Chapter Text
Kathryn is always—greedy for the next time together in the holodeck, but there’s something almost frantic beating inside her now. There’s a certain softness to Chakotay’s eyes when they look at each other on the bridge, and Kathryn knows she’s smiling more than she usually does. It feels like everyone on the bridge must be able to see it, like she must be blushing whenever their fingers touch, but no one says anything. When they’re together in her ready room, she sits too close to him to feel the warmth of his body and—what is this? Two weeks ago she had him spread open on her desk, only a few feet away, following her orders and fucking himself open, and it was deeply satisfying, but this is something different, frightening.
“I have the holodeck reserved for us,” Chakotay says abruptly, when they finish reviewing the latest science division reports together. It’s the end of beta shift and Kathryn had started to contemplate eating something, but her attention snaps to him. They’ve never been quite so blatant about it. “At 0630.” He inhales carefully. “If you’d like to join me.”
Kathryn’s breath catches and she blurts “Yes” without considering it. “0630?” she adds. “There had better be coffee involved,” and that feels a little more normal.
He breaks into a broad smile. “Of course.”
* * * * *
She enters the holodeck and finds herself under the blankets in their cabin—she can’t help calling it that in her head. The air is sharp, a little chilly, but there’s a fire in the fireplace and Chakotay is at the little kitchen area. The smell of freshly-ground coffee beans wafts toward her. Chakotay is shirtless, and she admires the shape of his body, the deftness of his hands, as he measures out grounds into a filter and pours hot water over the top. “That’s my favorite way to make coffee at—my apartment,” she says, because home doesn’t seem like quite the right thing to call it. “How did you know?”
He turns and smiles at her. “Those ralpa beans we found—Neelix wanted to make a coffee substitute with them, and you told him to brew it this way.”
That was weeks ago. “The only downside is that it takes a little longer,” Kathryn says.
Chakotay nods. “I can only assume it tastes better for the added anticipation.” His smile is a little mischievous. “There’s something outside I think you’ll like, while you wait.”
“Oh?”
“Go take a look. I’ll bring you the coffee when it’s ready, I promise.”
She has to brace herself against the chill to get out of bed. There’s a soft robe folded on the couch, and she wraps it around herself before stepping outside. Kathryn can’t stop a small shriek when she opens the door—everything is covered in snow, more flakes falling lightly from the sky. Her outrage fades rapidly when she sees the steaming bathtub only a few feet away, plenty big enough for two people. There’s nothing to do but run for the tub, abandoning her robe at the last possible second.
The hot water is a glorious shock to her entire body. She sinks down into it until the water is up to her neck and closes her eyes, reveling in the feeling of it. “I thought you might like it,” Chakotay says softly. She smells coffee and opens her eyes to see that he’s holding a tall mug, snowflakes melting as they land on his bare shoulders.
“It’s incredible.” Kathryn takes the mug from Chakotay and he leaves his pants atop her robe and climbs into the tub as well. She lifts the mug just in time to keep the wave of hot water from splashing in, and takes a long luxurious drink of it. Then, because she has manners, she offers the mug to Chakotay. “You make very good coffee,” she tells him.
He accepts it, takes a sip, and then hands it back. “I knew all you really wanted was coffee and a bathtub,” he teases.
“What else could I want?” Kathryn gestures with the mug. “Coffee, a bath, you naked with me—” Is he blushing?
“A data terminal with an exciting new spatial anomaly to examine?”
She can’t help her smile. “Well, yes. But not at the moment.” She finishes the coffee in two more long gulps and sets the mug on the edge of the bathtub. “Right now, I have everything I want.”
Chakotay grins and pulls her gently against him, rearranges their bodies so that she’s leaning back against his chest, submerged to her chin, watching the snowflakes drift down. His cock, lazily half-hard, is trapped against her back, and he wraps his arm around her just beneath her breasts. “Good,” he says, and kisses the top of her head.
Kathryn doesn’t know exactly how long they stay like that. The snow is hypnotic, especially in the occasional eddy of wind that crosses them. She drops her hands to Chakotay’s thighs and tilts her head back and to the side in an invitation that he accepts almost immediately. His lips are soft and hot on her neck, just gentle enough not to leave a mark, and his free hand drifts slowly down between her legs, teasing. When she digs her fingernails into his thighs, he strokes his fingers across her clit a few times before saying, “Turn around.”
She does, rotating until she’s kneeling between his spread legs. The cold air on her shoulders is a sharp contrast to the heat of the water, and she’s about to sink back down when Chakotay cups his hands under her breasts and urges her up, just enough that her nipples are exposed to the freezing air. They stiffen instantly and it’s only the look on Chakotay’s face that keeps her where she is, the almost awed way he looks at her face and then darts his gaze down to her breasts—and then he’s closing his lips around one nipple, a warm wet relief against the cold. He sucks at it gently at first, then more firmly, scraping his teeth over the skin as his tongue moves in long strokes. When he releases it, the shock of the chill air sends something shooting through Kathryn, something that’s only heightened when he moves to her other nipple. It takes her a minute to register that she’s gripping the back of his neck with one hand, the other on his shoulder, urging him on.
She must make some kind of desperate noise when he releases her nipple back into the frigid air and returns to the first one, because he pulls back only enough to say, in words that vibrate against her, “Could you come from this?”
It’s hard to think coherently. “From this?” she gasps, and tries to pull his head back into place, wants the slick velvet of his tongue against her nipple again, even as she’s growing more and more sensitive.
“Mm,” he confirms, letting her guide him back.
“I don’t know,” she says, and she discovers that she’s already spread her legs in anticipation of his fingers.
“Do you want to find out?” It’s somehow too much and not enough at the same time, as though she’s reaching for something, her body strung tight.
“I want—” she tries to say, and finds that words are out of her grasp too. Chakotay relents, slides two fingers against her clit, and she cries out. His fingers keep time with his tongue, and she’s reaching, reaching, until she finds it and comes, her entire body shuddering against him.
Chakotay lets her slip back against the wall of the bathtub, eyes closed as she tries to find some equilibrium again. That’s when the red alert starts, and Kathryn reflexively says, “Computer, end program.”
Very abruptly, she and Chakotay are in their uniforms again, sitting on the floor of the holodeck. “It’s a red alert,” she tells him.
He’s visibly fighting to compose himself. “Yes, Captain,” he says.
“Don’t—you’re not allowed to come, until the next time we’re here, or unless I tell you,” she manages to say, as they stand. “I don’t care how long it is.” She wants it to be now, but the galaxy seems to have other ideas.
“Yes, Captain,” Chakotay says again, and his voice is gravelly. “Not unless you tell me.”