Fic: War Crimes
“I’ve got a war to fight.”
That was no excuse.
**
She was wet. Her arousal sparking to a flame so quickly it shocked her. Not just for its suddenness, but for its inappropriateness too. This was neither the time nor the place for it, but Gods she wanted him to kiss her. The feel of his breath on her neck was intoxicating. Of course she was already intoxicated, but tonight that only heightened every sensation.
“Easy.” His whisper thundered in her ear, as his lips dragged ever so slightly across its lobe, weakening her knees.
Adrenaline was pumping through her now. Her emotions currently balancing on a knife tip. Fear. Loneliness. Frustration. Uncertainty. Regret. Anger. Not anger. Rage. Building inside for so long. Pushing. Pounding. Pressing. Pierce her and she would bleed out.
**
“I don’t like it either.”
“Then why do you help him?”
“Because somebody has to get us off this rock.”
“At any cost?”
“I just want to go home.”
So did she.
**
The mechanized sound grew fainter. That danger passing. Still he kept his hand pressed tightly over her mouth. The cold air condensed her ragged breath and soaked his flesh. She wondered if he’d notice if she opened her mouth to taste him.
**
“I’m sorry our tactics landed you in detention.”
“Not the first time I’d been there.”
**
It had been too long. She was tired of waiting for what she wanted. What she had almost certainly missed her chance to have.
**
“Yeah, but this was the first time they held you over night. We were afraid they might kill you … or worse. Make an example out of you.”
It was probably only a matter of time.
**
His body was warm and hard against her. He was holding her so tight. As she felt his fingers flutter up her stomach from her waist, her body tensed with desire. She did not think it was an accident that when he grabbed her from behind he had reached beneath her coat, his hand slipping beneath her sweater too to steady her.
**
“Well I’m not dead … or worse, so I guess this counts as a banner day in hell.”
“I suppose it does.”
**
He pulled his hand away from her mouth, but he did not let her go. As he dropped his hand to her shoulder, he let his fingers glide down her throat and nestle beneath the collar of her jacket, baring more flesh to warm with his breath.
“I think it’s safe.”
He was so close she could feel his words caressing her neck.
“Yes, safe,” she whispered back, the salty taste of his skin still fresh on her lips.
**
“That was insensitive of me. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I kept my eyes and ears open while I was inside, but I didn’t learn anything about her whereabouts.”
“I appreciate it. But I think it’s a lost cause.”
She hated to agree.
**
He was too young and too married. Two vices she was familiar with from her past. Two vices she had sworn off. Besides, he wasn’t just married. He was also in love with his (quite likely dead) wife.
But he was so alive, right here breathing, pulsing, wanting against her.
**
“I think I’ll take that drink after all.”
“Be warned. It packs a hell of an unexpected kick.”
“So do I.”
“So I’m learning.”
They laughed together as her throat burned.
**
He wasn’t letting go, so why should she. She’d had her limit of the right thing.
**
“Another?”
“Why not.”
**
She turned in his arms. He tightened his hold, the hand beneath her sweater now roaming free across the skin of her back, while he slipped the other into her hair.
It was dark. No light from the street lamps reached this alley and the stars were clouded over. They had not come this way by accident.
She could barely see her own hands, which were now pressed against his chest. His heart was beating quickly, but she knew better than to attribute it to their close call with the centurion. Breaking curfew was not what scared this soldier. Slowly she looked up, not needing to see to understand what was written on his face.
**
“I’m not much of a drinker.”
“Well you hold your liquor well.”
Sometimes too well for her own good.
**
She dragged her hands up his chest and then circled her arms around his neck as she made her offer.
“Take me home.”
“Cold?” he husked as he slid his hand from her curls to run his thumb along her cheek.
“Not for long I …”
He swallowed the rest of her words with his kiss. His touch was anything but gentle as he hungrily pushed his tongue between her lips and shoved his leg between hers, roughly parting her as he reached down and pulled her up around his waist. He’d lifted her as if she weighed nothing.
She moaned into his mouth as she felt the hard length of him against her groin, his hips bucking into her as she ground herself against him and he stumbled in the dark looking for a hard surface to frak her against.
That’s not what she wanted.
“Not here,” she gasped as he pressed her against taut canvas, scraping his teeth along her neck as he dropped a hand to the button of her pants.
She wanted to be able to see him, to savor him, to know what she had done.
**
“It’s getting late.”
“But there is still booze in the bottle.”
“I don’t want you to have to risk yourself just to take me home.”
“Sometimes a risk reminds you that you are still alive.”
He had a point.
**
They nearly tumbled to the floor as they came tripping through the flap of her tent after he’d tried to duck inside with her still anchored around his waist. He’d carried her the whole way, their tongues tangling, teeth nipping, voices groaning, her hand thrust down between them, working him through coarse fabric, testing his athlete’s agility as he maneuvered them along their dark and deserted path.
Finally setting her down, biting her lower lip one last time before breaking contact, he turned and began to make quick, haphazard work of the flap ties, as she stepped back and reached for the lantern that hung from the center pole. He twisted around, concern automatically flashing on his face at the introduction of light after hours, but she was careful to make sure the light stayed dim enough to keep the shadows from dancing. She had learned much these last few months in hell.
“I want to see you,” she explained, her voice low and breathy.
He leered at her hungrily, all protest forgotten, as he stepped toward her, compliantly ripping off his jacket and pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it to the ground. Her eyes widened appreciatively at the view.
“Do you want to see me?” she purred as he continued to approach.
“Frak yes,” he rasped as he reached her and tore open her coat, shoving it roughly down her shoulders and arms, leaving it to her to pull it free as he attacked her neck with his mouth and shoved his hands under her sweater, eagerly rediscovering that she wore nothing beneath it. She hummed at his touch, her breath hitching as he teased and twisted the hardened peaks of her breasts, little spikes of glorious pain shooting to her core.
“Show me everything,” he whispered in her ear, his tongue tracing it, before pushing her back and looking at her expectantly, beginning to toe off his own boots and unfasten his pants in anticipation of capturing her in his arms again, skin freed to heat skin.
Reaching for the hem of her sweater, she paused and smiled seductively, but she could not maintain the tease for long. She was ready to bare herself. She could have died yesterday. She might die tomorrow. But tonight she was alive and she wanted to feel it.
Life.
Burning her flesh. Tightening her chest. Exploding behind her eyes. Stealing her thoughts. Rattling her godsdamned teeth.
**
“Don’t give up hope. Kara’s too ornery to die.”
“You think?”
**
Diving at her bare breasts, he suckled hungrily at the one that had once nearly killed her. She doubted he had any idea. She liked that he didn’t.
She ran her hands down his back, cupping his tight, naked ass in her hands and squeezing, noting the sweet gift of youth, before reaching around with one hand to grasp him, her fingers dancing up his shaft as she threw her head back and groaned loudly as he bit down on her flesh.
“I want you so bad,” he hissed, warming with his breath the skin he’d just bruised and bucking his hips as she stroked him from root to tip.
“Then come to bed,” she ordered as she stepped back in the direction of her cot, tugging him with her as she went.
As she tripped against the bed, he grabbed her wrist to free his throbbing cock before shoving her back, sending her flying down on to the thin mattress.
Lust blinded her, as she looked up at him kneeling over her, straddling her legs, his lean, perfect body taut with passion, his eyes mirrors of her own. Hungry. Desperate. Feral. As he leaned down to take her, she lifted her leg and pressed her foot into his chest, pushing him back. She wasn’t done looking.
Grabbing her foot and raising her leg, he swirled his tongue around the bone of her ankle. His fingers skating down her flesh, lips trailing in their path. He stopped when he reached her knee, looking down to see her open and glistening. Alive.
“Tell me what you want,” he growled as he hooked her knee over his shoulder and teased her entrance with his rock hard cock.
“To forget this place.”
**
“I’ve seen her cheat death before.”
Maybe it wasn’t a lie.
**
Running her tongue greedily along his chin before pushing it into his mouth, she savored the taste of herself on his body. So long since anyone had paid such enthusiastic attention to her needs.
Moving lazily in his lap, pleasure still thrumming in her throat and ebbing through her limbs, she was content now to take her time and so it seems was he. The urgency of their first encounter replaced by this easy rhythm.
He traced aimless patterns on her back, fingers ghosting across her skin, as he dropped his mouth to her shoulder, planting soft kisses all along her collarbone. She heard him match her satisfied sigh with an absent one of his own as she circled her hips around him. He was falling away. Remembering too much.
“Make me come again,” she breathed into his ear as she scraped her fingernails lightly down his back, teasing the red marks she’d already left there.
His head quickly shot up, eyes narrowing with passion as he looked at her. Grasping at the challenge. World shrinking to only what was within reach.
She laughed as he drove her down into the mattress, pinning her arms above her head with one hand. Her giggles fast replaced by a gasp as he thrust hard and deep inside her. The pain crackling, exploding along every nerve ending, thoughts ripping apart and sweeping away on its tide.
“That what you want?” he grunted as he pounded inside her, pulling her leg up over his hip, angling his thrusts, conquering even the most far away inch of her. Places wished for but long lost.
“Yes,” she cried as her hips thrashed against his, skin slick and sliding, shouts of his ecstasy ringing in her ears and beads of his sweat splashing into the hollow of her throat as she threw her head back.
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
**
“You don’t give up either. Old Man is coming back for us now.”
“I hope he gets here soon.”
**
With elbow crooked and chin propped in her hand, she rested on her side watching him doze, tracing the design on his bicep. Fingers fluttering. Literally taking wing. Captivated by his promise painted there for all to see.
She wondered what she’d paint on her own skin if ever given that chance. If he ever really did come back. For them, she thought, words rather than a picture as their vow. A verse they would perhaps someday find both the freedom and the courage to write.
But would he mark his own flesh for her? After all this time, this place, these scars, she feared it was foolish to hope.
“You think too much,” he murmured as he slowly opened his eyes, propping his own head up to look at her.
“Occupational hazard,” she offered with a pensive smile. She could only run so far from who she was, from what she wanted but could not have.
Smiling back, he hooked his leg over her waist and pulled her toward him, lazily kissing her lips and throwing his free arm around her as he drew her close. The feel of him hardening against her hip reminded her to stop.
To forget once more.
**
“He’ll be happiest to see you.”
Perhaps. But so much had changed.
This was not the life she had wanted to live before she died.
**
“It will be light soon. I need to go,” he said as he sat on the edge of the cot lacing his boots.
The dark could only last so long.
She sat up, leaning her chest into his back, the blanket between them, lightly wrapping her arms around his middle and dropping her chin on his shoulder for a moment before kissing him on the cheek.
“Be safe, Sam.”
“I will,” he replied as he turned his head and kissed her lips gently, pulling back to match her soft smile with one of his own.
“You too, Laura.”
It was a pleasantly uncomplicated goodbye. They didn’t need any more regrets. They had plenty of those already. This planet was full of them.
Walking away, he opened the tent flap and peered out cautiously into the waning night. He turned back briefly before slipping through.
“It’s going to be a clear day.”
They could use one.
She lay back on her cot, her body still warm and humming. She felt refreshed. Ready to fight.
Closing her eyes, she wondered if tomorrow he would come to bring them home.
**
I’ve got a war to fight.
That was her excuse.
That was no excuse.
**
She was wet. Her arousal sparking to a flame so quickly it shocked her. Not just for its suddenness, but for its inappropriateness too. This was neither the time nor the place for it, but Gods she wanted him to kiss her. The feel of his breath on her neck was intoxicating. Of course she was already intoxicated, but tonight that only heightened every sensation.
“Easy.” His whisper thundered in her ear, as his lips dragged ever so slightly across its lobe, weakening her knees.
Adrenaline was pumping through her now. Her emotions currently balancing on a knife tip. Fear. Loneliness. Frustration. Uncertainty. Regret. Anger. Not anger. Rage. Building inside for so long. Pushing. Pounding. Pressing. Pierce her and she would bleed out.
**
“I don’t like it either.”
“Then why do you help him?”
“Because somebody has to get us off this rock.”
“At any cost?”
“I just want to go home.”
So did she.
**
The mechanized sound grew fainter. That danger passing. Still he kept his hand pressed tightly over her mouth. The cold air condensed her ragged breath and soaked his flesh. She wondered if he’d notice if she opened her mouth to taste him.
**
“I’m sorry our tactics landed you in detention.”
“Not the first time I’d been there.”
**
It had been too long. She was tired of waiting for what she wanted. What she had almost certainly missed her chance to have.
**
“Yeah, but this was the first time they held you over night. We were afraid they might kill you … or worse. Make an example out of you.”
It was probably only a matter of time.
**
His body was warm and hard against her. He was holding her so tight. As she felt his fingers flutter up her stomach from her waist, her body tensed with desire. She did not think it was an accident that when he grabbed her from behind he had reached beneath her coat, his hand slipping beneath her sweater too to steady her.
**
“Well I’m not dead … or worse, so I guess this counts as a banner day in hell.”
“I suppose it does.”
**
He pulled his hand away from her mouth, but he did not let her go. As he dropped his hand to her shoulder, he let his fingers glide down her throat and nestle beneath the collar of her jacket, baring more flesh to warm with his breath.
“I think it’s safe.”
He was so close she could feel his words caressing her neck.
“Yes, safe,” she whispered back, the salty taste of his skin still fresh on her lips.
**
“That was insensitive of me. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I kept my eyes and ears open while I was inside, but I didn’t learn anything about her whereabouts.”
“I appreciate it. But I think it’s a lost cause.”
She hated to agree.
**
He was too young and too married. Two vices she was familiar with from her past. Two vices she had sworn off. Besides, he wasn’t just married. He was also in love with his (quite likely dead) wife.
But he was so alive, right here breathing, pulsing, wanting against her.
**
“I think I’ll take that drink after all.”
“Be warned. It packs a hell of an unexpected kick.”
“So do I.”
“So I’m learning.”
They laughed together as her throat burned.
**
He wasn’t letting go, so why should she. She’d had her limit of the right thing.
**
“Another?”
“Why not.”
**
She turned in his arms. He tightened his hold, the hand beneath her sweater now roaming free across the skin of her back, while he slipped the other into her hair.
It was dark. No light from the street lamps reached this alley and the stars were clouded over. They had not come this way by accident.
She could barely see her own hands, which were now pressed against his chest. His heart was beating quickly, but she knew better than to attribute it to their close call with the centurion. Breaking curfew was not what scared this soldier. Slowly she looked up, not needing to see to understand what was written on his face.
**
“I’m not much of a drinker.”
“Well you hold your liquor well.”
Sometimes too well for her own good.
**
She dragged her hands up his chest and then circled her arms around his neck as she made her offer.
“Take me home.”
“Cold?” he husked as he slid his hand from her curls to run his thumb along her cheek.
“Not for long I …”
He swallowed the rest of her words with his kiss. His touch was anything but gentle as he hungrily pushed his tongue between her lips and shoved his leg between hers, roughly parting her as he reached down and pulled her up around his waist. He’d lifted her as if she weighed nothing.
She moaned into his mouth as she felt the hard length of him against her groin, his hips bucking into her as she ground herself against him and he stumbled in the dark looking for a hard surface to frak her against.
That’s not what she wanted.
“Not here,” she gasped as he pressed her against taut canvas, scraping his teeth along her neck as he dropped a hand to the button of her pants.
She wanted to be able to see him, to savor him, to know what she had done.
**
“It’s getting late.”
“But there is still booze in the bottle.”
“I don’t want you to have to risk yourself just to take me home.”
“Sometimes a risk reminds you that you are still alive.”
He had a point.
**
They nearly tumbled to the floor as they came tripping through the flap of her tent after he’d tried to duck inside with her still anchored around his waist. He’d carried her the whole way, their tongues tangling, teeth nipping, voices groaning, her hand thrust down between them, working him through coarse fabric, testing his athlete’s agility as he maneuvered them along their dark and deserted path.
Finally setting her down, biting her lower lip one last time before breaking contact, he turned and began to make quick, haphazard work of the flap ties, as she stepped back and reached for the lantern that hung from the center pole. He twisted around, concern automatically flashing on his face at the introduction of light after hours, but she was careful to make sure the light stayed dim enough to keep the shadows from dancing. She had learned much these last few months in hell.
“I want to see you,” she explained, her voice low and breathy.
He leered at her hungrily, all protest forgotten, as he stepped toward her, compliantly ripping off his jacket and pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it to the ground. Her eyes widened appreciatively at the view.
“Do you want to see me?” she purred as he continued to approach.
“Frak yes,” he rasped as he reached her and tore open her coat, shoving it roughly down her shoulders and arms, leaving it to her to pull it free as he attacked her neck with his mouth and shoved his hands under her sweater, eagerly rediscovering that she wore nothing beneath it. She hummed at his touch, her breath hitching as he teased and twisted the hardened peaks of her breasts, little spikes of glorious pain shooting to her core.
“Show me everything,” he whispered in her ear, his tongue tracing it, before pushing her back and looking at her expectantly, beginning to toe off his own boots and unfasten his pants in anticipation of capturing her in his arms again, skin freed to heat skin.
Reaching for the hem of her sweater, she paused and smiled seductively, but she could not maintain the tease for long. She was ready to bare herself. She could have died yesterday. She might die tomorrow. But tonight she was alive and she wanted to feel it.
Life.
Burning her flesh. Tightening her chest. Exploding behind her eyes. Stealing her thoughts. Rattling her godsdamned teeth.
**
“Don’t give up hope. Kara’s too ornery to die.”
“You think?”
**
Diving at her bare breasts, he suckled hungrily at the one that had once nearly killed her. She doubted he had any idea. She liked that he didn’t.
She ran her hands down his back, cupping his tight, naked ass in her hands and squeezing, noting the sweet gift of youth, before reaching around with one hand to grasp him, her fingers dancing up his shaft as she threw her head back and groaned loudly as he bit down on her flesh.
“I want you so bad,” he hissed, warming with his breath the skin he’d just bruised and bucking his hips as she stroked him from root to tip.
“Then come to bed,” she ordered as she stepped back in the direction of her cot, tugging him with her as she went.
As she tripped against the bed, he grabbed her wrist to free his throbbing cock before shoving her back, sending her flying down on to the thin mattress.
Lust blinded her, as she looked up at him kneeling over her, straddling her legs, his lean, perfect body taut with passion, his eyes mirrors of her own. Hungry. Desperate. Feral. As he leaned down to take her, she lifted her leg and pressed her foot into his chest, pushing him back. She wasn’t done looking.
Grabbing her foot and raising her leg, he swirled his tongue around the bone of her ankle. His fingers skating down her flesh, lips trailing in their path. He stopped when he reached her knee, looking down to see her open and glistening. Alive.
“Tell me what you want,” he growled as he hooked her knee over his shoulder and teased her entrance with his rock hard cock.
“To forget this place.”
**
“I’ve seen her cheat death before.”
Maybe it wasn’t a lie.
**
Running her tongue greedily along his chin before pushing it into his mouth, she savored the taste of herself on his body. So long since anyone had paid such enthusiastic attention to her needs.
Moving lazily in his lap, pleasure still thrumming in her throat and ebbing through her limbs, she was content now to take her time and so it seems was he. The urgency of their first encounter replaced by this easy rhythm.
He traced aimless patterns on her back, fingers ghosting across her skin, as he dropped his mouth to her shoulder, planting soft kisses all along her collarbone. She heard him match her satisfied sigh with an absent one of his own as she circled her hips around him. He was falling away. Remembering too much.
“Make me come again,” she breathed into his ear as she scraped her fingernails lightly down his back, teasing the red marks she’d already left there.
His head quickly shot up, eyes narrowing with passion as he looked at her. Grasping at the challenge. World shrinking to only what was within reach.
She laughed as he drove her down into the mattress, pinning her arms above her head with one hand. Her giggles fast replaced by a gasp as he thrust hard and deep inside her. The pain crackling, exploding along every nerve ending, thoughts ripping apart and sweeping away on its tide.
“That what you want?” he grunted as he pounded inside her, pulling her leg up over his hip, angling his thrusts, conquering even the most far away inch of her. Places wished for but long lost.
“Yes,” she cried as her hips thrashed against his, skin slick and sliding, shouts of his ecstasy ringing in her ears and beads of his sweat splashing into the hollow of her throat as she threw her head back.
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
**
“You don’t give up either. Old Man is coming back for us now.”
“I hope he gets here soon.”
**
With elbow crooked and chin propped in her hand, she rested on her side watching him doze, tracing the design on his bicep. Fingers fluttering. Literally taking wing. Captivated by his promise painted there for all to see.
She wondered what she’d paint on her own skin if ever given that chance. If he ever really did come back. For them, she thought, words rather than a picture as their vow. A verse they would perhaps someday find both the freedom and the courage to write.
But would he mark his own flesh for her? After all this time, this place, these scars, she feared it was foolish to hope.
“You think too much,” he murmured as he slowly opened his eyes, propping his own head up to look at her.
“Occupational hazard,” she offered with a pensive smile. She could only run so far from who she was, from what she wanted but could not have.
Smiling back, he hooked his leg over her waist and pulled her toward him, lazily kissing her lips and throwing his free arm around her as he drew her close. The feel of him hardening against her hip reminded her to stop.
To forget once more.
**
“He’ll be happiest to see you.”
Perhaps. But so much had changed.
This was not the life she had wanted to live before she died.
**
“It will be light soon. I need to go,” he said as he sat on the edge of the cot lacing his boots.
The dark could only last so long.
She sat up, leaning her chest into his back, the blanket between them, lightly wrapping her arms around his middle and dropping her chin on his shoulder for a moment before kissing him on the cheek.
“Be safe, Sam.”
“I will,” he replied as he turned his head and kissed her lips gently, pulling back to match her soft smile with one of his own.
“You too, Laura.”
It was a pleasantly uncomplicated goodbye. They didn’t need any more regrets. They had plenty of those already. This planet was full of them.
Walking away, he opened the tent flap and peered out cautiously into the waning night. He turned back briefly before slipping through.
“It’s going to be a clear day.”
They could use one.
She lay back on her cot, her body still warm and humming. She felt refreshed. Ready to fight.
Closing her eyes, she wondered if tomorrow he would come to bring them home.
**
I’ve got a war to fight.
That was her excuse.