Star Bright (Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides #22)

Chapter 12

Darcy’s heart was already swooping and soaring, as if she might have a heart attack.

God, he smelled so good, like the fire and the night had gotten together and… Well, whatever the fire and night had done together was entirely their business when they were off duty and there were no innocent children around.

When she swallowed this time, she couldn’t hold back an audible gulp. “Flying? Is that, like, a euphemism for…?”

He gazed down at her, and though his serious expression didn’t change, that glint in his gray eyes warned her he was laughing inside. “Flying is when I spread my wings and soar.”

“And you can carry someone—me?” Excitement twisted through her. “I have seen pictures of draklings in beast shape, but I wasn’t sure how the conservation of mass energy worked.” She shook her head. “Are you teasing me?”

“Never about flying. The beast doesn’t care about physics, and the universe has many stranger things.” He glanced over his shoulder, gave her fingers a little tug. “I will ask Kong to watch over the fledglings. You see if your coat is dry.” He considered for a moment. “Get two coats.”

This was wild, impossible, maybe a dereliction of duty, and definitely the sort of thing that no memory wipe would erase. While Vash asked Kong to watch over the kids, she checked the coats which the fireplace had made toasty and warm. Atsu’s smaller layer just fit under her own long puffy. The afternoon light was fading, and if anything it was snowing harder, turning the world to silver and dark green beyond the windows. It would be cold, so cold.

She couldn’t wait.

Spinning around, she found Vash stripping off his clothes at the door. She seen his bare arms—okay, and she’d felt them once or twice too—and of course she knew he was a physical creature, athletically inclined with the flying and all. So it made sense that he’d be strong…all over. He was also a dad who dispensed whipped cream like there was no tomorrow, so the extra layer of flesh softening his hard angles also made sense. She just wasn’t prepared for how the full package would hit her like a concrete ice ball between the eyes.

Speaking of full packages…

Hastily diverting her gaze, she tugged at the neckline of the two coats she’d zipped up. Was it suddenly way to warm here? She imagined throwing herself into the snow bank as Atsu had and the whole drift evaporating in a curl of steam that just turned into the letters WTF?!

Hopping on one foot as he stepped out of his pants, Vash glanced over her. “According to the handbook, Earthers sometimes have different responses to nudity. But you didn’t seem to mind when Atsu was swimming, so I thought…”

“Fine,” she squeaked. She cleared her throat. “It’s fine. As long as I can keep my clothes on.” She forced out a laugh that sounded equally squeaky.

“Once I shift, I won’t mind the cold. But if I scream when I open this door, please don’t think less of me.”

No, she was thinking more, much more…

He paused, his fingers blanching on the door handle. “You won’t be afraid of me, will you? When you see the beast?”

Despite other things trying to grab her attention, she found her focus arrowing to those gray eyes. “I didn’t panic when I saw those green eggs.”

He snorted. “Let’s go before I beg off. I can’t shift in here because I won’t fit through the regular doors. You’d have to open the larger bay doors for me, which would let out all the fireplace heat, and we don’t want that.”

Yeah, a dad for sure.

But as she followed him outside—her disobedient gaze falling only once to his bare backside—she had to admit she wasn’t exactly thinking about his kindness, his gentle parenting, his environmental sensibilities, or anything like that. She wrapped her arms around herself, not even feeling the cold, just holding herself together so she didn’t start babbling.

He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Not too close. It’s been a while—more than a hundred years—since I let it out.”

She bit her lip. “If this isn’t a good idea, or you want to do it alone—”

“No, not alone.” He half crouched, one hand braced in the snow, thick thighs flexed. Then he leaped into the sky.

Before she could finish her startled inhale, he was a dragon. To her dazzled eyes, it wasn’t really a change or even a shifting of shape. He just…showed her a different facet of himself, like a dancer’s body didn’t leave humanity behind but simply unfurled into something more, a thing of music and beauty and power.

The rush of his takeoff pulled vortices of snow upward, like a snowfall in reverse. She took a few stumbling steps forward, as if she too was caught in his flight. His wings were dark against the failing light, but some iridescence caught the snow shimmer, like a disco ball in black and white.

He was like nothing she’d ever dreamed of. She would’ve been entirely thrilled with the magical moment, watching him trace intricate shapes above the pine trees, but then he came arrowing back to her, those wide wings folded tight as if he would crash once again. But at the last moment, his wings flared wide in a riot of snow, as she laughed out loud as he landed in a crouch in front of her.

She clasped her hands together under her chin, enchanted. “So this is a drakling. You are amazing.”

He arched his serpentine neck, angling his head toward her. She yearned to pet the smooth snout, but that seemed weird when this was still Vash. So she kept her hands to herself. Angling back on his haunches, he lifted his front legs out of the snow. His talons weren’t quite as shocking as an eagle’s, but neither did they look as gentle as the grasp that had held his children. Especially when he made grabby hands at her.

She blinked. “I guess I was thinking I would ride you,” she said to explain her hesitation. Then a particularly lurid image popped into her mind. And she was definitely not going to explain that hesitation. “You mean you have to hold me?”

He made a noise that her translator couldn’t parse. She’d read in the handbook that in beast shape, draklings lacked the vocal apparatus for speech. But the overemphasized nod of his head was clear.

She swallowed. “It’s not that I don’t trust you…”

Except wasn’t that exactly a problem? Just because Christopher had let her go was no reason to fear the same with Vash.

She’d just watched the way he’d stepped out naked into the snow and launched into the sky. Couldn’t she do the same?

Not by herself, of course.

She stepped toward him. “Don’t laugh if I scream,” she whispered.

He enveloped her, wings coming around like a different sort of fantastical refuge. The vanes were partly leathery, partly notched with tiny scales like a butterfly. Those little scales had been what caught the light, she realized.

His claws around her were even more exacting than when he’d carried his children, as he was clearly aware of the sharpness of his talons and the tenderness of her jacket, not to mention the flesh within. He gathered her close to his breastbone. So warm and sheltered. When he pulled her even closer, as if he would make them one, she felt his muscles all around her, an intimacy like she’d never experienced.

And then he flung them into the sky.

Her head would’ve rocked back painfully, but she was cradled to his chest, his clawed feet wrapped around one shoulder and her opposite hip like a seat belt. As they swooped and soared, the treetops and the snow whirled in a thrilling dance, and she and Vash were part of it.

Though they flew a little longer than the snowball fight, she didn’t feel the cold, but by the time they returned to the clearing beyond the patio, she was as breathless and giddy as if she’d been the one flying. When they touched down, his claws released her only slowly, as if he wanted to make sure she was steady back on her feet.

Overcome by the moment, she turned in the protective circle of his wings and threw her arms around his neck.

But he had already started shifting back, so she found herself with her arms around Vash’s neck, pressed to his bare chest.

The bulk of the beast had settled him deeper in the snow than her, which left her staring directly into his eyes. The gray sparkled with rings of fire. And that fire warmed her from within.

“Vash, that was—”

“Darcy, may I…?”

They stared at each other, the moment swirling with snow and hidden stars and chance connections. And while the IDA handbooks were very clear on contracts and consent and communication, they didn’t say anything about flying so close to someone’s heart that their pulses were still rushing in perfect synchrony.

And sometime between the next heartbeat and the next hundred years, she let out the softest breath, tightening her hold on him so that the tiny space still between them vanished, and in the same undefined moment he tilted his head to reflect hers and brought their mouths together.

The kiss was like one of the first snowflakes falling, uncertain, delicate, drifting who knew where. And it melted away just as fast.

When he lifted his head, the chill touched her lips. “Darcy,” he whispered.

She put one finger over his lips, silencing him. “We flew,” she whispered. As if that explained it all. Which in a way, it did. She settled to her heels and took a step back. “That was wonderful,” she finished her thought from before.

He slanted a look at her. “Flying or…?”

She dredged up a cheeky grin to hide the way her pulse was still swooping and soaring. “I could hardly tell you’ve been asleep for a hundred years.”

He made a noise low in his throat that reverberated through her like the beast’s growl. No, this was very much like roller coasters and whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles—thrilling and delicious and just not part of her everyday life.

But what was her everyday life? She’d been wrong about everything before. A future with Christopher? Wrong. Earth spinning alone in the galaxy? Wrong.

What if this could be something right?

“Vash,” she said, even though her newly enhanced brain didn’t know what words to add to make the next moment possible.

He took a step back too, which just revealed more of him in all his naked alien glory. “Tonight, when my offspring and the rest of this infinitesimal point in spacetime is asleep, I will come to you, and you can tell me then what you want me to know.” He reflected her reckless grin back at her. “Because right now, I am turning to ice.”

With a mental kick at her thoughtlessness, she hastened back to the door—back to his clothing. Shedding her two coats, she kept her gaze averted as he dressed. “I… I really do need to check on some things,” she stammered. “I’ll make sure the kitchen is ready for another fledgling meal.” She forced out a chuckle even as she ran away.

+ + +

Later that evening, she had a message from Kong that the snow had stopped and the clouds parted, and the clarity of the Montana winter night was allowing for a period of unimpeded communication. So Darcy hurried to the command center that Ug had revealed and hastily pushed through a message to Brin. She only had to wait a few minutes for her friend to ping back, and then Brin appeared, wearing some sort of strange party hat.

Darcy blinked. “Why are you wearing a tiara sombrero?”

“It’s not a tiara or a sombrero,” Brin said. “I won it in a midway game shooting a plasgun. I have a particularly handsome fynix teaching me some of the finer points of interplanetary diplomacy.”

“I thought this place was a dating service.”

“One that is multidimensional, figuratively and sometimes literally.” Brin angled her headwear at a more rakish angle. “But I assume you had some questions besides the theoretical discussions of extraterrestrial emotional connection.”

Or maybe that was exactly why she was calling? Darcy wasn’t entirely sure herself. “I guess I just wanted to tell you that everything is still okay here.” She checked the control board. “Looks like the messages to the planetary authorities went out finally, and we had an update from the rescue ship you sent. Repairs to Vash’s ship are continuing.”

“But?” Brin leaned forward. “What’s up with you?”

Then you can tell me what you want me to know.

What did she want? She’d spent years selling audio and visual equipment for other people to record and rewatch their special moments, living out her own life vicariously through video games while waiting for something, anything to happen with Christopher. Why hadn’t she wanted something more? Why had she let herself settle into something so flat and boring, letting the oppressive gravity of the everyday hold her down?

Because launching into the open unknown was too scary?

But when she’d had to, she’d done it, hadn’t she? She’d handled a spaceship crash and aliens and wild, needy children and flying with a dragon.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“Anything.” Darcy gestured all around.

Brin chuckled. “Welcome to the universe.”

After they signed off, rather than returning to the lobby, Darcy checked the internal monitors for life signs and sneaked down to the empty kitchen to grab a snack for herself. Part of her felt as if she were still flying, untethered from everything she’d known and already dreading the inevitable fall.

And then she was just mad at herself when she looked down at her food and realized she’d instinctively chosen things of Earth. An entire smorgasbord of alien delights, and she’d opened crackers and cheese and a fruit cup with a can of some sort of wine?

She’d be madder at herself, but it was just pathetic. She didn’t even have the excuse of being marooned on an alien planet in a time that wasn’t her own for reverting to the familiar. As she wandered back to her room, she contemplated. If anything, she’d deliberately marooned herself in Montana when everyone else was gathering with their loved ones, just because she hadn’t aimed for anything else.

No, if she’d peeked under the wrapping paper of the gift of her life and been disappointed, she had only herself to blame for not updating her wish list.

She was nerdy enough to know that every moment in space-time was unique, and once past was gone forever, never to be experienced again. The flipside of that was that every next moment began anew, also unique, another chance, like a kaleidoscope of endlessly unfurling skies. She would be hurt again, and she would have chocolate sprinkles again, and the next moment would blossom into something new until her last moment. And after that… Well, one moment at a time.

So when the soft knock sounded at her door, she went and opened it and smiled at Vash.

“I guess I just wanted to tell you,” she said as if hours hadn’t passed since their last conversation, “even though the only reason we’re right here, right now, is me getting dumped and you needing an alien bride and this ridiculous Intergalactic Dating Agency, that only makes this even more amazing, because really, what are the chances?”

He leaned his forearm against the doorjamb, canting his weight forward, as if contemplating her question was the only thing keeping him from charging in. “According to the IDA handbooks, any given moment is almost statistically impossible—and inevitable.” His gray eyes glinted at her. “Though I’m not sure where that leaves us.”

“Right here, right now,” she whispered. She hooked her finger in the deep V neck of his tunic and drew him close.

When Darcy had first seen the room set aside for the duration of her stay, she’d been giddy at the luxury. The oversized bed and the bathroom that had felt excessive now seemed considerate of the size issues of some IDA clients, and the solarium-style overhead curve of the windows that had seemed a too on-the-nose play on the “Big Sky Country” marketing made sense for transgalactic travelers who’d just come from the stars.

At the first reverberation of the knock, her heart had started to pound. With the back of her knuckle still pressed to Vash’s chest, she felt his heart beating as heavy as hers.

“The contract is expired,” he murmured. “You’ve been beyond welcoming, giving my children peace and joy and cocoa. But you owe me nothing, do you understand? This is not about gratitude or a century of loneliness. This is…”

“Us,” she whispered.

He kissed her, and the memory of that first tentative, delicate kiss was swept away in an avalanche of sensation.

He held her as if they were flying again, his arms crisscrossed behind her, bending her back. The nameless wine she’d drunk swirled through her like a storm that blocked out everything but the heat of his mouth on hers and his touch surrounding her.

The strength of him, the blazing heat of his body, the wonder of it seemed extravagant, as if she was being too greedy, asking for too much, snatching at a gift that wasn’t hers. Like a cherry on top of the chocolate sprinkles. But… Why not? This was just the two of them, with only the stars to judge.

Right here, right now.

She slid her arms up higher to wrap around his neck, holding tight. No space left between them, her breasts pressing to his broad chest that in another shape had powered their flight.

She had no doubt he could do it again in this shape.

Clinging to him, she traced her tongue across his lips. He groaned deep, sending another thrill coursing through her blood as her whole body thrummed with the sound. She’d done that to him.

“Darcy.” Her name was a growl, and when he lifted his head, the fiery rings in his eyes cracked through the steady gray irises like lava remaking an island. “My ship is still in pieces, and right now I have no wings, but how far may I take you tonight?”

Maybe it was the growl, or that scary little taste of her own power, but she hesitated. “Maybe… Can we go one step at a time?” She grimaced. “I know that’s not as sexy as blasting off, but—”

He kissed her again, not gentle like the first time, not overwhelming like the second. This kiss was…a promise, a hint of what might come, a shiny ribbon she could unravel if she wanted it bad enough.

She kissed him back.