Fight or Flight Read Online Free PDF

sobbed out her ecstasy against her pillow as she quaked and throbbed.
    In the wake of her orgasm, she lay in bed, exhausted and confused, subdued and serious as her breathing returned to normal. This new sexual awakening, the first orgasm she’d experienced since before the accident, made her wonder what it would have been like to meet a man like Zeke Lucassen before she’d been broken, and before something, or someone, had put that hardness into his face.
    Pulling her blankets around her, she turned off the holo-vid and rolled to her side, the scent of her own desire and fulfillment curling around her. More than anything, she wanted to be the woman she’d been before she married Walter. If she couldn’t have that, she’d settle for proving her innocence, reclaiming her position in the Fleet. She might never trust another man to give her what she’d just given herself, but at least now sexual desire and fulfillment weren’t lost to her as well. Even if only at her own hand, it was something, and it was hers.

Chapter 6
    Zeke looked at his hands to see they were still shaking. Josiah Beckett had given him a terse account of the missing medical records before giving him access to the files on his own reader. That was hours ago, and nausea and revulsion still roiled low in his gut. He opened the file again, looking at the photograph of Tirzah Simonian taken by the hospital.
    She looked thin, almost emaciated, as though she’d gone weeks, even months without exercise. Everyone stationed on these outlying planets knew the importance of regular exercise in artificial gravity. The only reasons a person would forgo the minimum workout recommendations were illness or incarceration. She’d experienced both.
    The skin around her wrists and ankles was raw, bloody. The broken arm hung at a twisted, useless angle.
    She was pregnant.
    Good God. What had she endured?
    The more he stared at the sullen defiance in the photograph, the angrier he got. There had been no record of her pregnancy in the reports sent over by Guszak. She’d been in and out of the brig for months, but nothing could have explained raw wounds on the wrists except shackles.
    Where was the baby?
    Even with the records in front of him there were more damned questions than answers. He replayed the conversation with Josiah in his head. He’d insisted Tirzah had not shot the warden, and Walter Simonian’s shooting had been in self-defense. The more Zeke looked at the image, the more convinced he was that Josiah Beckett had told him the truth. Someone was manipulating him, and it wasn’t Tirzah Simonian.
    But if he couldn’t get her to talk? If he couldn’t convince her to tell her story?
    With a growl of frustration, he hurled the reader across the room, watching in satisfaction as it crumpled against the wall. His serv-droid emerged from the closet and picked up the device, placing it on the desk before slipping back to its hiding place. He picked it up and smoothed it out, helping the thin piece of metal resume its former shape.
    If only people were this easy to fix.
    * * * *
    “Tirzah, I want you to tell him.” Josiah’s eyes were serious, his expression calm. Tirzah scowled at him from under the fighter. She had been helping Claudia with some engine repairs—she might be grounded, but she wasn’t useless. She felt a pang of guilt as she realized her friend would probably be working as a ship’s engineer somewhere, but thanks to Tirzah, she was turning wrenches instead.
    “He can use it against me.”
    Claudia took the wrench from her hand. “Go. I don’t want you touching one of these birds while talking to my brother. No good can come of that.” Tirzah glanced apologetically at her friend. If Claudia were bothered to find herself out here in Solomon Territory instead of on a ship somewhere, it didn’t show.
    “Sorry, Clau.”
    “Don’t apologize.” Clau flashed one of her dimpled grins. “I appreciated the help, but you need to go take care