Author's Note: Wow! You guys like it! *blushes* Because you all were so nice and because I ship the shit out of these two, I've written some more. Hope you all enjoy chapter 2! Please review! xoxo - E

"Mason, I love you." She froze. Well not exactly froze but her forward progress definitely slowed. She suddenly looked... vaguely panicked? Apprehensive? Nervous? I wasn't exactly sure.

"Conrad, I-"

"You don't have to say it back."

"I want to, I really do, it's just that I only met you a handful of days ago and this is all moving quite fast and I don't want to say it if I don't really mean it. I want to say it because I am sure with every fiber of my body that I mean this and it isn't just...the heat of the battle or something. I want you to know how I feel when I say it, I-"

"Mason you don't have to explain yourself. I just... You don't have to know yet. Like you said, this is all so new, but... Mason I do mean it. With every fiber of my body and I was going to burst if I didn't say it. Don't feel like you have to say anything in return."

"I want you." She finally whispered after a long pause. "I want you, Conrad." I had to bite my tongue to swallow back my own groan. And then we were kissing again. My hands held onto her like I was afraid she would disappear the moment I let go, and she was no less enthusiastic in her attentions. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding her tightly against me as she straddled my hips, our entire bodies pressed against one another in some manner or other. I was pleased to find that she was just as vocal about her needs as she was about that of the unfortunate victims of war she championed so often. When she wanted me to kiss her neck, or turn my hips a certain way, she'd say so. Beyond that, of course, I was keeping her lips occupied with much more enjoyable uses. We continued in this manner for what felt like several hours. I would have been impressed with myself had I not already observed that every second either Mason seemed to stretch on and on, like time itself had slowed to allow me more of it when I was with her. When we had finished - 3 and 4 times, respectively - Mason and I found ourselves in a perfectly unprecedented position. In the literal sense, it was important to not that I had never, physically, been in this position before. How exactly she had gotten her leg... but that wasn't important just now. There was also the other small matter. I loved her. I was in love with her. I hadn't held back, I hadn't hidden my feelings under male bravado or gruff quietness, I had just told her. I loved her. And she maybe had some sort of feelings for me. Hell. It had been a matter of days since I'd found her snooping around the same part of the ship I was occupying with a questionable sort of legality, and now I was in love with a girl.

"Captain Conrad!" A yell from the hallway interrupted what was about to be round 4 before it could truly begin, and Mason looked at me with an excited sort of panic on her face.

"I'm supposed to be across the hall." She murmured, reminding me of her subterfuge and my subsequent jealousy. I smiled back.

"Quick, hide." I stood and did my best to make myself presentable while she scrambled under my rack, pulling the bed sheets low over the side - certainly not made to military standards - to cover her body. I swiped her underwear off where they had been thrown on the floor and stuffed them unceremoniously into my pocket, reminding myself to feign ignorance when she searched for them later. I ran my fingers through my hair again and made it to the door just before the man with the loud voice and horrible timing began to pound on my door. I threw it open to find Hank Marlow grinning from ear to ear. He stepped past me before I could protest and strode to my bed. I opened my mouth, a plea for his silence on this matter already forming when he plopped himself down, making himself comfortable, clearly ignorant to the happenings of a few moments prior.

"I've been looking for your room for nearly half an hour. When did the military start making such boring ships?" He said with a grin. "Check it out - I found beer! I'd offer to share but you've probably had a drink more recently than me, don't you think?" He laughed at his own joke and took a swig from his bottle. "Nice little room you've got here. They put me up in that Captain's rooms. The one who died. I thought it might be morbid, you know, like I wouldn't want to sleep there, but then I laid down on that pillow and remembered what pillows even feel like and let me tell you, I haven't slept that well in years. I guess it doesn't matter much who died somewhere. Chances are, someone's died pretty damn close to wherever you are at any given moment. Or maybe not. I guess that would depend where you are, then, wouldn't it? Cause out in the middle of the ocean, not so likely, but anywhere on land, I mean someone at SOME point in time must have died nearby. Even if it's just like a caveman somewhere out in the middle of a field of dinosaurs or something."

"You know cavemen and dinosaurs didn't live at the same time, right?"

"Oh really? You just spent a whole lot of up close and personal time with a bunch of lizards that have been around since the dawn of time and a giant ape who protects you from them and you don't think one or two of those lizards were around for the cavemen? Where do you think monster stories come from then?" I didn't have a response to that. It was actually a pretty good point. "Anyway, lizards, dinosaurs, who cares. I'm not going to have to see them anytime soon! I used to be afraid of lions, did you know? Really afraid. I had nightmares that one was going to escape from a cage somewhere and show up in my house and I'd have to fight it. Which was ridiculous cause why would it pick my house out of all of the houses? I love my momma but she can't cook. If there were a lion on our street growing up it would have gone straight to Mrs. Foote's house cause it always smells like something good is cooking when you walked past there. Well now when I go to the zoo I'm going to look at those things and laugh. I could take a lion. No worries there. Now the lions are probably afraid of me, you know?"

"Hank, it isn't that I'm not enjoying this conversation, I'm just wondering if there was a reason you were looking for me."

"Oh! Yeah! I was wondering if you wanted to throw shit into the ocean with me."

"What?"

"Not actual shit, I'm not dumping the latrines or anything. but there are a bunch of food scraps from the kitchen, stuff that they can't make into anything and one of the cooks said I could throw it into the ocean if I wanted and that sometimes you can see fish jumping up for it and I thought that'd be really cool, only I would seem a bit crazy if anyone saw me doing that by myself so I thought maybe if I found someone to do that with me no one would try to throw me in on account of insanity or anything and I could just go for it." Oh shit. How did I say no to that? I mean there was a naked girl under my bed. A naked girl who I loved under my bed. If Hank left and I stayed here then I could go back to doing things with the naked girl I loved under my bed. I meant that the naked girl was under my bed now, not that I was going to be doing things with her in that specific location - actually, maybe! But Hank's eyes were so hopeful, and I already knew that if I let him walk out of here Mason would be pissed I hadn't gone with him and kept the lonely bastard company. I sighed.

"I would love to go throw shit overboard with you Hank." His face lit up and he bounced up to his feet.

"Yes! I knew I could count on you Captain."

"If you could just let me change my shirt real quickly," I prompted, leading him to the door in the hopes of a minute alone with her, to explain, and maybe steal one more kiss."

"Nah, you look handsome. Come on!" And with that, he pulled me through the door and shut it behind me. Great. Just great. Moans and grunts were still coming through Mason's door and Hank looked back at me smirking.

"Sure seems like someone's having fun. But hey, I bet a strapping guy like you could make her scream louder than that asshat." I had to bite my lip to keep a straight face. "I don't mean any offense or nothing, I don't want to be disrespecting a lady or anything, but I just spent a couple of decades around people whose main communication is eye glances and body languages. I'd have to be stupid not to see the way you feel about her. Don't worry, Cap. We'll get her back for you."

Author's Note: It's a short chapter and not much happens, I know I'm awful. BUT THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT! I really want to gauge my reader's opinions before I continue so I know what sort of story I'm attempting to write here. My initial idea was to go super smutty with this. Porn with a bit of Plot sprinkled in. But if that's not what people are feeling, I need some other ideas. (Or if you are thinking smutty, you can still give me ideas!)

Please review and let me know what you'd like to read!

Thanks so much! xoxo - E