Ch 14
Over the next few days, Jack had listened to everything that Theo had to teach her and Riddick had watched over her like a hawk in the background the entire time. Sometimes she had to look around to see him, but he was always there, somewhere.
Theo couldn’t help but notice it too; he never felt openly threatened by Riddick over it however, Riddick just watched. He knew that if Riddick thought for even a moment that he was a threat to Jack, that Riddick would kill him, but only then, only if he was a threat to Jack, and Theo had no intention of ever being a threat to her. Theo knew that he should have been worried, that he should have been afraid, but instead he found that his esteem for Riddick grew with every small act that showed just how much he cared for the girl. Jack wasn’t just an obligation or a duty to him.
Theo and Riddick had decided on a course that would take them across the Trieste system to one of Theo’s empty patches on his chart; a path that avoided the larger planets known to be inhabited. There were too many things that couldn’t be easily explained, and both Riddick and Theo had quietly agreed that the presence of two women could complicate things if they ran into the wrong sort of people.
Jack had been nervous and a little excited, when Theo had leaned over her and flicked the switch to computer control and left the Odyssey to drift at the whim of the space around them. “She’s all yours, Jack.” He had told her he would do it, and not to worry, that she was ready, but there was still that moment of fear as her hand held the ships wheel. ‘Weren’t computers supposed to do this stuff?’ her mind argued with her. She was afraid she would do something wrong and they would all end up dead in a fiery ball of molten steel in the atmosphere of some planet.
Theo had taken a step back from her, to give her some space, and she looked back behind her, to see that Riddick and Shazza also watched her. Shazza smiled at her, and Riddick, expressionless with so many other people around, nodded just once; a tiny motion that anyone else would have missed.
The movement couldn’t be felt on the ship itself, but Jack could feel the pull under her hands as she took the wheel, Theo’s words in her ear. ‘You already know where you’re going, Jack, you plotted the course yourself.’ He had let her plot her own course and her careful marks would stay on Theo’s charts forever; she would never forget that, that he had let her mark those charts.
At first she had been nervous, and checked the systems in front of her constantly; her hands wiped free of sweat frequently down the sides of her pants. She would gaze out the front shield and it dawned on her that she was the one in control, that the Odyssey flew where she flew her, responsive to the slightest touch. She followed the path she had charted, along the spiral curve of the blue nebula. Shazza had brought her something to eat and asked her if she wanted to take a break, but she couldn’t, she just couldn’t. Jack didn’t know how long she had been at the front, but she was exhausted when Theo had come up front and flicked the switch, to let the computer take over again.
Time didn’t really matter in space; it was just a series of hours that some ancient reason in the body divided into night and day. She was tired, but still too excited to sleep; she knew that she would toss and turn, so she found a quiet dark place on the bridge and stared out the window at the stars.
—
“Is Shazza your real name?”
Shazza stood close enough to Riddick to feel the warm heat from him, to feel his heartbeat and the soft fan of his breath on the side of her face. It was almost full dark on the bridge, with only the palest blue starlight to see by; it glinted off his shined eyes, so beautiful it caught her off guard. They had come out here to get Jack, left alone on the bridge while they had something to eat, but the girl was quiet in the pilot’s seat; she looked to be asleep so Shazza didn’t wake her.
He asked quietly, his voice even with no real need in his voice. Shazza knew differently, she knew how tightly controlled he was, so that he wouldn’t give away how much the answer meant to him. Her hand stroked over his chest and felt his heart race, but he didn’t back away. She left her hand there for a moment. ‘A survival mechanism’ she thought; he couldn’t afford to let other people know what really mattered to him, because it could then be used against him. It was so strange to her that the lack of emotion on his face, his very control, was what tipped her off to what really mattered to him.
“Sharon. Sharon Montgomerey. It was…” She had nearly said Zeke’s name and stopped herself; she wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk about Zeke. Not for her sake; she had cried hard for Zeke, and she knew that Zeke wouldn’t want her to hurt, so she had let him go. She didn’t want to hurt Riddick and it was so difficult, because she knew he would never say anything if he was hurt but she knew she would feel it. His hand on her elbow brought her out of her thoughts again. “Zeke called me Shazza, it just stuck.”
The light flickered over his eyes and they glowed a soft blue to silver and back to their strange mercurial color, at the mention of Zeke’s name; his only outward display of jealousy. His fingertips played through the curls in her hair and he was quiet for another moment. “It suits you.” It wasn’t an acceptance of her name; it was an acceptance of the person that named her and it was something he wanted her to know. He looked her right in the eyes as he said it.
Shazza pressed closer to him; it was harder for him to hide from her the more she touched him. His heart raced and she let her hand slip down over his chest, to rest on his hip, to give him the space that he needed so he wouldn’t need to pull away from her. “Would you rather call me Sharon?”
Riddick pulled her closer still and she could feel his heart beat against her chest; she closed her eyes and tilted her face up to his, her hand stroked along the stubble of his jaw. The muscles worked underneath as he fought all expression. His kisses were so light across her eyelashes that she barely felt them and his hands cupped her face as he moved down across her nose to kiss her mouth softly. “No, I like Shazza.”
Jack had dozed off for a while but she was awake now, as she watched them kiss in the pale starlight on the bridge. She had seen gentleness in Riddick before but she had never expected it here, like this. The moment was fleeting as the kiss turned deeply passionate, and even then it was still gentle. She closed her eyes tightly to shut out the vision of her first ‘kiss’; it wasn’t something she had wanted, she hadn’t been asked and it wasn’t gentle. He hadn’t looked at her the way Riddick looked at Shazza now.
“She’s not asleep.” Shazza felt her insides turn to liquid fire when his lips brushed against her ear; he could have whispered anything and the effect would have been the same. She rested her forehead against his collarbone and knew that if she looked at him again she would lose herself in him and it wouldn’t matter where she was, or who watched. He felt the same; she knew it even without the need to look at him. He breathed heavily, his every exhale a deep purr; his own body wouldn’t let him hide his emotions this time. He wanted her.
They separated until only their hands touched. She felt everything in him grow still again as he sought to calm himself. Only then did he walk over to Jack. Shazza bit the inside of her lip and dropped her head so he wouldn’t see her laugh. Riddick knew all along that the girl wasn’t asleep; the little grin that pulled at the corner of his lip said that he knew, but he didn’t let on, at least to Jack.
Jack stayed as still as she could and slipped her arms around his neck as Riddick carried her back to her room. She didn’t know if Riddick thought she was asleep or not, and she didn’t really care at that point; all she cared about was that she felt so safe right now. She opened her eyes only when he had pulled the blanket over her, only to see him grin at her; he had known she was awake the entire time, and hadn’t said a thing. “Night, Jack.” She couldn’t answer; all she could do was grin back at him.
—
She had barely closed the door to Jack’s room when he pounced on her; his hands were in her hair, they skimmed over her exposed skin and pulled at her clothes. The heat of him left her breathless and overwhelmed. ‘Now, I need you now’ a barely heard whisper in her ear as he bit and nipped over her ear, down her throat, to bite and suck against the sensitive skin where her neck met her shoulder.
Shazza had never been a woman that submitted to much in her life; it just wasn’t her nature, but right now she would have given Riddick anything, as long as he kissed and bit her like that. On the bridge Riddick had held her hands but he didn’t now, and she touched him everywhere. She pulled his shirt up to touch the hot skin of his waist and hips; the very feel of him made her growl in answer to him. He started to undo his pants but her hands were quicker and she pushed his hand out of the way; even the sound of his low chuckle against her neck turned her on.
She half screamed in muffled frustration as she tried to kick her boots off, to pull her pants off, but all she could manage was to drop them to her ankles. She wasn’t willing to let him go either, the slow strokes over the silky hard length of him left her almost as intoxicated as the act itself. He wasn’t rough, but he was insistent; his every move dripped power and confidence. Where he had been willing to let her set the pace before, he took charge now; she was what he wanted, what he needed, and he wouldn’t wait.
She fought another moment against her boots but there was no way they were about to come off, and now her pants were stuck there. His pulled back to look at her, the corner of his lip pulled up in an arrogant smirk at her predicament. She would have yelled in her frustration but the gleam that flickered across the silver of his eyes had the sound catch in her throat. It was predatory, in a way that made her mouth water, it made everything water.
He moved so fast that under other circumstances she would have been afraid and probably would have screamed. All she had time for was one quick intake of breath before she was pushed over the side of the bed; his hands guided her firmly to make her kneel. She wouldn’t have protested anyway, even if she had the time but the speed of it still caught her off guard as the dull head of his cock pressed against her wetness for a second before he buried himself in her to the hilt.
He withdrew just a little, as though he wasn’t willing to let her go, not even for this, before he slammed back into her. She screamed into the fistfuls of bunched up blankets she held onto and shuddered at his moaned words, ‘You feel so fucking good, Shazza.’ She pressed her chest lower to the bed and spread her knees as much as she was able, given that her pants were still on. She had never really presented herself that way to any man before, at least not consciously, and she felt an incredible rush of freedom in doing so now and she arched her hips even more. The effect on Riddick was incredible; his growl deepened and his hand on her hip tightened. Not painfully but forcefully, possessively. He reached out across her back to bite her neck, that deep growl made her shudder against him, and he slammed hard into her.
She couldn’t scream anymore, her toes hurt from the force with which she curled them, her whole body screamed out, not just her voice; from the punishing pace he sought. She turned her head to breathe, and to try to clear the spots from in front of her eyes; if she came again she would black out for sure. His eyes were closed and his lips parted as passion took him; his hips bucked hard into her now, where his stroke was measured before. She had never really just watched a man come before, it had never really occurred to her, maybe it was just the position she found herself in. He held her tighter and his lips pulled back in a grimace before he slammed hard into her, a roar pulled out of him as his hand tightened on her hip as he filled her. She stayed completely still, to feel his every muscle tremble when he lowered himself to kiss her neck.
Riddick hovered over her for another minute, his forehead resting against her, before he eased out of her and helped her over. The strain made her muscles ache and it felt strange to lie on her back, as though her spine had taken on a strange new shape and didn’t want to go back. She tried to get up and only managed to prop herself up on her elbows when he took her boots off. He nipped the inside of her thigh on his way back up and answered the question in her eyes, “You didn’t think I was done, did you?” Shazza let her head drop back against the bed and laughed, and asked him what he had in mind.
—
Theo ran his hand over the spines of the books in his many bookshelves, much as Riddick had done a few days ago. He didn’t really search for anything, he knew that what he wanted would find him; his hand would pass over it and he would stop. It had always been that way. His hand fell on the back of an ancient book bound in some sort of pale green leather, his fingertips stroked over where a title would be; it had been rubbed clean by many years of someone doing this very thing. It was one of the very few books he had that had information on the Trieste system, on Trieste Nine specifically. He smiled to himself as he thought about that. ‘Information’ He wasn’t a merc anymore, and he was determined that would no longer talk like one. The book had ‘tales’ of Trieste; that was better.
It was a strange thing, a moment of chance, a coincidence, but at that very same moment, Duncan Warfield sat in his quarters on a ship bound for the Trieste system. He too read, but from computer files that he had secured after he had ransacked Theo’s home on Helion. That the two men read very nearly the same text at the same time, displayed subtly the hand of fate.
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