point. I wouldn't even know what to do with a Tribe at this point. I use my senses to protect myself: a Tribe of one. You understand that. Besides," he leaned an arm against the wall, "if the lights go out and we're still stuck down here, this psycho little family of ours is gonna tear itself apart."

"We're not getting stuck down here and they're good people." She wanted to disagree more but feared he was only speaking the truth. After all, she'd held back from bonding to any of them herself. It made her feel guilty all over again and terribly alone. She missed the comforting empathic tethers she'd used to check in on her crewmates. They were all gone now. The buzzing headache that never quite went away since her empathy overloaded spiked painfully. Looking away, she pressed her fingers against her temple and rubbed, trying to massage away some of the pain.

"You know… I could fix that for you." Riddick's words sounded breezy but his body, when she looked back, was coiled tightly with tension. His fingers drummed against the side of his leg in time to the pulsing pain in her head.

"Fix what?" she asked wearily, tired of his games.

"Your headache, the one caused by your empathy. I can sense that it's out of joint." He tapped the ceiling with his knuckles and then tucked the fingers of both hands into the bar overhead, leaning forward between his arms. "Your aura just needs to be nudged back into place." He tipped his head to the side enticingly.

"And you know how to do that?" She looked him up and down skeptically, not letting her eyes linger on the spread of his body. One of these days he was going to catch the arousal mixed in with her terror and probably become even more insufferable. Dragging her eyes away, she checked the monitor again. Ninety percent. So close to being done.

"I know better than your boy Johns."

"He's not my boy," she snapped, glaring over her shoulder at him.

Riddick's teeth flashed in a smug little smile. "Good."

Irritated at letting him get that much from her, she crossed her arms. "What's it gonna cost me?"

"Nothing too difficult. It's been impossible to ignore your disharmony since we landed, so fixing it would be a relief. And of course, as a Sentinel, the comfort of a Guide is my biological imperative." His voice slid down as smooth, sweet, and thick as whipped cream. A muscle in his chest jumped, drawing her eyes to the impressive shape of his body braced against the low ceiling and straining towards her, restrained only by his will. She wished he would wear something less form-fitting than the cargo pants and skin-tight tank top, maybe a loose robe and cape topped by a face-scarf so she wouldn't have to be tempted by that jawline anymore.

"What then?" she asked.

"A kiss."

Carolyn choked, arms dropping to her sides as her eyes jumped up to his face. It took a second to clear her throat enough to talk. "Excuse me?"

"I have to touch you to fix you." He flashed her a crooked smile.

"Then why not just use your hands instead of your lips?"

"Where's the fun in that? Though I am a primitive Sentinel and you're a beautiful and injured Guide. If I get my hands on you, my inconvenient animal instincts might just take over and insist on not letting you go until I've touched you everywhere to reacquaint myself with the curves of a woman and check for possible bonding compatibility. That could lead to a need to see, scent, and taste all your secret places when touch compatibility turns up negative."

She did her best to scowl at him and ignore the tingles racing across her skin at his rumbled words and bedroom eyes as he continued.

"'Course, there's no way I'm fit to be compatible or bond with any Guide, so I might just keep going until I'm completely glutted and we're both physically satisfied that a bond is impossible. That could take a while as I've got a lot of stamina and pent-up tension. However, I'm willing to go through it and bear the consequences if you are?" He slid up his goggles to reveal those bewitching silver eyes and tilted his head temptingly, the tip of his tongue peeking out to moisten the corner of his lip.

It didn't matter how his words and actions made her joints and other places go liquid with heat. She didn't trust him. "No."

He shrugged and rocked back on his heels, hands still braced overhead. "Then a kiss is your best bet. Taste is the easiest sense for me to control. A kiss for me, a return to empathy for you, and we both go away satisfied. I even promise to act the gentleman."

"A gentleman?" she scoffed weakly, feeling breathless.

"Tick-tock, time's running out. When that hatch opens," he canted his head towards the back, "I'm leaving. You can take that as a promise or a threat, but if you want me to fix your mind you better make up your mind quickly." He shrugged, muscles rippling up and down his body in the dappled shadows. "I don't care much either way, I just have a policy of not doing things for free."

This was so crazy and stupid, but she needed her Guide gifts back. She needed them. Operating without empathy was like being blind and trying to pilot a ship with one arm tied behind her back. "Okay, you get one kiss as part of fixing me." She held up her hand, "You don't move anything but your mouth or I knee you in the groin and have you singing soprano in the prison choir, deal?"

"Sure, one kiss. I'll even keep my hands where they are. You, on the other hand, are welcome to touch as much of me as you'd like, Carolyn." As Riddick's shoulders carefully relaxed downward, the tilt of his head revealed a gleam in his eyes. "And if you get greedy and try to take extra kisses, I won't hold it against you."

She realized with surprise that he wanted this more than he'd been letting on. It should make her more wary. Instead, it just made her more curious and a bit excited. Her curiosity was definitely going to get her killed one of these days. He still scared her but now she couldn't get the thought of kissing him out of her head.

Breathing in deeply, he lowered his head and waited for her to make the first move. "You smell good… excited," his eyes flicked down her body and she flushed at being caught out. "I like that."

"Inconvenient animal instincts and biological imperatives, remember?" she muttered, stepping forward and bracing a hand on the nearest seatback. "Don't forget to fix my empathy while we do this." Licking her lips brought his eyes arrowing down to her lips. She paused, the tension thick in the space between their bodies. This time it was definitely more sexy than scary. His lips parted with a soft, slick sound that felt loud in the waiting silence.

Carolyn felt a burst of boldness. Why was she blushing and hesitating when she'd already agreed to go through with this? The terms were clear and in her favor. She should just do it.

Leaning forward, she abruptly changed her mind about the simple peck on the corner of his mouth she'd intended to deliver. If this was to be her only chance, she should make the most of it. Tilting her head, she pressed her open mouth to his lips. They gave under the pressure of her mouth, widening slowly and inviting her further inside. Their lips glanced off each other, slipping and sliding deeper and deeper. Her mind shut down and her body took over. A softly pleased rumble vibrated from his chest and through her body. She'd expected force from his kiss and instead faced a teasing resistance that had her trying to coax him into a bigger reaction by sliding the tip of her tongue inside his upper lip. Groaning, he finally responded, catching her lips hard and pressing them wider, deepening the kiss into something that rocked her to her very foundations.

Although Riddick's hands stayed locked into place overhead, she felt slowly circled on the spirit plane by his silver shields, slipping over between one second and the next.

His shields quieted the constant buzzing and grinding of her misfiring gifts. Being shielded by someone else was an enormous relief she'd rarely experienced in her life. It was intimate and amazing. Usually it only happened during training when you first came Online and when bonding to a Sentinel. In the peace and quiet she could see that her spirit was just slightly out of phase with her body. She tried to bring them back together but couldn't get her spirit to cooperate.

Frustrated, she felt something stalk up behind her. Before she could turn, large and deadly paws fell onto the back of her shoulders and leaned. The spirit animal was careful not to do more than prick her with his sharp claws as she grunted beneath the weight. He wasn't hers, so he had to belong to Riddick. She'd never met anyone else's spirit animal before but didn't let herself take that thought to its logical conclusion. Instead, she shifted and centered herself so as not to collapse. She would not be knocked down by his weight. She was strong enough to carry him. Just like that, her spirit and body clicked back into place. Riddick's spirit animal nuzzled against her jaw, slid off her back, and disappeared.

Gifts once more Online, she returned to the present, her time on the spirit plane taking place between one moment and the next. However, because she was still inside Riddick's shields she had no protection from the full force of his desire. He wanted—no—needed more from her but was hanging on to his promise not to touch her by a thin but diamond-hard thread. "Caro," he breathed against her lips, "please."

Unable to help herself, Carolyn moaned and surged forward into his mouth. The slick heat of his tongue sent her pulse skyrocketing and made her knees weak. Dropping her hand from the chair, she slid it up over the silky hard flesh of his upper chest and hooked it around his neck, pressing her curves flush against his hard body. It still wasn't enough. She needed to be closer. She shifted and hooked a leg around his thigh. They both groaned, feeling the perfect way their bodies and minds slotted into place.

Fisting her hand in the sweat-soaked fabric of his shirt, she used the hand already behind his neck to pull down his face and dragged her lips across his jaw the way she'd been fantasizing about for days. Unable to help herself, she sucked on the hinge and sank in her teeth. Cursing reverently, Riddick pressed into her mouth. She mouthed the small wound and continued her explorations of his skin.

Riddick licked the line of sweat trickling down her cheek with a thoroughness that let her know he was memorizing her taste and texture. Pressing whispered praises and filthy encouragements into her skin, he dragged his open mouth across her temple and over her brow before returning to plunder her mouth with salt-tinged kisses.

Opening wide for his assault, Carolyn gave as good as she got. She'd never been kissed like this, never felt such instant chemistry and perfect harmony of desire. His every sense was focused on her as she stoked the fires of his arousal with every trick in her arsenal, his pleasure doubling and tripling her own. It was perfect. He was perfect.

Too perfect.

Ripping her mouth away, she fell off his body and stumbled back, falling into the pilot seat and forcing herself to not reach out for him again.

Riddick snarled and lunged for her, pivoting at the last moment to slam his hands palm-first onto the wall of the ship. Panting, he dropped his head between his arms. It took over a minute for him to speak, his voice a raspy gravel, "What was that? What did you do to me?" A silver-eyed glare shot her way, hinting at violence.

Realizing he was unconsciously matching his breathing to hers, she felt her stomach knot. "I didn't do anything," she said with a tremble in her voice. Swallowing, she straightened her spine and met him glare for glare, threat for threat. "We're… we're compatible," she spat at him.

Riddick retreated three quick steps before jerking to a stop. Staring at her wide-eyed, he slowly shook his head and clenched his teeth. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "That's impossible," he said lowly.

"Obviously not." Uncomfortable sitting down and looking up at him, she stood up and tucked her hair behind her ears. "It doesn't have to mean anything. So we're compatible to bond. So what? This doesn't change anything."

With a clank and hiss, the atmospheric test finally ended and the hatch at the back opened, flooding the cabin with light and the taste of desert air. Silhouetted against the light, Riddick reached up and pulled his dark goggles back over his eyes, the lover turning back into the menacing stranger. "I'm a Sentinel. Lies are pointless between us." Turning, he quickly and silently disappeared out the door into the harsh sunlight, leaving her with bruised lips and a head spinning with questions.