Disclaimer: They aren't mine.
Rating: T
She'd never been kissed so thoroughly in her life. Her lips were bruised, her tongue full of the intoxicating taste of him, and her body… Gods, her entire body was tingling with suddenly unbearable longing, the likes of which she hadn't really been able to acknowledge for far too long now…
He kissed her as though he was a man starved for years, and suddenly had found a feast fit for a king hidden deep within the recesses of her mouth. He tasted her tongue, the roof of her mouth. He nibbled her lips…
He kissed her as though afraid that she would disappear entirely if he stopped for one single second. Even while gasping for air, he never broke contact with her mouth altogether.
He kissed her as though he'd been fatally poisoned, stung by some venomous creature, and the antidote was in her very breath…as though if he could just steal enough of it…
Somewhere, in the back of his passion-hazed brain, Chakotay thought that last metaphor was the most appropriate, somehow: stung. He'd been stung, yes...and now, at long last, he was finding relief for his fatal ailment: her.
And he'd be damned if she wasn't the best kisser he'd ever known in his life. It surprised the hell out of him…she was firm, hungry, and yielding by turns. Greedy, yet wonderfully open to the slightest suggestion of pressure from his lips or tongue… Compliant enough to feed his masculine need to direct the connection, yet daring enough to take what she wanted, too…
Kathryn felt the heat of his bare, warm flesh against hers. For a heady moment, she forgot she was a starship captain. She forgot that it was her first officer on top of her, forgot that she hated him. She forgot all the various reasons why this was wrong on so many levels...she forgot everything that came before the glorious, wanton need his expert lips and tongue were arousing within her traitorous body. But soon, too soon, she was more frustrated than satiated. She wanted to run her hands through his thick, soft dark hair. She wanted to rake her fingernails through it and down to his broad, muscular back, wanted to feel the muscles rippling there as he strained to keep from crushing her under the bulk of his weight. She wanted…
She groaned as he finally tore his lips away from her, pausing to catch at his bottom lip and nip it lightly between the edges of her teeth, then groaned again as his warm, perfect and sensual lips fastened to the spot just below her ear.
"You have no idea what I would give to have my hands free right about now," he whispered, his breath tickling the now-moistened skin of her neck. She heard him groan then, too, and couldn't help laughing. Kathryn smiled lazily up at him as he pulled back to see what had caused her to chuckle, of all things…now…
"What?" he demanded, staring down at her swollen, well-kissed and glistening lips with obvious fascination. Wildly, his eyes darted down to her barely clad chest and he sucked in his breath, forcing himself to find her half-closed eyes again. "What could you possibly find funny about this situation?"
Again, that low, dry chuckle came. He thought it the most sensual sound he'd ever heard in that moment.
"I was just thinking the same thing…about hands, and what I'd like to be doing with them." Incredibly, the captain licked her delightfully tender lips, very suggestively running her eyes over the magnificent, sweaty lines of his body, paying particular attention to his regulation boxers and that which was so obviously contained within them.
The look on his face, as his apparently healthy imagination took her statement and ran with it, was priceless. His mouth (sore and swollen, too) dropped open a bit and he stared, slack-jawed, allowing his eyes to wander the creamy expanse of hitherto-forbidden-to-be-viewed flesh. He hitched in a ragged breath at what he saw, and that "distraction" he'd been worried about earlier…was now undeniably digging into her soft, slender thigh. "You're beautiful," he breathed, more to himself than to be audible.
That, of all things, seemed to cause a dark look to settle across her previously open features. Raising an eyebrow, she demanded, "As beautiful as, say…Riley Frazier?"
He had the good grace to look chagrined, at least. In fact, he turned a mottled shade of scarlet, as he tried to swallow and failed. "Ah. That," he responded, trying to draw out the conversation and to give himself time to prepare properly for the ensuing argument.
"Yes," she growled, shifting her weight beneath him to alleviate the uncomfortable pressure on her arms, which were still restrained behind her and now smarting uncomfortably. "That. Care to explain yourself, Commander?"
He should have known that she wouldn't show him any mercy. Truth be told, he knew he didn't really deserve any…not after the idiotic way he'd behaved on that planet. He could only hope that, once he'd told her the whole truth, she would find it in her heart to forgive him. If she didn't…
He gathered his courage, opening his mouth to answer for his crimes – and was promptly interrupted by the sounds of voices echoing outside of the room.
Kathryn and Chakotay barely had time to exchange a meaningful look between them (both looks, incidentally, contained a warning to remain silent and let the other handle the situation) before the door swung open to admit Enlin. The one in charge. The dangerous alien.
Enahr trailed closely behind him, and as he noted the way Chakotay's eyes carefully followed the path of the open doorway, the alien clicked the latch shut with a distinctive "clang".
Enlin's eyes widened as he took in the scene. He observed the male sitting tall above the female, straddling her, but upon closer inspection, most of the human's weight actually rested on his own knees...likely to avoid crushing her beneath him. They were still restrained, something the smuggler noticed with satisfaction, but what he and his subordinate had just interrupted was only too clear to be surmised. Both creatures were flushed, slightly breathless. The woman's lips were swollen, her hair in much more disarray than the last time he'd seen it (only an hour or so ago), and her clothing was in a considerable state of maladjustment…
Though he thought he might have attributed that last bit to Enahr's dependable curiosity. At any rate, what he saw displeased him, though for no real reason he could put his finger on. "Well." He sneered at the couple as the man moved awkwardly to shift himself off of his companion. "I see she IS yours," he noted wryly.
She is now, Chakotay silently vowed, catching her eyes as she, too, moved to sit up.
"Should have guessed from the way you two were fighting when Enahr left the room."
"They made up in record time," Enahr drawled with a little grin as he approached.
"That they did," Enlin agreed dryly. "Less than five minutes it took for us to make our way down here from the flight deck, and he looked ready to have her clothes off."
Kathryn ignored the heat of embarrassment at the thought of her entirely unprofessional behavior having been witnessed by their captors. To her credit, she only allowed the sensation for a split second before her famous composure settled like an iron shield over her features and all of her formidable focus was turned to analyzing the situation forming now.
"But that's rather unfortunate," Enlin continued as Enahr moved silently to the captain's side, and, against her stubborn protest, helped her into a standing position. Bending down, Enahr tapped in a code which released the restraints around her ankles, allowing them to fall to the floor.
"You'll eventually be separated for sale at the market, you know." Enlin sounded anything but sorry, anything but concerned. He certainly didn't spare a thought for the double glares he received from his captives. "Now, however, I've a few…questions." He turned to Chakotay, personally releasing the ankle restraints and helping the human male to rise to his feet, as well.
When Chakotay finally stood, he was once again subjected to the alien's intense scrutiny. He couldn't say he liked the sensation of being studied so closely very much at all.
"Now…which is the higher rank? Captain, or Commander?" he inquired mildly.
"Captain," she snapped immediately.
"Commander," Chakotay answered without hesitation, his voice overlapping Kathryn's.
They both turned to fix a heated glare upon each other.
Enlin eyed the two of them and then laughed coldly. "Yes, she does have spirit. I see she has a temper to match the fire of her hair, Commander." Enlin's smile, though, was anything but friendly. Rather, it was filled with malice. He tossed the captain a look of contempt. "I knew there had to be something in her to make up for that appalling lack of curvature…something to capture the attention of such a masculine specimen as yourself."
The leader moved to stand beside her, eyeing her through narrowed lids. Coldly, he swept his eyes over her from head to toe, reaching out a hand at one point to touch the skin of her arm, her shoulder, her back.
Kathryn met his gaze head on, refusing to give a millimeter. She didn't flinch, nor was she tempted to do so. Enlin's touch was emotionless, impersonal. He felt her skin with the detached air of a man inspecting cloth or merchandise. There was absolutely no hint of personal interest in his eyes. In fact, she mused to herself, he seemed to eye Chakotay with a heck of a lot more intensity than he spared for…
Oh, hell. The realization struck her head-on as Enlin nodded curtly to Enahr, mumbling, "I suppose you're correct. The texture is superb." He shot her another look as she swallowed hard, attempting to digest the shocking conclusion her horrified brain had just reached.
She dismissed Enlin's words, automatically seeking out Chakotay's eyes from where she stood, held still by Enahr's casually held disruptor and the threat the weapon's presence implied. From the look of hardly contained concern her first officer returned, she knew he hadn't yet caught on to the situation; he was still worried about her, of course.
He really is ridiculous, her mind acknowledged absently, mostly out of habit.
She was torn. She knew that Enahr was likely to be friendlier to her than he would be to Chakotay. And, conversely, she had to hope that Enlin's apparent interest in Chakotay…the thought made her vaguely ill, though she hadn't the time to address it…would at least keep her first officer from coming to significant physical harm. For long enough to realize what she might have to ask him to do in the near future, at least…
But what if his dissatisfaction with Chakotay's answers (he knew his duty, he wouldn't betray Voyager) caused that interest to manifest itself in a less-than-benevolent fashion? She felt a tiny shudder course through her. There was little choice, if they wanted to come out of this situation unharmed. She'd have to make full use of what few advantages they had. And if that included sending her first officer into the veritable lion's den in the hopes that he'd have more sway over their captor than she would, then she'd just have to trust Chakotay to be able to take care of himself.
And so, though she'd been more than prepared to assert her position and demand to be the individual chosen for "questioning", she was forced to concede the issue for sheer practicality's sake. She hated it, but it was the tactically correct move and she knew it. "I'm sorry, Commander," she called sweetly, but loudly enough to draw the attention of all three men. She waited until all eyes were fixed upon her before shooting her first officer a pointed look she hoped he'd catch. Then, making a show of lowering her eyes to the ground, she continued, "In future, I'll make more of an effort to…behave."
If she'd almost choked on that last word, Chakotay nearly suffocated swallowing his tongue upon hearing it. And if he wasn't so used to following her lead, he might easily have given away the ruse with an exaggerated shock reaction. As it was, he afforded himself one thick swallow before his features morphed into the appropriately stern glare. "See that you do," he ordered tersely, staring hard and simultaneously wondering who the hell this woman was and what she had done with his captain.
He simply hoped she had a plan…and one that DIDN'T involve becoming overly friendly with the alien called Enahr, who was, oddly, the only one of the two aliens eyeing her with anything like distrust at the moment.
Enlin, for his part, removed his disruptor from his wide, tethered belt and pointed it at Chakotay with a lopsided little grin. "Thought so," he drawled smugly. "This way, Commander," he gestured toward the exit with his weapon. "Cooperate, and I'll have you back with your…woman…in no time."
Chakotay moved hesitantly to the door, unwilling to leave Kathryn on her own with Enahr but knowing he didn't really have a choice in the matter.
"Stow her with the other two. And that 'hands-off' order still applies, Enahr," Enlin called over his shoulder, once he'd keyed in the release for the door, ushering his prisoner out of the room. "Unless, of course, the commander should fail to satisfy me with his responses to my questions."
Chakotay shot the slyly-grinning alien – hell, both of them – a dark look of venom.
Though he should be pleased overall, he thought. Kathryn would stay behind, and not be subjected to interrogation by the obviously more dangerous alien, and yet…as he stole one final, guarded look at her, he couldn't help feeling as though he'd missed something. Something very important…
The door shut in his face, and Enlin was guiding him down a long, dark corridor before he could give the matter any more thought.