VirtuallyYours by Caroline McCall

Four. Charley swallowed.
She didn’t want to think about what would happen then. Maybe she didn’t have to
worry about Pete finding out about her father after all. These last few days
might be all that they would have together.
    Pete reached out to stroke her face. “Hey, don’t worry,
Charley, we’ll get through this, I promise.”
    A sudden feeling of tenderness welled through her. Pete was
the one who was injured, and he was trying to make her feel better. His thumb
brushed along her cheekbone and she thought for a moment that he was going to
kiss her. Charley felt suddenly shy of him and she pulled away. “Those cuts
need to be cleaned.”
    “Are you offering to play nurse?” Pete’s tone was joking,
but his eyes were serious.
    Charley searched through the medi-kit, trying to hide her
flushed face. Grabbing a bottle of antiseptic and a sterile cloth, she headed
toward the bathroom.
    “We can’t use all of the medi supplies. We might need them
later. I’ll clean your wounds in the shower.”
    The tiny bathroom barely held both of them. Charley was thankful
for running water. Most of the other ships only had sonic showers. Pete
stripped down to his shorts. His almost naked body was beautiful. His skin was
darker than hers was. A light sprinkling of springy hair covered his chest,
trailing downward in a dark vee. Charley wanted to run her fingers along the
ropes of muscles descending along his abdomen. Pete grinned when he caught her
looking at him and she averted her eyes. She could feel her heart racing.
    Pete stepped into the shower and faced the wall. A spray of
water ran through his hair, bouncing off the hard muscles of his shoulders.
Charley ached to plant a kiss on his bruises, to slide her arms around him and
feel his naked skin against hers. Instead, she dabbed at the cuts, cleaning the
blood away. Pete gave a gasp of pain.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you want me to stop?”
    “No.” His voice sounded choked.
    “Almost done.” Charley had just finished cleaning the last
cut when she saw the mark just below his rib cage. Pete had been injured
before, and badly too, from the look of the pale blemish. Her fingers pressed
lightly against the tracery of scar tissue. “How did this happen?”
    “That’s a souvenir from my last visit to Tarsus Four. It was
made by a shuriken blade—you know, a throwing star? Jake had to pull it out of
me. Sometimes those things are tipped with poison.”
    Charley looked at the jagged white lines on his skin. Her
heart flipped. She hadn’t known that Pete was one of the team who rescued the
hostages or that he’d been injured. He could have been killed and it was all
her fault, hers and her father’s.
    When Charley bent her head, planting a light kiss on the
scar, Pete’s breath caught in his throat. His muscles tensed under her touch
before relaxing again. Feeling bolder, she traced a path along his shoulder
blade with her mouth. She was conscious of a low male groan, but still he said
nothing. Charley continued her ministrations with her lips, a kiss here, a
featherlight lick there, all the while caressing him gently.
    The water streamed steadily downward. She was in the shower
stall with him now, the warm water soaking through her tunic. Her hands grew
more adventurous, sliding around his waist, enjoying the feel of the taut
muscles beneath her fingertips. Her touch roamed downward until her fingers
encountered the waistband of his shorts. Dare she?
    Pete reached down and his warm wet palm covered her hand.
“Oh, Charley,” he groaned.
    Turning quickly, Pete caught her around the waist and
pressed her against the glass wall of the shower stall. His mouth descended on
hers for a hungry kiss. He fisted his hand in her wet hair, holding her in
place while his mouth ravished hers. Without breaking the kiss, Pete tugged at
the fastening on her pants. Their fingers clashed as she helped him, wriggling
out of them until they lay in a sodden heap. His voice