More Challenges, Part 3 By Bridget Cochran VOY--J/P, C PG-13 for swear words.) Chakotay needs Kate to do a job for him.  A job that risks any chance  she might have of ever getting back together with her Star Scout. ^ ^ Kate lay in her bed staring at the ceiling again.  She wouldn't sleep  tonight, she might never sleep again.  Christ, life could go from bad  to hell to below hell in such a short time.   Beside her lay the only person who ever meant anything to her.  Well,  meant anything in the last 15 years, and she was screwing him over. Seven short days ago she agreed to the plan that Chakotay and Ayala had for her.  The plan to ferret out the spy or spies Seska still had  planted on Voyager.  That night Chakotay walked her home from the  holodeck, he outlined a plan that involved her to further her  animosity with the first officer.  Not too difficult a stretch of anyone's imagination. ^ ^ The third morning she was late for the Astrometrics Lab, Tom was  there, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, jaw tense enough to splinter.   Harry hovered nervously behind the angry man. "What brings you to the bowels of the ship, Mr. Paris?"  she said as  she keyed her console to prepare the day's work. "I understand you haven't been putting in too many hours on the  project," he drawled.  Uh-oh, he's pissed, she'd recognize that tone of voice anywhere.  She  looked at Harry, anger real at his betrayal. "He didn't tell me, Kate, the computer did." Her chin shot up, color suffusing her face, but not the scar on her  cheek.  "Are you watching me?" "No," Tom said, "Ayala is." Kate wasn't mollified.  "By who's authorization?"  The arrogant tilt  of his head gave her the answer.  "Son-of-a-bitch." She turned on her heel and started to walk to the door.   "Where do you think you're going?" The look on her face would have melted titanium, but Tom's back just  got stiffer.  "As far away from you as I can on this tub." "I haven't dismissed you." Her chin was up again.  "And this isn't Starfleet." Harry was much too frightened to say a word until Tom left him alone  in the Lab.  "Kim to Torres." ^ It was true, there was no where to hide on this little ship.  She  tried the hydroponics bay, but Kes was so sweet and understanding  that Kate could only last there for an hour.  Those long, soulful  looks the young woman gave her drove her from the converted cargo bay and into the Mess Hall.  She was relieved that Tom didn't come for her, but Neelix put a goofy apron on her and gave her a knife.  Maybe it was good that Tom didn't come after her, she thought as she hacked at an unnamed vegetable. ^ ^ The next morning she showed up at Astrometrics.  Late.  Again.  To  find one of those bland little 'Fleet girls at her console.  Megan  something.  Or the sister, Jenny.   All those bland girls looked  alike.   Kate stood rolling her jaw, hands on her hips, trying to keep from  hitting the roof.  "We have a helper, Harry?"  she asked when she  could finally control herself.   Harry looked at his helper and said, "Um, you've been taken off the  job." "I have?"  Of course, she had, he eyes narrowed on him, then on the  hapless girl.  "We'll just see about that." ^ ^ Kate stormed the bridge.  "I have a bone to pick with you, Mister,"  she growled before the lift door had  shut.  Tom and Chakotay  swiveled to look up at her.   "Are you speaking to me?"  he asked in the blandest possible voice,  but she could see the color rise on his face. "You bet I am," she said through tight lips.  "Why the hell did you  replace me in Stellar Cartography?"  She rounded the bridge rail and  headed for the command level to stand toe-to-toe with Paris.   Tom rose slowly, smirk emerging on his face.  "I required someone who would show up for work on a regular basis.  That just doesn't seem to be you." "Son-of-a-bitch," she said as she looked up into a face made ugly by  smugness.  And she hit him.  Right in the gut.  The look of stunned  surprise was quite satisfying.  When Tom clutched his gut in pain,  Kate took the opportunity to send her right fist crashing into his  jaw.  The uppercut would have been far more satisfying if her  knuckles hadn't broken when she made contact with the hard  bone.  "Fucker," she hissed as she held her broken hand in the palm  of her other hand.   She tried to throw off the arm that held her in a strong grip, but it  only made her hand hurt more.  Christ, she was getting soft.  She  looked up into the angry eyes of Chakotay.  "Let go of me, Captain."  Chakotay made no immediate answer, just stared at her in  silence.  "Are you alright, Tom?" Tom sat on the floor, wiping the blood from a split lip with the back  of his hand.  "Just fine, Captain."  His eyes shot lasers at Kate,  but her chin was up. Chakotay continued to stare at Kate.  Her chin raised a notch.  "Your  personal problems have leeched into the smooth running of this ship,  Kate.  I asked Tom to remove you from your post.  You're confined to  quarters without replicator privileges until further notice." She was silent, but her look said 'you'll have to do better than  that.' "Ayala, take her to Sick Bay, then escort her to her quarters." She flicked her glance to Tom as he rose to his feet holding his  jaw.  Their contempt was mutual. ^ ^ Screw it, Kate thought as she returned his kiss, her mouth opening to  seal with his.  This was it.  The last time they would be together.   This spy mission she had hatched with Chakotay was suicide; plain,  simple suicide.  She pulled Tom's shirt out of the back of his pants  and slid her hands into the waist band of his pants. The feel of her rough hands roaming the admittedly tender flesh of  his backside was all the invitation Tom needed.  Tomorrow she was  shipping out on a Talaxian freighter, to where or what he didn't know. If he could take the last week back, he would.  He came to say good- bye; he couldn't let her go without it.  He could say good-bye with  actions as eloquently as with words.  He helped Kate pull his shirt  up and off. The feel of his skin was priceless--her rough palms slid under his  shirt, wrenching the tail up and over his head, pulling it free and  into her arms.  It hit the floor instantly.  Her hands covered every  inch of his exposed body.  The heat of her hands met and ignited on  the lightly furred skin of his back. It felt wonderful and hot, and hers.  If only for these last few  hours, she would hold him and love him like he **was** hers, and hers alone.  Her lips grazed his chest, his arms and shoulders while her hands opened his trousers. Tom didn't know what hit him, she was so quick. He pulled her close,  his hands spanning her back, molding her ribs.  God, this was wrong. They hadn't spoken, except for shouting matches, in a week.  She'd  asked to be put off Voyager.   He couldn't do it.  He had Neelix find  her a posting on the freighter.  He couldn't leave her alone on the  next planet they stumbled across.  Someone had to look after her.   Talaxians would do that. Shit, she'd eased his trousers open and over his ass.  Her nails,  were buried in his butt, through the fabric of his briefs.  Tom was  losing sanity as rapidly as he was getting hard.   And, man, he was hard.  With a groan that sounded like a yell, he  lifted her like a sack of potatoes and threw her onto her bed.  She  bounced and growled, rising onto her elbows to watch Tom kick off his  shoes and dispense with his pants and underpants. He crawled onto her bed, slowly, on all fours.  It wasn't difficult for Kate to see his dick bobbing from this angle.  It was hard and purple, wickedly bouncing as he crawled closer.  His eyes were dark, only a rim of light blue shown between the white and black.  His eyes never broke contact with hers as he moved his fingers up her hips to slowly remove her trousers.  The baggy camo slid easily over her hips, taking the underwear, too.  Kate dispensed of her shirt herself.  She wasn't standing on ceremony, erotic or not. Tom's groan gratified her.  She felt warm where his eyes touched and  lingered.  When they stopped moving, lingering on her breasts, she  knew that was where he would kiss first.  Warm breath hovered above  one nipple, teasing, tormenting it to a peak without so much as a  touch.  Kate's sigh was one of frustration when his kiss found her rib cage instead.   Then the tongue tipped her flesh.   He was kissing a scar.  Now he moved to another, alternating lips,  teeth and tongue.  Bastard.  He moved slowly, surely, no hurry,  driving her to the edge of frustration.  Frustration to hold deep  within her the erection that teased her thigh.  To have him satisfy  the need that came from his touch, with his touch.  Nuzzling her pubic bone with his nose, she understood and adjusted  herself, knees up, legs spread a little further, back in the  beginnings of an arch, unfolding for him.  The nose nuzzled further,  lower, until his tongue touched the sentinel with its tip.   "Ahhh," she sighed, arching into his face.  He obliged her advance,  curling his tongue around the most sensitive coil of flesh and  flicking upwards, over and over again.  "Christ, just suck it,"  Janeway couldn't stop moving her legs back and forth, bouncing off of  Paris's ears. He complied, moving her hips off the bed and towards him into closer  contact with his suctioning lips.  Gentle hands slid under the round,  smooth cheeks to hold her close, yet prevent suffocation.  She arched  against him, her hands sliding into his hair, trying to control his  movement.  But he was still stronger and then some. He was also relentless, moving his tongue in and out of the sweet  folds, then back to her most sensitive flesh.   And back again, until  he felt the pressure building within her.  The muscles of her bottom  clenched, he slipped his fingers between her cheeks, letting a finger  caress the bud of her anus.  She lurched at the grazing pressure on  the sensitive nether rim as he pulled her swollen clitoris between  firm, tugging lips. And she came.  The white hot sparks had been tended by the skilled  mouth of her lover, building slowly, luring her to the pinnacle,  pulling her up and up until there was no help; and she was pushed  over the peak into a free fall of blinding sensation. Rising above her, he wiped his mouth on his arm with a look in his  eyes, so warm, so sensuous, so aroused, it made her groan, once again feeling the tingle in her stomach.  You couldn't get off just looking at somebody.  Could you? He moved back to all fours, climbing with maddening slowness up  Kate's body, rubbing himself maddeningly along her leg and hip bone.  God, he was hot.  His heat trailed behind the slickness his penis left on her leg.  A wetness that didn't last long, burning itself dry on the heat of her skin. "Is this what you want?" His murmur made her shiver, and she could  only moan in response.  It was Tom's turn to shiver.  She opened her  arms to accept his weight onto her body. Of all the positions in all of the times she and Tom had made love in  their short time together, she liked him on top best. It wasn't that she was conventional.  Hell, she was anything, but  conventional.  It was that she felt surrounded when she lay beneath  him.  She felt safe.  For the few white hot moments of their  coupling, and the quiet warm moments right after, she could pretend  that he loved her and would love her always. His strong, beautiful hands gripped her head, holding it still so he  could taste her face, move his lips over every inch of her jagged  scar, jaw, the vulnerable flesh under her chin. Their bodies moved together, as if they hadn't been separated at  all.  Like they had been together always.  She slid her legs apart  under his body, letting his strong hips and erection settle between  her open thighs. The penis rubbed against the soft fur of her pubic bone, and she took  the invitation to wrap her legs around him.  Now the erection was  where it was supposed to be, but it still hovered outside the portal. A smile crept to her lips, as she rested her hand on the bristly hair  at the back of his neck.  The other hand moved from his back to  squeeze between their bodies, by-passing his penis to cradle the soft  sacs of his scrotum.  The sound he made was delicious in Kate's ear.   The scent of herself wafted from the area of her ear, propelled by  the deep, heaving breaths of her lover.   She tilted her hips, moving herself toward the hot erection that  seemed content to lay against her thigh.  Tom obliged her only in  directing himself toward her swollen clitoris.  The slow rub was  excruciating, as she arched and moved against the hardness held stiff  and unyielding against the jangled nerve endings encased in her own  throbbing flesh.  "What do you want?  An invitation?"  She growled,  as her movements became more strident.   "Maybe." Tom Paris never ceased surprising her.  She wished she could see his  face.  Judge with her eyes what she thought she heard with her ears.   She'd already asked for it.  He was here, in her quarters, in her  bed.  Christ, he'd already brought her off pretty damn well.  Now he  wanted her to ask him for it. "Please," she said. In one smooth, swift stroke, Tom entered her.  Hands gripped her  ribcage, thumbs nestled between them and the underside of each  breast.  "Yes."  They said it together as they began to move  together.  He filled her.   She moved upon him, and he let her set  the pace.   She set it fast, moving under him.  She brought her legs up, to move  her feet flat on his buttocks.  Kate practically gurgled at the  sensation that filled her, the position seating Tom deeply within  her.  He arched forward at the pressure and began to move with the  quick, deep strokes that urged him forward into the raging heat that  drew him inward, onward.  "God, god, god," he groaned.  Kate made no words, just the breathy  groans that pulled Tom to the sharp edge, abraded him deep inside,  until he arched back, bucking her legs off as he rose, pulling her  body with his into the dazed oblivion of his orgasm.   She was vaguely aware that he still lay atop her.  Her breathing  slowed, but couldn't return to normal as long as he lay upon her.   And he didn't seem to want to go anywhere. Tom waited for Kate to move.  She always tossed him off after a  certain point.  But she wasn't going anywhere.  Not tonight.  That's  because she was going tomorrow. The thought was devastating to him.  He had done it.  He had driven  her away. He sagged under the weight of the depression that began to settle over him, only to be raised by the small fist beating against  his kidney. "Oof," she said, as the air rushed back into her lungs.   He rolled off of her, but took her with him.  She went willingly,  letting her head fall onto his chest, the wiry hair she found there  another memory to imbed in her psyche. ^ ^ Paris broke into a trot when he left the turbolift on his way to the  transporter room.  How the hell had Kate left their bed and removed  her gear without him waking? He broke into a full out run when he saw Kes, Neelix and Harry coming  out of the transporter room.  Their eyes were suspiciously red.   Neelix and Harry all but curled lips at him.  Kes though, gave him a  curious, sympathetic look. With no time for analysis, he pushed passed in an effort to get to  Kate.  To do what?  He didn't have a clue.   The door hissed open finding her still on the transporter pad, in the  clothes he had taken off her only last night.  Tom felt his heart  stop, his resolve crumbling. He looked up at Ayala, ready to belay the order for transport.  He  looked back at Kate.  That was a signal that passed between them.   But of what?  In a slow dazed motion, Tom looked at Kate, who gave a small, inperceptable nod as she looked at a spot high above the  security chief's head.  Her color was high, her scar white in relief.   Her chin was dipped and eyes hard.  Her whole demeanor screamed in determination.  "Energize," she commanded. Like lightening on a lightening rod, Tom figured it out.  Even  faster, Janeway knew, too. "Energizing."  Ayala wasn't stupid, either. Heavy moments of silence followed the diminishing whine of transport. "No," Tom said to no one.  "Paris to Chakotay." "Chakotay, here." "My office.  Now." There was silence. "Acknowledged." ^ ^ End Part 3.  On to Part 4.