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An Excerpt From: PLEASURE’S FOEHN

CHARLOTTE BOYETT-COMPO, 2005.

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave, Inc.

Exasperated at the resistance she was getting and she’d been onboard less than two hours, Davan advanced on the pudgy man and jabbed a rigid finger at his chest. She punctuated every sentence with a quick poke.

“I’m sure every one of you is scared to death of Ciar Ghrian but I’m not. He’s a man—just like you—and I’m sure he puts his britches on one leg at a time. If you want to walk on eggs around him, that’s fine, but I have no intention of doing so!”

Seamus Rawls gawked at the wild-haired woman thrusting her finger painfully into his chest and took a step back. There was steel in the woman’s look and that look rivaled the captain’s in intensity.

“And you can tell everyone who’ll listen that Davan Shanahan isn’t a pushover and she doesn’t take crap from anybody,” she snarled. “Do you understand?”

Seamus nodded. “I hear you,” he grumbled.

“I control the meds around here and I sign off on whether or not a girl works. No work, no pay. It’s as simple as that. Piss me off and that girl might not work the entire time I’m assigned here.”

“Yeah, well, who’s going to do that girl’s work if she’s been redlined?” Seamus challenged. “You think about that?”

“The rest of them can pull double, triple or quadruple shifts for all I care,” Davan replied. “One girl, five guys. Makes no difference to me.”

Rawls eyebrows shot up into the salt and pepper thinness of his hair. “You can’t do that.”

“I can and I will and you’d best tell the girls to walk on egg shells around me because I can be just as gods-be-damned mean as Ciar Ghrian and when it’s that time of the month, I’m even worse!”

Seamus’ lips twitched beneath his scruffy mustaches. “Is that right?”

“Damned straight,” Davan replied, hands on her hips.

“I imagine the cap’n will have something to say about that, but you just keep right on believing you got some power here, wench.”

“Don’t call me that!” Davan snarled, her eyes blazing. “Don’t you ever call me that again, mister, or I’ll have you up on sexhass charges so fast your head will spin. You get that?”

A negligent shrug was Seamus’ answer. He turned and ambled lazily to the door. “You do what you think you gotta do,” he said as the door slid back. An audacious wink was his goodbye comment.

* * * * *

Cair viciously tucked the tail of his uniform shirt into his trousers. As usual after a Vid-Com visit from his mother, he was in a foul mood.

“Interfering old biddy,” he muttered.

Checking his appearance in the full-length mirror, he decided he looked presentable enough to take the bridge. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes—which his mother had not missing noting—and he was still a bit queasy as he left his quarters. The last person he wanted to encounter outside his door was Seamus Rawls.

“Tied on a pretty good one last night, eh, Cap’n?” Seamus asked.

“Aye and it came unraveled this morning,” Cair admitted.

“Day ain’t over with yet, either.”

“What did she do?” Cair snapped. He had known the moment he saw Seamus something was up with the new arrival.

Seamus scratched his nearly bald pate. “More like what she said than did.”

Arriving at the elevator, Cair shot his supply chief an irritated look. “Don’t make me pull it out of you, Seamus. I’ve already had a run-in with that frizzy-haired bitch and spent twenty minutes being lectured by the Warden. I don’t need any more shit today.”

“Her Majesty called, did she?” Seamus asked, chuckling. “No wonder you look like somebody slammed your dangly in the door.”

Grinding his teeth, Cair stormed into the lift as soon as the doors opened.

“I spent my morning redecorating the little darling’s quarters,” Seamus said as he sauntered into the elevator behind his commanding officer. “Has some notion she’ll be spending a bit of time in there.”

Cair snorted.

“My opinion exactly,” Seamus agreed. “Nothing extravagant, mind you, and much of it was things she’ll need.”

“Like what?”

“Sheets, towels, pots and pans.” At the mention of the last two items, Seamus cocked an eye to the man standing beside him.

“Planning on cooking, is she?” Cair growled.

“Well, now, that’s brings up what she said that got me to thinking,” Seamus said.

As the elevator came to a stop on the command deck, Cair turned to Rawls. When the chief of supply had finished with his report and the captain had given him an additional order, both men leaving the elevator wore nasty grins on their faces.