Chapter Thirty-eight: Jack - Ownership

Jack Kowalczyk had seen some truly amazing things in her life. She'd seen the inner heart of a nebula as she passed through it on a small merchant vessel. A new star had been born off of the starboard bow while she'd watched in awe along with the rest of the crew and passengers. Its birth sent rippling waves of energy pulsing out through the nebula, shredding it to ribbons and reforming it. The ship had been far enough away from the event to sustain only minor damage, and the experience had joined her small collection of deeply treasured memories.

She'd seen a blue star flare over the horizon of an arid, empty world, while a red and yellow binary pair sank toward the opposite horizon. She'd watched as an enormous ringed planet swallowed the sky of that same world, and a living maelstrom of chittering, malevolent creatures pour out of natural chimneys to flow through the darkening sky like sentient smoke.

But no sight had ever moved her to greater awe than this one: Tears glittered on the cheeks of Richard B. Riddick.

He was staring down at her, a look of bewildered amazement on his face and in his eyes. She drew him down and pressed her lips to his face, kissing each tear away as he had done with hers. She ended, as he had, with their mouths joined. This time their lips clasped tenderly, their hunger for each other momentarily sated.

He let out a heavy sigh as their mouths parted and lowered his head, burying his face against her neck. His body lay heavily upon hers, pressing her into his mattress. The weight of him felt delicious. She closed her eyes and reveled in the moment, the feeling of his hot breath against her shoulder and his skin against hers.

They might have fallen asleep for a while; she didn't know. Time spooled out unchecked while they lay together. Soon they would have to deal with the world around them once more, but not yet... not yet...

"You have no idea," he finally murmured, "how long I've wanted to do this."

"Ha," she answered. "I got you beat, easy. I've been in love with you for years, Riddick."

He raised his head, frowning slightly. "Really? I coulda sworn..."

"Sworn what?" She nudged his shoulder. "Come on, out with it."

"You just didn't seem to be aware like that when we got back together. There were a few times... shit, I've been lusting after you ever since you walked into my ship. But you didn't seem to notice."

"Oh." She thought about it, going back over her memories. The abrupt end to the tickle-battle. The arguments over what she would wear on her way to and from the bathroom, and how much she had to wear to bed... Of course. "Well, no, I didn't. I was still kind of sexually dead inside back then. It wasn't until the regen turned my drive back on that I started noticing things..."

He groaned in disgusted comprehension. "And by then I had you pegged as a total innocent. Shit. And they told me about the effect that hysterectomies sometimes had on sex drives, and how that would reverse itself. Jack, I can be a real idiot sometimes."

"No argument here. Do you know how much I spent on outfits to get you to notice me?"

"Ohhhhh." He chuckled wickedly. "So that was deliberate. You little vixen... A few of those almost got you banged on the spot, you know. But how come you never seemed to know what kind of effect they were supposed to have? You always looked so--"

"Innocent? Hey, I may not have spent eleven years running from the law, but I got a little bit of practice." She fixed him with her best look of befuddled "who-me?" innocence. His eyes widened.

"Shit, Jack, don't ever make that look when we're in bed together, okay? That's too damned freaky. I'm gonna have to watch you closely from now on, girl."

"You'd better," she retorted, making him laugh. He reached out and traced her lips with one finger.

"Kid, you've blown the top off of my head. Keep thinkin' I'm gonna wake up except I never have dreams this concrete. You have no idea how tempting you've been to me for the last few weeks."

"You're right, I had no idea, and I was pretty upset about that, too, because I thought I'd never get through that thick skin of yours." Jack grinned up at him, rubbing her hands along his back and over the skin in question.

"Skin's not thick, just the skull," he muttered. "Sorry I was so slow to catch on. But you know, yesterday that was what I wanted to talk to you about. I'd been having a harder and harder time controlling my impulses around you. Kept wanting to throw you down and fuck your brains out, and I was starting to worry I might actually do it."

"Oh God!" Jack groaned, remembering. "And I was sitting there dreading what you were going to say. I thought you'd figured out that I was in love with you, and you were going to give me this big speech about how young and immature I was."

Riddick laughed softly and kissed the base of her throat. A shiver shot through her. "Unusually quick refractory period," she thought to herself. I hope that's still true. We have a lot of catching up to do.

"Too bad it took a space battle with Reggie's best and brightest to set things straight. We coulda been fucking like crazed rabbits all last night, you know." He chuckled. "Not that I blame you. You didn't know the trap was there, and Reggie was almost on top of us anyway. It'll all work out. Most of it already has."

"Who's Reggie?"

Riddick sighed. His voice, when he spoke, sounded almost amused. "Lieutenant Reginald Jarvis. Good old Uncle Reg."

"He's your uncle?"

"Nah, not really. He ain't really a lieutenant, either. I don't know what his real rank is, but he wields a lot more power than any normal lieutenant ever has. He practically owns the Charybdis Project, from what I can tell."

"He's the guy who shot me," Jack whispered. "He visited me in the hospital afterwards and tried to recruit me to help catch you. Fucker couldn't even apologize for shooting me and he wanted me to hand you over on a plate."

"So what did you say?" Riddick's hand stroked her cheek as he spoke.

"I told him he should stop trying to shove his dick up other people's asses and stick it up his own." She was gratified by the dry burst of almost silent laughter that shook Riddick's body for a moment.

"That's my girl," he said when he caught his breath.

"So he runs the Charybdis Project? What is the Charybdis Project?"

"I wish I knew, Babe. Whatever it is, it's been fucking with my life for years and I'd purely love to know why."

"You talked like you knew him, back during the battle."

"Oh yeah," he replied airily. "We go way back. First time I met him was when he visited me in the hospital."

"What, when you were seven?"

"When I was seven. He even told me to call him 'Uncle Reg' back then. I was excited for a while, thinkin' I'd finally found my family, but it was just bullshit, of course. Shoulda known. We looked nothing alike. He taught me how to play chess while I was healing up, though."

"Jeez, how long were you in the hospital?"

"Once I woke up? Another week."

"That's all? I was in the hospital for more than three times as long."

"Well, I just had broken bones and bruises. Nobody splattered my guts down a hallway."

She swatted his shoulder, pretending to retch.

"Anyway, I've always healed up fast."

"And you learned chess in a week." She could hear the skepticism in her voice and knew he would.

"Shit, kid, by the end of the week I was beating him at it." She glanced up at his face and saw his proud smirk. He meant it.

"What are you, a genius?"

He shrugged. "Don't know. All of my aptitude and IQ test results are 'Classified.' Never seen 'em."

"Jeez, Riddick! What the hell are they hiding in there?"

"Well, I figure it's like this: I'm actually this ravenous man-eating plant from outer space and I landed on Earth thirty-five years ago. In Chinatown. And this pimply florist named Seymour Mushnik found me and decided to grow me, but the only thing I'd drink was blood, so--"

He stopped when she swatted his bare chest.

"What in creation are you talking about?" she laughed.

"Darlin', you have some serious holes in your education. Remind me to rent you some classic cinematics next time we're somewhere civilized."

"If you make me sit through Casablanca again--"

"Hey. That's a great movie. You were just too immature for it last time--"

"Immature?" She pushed him down onto his back again and straddled his waist, laughing. "I'm going to hurt you for that."

"I didn't say you were immature now-- hey! Quit that!" He grabbed her hands before she could poke him in the ribs again. Now he was laughing as he overpowered her and wrestled her down onto her back.

Jack laughed below him and raised her body up to meet his, undulating suggestively against him. "Let me show you exactly how mature I can be."

"Ooh." Riddick's smile was almost predatory. "You're on, Babe. This mean you wanna be on top?"

She shivered a little at the idea. Oh hell yeah...

He saw her response and chuckled. Suddenly she was no longer pinned beneath him. He'd rolled over onto his back and she was straddling him once more. She stared down at him, at the slight grin on his lips.

"Uh... so... how do I do this?"

He burst out laughing. "Trust me," he managed after a moment, "It's not that difficult. Here, move back a bit..."

His hands grasped her hips and lifted her up slightly, pushing her backward until she was poised above his own hips. She could feel something hard pressing against the inside of her thigh. His right hand moved off of her hip and traveled down to that point of contact. He shifted the position of his erection until she could feel the head of his cock pressing against her vaginal opening.

"Now all you have to do is push down," he whispered, smiling wickedly.

She slid down onto him and they both groaned in unison.

He helped her find the rhythm, rising up to meet her as she rode him. She was amazed, though, at how much control he let her take. She explored his body with her hands and mouth after a while, amazed by the reactions she could coax out of him. They played for a long time before she felt herself beginning to climax. Then his hands gripped her hips hard and he began to drive up into her, thrusting hard until her orgasm overtook her and she collapsed against him, shuddering. He groaned and thrust up into her once more and she could feel his organ pulsing inside of her.

They lay still for a long moment before he drew her mouth to his and kissed her.

"Oh Jack..." he whispered as he released her. "I could do this all day for the rest of my life. But we have to get this crate moving soon."

Jack sighed and nodded. They had to get underway. Not like they couldn't do this again later, anyway... and again and again...

"So where are we headed?"

"Well, we've gotta go back. To Troubadour. The deep-space drive wasn't fueled up yet so it's the only planet in range. I'm hoping that Jarvis won't think of looking for us to come back. We may have to hitch onto one of the system's relay satellites first, if all of the ship's codes were compromised. Get a new set of identities."

Jack nodded, feeling embarrassed. "You still gonna say none of this is my fault? I know for a fact that if our codes were compromised, it was my doing."

Riddick shrugged. "Well, you wanna take the blame for that, you can, but it's not like it hasn't happened to me before. It can be fixed. Just to be safe, though, I'm gonna list you as the ship's Captain when we head back in. Don't think it'd ever occur to any of them for me to be hiding behind a woman."

She laughed, an image of Riddick hunkered down, tip-toeing along in her shadow, popping into her mind. "They'd never believe it. Does that mean you have to do what I say?"

She leaned in close to him, smiling into his eyes with hers. "Does that mean I own you?"

"Darlin," he said, flipping her onto her back, "you may not believe this..."

She gasped as he spread her legs and she realized that he was ready to go again!

"But..."

He thrust into her, making her cry out in astonished pleasure. His hands came around her back and he lifted her up until they were both sitting, facing each other, locked together.

"You've always owned me," he finished, and crushed her lips with his.