Treacherous

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~Chapter 27~

A shuffling. A shifting. A touch. A sigh. A kiss.

Bell wasn’t fully awake, but she knew. Riddick wrapped around her, physically and more. The feelings she could pick up were stark, unshuttered. Not just a physical need, an arousal, but something more, a blatant craving to lose himself, to get lost in her and hide from the world of pressure surrounding him.

She didn’t have to stop and consider. The roof could be collapsing on them and she’d accept him. She belonged to him, more so now than five years before. That he was turning to her seemed to validate it. As she’d seen in the past, Riddick needed someone to entrust his softer side in, and she was eagerly willing to defend it for him. At least, that’s how she saw it. She doubted he’d be so blunt about it.

His reasons for coming to her didn’t matter one wit right now. He was breathing into her, his heavy body was pressing hers into the thin pad of a mattress. She lifted her hands to find bare flesh to explore. A soft groan escaped her.

She didn’t have clothes to sleep in so hadn’t slept in anything. Now it seemed providential. His position had her legs spreading instinctively for him.

Teeth pulled, tongue met and fought with hers as his breath huffed through his nose to fan her face. She arched, the first touch against her sensitive center sparking inside her like fireworks.

A hard grip squeezed her hip painfully. Then she was gasping into his mouth.

Mere seconds had passed from awakening to penetration. Her body wasn’t ready, hadn’t produced enough of the slick fluid to aid his entry. But he didn’t stop.

She whimpered. There was no participating in this. She was just an instrument, a body.

The pain of friction eased with his third thrust and had all but disappeared by the fifth. He bottomed out on the sixth, her body finally relaxing enough to allow him access.

His response was a low growl in his chest.

He slowed, his mouth breaking away from her newly swollen lips. His strokes continued, eyes dropping half-closed with each penetration.

“You’re a little bitch.” That graveled voice, so deep and rough.

“I know.”

He huffed out air through his nose, disdain at her quick concurrence. “I swore I’d fuck you for every can of those peaches. Leave it to a bitch to give me sweets.”

Bell smiled, her face slackening from the building pressure in her lower belly. “Wanted you to know it was me. Thought you could use to sweeten up a bit.”

“Little liar.”

She smiled, his charge accompanied by a deep thrust that made her gasp and claw at him. Fingertips found purchase on his shoulders, digging into the thick muscles. “Yeah, a lie.” Moaning. “I wanted to…” a gasp and a guttural groan interrupted her. “Spoil you.”

His mouth dropped to bite at her chin, up her jaw to her mouth. Bell sucked at his mouth, their tempo increasing, the heat surrounding them sweltering.

In the space from one second to the next their act crescendoed. His teeth on her lip held, his whole body tensing with a unexpected suddenness. Fierce movement, flesh slapping damp flesh. Bell cried out at the rough onslaught, a small orgasm tightening her body just as he was shaking through his own release.

Bell found herself pinned by his solid weight, and liking it very much. She used her hands to turn his head, so she could press her lips to his scalp just above his ear. His breath sighed over her shoulder and she did it again, and again. Turning his head back she kissed over his face, his closed eyes, his cheeks, his lips, and last his nose.

His eyes opened, twin pools of steel, flashing like a carnivore’s. “You’re kissing me.”

Voice flat, devoid of emotion, but she picked up his surprise, his uncertainty. She shrugged one shoulder in answer, “I love you.”

Was there a bug in the bed? He climbed off of her so fast she was considering checking around her for the source of fright. Instead she sat up and watched him quickly getting dressed.

“Settle down, Riddick. I didn’t propose.”

He mumbled something as he pulled his pants into place and reached for the tunic.

“Dammit, stop it!”

Her outburst at least got him to pause.

“I’m not leaving, and I’m not your yoke. Stop fighting me.”

His head turned a bit, his back still to her. “You want more from me than they do.”

Bell smiled. It was good to hear him address something for real. “No, I don’t, Riddick. You just can’t kill me when I act up.”

He turned the rest of the way, his eyes narrowed dangerously. “Says who?”

“I used to be terrified of you. Scared to death that you would kill me before I could tell you what I could do for you. But now you know.” She shrugged. “I figure you already passed up some good chances to off me. Doing it now would just be boring.”

He smiled, “You’d never be boring, Bell. You’d probably bleed acid for blood and take me with you.”

She pouted as if considering, “Maybe.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

The reminder of the danger her children, their children, were in caused her teasing mood to flee. “Anything you can.”

He studied her, and she looked back at him plainly. She didn’t have anything else to hide from him.

“Why did they beat you?”

She smiled, “Some of this was me. Locked in a room, I could see them dragging Collin and Wies away. I think I might have gotten a little crazy.”

“I’ll have to teach you to escape.”

She nodded, “I’d prefer not to need that, but I’ll take any lessons you’re willing to give.

“So why’d they beat you?”

Bell shook her head, smiling. She’d tried to avoid that one. “First, cuz they figured I knew where you were.” She shrugged, “Last one I remember was cuz I killed a guy with the meal tray.”

His grim frown changed, a corner of his mouth lifting into a smile.

She shrugged, “No worries. Flesh heals, but I’ll kill the rest of them when I get my hands on them.”

“How would you feel about a mind fuck?”

Bell blinked in confusion. “What? What are you talking about?”

He nodded slowly, “The Quasi Deads. They were the ones that started this,” he tapped his finger against his temple. “Felt like they opened a door on it. They let it out.”

Bell considered the possibilities. To be given an ability like his? And he didn’t know how strong it was, or what it could do. Could them both having the unique power encourage the other to develop theirs further? The potential was endless, because they didn’t know. “What are the risks?”

He had the decency to look unsure. She smiled. Enough said. The risk was, at worst case death, or maybe just insanity. “What was it like?”

“I fought them. They could speak my thoughts aloud.” His disgust in that was evident. “The Lord Marshal ordered them to ‘regress’ further, into old memories.” He smiled absently. “What I was trying to keep them from is what pushed them out.”

Bell didn’t understand, really. The mind, and memories was a mystery to scientists even at this late date. That the Mongers had something that could explore the mind was amazing on its own. Explaining it was near impossible, she was sure.

She finally nodded slowly. “I want to explore that computer first though. Maybe it will explain more.”

Bell had tried to get into the system after he’d left earlier. No go. It wasn’t even locked with some sort of password, it just wouldn’t come on, like no power was going to it. She snorted her aggravation as the screens of the system powered up as soon as Riddick stepped in front of it. Fucking thing.

She leaned over his shoulder and started moving through the system, seeing what was what, and he let her. “What do you know about what Militia is doing here?”

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Riddick knew next to nothing about what he was capable of now. His power had always been based on physical strength, skill, determination, and probably a heavy dose of psycho. But there was no denying that he’d gained something. A kind of phantom power that could be used to see further than he could, or communicate. Controlling it was simple, understanding it was not. So far Bell had been the only one who’d made contact with it. Then there was whatever had happened on Crematoria. It had been a power, a surge, but he didn't understand it, didn't know how to recreate it.

The idea that she could be as powerful as him had entered his mind the second he'd learned she was Furyan. It explained a lot, her inner strength, carrying on when others would have given it up. He didn’t like the idea of giving her such a weapon, if that was really what it was, but the protection it would offer her was good.

Bell was an unknown. Before, on T2, he'd felt comfortable with her, and had felt comfortable with feeling comfortable. It would be a temporary thing, and he’d been content to allow it. Cut free when it was over, and forget the questionable behavior.

Reunited, he didn’t immediately assume that this was temporary, and was looking more and more permanent. The problem being that he still felt that same old comfort with her and he wasn’t comfortable with that. Letting his guard down? He probably was, and his lack of concern over it bothered him. He didn’t feel the constant pressure to break free of her. And that was strange to him.

Then she’d gone and spouted her 'I love you'. Never would be ready to hear that shit. Was she trying to secure the deal? Make him do what she wanted? As smart as she was he knew better. He should have jettisoned her into space for saying crap like that. Except that she’d meant it. He’d seen it, felt it. She wasn’t trying to manipulate him. She’d actually meant it and that left him feeling even more unsettled.

So now he was considering giving her something he couldn’t take back, and that might just be his downfall. Bell was strong. He’d seen that back on T2. Learning she was Furyan just verified it. Could he trust her with a power that she could in theory use against him? She’d have knowledge of him that he’d never speak, but wouldn’t be able to hide from her. She’d know him. Just the idea of that was scary.

Could he trust Bell?

He'd known he could trust the sweating straining woman the minute she'd cut his bonds on T2. And that had been disturbing. Trusting anything was new to him, trusting another human had been unacceptable.

What surprised, and bothered, him now was how much he wanted to trust her. To have one person he didn’t have to be on his guard around. And the option of killing her if it got to be too much was always open.

If she came away from the Quasis with anything near what he had they would be a force to be reckoned with, and not just by humans. Together they could get stronger than alone, and learn from the other.