ugly bag of mostly voyager

“I think we should have another.”

Chakotay looks at her askance. A bored Kathryn Janeway, as he’s discovering, is a dangerous animal.

It’s a discovery he’s not-so-secretly delighted to make, along with all the other interesting facts he’s learned about her over the past ten weeks. One of which is that, despite her insistence early in their enforced shore leave that she’s no longer his captain, she won’t hesitate to pull rank if she thinks he’s trying to tell her what to do.

So he confines his misgivings to a silent raised eyebrow and pours a third finger of whiskey into her just-emptied glass.

She lifts it to her lips, then stops. “Aren’t you joining me?”

He shakes his head.

“Your loss,” she shrugs, tipping the liquor down her throat. Shoving the glass in his direction, she demands, “More, please.”

To hell with rank. “Kathryn, not to be a buzzkill, but maybe it’s time to call it a night.”

The look she levels at him is hot and challenging. “Are you implying I can’t handle my drink, Commander?”

“Chakotay,” he reminds her pointedly. “And the rate you’re drinking this stuff would topple someone twice your size.”

“Lucky for me, I have you to pick me up.”

His eyebrows rise at the flirtatious lilt to her voice.

“So,” Kathryn rests her chin on her hand and smiles at him, slow and wicked, “what should we do now?”

Chakotay clears his throat. “Cards?”

She slumps dramatically. “I’m tired of cards. We’ve played every card game in existence.”

“Well, what did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know.” She scrapes her chair back from the table and strides over to pull open the cabin door. A squall of whirling rain chases her back inside and she slams the door shut and presses her back to it. Chakotay tries not to laugh at her incensed expression as she plucks at her now-soaked dress.

“Still raining, then?” he asks, straight-faced.

“Ugh,” she growls, letting her head thud against the door. “It’s been raining for days. Don’t take this the wrong way, Chakotay, but I’m tired of bumping into you every time I turn around. If I don’t get out of this cabin soon I’ll go crazy.”

“I’m not sure there’s a right way to take that,” he teases her. “But, okay, no cards. What about a different game?”

Kathryn narrows her eyes at him. “Such as?”

“Have you heard of Two Truths and a Lie?”

“I have,” she answers, pushing away from the door and dragging her chair over to his side of the table.

She straddles it, folding her arms on the chair’s back, and Chakotay tries not to stare at the way her damp cotton dress clings to her breasts, or the way the skirt is rucked up around her bare thighs.

The curve of her lips tells him he hasn’t been entirely successful.

“I’ll start,” she decides, then pauses to think. “Okay. Which of these is a lie? That I’ve worn a Starfleet uniform in every colour, that I learned ballet from the age of five, or that I was classically trained in piano?”

“Easy,” Chakotay returns immediately. “Piano.”

She gives him an exasperated look. “How was it that easy?”

“I’ve read your Starfleet file, so I know you started out as a science officer, had a stint as an engineer and went into command. A few months ago, you complimented Harry Kim on his clarinet performance and mentioned that you wished you’d learned a musical instrument. As for the dancing …” he gives her a slow smirk, “I’ve seen your moves.”

Her eyes darken and she lets the tip of her tongue moisten her lower lip. “Oh, but you haven’t seen all my moves, Chakotay.”

There’s a purr in her voice that makes Chakotay reach for the bottle, splashing whiskey into his glass with a hand that definitely, he tells himself, doesn’t tremble.

Kathryn extends her own glass. He fills it. “Your turn,” she tells him.

He sips his drink, wondering if she’ll read him as easily as he did her. “I’ve also worn the uniform in every colour,” he starts. “I can speak four languages, and I’ve never played strip poker.”

“Never?” she demands, incredulous. “Not even at the academy?”

“How do you know that wasn’t the lie?”

“I’ve read your file too,” she shoots back. “You’ve never worn blue. So, back to your sheltered upbringing –”

Chakotay snorts out a laugh. “I wouldn’t exactly call it that.”

“Let’s find out,” she challenges. Standing on surprisingly steady legs, she leans over him to grab the bottle, pouring a generous nip into each of their glasses. “All right, Chakotay, the game is now ‘Never Have I Ever’. You know that one?”

He’s still distracted by the way she’d pressed against him as she bent over the table. “Yeah.”

“You’d better start,” she drawls, smiling at him. She turns her chair around and pulls it closer. When she sits, their thighs brush.

Chakotay finds himself tugging nervously on his ear. Kathryn has been prowling around the little cabin like a caged sehlat all day – their third day housebound, thanks to inclement weather – but she seems to have reached breaking point, and this situation has spiralled rapidly out of his control.

He’s not sure whether to keep the conversation on safe ground for his own sake, or toss out the most outrageous sentences he can think of for the sake of Kathryn’s hangover.

He decides to start with something tame … relatively, anyway. “Never have I ever given a Ferengi oo-mox.”

Kathryn tosses back her whiskey and sets her glass down on the table with a snap.

Chakotay’s eyes widen. “Okay, I need to hear this story.”

She shrugs. “Voyager was due to leave for the Badlands and I had a bar tab to settle.”

He shakes his head. “You know, I wasn’t expecting you to drink to that one. What else don’t I know about you?”

She tilts her head to one side. “Never have I ever gone commando under my uniform.”

Chakotay drinks. When he puts down his glass, Kathryn’s eyes are sparkling.

“Really, Commander?” Her voice is thick with amusement. “On my ship?”

“When you’re woken up by a red alert, every second counts.”

“So,” she drags her gaze from his face to his groin then back again, “you sleep naked?”

“Not here, I don’t,” he mutters.

“Your turn,” she snickers.

Chakotay goes to pour, then stops. “If we’re playing this game, we’re switching to synthehol.”

Kathryn grumbles under her breath, but doesn’t stop him going to the replicator. He returns with a fresh bottle and tips its clear contents into two fresh shot glasses.

Retaking his seat, he’s pretty sure Kathryn has pulled her chair closer. His knees rest either side of her thighs now.

Given her surprising response to his first question, he decides it’s time to up the ante. “Never have I ever had a threesome.”

Her cheekbones pinken. Quickly, as though it’s an unpleasant task, she takes her shot.

“Kathryn Janeway,” he marvels. “Tell me more.”

“It was the academy, okay?” she blushes. When he continues to stare at her expectantly, she groans. “My roommate and her boyfriend, after we’d had more to drink than I have tonight. Satisfied?”

“Not even close,” he grins.

She narrows her eyes at him. “My turn. Never have I ever had a sexual relationship with my superior officer.”

Chakotay smiles ruefully and drinks.

So does she.

“Hey,” he objects. “I thought the rules were that you state something you’ve never done.”

“I know,” she shrugs. “I just wanted to know if you’d ever done it.”

He tugs his ear. “Let’s just say I’ve never done it with the superior officer I really wanted to do it with.”

Her smile widens slowly. Chakotay drags his eyes away before he can get lost in it.

“Never have I ever had a one-night stand.”

Kathryn looks at him askance. “Really?”

He grins wolfishly. “They always come back for more.”

A laugh bursts out of her. She takes her drink, wipes her hand across her mouth, looks directly into his eyes. “Promises, promises.”

Chakotay shakes his head slightly. They’ve been dancing around this since he blurted out his half-baked confession three weeks ago, but he could almost swear she’s tossing out a challenge she won’t back down from this time.

“You’re up, Kathryn.”

She lowers her eyelashes. “Never have I ever been tied up for sex.”

Chakotay drinks, and watches her eyes glaze. She licks her lips.

Interesting, he thinks, and decides to push his luck a little.

“Would you like to be tied up?” he rumbles, leaning in so that his thighs rub along the outsides of hers. He could be imagining the way her breathing quickens and her body sways toward him.

He doesn’t think he’s imagining it.

She swallows. “It’s your turn,” she says, her voice low and breathy.

Chakotay thinks quickly. “Never have I ever fantasised about being spanked.”

Her mouth drops open. “That doesn’t count!”

He gives her his dirtiest grin. “If it did, would you drink?”

She bites her lip, fingers tracing circles on the lip of her glass. “Tell me a real one.”

“Never have I ever had sex, knowing that people were watching.”

To his astonishment, Kathryn growls, picks up her shot glass, tips its contents down her throat. When she returns the glass to the table, he’s watching her expectantly.

“Shall I tell you about it, Chakotay?” Her voice dips.

She lifts one bare foot, resting it on the lowest rung of his chair; her knees part and his thigh slips between them. Then she leans forward, one elbow on the knee she’s pushed between his legs, and he doesn’t dare move.

“You remember I mentioned my roommate at the academy?” She waits for his rapt nod. “We used to go to a dive bar off campus where they turned a blind eye to cadets blowing off steam … you know it? Mostly we just played pool. But one night I guess we had a little too much to drink. I don’t remember who started it, but suddenly we were in the corridor by the store room, and we were kissing, and then she grabbed my hand and pulled it under her skirt.”

Chakotay dry-swallows.

“She was so wet,” Kathryn murmurs, “and the sounds she made were so delicious … I couldn’t help touching her. She moaned in my ear when she came. The next thing I knew, she dropped to her knees and put her mouth between my legs.”

She leans back in her chair and trails her fingers upward, slowly, along the length of her upraised thigh. Chakotay finds his gaze riveted to the movement.

“In my defence,” she purrs, “I didn’t know we were being watched at first, but … full disclosure? I didn’t make her stop. I’ve never come so hard in my life.”

His mouth is dry. “You’re a whole lot wilder than I thought you’d be.”

She smirks. “People used to say Lettie was a bad influence on me, but I’m not so sure it wasn’t the other way around.”

With a little wriggle and a sigh, she shifts further down in her chair, moving her foot to his seat, between his legs. Chakotay stares down at her bare white foot. Any closer, and she could slide it along the length of his rapidly hardening cock.

Kathryn flexes her toes, and before he can second-guess himself Chakotay wraps warm hands around her foot and begins to sweep his thumbs along her sole, pressing firmly. She moans, letting her head roll on her neck, arching her back.

He can’t help admiring the curve of her breasts, outlined so prettily under the still-damp dress. But he more than half suspects that she wants him to.

He picks up her foot, cupping the sole in one hand while the other massages her toes, the top of her foot, her ankle. His strokes are deliberately deep and unhurried, and he pitches the tone of his voice to match.

“I think it’s my turn.”

“Mm,” she half-moans. Her eyes are closed and her thighs relax outward.

Chakotay takes that as a good sign.

And if his next words make her want to kick him in the balls, well, he’s got a good grasp on one of her feet, at least.

“Never have I ever wanted so badly to make a woman come.”

She doesn’t freeze or stiffen. She just goes still, as though she’s holding her breath. Her eyes remain closed, her body draped just as it was, but now there’s a tension that runs through her like a power relay that just hummed to life.

The silence is like a third person in the tiny cabin. It’s so loud his ears ring with it.

Then Chakotay realises his vision is darkening, and releases the breath he’s been holding in a quiet exhale. A tiny shiver travels the length of her supple, arched body. She lifts her head.

Then tilts it, listening.

“The rain’s stopped.”

He opens his mouth, shuts it, summons the fortitude to smile at her. “So it has.”

She pulls her foot away and stands, moving quickly to the cabin door. A warm, rain-soaked breeze curls inside.

That’s it, then, he thinks in resignation as she leans out to breathe it in. Game over.

Then her head reappears around the doorway. The smile she aims at him can only be called inviting.

“Are you coming?”

He’s out of his chair like a shot. When he steps outside, Kathryn is dancing barefoot on the sodden grass. Chakotay knows nothing about classical ballet, but he’s pretty sure it isn’t supposed to look so … seductive.

She executes a turn just as his legs carry him into her orbit, and they collide in a tangle of limbs and laughter. He catches her waist and her arms go around his neck. He doesn’t think twice. He dips his head and kisses her.

He’d always expected fireworks when they kissed … but this is something else. She tastes of whiskey and rain, and her lips are soft, parting with a sigh that’s almost a moan. She’s warm in his arms, stands on tiptoe to press her body to his, sucks at his tongue as she rakes her fingernails through his hair. He’s just managed to reel through his initial shock – this is Kathryn I’m kissing Kathryn this is really happening – and is settling in to direct the kiss, letting his hands travel, his lips caress hers, when she slips out of his arms.

But he doesn’t have time to start panicking, because she’s looking over toward the cluster of trees where her bathtub sits, and then she’s reaching behind her back to catch at the zipper of her dress.

She has the zipper halfway down before Chakotay finds his voice, if not his brain.

“Kathryn … what are you doing?”

The grin she flashes over her shoulder is dangerous. “Never have I ever had sex in a bathtub.”

He can’t take his eyes off her – her white shoulders, the bare length of her back. “I’ve never done that.”

Kathryn gives a little shimmy and her dress slides down to pool at her feet. Her panties are plain cotton, a shade whiter than her skin. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything so erotic in his life.

She has her arms crossed, hands covering her breasts. She turns her head to speak over her shoulder.

“Yet,” she says. “You haven’t done it yet.”

Then she lowers her hands. Her smile widens coquettishly. She saunters toward the bathtub.

For a moment, he stares after her. Then, stripping off his shirt and unbuckling his pants, he almost trips over his own feet in his rush to catch up.