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"Here," he said.
"What?"
"Sit here."
"Chakotay—"
"Yes, just like that. Scowling at me."
Janeway smiled despite herself, covering her mouth with her hand.
"There." He looked her up and down once, like he was drinking the sight of her. Like he was staring at a living memory, resurrected in the flesh. She was leaning her elbow on the desk, the backs of her fingers pressed to her lips. Satisfied, he nodded, picking up a PADD and giving it a few taps. "Here are today's reports, Captain."
"Chakotay—"
He held up his hand, all smirk.
"I thought you might like to review them before you turn in," he went on.
She sighed. "Thank you, Commander ," she said, transporting them back in time with a simple word to match his own. It was a good thing the Department of Temporal Investigations wasn't aware of this little trick of personal time travel. They'd be in even more trouble than they already were with that department. "Better to review them now than in the morning."
"Start fresh," he said, nodding.
He held the PADD over the edge of the desk, but she wasn't looking at that. She was looking at him. His beautiful face, just the same as it had ever been. Perhaps a little more gray peppering his hair. They really could have been back in the Delta Quadrant—still lost, not like how they had just left it. They could very well have still been out there on their original voyage if things hadn't worked out the way they'd worked out. But they had and they weren't, and the two of them were here in the same place but different. She was lost in the lines of him, unable to keep the smile from curving up the sides of her lips, peeking out from around her obscuring fingers. How she had kept herself away from him and yet held him so close for so long she still couldn't comprehend when she reflected on it. Perhaps that was the superhuman feat she should really be commended for.
She watched his face soften as he looked at her in turn. That same love had always been there, shining from his eyes. How could she be so lucky?
"Captain, are you all right?"
"I'm sorry, Cha--Commander," she said, coming back to his scenario. "I'm just a bit distracted."
He set the PADD down on the edge of the desk, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees
"You know, Kathryn—" her name, soft like he used to say it, like it was a forbidden mantra, was still like a shot to her heart even all these years later. Cheeky bastard. "Of all my duties on this ship the one I take most seriously is making sure you stay upright and functional. I can't think of anything more important. You should rest. It's been a long—"
Where were they in time? How many long weeks, months, years, had they been through? Then or now. It applied equally.
"It's been a long few years," she finished for him, rubbing her brow. "Thank you, Commander. Your concern is noted," she finally picked up the PADD. It really did have the day's reports on it, already signed and reviewed by Voyager's captain. "Once I finish these reports and record my logs I'll be sure to rest up to your satisfaction."
She was tugging at her shoulder, truly tight though she realized with her hand halfway to her neck just how well this would play into his little game. He clearly had designs on his own desk or he wouldn't have put her so specifically in his chair.
"Would you like some help?" he said, aiming in the same direction. She should have Doctor Sharak check them both for psionic abilities.
"With my logs?" she said with just an edge of laughter in her voice. "Thank you, Commander, but I'm quite capable of recording the day's events on my own."
He paused for just a moment.
"With a bit of the burden on your shoulders," he finally said. That he still remembered where her lines had been drawn, where all her parameters had been set all those years ago brought an ache to her heart. But the deliberate breaching of them—that was a different thrill.
Her lips quirked momentarily. Smooth , that smile said, but she wiped it off her face before it could break the spell.
Thank you , said the quirk of his eyebrow.
She tried to cast herself back to those long days lost in the Delta Quadrant when she would have given everything to hear him say such things, knowing that if he had they would have lost everything in the process. Her breath hitched. It struck her how something so commonplace to them as a neck rub had once been so existentially dangerous—at least to her sanity. She sat motionless, holding that old fear, barely even daring to breathe.
He drew in a long, deep breath, as if he too was stealing himself to take what he wanted and maybe, even now, lose her forever. But he stood, an act of monumental courage.
A shudder ran through her. She was back there now, easily sliding into those old habits. If he wanted to play this game, she would play it to the fullest.
He came around the corner of her desk. Her fingers clenched around the PADD, heart racing. She could not look up. She could not meet his eye. She could not watch him breach that steadfast, paper thin barrier she had erected between them. She did not trust herself.
She had felt those hands on her before.
She felt them now as he came to a stop behind her, warm and solid. She did not lean into him. She couldn't. She wouldn't allow herself the indulgence.
His hand covered hers on her shoulder and she gasped at the frisson that went through her at his touch.
"Let me," he said, whispering in her ear, the tickle of his words sending a shiver down her spine that she prayed he could not see.
He took her hand between his fingers, lifting it ever so slightly. That had to be his lips—oh God—brushing against her knuckles. He released her hand and she didn't know what to do with it. Her brain had short circuited, sitting there at her desk—his desk—no, no, her desk. Definitely her desk, the touch of his kiss still ghosting through her skin.
He set his hands on her shoulders. She tensed, coming back to herself, sitting up Academy-straight. "Commander," she said, her voice too low. Too raspy. Oh no.
He stilled at the warning in her tone, but he did not let go. There was something else in her voice as well, freezing him to the spot. Desire, longing, loneliness. All of which he could fix with just one word from her. All of which he did his best to assuage from the distance she had set.
No, he did not take his hands away. He settled them around the muscles of her shoulders, pausing for a moment to give her an opportunity to run if she wanted to. Waiting for her to move, to throw off his hands, to dismiss him. But she did not. And then he took his thumbs and he stroked deep into the muscles of her neck.
Her eyes fell shut. She swallowed the moan trying to escape her throat. Fuck, she was going to come just from his hands on her back, her neck. Well, that wouldn't be the first time.
"There," he said. "That's not so bad." He pressed gently up against the base of her skull and her neck popped with such a satisfying release that she did moan then.
"Chakotay," she breathed his name.
"You know I'm always willing to do this. I always was," he added in a whisper that sent a flood of desire through her.
"Fuck," she said, as he worked his way down her upper back, thumbs digging in just right so that each of her vertebrae popped in succession.
"You're so tense," he said, the edge of worry in his voice unfeigned.
"You wouldn't believe the week I've had."
"Lay it on me."
His hands were sending pulses of pleasure through her whole body. If she didn't touch him she would combust.
She turned so sharply that he jerked back, startled. She met his eyes, raw need mirrored back at her. Her brow furrowed. She bit her lip to stop it trembling. He was beautiful, his whole spirit laid out on his face. It had always been that way—right on the surface. She could crush him right there. Absolutely destroy him and herself in the process.
Or.
She brought her hand to his cheek and leaned up to him. He was perfectly still, as if terrified to frighten a skittish bird. She rose from the seat just enough, crossing all the space between them, gently pressing her lips to his. She closed her eyes, every place where their skin touched rippling pleasure through her body.
She shouldn't be doing this. It wasn't right. He was her first officer. They could get everyone killed.
"No," she said, pulling back. She dropped her head into her hand, turning her back to him, the chair back firmly between them. "We can't. I'm sorry, Chakotay. We can't do this."
Oh, she was playing the game all the way.
"Kathryn," he grumbled. This was his idea, he could live with the consequences. He leapt right in after her though. Damn. "We could be out here for decades. No one expects you to lock yourself away for the rest of your life."
"It doesn't matter what everyone expects, Chakotay. I'm the captain. You're my first officer. If it goes wrong...." she trailed off. The game was suddenly a bit too close to home. She had denied herself so long and never had to do it again. She was lucky. They were lucky. But how close they had come to losing each other—how often they had lost each other—over and over and over again, and yet their feelings had only grown through the years. They'd grown like mushrooms, starved of light and air but all the stronger for it.
She felt the tears pooling in her eyes but she refused to let them fall. This was ridiculous. She pushed back from her desk, meaning to stand, to escape, to get out of this scenario that had become stifling, but she stood up into his arms and he pulled her in close.
She froze, back rigid, not pulling away. She could have this. She could have had it all along.
"I know," he said. "If something goes wrong, there's nowhere for us to go. We could endanger the entire ship and all her crew. We could be stuck working with someone we hate for the rest of our lives, and that could get us all killed."
Had he heard that speech so many times?
"We can't," she said weakly, her voice cracking.
This was not what he had in mind with his little game. But he wasn't sorry. There were emotions there, raw, feral, lurking beneath the surface that they had never begun to address.
"We can," he said. "We're both adults. I know how to keep my personal life and my professional life separate."
"I don't," she said, the honesty shining through their play. It hurt, like expelling a splinter that had already grown over. "I can't. Not with you."
She was clutching now. Clinging to him like he was the last piece of driftwood on an endless roiling ocean. He held her in kind, firm, secure, his nose buried against her neck, rumpling through her hair. He kissed her ear, her cheek, her collarbone.
"I love you, Kathryn," he said low against her ear, and she didn't know if they were still playing but some deep hurt place inside of her felt as if a balm had covered the wound. "I've always loved you. Let me love you."
How he found her lips in the forest of limbs, and torsos, and hair, she couldn't guess, but he was kissing her then. Fiercely, he poured all of his passion into the union or their lips. She opened to him, her own tongue desperate for the taste of him that she knew so well, that she had denied herself for so long. Her fingers were running through his hair, caressing the salt and pepper.
He backed her so slowly towards the desk that she didn't notice until her backside bumped against it. She pulled back from the kiss, unable to keep the smile from her face. He smiled back, his eyes warm and he trailed his hand through her hair, petting her like he had never loved anything more in the whole universe. He probably hadn't. She knew he hadn't. It made her entire body feel warm.
She took a tiny hop, sitting herself on the edge of his desk. Their desk. He had requested they keep her old desk when Voyager had been retrofitted all those years ago, and Eden had been sentimental enough not to remove it. All the pits and dings had just as much meaning for Kathryn as they did for Chakotay. She reached up and kissed him again, pulling him down to her. She opened her legs, hooking her heel gently around his thigh, pulling him closer.
"Love me," she said, more vulnerable than she thought she would feel, the two words almost a question, a beg.
He stepped back from her and she felt his absence like a blow to the chest. Her face fell, watching him, but he grinned at her like a little kid and he sat down in the Captain's chair.
"Commander," she said, more pleading than she intended, and he reached for the zipper on her trousers and tugged it down. Intentions set. He sat back in the chair, picking up her left foot and balancing her heel on his knee. Languorously, he pulled the zipper of her boot down, down, down, and then he flipped her shoe off her foot onto the floor. He lifted her foot to his lips, kissing it through her sock.
Then he picked up her right foot, repeating to process, down, down, down, giving the arch of her foot a gentle squeeze that she felt in her core.
"Chakotay," she said.
"Lean back."
She sighed, doing what he asked, and with a suddenness that made her yelp, he grabbed the hems of her trousers and yanked them clear down her legs.
She laughed at her surprise, a crystal sound that set him on fire. He grabbed her thighs and pulled her crotch in line with his face as he leaned down level with the desk. "Fuck, you're wet," he said. "You're dripping through your panties."
He reached a finger for her and she shuddered as it brushed across the sodden fabric.
"My Captain," he whispered against her thigh.
His fingers were under the waistband, yanking them free until he had all the access he could ever dream of.
He sat back for a moment, drinking in the sight of her spread before him on the desk. A shiver ran up his spine. This was her/his desk. Their desk. She had orchestrated their whole lives from this thing for seven years while he swiftly and quietly fell hopelessly in love with her. Now it was his to do with what he willed. What he wanted. And so was she. He lifted her leg to his lips, dragging his teeth across her inner thigh.
"If you don't fuck me, Commander, everyone is going to wonder how you got busted down to ens—oh."
His lips were on her, licking up her slit to her clit, his fingers joining his tongue immediately to brush at her entrance.
He knew what she liked. He knew how to tease her, how to drag her to the brink and then wait, perched on the precipice of pleasure, the anticipation itself what really made her orgasms crash through her like a tidal wave. He had spent these last few months devoting his days to her orders whenever she wished, and to creating an Encyclopedia Kathryn at night when duty permitted. He slipped his fingers inside her and curled them just so, rewarded with her low throaty moan.
"Shh," he said, as much in the present as in the fantasy. "Beta shift."
"Fuck you," she said. The Ready Room was really no place to fuck. They both knew that equally well. They both could not have possibly cared less. His tongue played across her clit and she arched against him, silently breathing out her pleasure.
"Good girl," he said, the thrum of his voice sending more sparks of pleasure shooting up her nerves.
He added another finger and she reached for him then, foot braced against the back of the chair behind him, her hands in his hair, pulling him against her. He hummed, deep in his throat, and she came against his mouth, lips open in a silent cry. Oh, she was good. She was very good. He placed a hand on her stomach, holding her in place as she rode out the high without making a sound. He sat up stroking her knee with his thumb, patiently waiting for her breathing to even.
"Chakotay," she said from a thousand light-years away.
"My love," he said, watching the words shiver through her body.
"If you don't fuck me, I really will bust you down to ensign."
"Yes ma'am, Captain."
He stood, offering his hands to her, and she took them, pulling herself upright until she was sitting there half naked still perched on the edge of the captain's desk. He stepped into her, leaning down to kiss her. She was drunk on the feel of him, the smell, the taste of herself on his tongue. She wrapped her arms around his neck and his hands roamed freely along the edges of her uniform jacket, her turtleneck. He made it to her pip bar— Admiral , it proudly said.
"You're my captain," he said, running his fingers along the metal.
"Is this how you treat all your captains?"
"Only the ones I'm in love with."
"Would you have done this to me back then?"
He leaned down in answer, pulling away the neck of her shirt, drawing the skin behind those pips into his mouth and sucking fiercely. His lips sent a flood of heat through her, pulsing, throbbing in her center, and she moaned softly against his ear.
"Careful," she said, wary even now of impropriety on display for the crew.
"No one will care."
"I care."
He stood back up at full height, fingers rubbing over the cherry red skin on her neck that would darken into a fantastic bruise well below the line of her uniform collar.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, trying to draw him in closer, to pull him deeper. Her hands were on his fly before she could even think.
"Is this how you treat all your first officers?" he said as she freed his heavy erection from his uniform.
"Only you," she said, and it struck her then that that was true in more ways than one. She'd never had another first officer really. She never wanted one. It would have felt wrong. Indecent. "It's only ever been you, Chakotay."
He did not expect such simple words to affect him the way they did, but his cock twitched against her fingers and she looked him dead in the eye.
"Fuck me on your desk," she said.
"Your desk."
"Joint custody."
"Fuck," he said, surrendering to her, and this place, and the past and the present all mingled together and she pulled him to her and pressed the head of his dick against her slick opening.
He paused, just for a moment. The amount of times it had crossed his mind to pick her up, throw her across the surface of this abused article of furniture, and fuck her senseless. But of course he had never done it. It wasn't his place. His was the position of dutiful companion, steadfast and loyal chivalric lover. Surely everyone had seen. Or he thought he must have been obvious. B'Elanna had known within the first month. She had seen right through him. Had that really been over ten years ago?
"Hey," Kathryn said, her free hand cupping his cheek. "Are you here with me?"
He met her eyes, touched equally by the concern he saw in them and that slight tinge of insecurity that he could never fully wipe away. How thoroughly did he have to love her for her to believe it all the way through?
"Always," he said, ducking to kiss her. She pulled his bottom lip between her teeth, giving it a gentle scrape.
"I love you," she whispered.
"I love you," he said, meaning it completely.
He sheathed himself inside of her.
She groaned briefly, a soft sound. She would never get sick of this. She would never take the stretch of him, the warm solidness of him for granted. He held her close, resting his forehead against hers, just as stricken by being inside of her as he was the first time.
"Commander," she whispered to him. He smiled, not opening his eyes. "Is this what you wanted?"
"Kathryn," he said, moving his hands to either side of her face, cupping her cheeks like he wanted to look her in the eye. But he didn't open his eyes. He just held her there, propped on the desk, buried deep in her.
"Fuck me," she said in her command voice, giving a little wiggle, squeezing her internal muscles around him.
"Fuck," he said, sweat beading on his brow.
"Fuck me on my desk, Chakotay," she said, his hips bucking at her words. She gasped a tiny, delicate little noise.
He pulled back, nearly all the way out, and then he slammed back into her, eliciting another little gasp.
"More," she said. "Please."
He put his hands on her hips, holding her steady and then he let himself go, pounding into her, ducking to kiss her neck, her temple, her lips. She clung to him, wrapping her legs around his waist, pulling herself up to meet his thrusts. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her ass barely even in contact with the desk anymore. He seemed to notice, bending them both so that she was splayed out over the surface, using the new angle to catch her clit with every thrust.
She bit her lip against the moans she couldn't let loose, seeking and finding his lips, occupying them with her own to keep herself quiet as he grunted her name.
"Kathryn," he said. "I'm going to come."
"Do it," she said, like an order, and his thrusts became erratic, his fingers desperately seeking to bring her to climax with him.
She moved to help him, pressing his hand against her just so and she gave a whispered little cry as she came, clenching around him.
He came too, emptying inside her, his legs going weak with the strength of his need for her. He collapsed onto her, his body weight resting on top of her, pressing her into the desk.
He was dimly aware of her fingers petting trails through his hair before he came back fully to himself, pushing his weight onto his elbows so she could breathe. She often pulled him to her in the night, resting his head and shoulders across her chest and he suspected that the weight of him made her feel secure, but he wasn't about to suffocate her to death in post-coital carelessness.
"How long have you wanted to do that?" she said, her voice husky and more raw than he would have expected with how quiet she had been.
"If I told you that I'd be court-martialed."
She laughed, sending his heart skipping even now, all these years later.
"I figured the Captain wouldn't mind," he said, kissing the tip of her nose.
"What if your commanding officer finds out just what exactly you're using this desk for?"
"Well, then I'm in real trouble."
"She might have to write you up. Put it on your permanent record."
"Please," he said pleading, slipping out of her and dipping to trail kisses against her neck, his fingers toying so gently again across her pips. "Please put in my file that I fuck my wife across my desk. I need that to be in writing for posterity."
"Computer, Admiral's Log, Stardate—" his hand covered her mouth in a panic.
She smacked his shoulder, laughing, setting his own laughter free. She reached for him, pulling him to her, kissing him.
They were further from the Alpha Quadrant than they'd ever been, but they had never been closer to home.