Chapter 2: UFOs

For Raina, it had been a bitter-sweet eighteen months.

She loved being at college, and she learned a lot more about how her crafts were made and programmed. She had found her input from what she had flown was making its way to the designers.

She loved her daughter whom she had called Dana and suffered through the death of her mother who had a run-in with a kangaroo one night coming back down the range from the Atherton Tablelands to Cairns in her old van.

She had only been fifty, and it was a shock to Raina, her half-sister Anne and Frank. Arthur had gotten married the year before, and he became the family’s rock. Grace, his wife, had been amazing and her soft, gentle way had won them all over.

Frank was devastated, and Raina believed if it weren’t for Arthur and Grace moving back in with them, things would have been a lot worse. When Raina had to go back to her unit, there was no argument as to where Dana was going to be staying.

Arthur told her that Anne and Dana kept his father going and he and Grace loved her daughter as if she was their own. He also confided to Raina that he doubted they would ever have their own kids.

His sperm count was very low, and they suspected Grace might have difficulties carrying a child. She believed she had already miscarried once and the doctors weren’t hopeful for either of them producing another.

With a heavy heart, Raina had gone back to work. She was contemplating if she should stay away and let Dana have a regular life with Arthur and Grace. Dana had spent more time in their care while she was at the Academy as it was.

She hadn’t breastfed her as she couldn’t take her to the Academy with her. She wondered if this affected her bond with Dana. She often felt more the loving aunt and that Dana was more Grace’s child than her own.

She’d had her on a Friday night and was back at the Academy on Monday. She knew part of her problem was that she loved her job. At only nineteen, she wasn’t really ready to settle down, as much as she loved her daughter.

She would have to think of her options.

It was six months after she got back to her unit that she drew her next mission with Ben.

If anything, she thought he was even hotter. He was only four years older than she was and like her, he now held a more mature look. He was still cool with her and gave her a lot of broody looks.

Raina had no idea what she had done to piss him off. Her lack of practical knowledge of how relationships worked didn’t help her. She had heard that there was a betting book going for who could get through Lieutenant Ben Vella’s calm exterior.

They wanted to find out if he was as well hung as the other guys had hinted. Being an officer now, he didn’t shower with the grunts anymore. Raina had grinned and could have told them, but she didn’t.

The other rumour was that he was still getting over the death of his girlfriend on a mission two years before and that was why he didn’t get fresh with the women on his team or even in the office.

Raina had often wondered if this was the reason he had been so upset at finding himself in bed with her, only days after Justine had died. She hadn’t thought they were that into each other. Justine had flirted with all the men and had a reputation for being free with her favours.

Raina was beginning to think she was bad luck. At least on their second mission, she didn’t lose the team. When they flew into the area the team planned to search, Raina had gotten an awful feeling and aborted the landing.

Ben was pissed and asked her what the fuck she was doing? She said she got a bad readout when she went to land and shifted to the secondary location. When Ben and the team investigated the first area, the team found it wasn’t stable ground but a peat bog.

On their maps, it was supposed to be solid ground. However, they had recent torrential rains in the area, which had re-filled the dry bog. The craft would have sunk if it landed on it, they couldn’t even walk in the area.

At the debriefing, Raina had apologised for not landing the team, where they wanted and made them walk an extra five klicks. She would understand if they wanted a different pilot. Tony, one of the team, told her about the bog and was bloody glad she had picked somewhere else to drop them.

Ben managed to collar her after the de-briefing and dragged her off to an empty room. He had paced up and down several times and then said, “I’m sorry I didn’t apologise for what happened on the last mission.”

Raina had looked at him but said nothing.

“Shit!” he cursed. “Look, Raina, I know being drunk is no excuse for raping you, but I don’t really remember doing it. I’ve never forced myself on a woman before and ... Fuck!” he expelled, rubbing his hand through his hair and rushed on.

“I didn’t even thank you for saving my worthless arse. I took my failure to complete the mission out on you. If we hadn’t had you on this one, we would have been fucked again. You’re an amazing pilot, and that’s twice you’ve saved my sorry arse.”

“I promise not to get drunk when you’re around, as I don’t want to take advantage of you again. But I do want you on my team,” Ben got out.

She looked at him stunned. He didn’t remember the most amazing night of her life, and now, he was telling her that he hadn’t wanted her, that she had been just someone to fuck! “Bastard,” she said and stalked away.

Now it was eighteen months later.

Raina had laughed at DT when he complained about getting the Russian gig. He said his Abo’s blood didn’t like the cold. Their old team leader had broken an ankle on their last mission, and they were getting a new one for this mission.

Raina and the boys had been a team for twelve months now, and she was fond of them. When Raina had learned that Ben was the replacement, she had offered to keep DT warm. He moved his head in the negative and declined.

Telling her the King and Queen of Ice could share a tent. At least KJ didn’t mind a cuddle to get warm. KJ warned him to keep his cold hands and feet to himself, he’d be doing the spooning from behind.

KJ had then wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at DT and cracked them up.

Raina now found herself curled up in his arms again.

She wanted to cry at the injustice. Ben’s were still the only arms she wanted to be in and had been. Even after she had Dana, she hadn’t been the least bit interested in any of the other men that she met. She kept comparing them to Ben, and they just kept coming up short.

Something about him drew her like a moth to a flame. He made her heart race when no other man had. She’d got flushed and flustered from just being near him. Even his rejection of her and the time that had passed didn’t diminish her desire for him.

Raina woke to darkness and Ben wiggling around behind her. She felt his cock slid between her butt-cheeks a couple of times before he moved away. “Fuck, I knew it this was a bad idea. Damn woman, you’re like a furnace,” he grumbled.

Raina couldn’t help herself, “Is that why you keep poking me with that icicle? Are you trying to get it to thaw?” She deliberately snuggled back into his cock and rubbed her arse on him. She had enjoyed him rubbing her very much.

He groaned and to her surprise, he pulled her closer and humped it into her. “There is only one place he wants to thaw out in, and if you don’t behave, I might let him,” he growled.

“I thought you didn’t wish to take advantage of me,” she said.

“I’m not drunk, and I know exactly what I want to do you if you’d let me. But I promised not to force you, Raina. It has to be your choice,” he told her.

He gently kissed her behind the ear, making her shiver all over, and he groaned again, as she rubbed against him as she did. She giggled as he pulled back into the tent. He made it shake, and the snow slid off, revealing that it wasn’t entirely dark.

Ben looked at his minder and grunted. He slapped her arse. “Come on sweet cheeks, we have work to do. But this conversation is not over, not by a long way,” he said, as he caressed her arse and squeezed it gently. The desire to push his cock between those cheeks had him even harder if that was possible.

Raina wiggled under his hand and then moved away. She rolled onto her knees and started folding the blankets and stuffing them into the packs. Ben looked at her a couple of times. He was wondering if the strange dreams were from his memories or just wet dreams.

When he woke to find his cock sliding between her butt cheeks, he’d been dreaming of her riding him. He’d had a lot of wet dreams about this woman. In the near four years since that disastrous night, she had only gotten better to look at, as far as he was concerned.

She had filled out and lost the gawkiness, tall women seem to suffer from, like tall blokes like him. She had a new softness about her, and the tits were bigger. To be honest, he found her new more feminine look, even more desirable.

He was tickled she hadn’t told him to piss-off. Perhaps he hadn’t burnt that bridge after all. He sure hoped not. He may only be twenty-five, but he felt she was important to him, that his future was tied to hers.

He had taken the mission just so he could see if he could work things out with her. She had been haunting his dreams lately, so he had jumped at the chance to take this mission.

During the trip across the strait, he had been tongue-tied, and she hadn’t helped. She didn’t ignore him, but she had made sure nothing personal was said between them. He’d felt a strong attraction to Raina from the first time he had been introduced to her.

He didn’t do anything because he had been screwing Justine at the time. Things hadn’t been serious between them, and Justine had already put in for a transfer to a different branch. He had felt cut up about her death as much as he did about the rest of his team.

He had let the rumours of his standoffishness due to her death perpetuate. It stopped the other girls bugging him for sex. The only time he felt true desire for a woman was if Raina was around. He wondered if he was perverted.

The one woman he had taken by force was the only one he wanted. It was weird, but he felt that he had a claim on her, that she was his. He had given up getting drunk and only had a drink to be sociable. When he had woken up beside Raina and realised he’d raped her, he had been mortified that he had so little self-control when drunk.

The fact Justine had only been dead for three days, and he had fucked the teenage pilot, didn’t sit well with him either, no matter how much he fancied her. Being drunk at the time was no excuse a far as he was concerned.

He wished he knew what the hell those villagers had given him, as he had never been so off his face, before or since. Certainly not to the extent, that he couldn’t remember what he had been doing.

He believed his dad had taught him better manners than that. His mother had died not long after he was born and then his father had moved him back to Australia when he was still in nappies.

His grandfather had been born in Western Australia, but his dad, Peter, and his Uncle Paul had been born in Arizona. His father had moved them back to Perth when his company had sent them there. So that’s where he had grown up.

They got packed up, and since it was just after two a.m., they decided to move.

Ben stood beside Raina looking at the ice puddles on the bare floor inside the empty hanger.

DT and KJ had joined them. They decided to head down the back to the office area. It didn’t take them long to ascertain that it was totally empty. The previous occupants hadn’t left the furniture or even their rubbish. It was as if nothing had ever been in here.

They wandered around for about ten minutes, and Ben was just about to call it a bust when Raina called him over. “What do you think? These rooms don’t match. This room is a metre shorter than the others are. I believe there is a hidden passage behind this wall,” she said.

She walked along and stopped near the end. “Here, these two panels are shorter than the rest. There is no reason for them being so,” she said aloud thoughtfully. She started banging on the two panels. She must have hit the hidden switch, and the corner panel folded back against the wall with a thump.