Fight or Flight (4 page)

Could she even do this? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d masturbated. It had been well over a year, maybe two. As embarrassment flushed her cheeks, she flung her hands away from her body. She hadn’t always been unnerved by her sexuality. Before Walter, things had been simple—she’d meet a man to whom she was attracted, they’d date, maybe sleep together a few times. She’d always been attracted to powerful men. Walter was the only man who had ever turned his power against her, and what had initially attracted her to him had become repulsive.

She went to her bedroom, turning on the holo player as she stretched out on her bed and surfed the titles available. She hardly ever used the player; when she did, it was mostly to watch comedies. Certainly never for pornography.

C’mon, Tirzah, doctor’s orders.
She finally settled on a vid that promised “sensual, couple-friendly lovemaking.”

The holo-vid was arousing, as sensual as promised. The male actor kissed and caressed the female while she stretched and moaned. It wasn’t hard to imagine a pair of rough, masculine hands teasing at her body. Tirzah’s eyes drifted closed and she imagined the elegant, dark-skinned Zeke’s hands cupping her breast, kneading it while he suckled the nipple and teased it with his tongue. She could almost feel the tight rows of his braids under her fingers, the smoothness of his hard shoulders. A sharp shard of pleasure knifed through her, drawing a stuttering gasp to her lips.

Her fingers followed that shard low, drawing through wet heat to circle her clitoris.

Her response to her own touch encouraged her, and she rolled and stretched, imagining the weight of another body pressing her into the mattress, the length of his fingers parting her, entering her. Her body warmed to her own touch, and she thrust her hips against her palm, circling and rubbing in time to her caresses. As she drew near an edge, afraid to tip over, she slowed the circling, trying to hold back.

In her mind, she saw him clearly, his green eyes passion-dark. His full lips closed over her breast, and his hand beckoned within her body. A growl ripped from fantasy-Zeke’s throat as he bared his teeth—and bit. A sound skittered from her, amazed and awed. In that moment, she clutched and pinched her nipple with one hand, while finally forcing her body’s surrender with a soft pinch around her clit.

White-hot and shaking, her body lunged for the prize she’d attempted to deny it, the fantasy pushing her headlong into a riptide of lust. Her body arched in response; the motion of her hips finally stilled as she shuddered around her hand. Unable to stop the tears that flowed from her eyes, she sobbed out her ecstasy against her pillow as she quaked and throbbed.

In the wake of her orgasm, she lay in bed, exhausted and confused, subdued and serious as her breathing returned to normal. This new sexual awakening, the first orgasm she’d experienced since before the accident, made her wonder what it would have been like to meet a man like Zeke Lucassen before she’d been broken, and before something, or someone, had put that hardness into his face.

Pulling her blankets around her, she turned off the holo-vid and rolled to her side, the scent of her own desire and fulfillment curling around her. More than anything, she wanted to be the woman she’d been before she married Walter. If she couldn’t have that, she’d settle for proving her innocence, reclaiming her position in the Fleet. She might never trust another man to give her what she’d just given herself, but at least now sexual desire and fulfillment weren’t lost to her as well. Even if only at her own hand, it was something, and it was hers.

Chapter 6

Zeke looked at his hands to see they were still shaking. Josiah Beckett had given him a terse account of the missing medical records before giving him access to the files on his own reader. That was hours ago, and nausea and revulsion still roiled low in his gut. He opened the file again, looking at the photograph of Tirzah Simonian taken by the hospital.

She looked thin, almost emaciated, as though she’d gone weeks, even months without exercise. Everyone stationed on these outlying planets knew the importance of regular exercise in artificial gravity. The only reasons a person would forgo the minimum workout recommendations were illness or incarceration. She’d experienced both.

The skin around her wrists and ankles was raw, bloody. The broken arm hung at a twisted, useless angle.

She was
pregnant.

Good God. What had she endured?

The more he stared at the sullen defiance in the photograph, the angrier he got. There had been no record of her pregnancy in the reports sent over by Guszak. She’d been in and out of the brig for months, but nothing could have explained raw wounds on the wrists except shackles.

Where was the baby?

Even with the records in front of him there were more damned questions than answers. He replayed the conversation with Josiah in his head. He’d insisted Tirzah had not shot the warden, and Walter Simonian’s shooting had been in self-defense. The more Zeke looked at the image, the more convinced he was that Josiah Beckett had told him the truth. Someone was manipulating him, and it wasn’t Tirzah Simonian.

But if he couldn’t get her to talk? If he couldn’t convince her to tell her story?

With a growl of frustration, he hurled the reader across the room, watching in satisfaction as it crumpled against the wall. His serv-droid emerged from the closet and picked up the device, placing it on the desk before slipping back to its hiding place. He picked it up and smoothed it out, helping the thin piece of metal resume its former shape.

If only people were this easy to fix.

* * * *

“Tirzah, I want you to tell him.” Josiah’s eyes were serious, his expression calm. Tirzah scowled at him from under the fighter. She had been helping Claudia with some engine repairs—she might be grounded, but she wasn’t useless. She felt a pang of guilt as she realized her friend would probably be working as a ship’s engineer somewhere, but thanks to Tirzah, she was turning wrenches instead.

“He can use it against me.”

Claudia took the wrench from her hand. “Go. I don’t want you touching one of these birds while talking to my brother. No good can come of that.” Tirzah glanced apologetically at her friend. If Claudia were bothered to find herself out here in Solomon Territory instead of on a ship somewhere, it didn’t show.

“Sorry, Clau.”

“Don’t apologize.” Clau flashed one of her dimpled grins. “I appreciated the help, but you need to go take care of yourself now.”

Dismissed, Tirzah wiped her hand on the coveralls she wore and stood to follow Josiah back into the station, away from the hangar where the fighters were stored. She tried not to glance over her shoulder at the elegant ships as she left, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d wanted a fight command since the first moment she’d seen a fighter. So fast, so nimble. She’d loved flying.

It had been the first thing Walter had taken from her.

“He won’t use it against you,” Josiah said, interrupting her thoughts.

“What? Oh, Lucassen. Why do you think that?”

“Because he’s a fair man. A good man. He’s getting pressure to put you away, and he’s pushing back. Maybe he’s not our enemy, Tirzah. You deserve a fair trial; I’ll make sure you get one. I believe it is in your best interest to tell him what happened. Including why you were in the brig in the first place.”

“Becky…”

“Don’t call me Becky.”

“Fine,
Advocate Beckett.
” She rolled her eyes. “Set up the meeting.”

Chapter 7

Tirzah looked across the table at the prosecutor and noted his relaxed posture. This seemed so easy for him—he had no idea the turmoil that lived inside her. She fidgeted with the cuff around her wrist, the one that told some computer on the station if she went out into the launch yard. Her jailor. More effective than the brig, in the long run.

“Why were you in the brig, Captain?” Lucassen pinned her with his intense eyes, his face calm and serious.

“I assaulted a superior officer,” she answered.

“That doesn’t answer my question. I know you were accused of assaulting your husband, but according to my notes, Walter Simonian was six and a half feet tall, roughly two hundred forty-five pounds.”

“That’s correct.” Walter had been a big, hard-muscled man.

“So, roughly my height, plus another twenty pounds.”

She looked at him carefully, and then nodded. “Why is his size relevant?”

“Well, you’re about five feet, four inches, and I’d guess you weigh about one thirty. So he’s got more than a foot of height and reach, and over one hundred pounds on you. Also, he was your superior officer. You aren’t a stupid woman—you were salutatorian of your class at the Academy.” His glance flickered over to Josiah. “Behind only him. So, why would a smart woman do a stupid thing like assault a man double her size?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because justice is important to me, damn it. You didn’t assault your husband, you were assaulted by him.”

“I hit back.”

“Why didn’t you file charges against him?”

“He was a hero. Why would anyone believe me?”

“You were a hero too. Why wouldn’t they?”

“I was insubordinate.”

“Mmm. Fleet rules are pretty clear on insubordination. What was the order you disobeyed?”

“He told me to suck his cock and make it good.”

Lucassen’s hand slammed on the table. For a moment it trembled as he took in a deep breath.

“This isn’t a joke, Captain.”

“I didn’t find it funny either.” She met his eyes defiantly. She was tired of all the bullshit that came with being a woman in the Fleet. If Zeke Lucassen couldn’t recognize the reality of the culture he was a part of, she was fine if this conversation ended right now.

“I find it hard to believe you were thrown in the brig because you didn’t give your husband a blowjob—or was it because you didn’t ‘make it good?’”

“Advocate…” Josiah interrupted. Tirzah looked at her friend, giving him the “I told you this was a bad idea” look that had been part of their non-verbal communication ever since the Academy.

“Advocate Beckett. I need your client to understand I am trying to make sure she is only prosecuted for actual crimes committed. I have plenty of evidence that supports the Fleet’s claim she shot her husband and the warden in order to steal a transport. If there are mitigating circumstances, now is the time to come clean about them.”

“I’m right fucking here, you two.” Tirzah seethed. “As you said before, I’m not a stupid woman. I know it’s hard to believe I was thrown in the brig because I refused to give my husband a blowjob.”

“So make me believe it, Captain.”

*

He meant it. The storm cloud rolled across her face as she decided whether or not to trust him.
C’mon, pixie.
The moment her shoulders relaxed, she slumped in her seat.

“My husband used his superior size and strength to humiliate me, and later to hurt me. Repeatedly. I was—I am—a smart woman, so I understood on an intellectual level that domestic abuse can happen regardless of social class or educational level. I also never believed it would happen to me.

“It began with him saying humiliating or embarrassing things to me in front of our fellow officers. I was the most-decorated member of the squadron after my flight through the Solomon Nebula, and he was jealous. He made it sound to the others as though I hadn’t earned my medals fairly, suggested I may have earned them ‘on my knees.’ He was the ranking officer in our little squadron, so they wanted to stay on his good side. If they felt sorry for me, they didn’t let on.

“Eventually, I internalized this abuse, saw myself as less worthy, as somehow deserving of his mistreatment. As if it was my fault. I spent less time around the other pilots, and they called me a snob. This was how he alienated me from the rest of the squadron.

“Early in our relationship, we’d had a fairly adventurous sex life, played at bondage and some other stuff.” She blushed, her voice shaking as she continued. “He used that against me as well. He’d slap me around and call it foreplay. If I objected, he accused me of sleeping around on him, demanded to know who I was screwing behind his back…”

Her voice trailed off and her eyes clouded.

“One night, he got really rough with me. He hurt me, and he forced me to have sex with him. I fought back. A lucky hit landed and I gave him a black eye. That’s what landed me in the brig. I was in for two weeks that first time. I missed my chance to re-certify, and I lost my fight command. I was kicked off the squadron.”

She tucked her lower lip between her teeth and bit. She looked tiny and fragile, and something in him wanted to protect her. How her husband could have taken advantage of her, forced her, it was unthinkable. His chest tightened at the idea of the man she’d married abusing the trust she’d put in him, and then when it was well and truly broken, abusing her body as well.

Tirzah—and when had he started thinking of her by her first name?—leaned in to whisper something in Beckett’s ear. The man nodded, patting her hand in what appeared to be encouragement.

“I’m going to show you something.” Her voice was soft, and her fingers shook as she unzipped the cuffs of her uniform and pushed up her sleeves. Thick bands of scar tissue circled her wrists. Next, she unzipped the top of the uniform, opening it from waist to neck. Scars covered her chest and belly, but underneath those scars, she was beautiful. Anger welled in him at the other man marking her, attempting to taint that beauty.

“Our sexual relationship stopped being consensual that night. But it didn’t stop. He raped me. If I fought, he beat me. He confined me to the brig when I fought back, usually for a week or two at a time, sometimes as long as a month. You understand, sometimes, it was easier not to fight back, and I hated us both for it.”

Zeke felt like he would vomit, but he forced himself to listen as she continued.

“I was already four months pregnant when he put me in the brig the last time. He didn’t know, and I was scared he would find out and do something that would hurt the baby. He had put in a transfer request for both of us, was planning to take me somewhere new. He threatened me with the work camps if I refused. I wanted to get away, to find someplace I could be safe—we, the baby and I, could be safe—there are safe harbor laws, maybe a women’s shelter. I knew if I could signal to the Becketts, they would help me. The warden was kind to me. He helped me escape, helped me get to the transport.
I did not shoot him
.”