Tempted by Celestial Bodies

Chapter 4

chapter four

kerian

I slept for almost six hours—twice as long as I normally slept in two standard days—and woke refreshed, with clear thoughts for the first time since regaining consciousness aboard Nebula Traveler . But try as I might, I still had no memory of how I’d ended up in the stasis pod or on this ship.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at the back of Gen’s head and her long blonde hair fanned out over her pillow. She did not strike me as a woman who gave her trust easily, but she’d fallen asleep quickly and then turned over in her sleep to face the door, putting her back to a stranger in her bed.

A stranger who, believing she had already fallen asleep, had confessed he liked her scent, only to have her murmur I like how you smell too in reply before she’d drifted off.

I had certainly caught the scent of her desire before she declared it was time for us to sleep. Maybe she’d somehow sensed my attraction too. I hoped so.

All my adult life, first as a soldier and then as a mercenary, I had relied on my instincts to keep me alive, to keep me one step ahead of my enemies and one step behind my targets. But in this moment, every fiber of my being sang of her and nothing else, to the point I couldn’t trust my instincts at all. It left me feeling completely adrift. I needed an anchor—something I knew was real.

Gen slept deeply, with a light snore I found strangely endearing. I listened to the sound for several minutes before I wound her hair through my fingers, careful not to tug the strands and wake her. The smell of her drove every other thought from my mind except how much I wanted to feel her bare skin against mine. Her body looked like it would fit perfectly to my own.

The fact that made no sense did not stop me from thinking it.

Once we arrived at Ymar II, I would have to begin my search for answers to how and why someone had put me aboard this ship. I had so many questions. Why in stasis? Why this ship? I hoped the stasis pod wasn’t too damaged to give me some clues about where to start.

My gaze returned to Gen as she let out a little sigh in her sleep. She’d kicked off her blanket while we’d slept and lay partially on her stomach with one knee bent. Her pose invited me to lie next to her with my chest against her back and my arm around her middle, but I did not dare. Not unless I knew she wished me to do so.

As I pictured leaving her behind, a strange thing happened. An unfamiliar vibration ran through my abdominal and back muscles and made my wings flutter restlessly. A few moments later, they spasmed again more powerfully. I had to hold back a groan as the discomfort became pain.

In thirty-two standard years of life, I had never experienced this sensation, and it was truly terrible.

The pain became an urge, but I didn’t know what I needed to do to alleviate the agony. I sat up carefully, trying not to disturb Gen’s sleep. Six hours of rest might be more than enough for me to recover, but not nearly sufficient for her needs. Not after how badly she’d been injured.

With one last wrenching spasm, my wings unfolded of their own accord, snapping open like a sail caught in a gale-force wind. My back bowed and my head hit the window behind me.

The cabin filled with sparkling dust in every color.

For a moment, I thought I had hit my head hard enough to see stars, but that was not the case.

My wings spasmed again, releasing another blizzard of sparkling dust. I slumped against the wall, my chest heaving with ragged breaths. The dust, stirred by the air vents and my fluttering wings, swirled around us before settling on every surface in a two-meter radius.

And it covered Gen from head to toe.

I froze, fearing she would wake coughing and sneezing and demanding to know what the hells I’d done. Instead, she made a contented sound and snuggled deeper into the bed. I had not thought it possible for her to look any more lovely to me, but covered with the strange, sparkling dust from my wings, she appeared closer to a goddess than a human woman.

I did not want to wake her, but I didn’t know what effect my dust might have. “Captain,” I murmured and touched her shoulder. “Captain Drae.”

She opened her eyes and blinked at her shimmering, dusted arm. My heartbeats thundered in my ears.

Her brow furrowed, Gen raised her hand to study the dust more closely, turning it in the dim light provided by the comms panel above the bed and the starlight streaking by outside the window.

“Good morning, or whatever time of day it is,” she said, flicking her gaze up to my face. “Is this from you? Did you have a good dream?”

I started to protest, but her tone was light. Her lips had turned up at their corners too. She was teasing me.

Utterly at a loss, I said, “I am sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” She stretched with a groan, then rolled over to face me and prop her head on her hand. As she moved, the dust caught the light and shimmered like a galaxy of stars. “No more sorry than I was when I stared at you earlier, wondering how you look under that uniform.” She gestured at the dust. “So, what is this?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “My wings…this has never happened before.”

She marveled at her hand, turning it to see the dust shimmer. “This is so beautiful, and it smells like you—like a rain forest.” Her gaze swept over my wings and entire body before returning to my face. “You’ve painted me to look like you. Did you want to do that?”

“No,” I said, and then reconsidered. With her, I thought honesty would serve me better than evasiveness. “But I am very glad it happened.”

“Why?”

I decided to risk speaking the words I’d been thinking since the moment I’d lain on top of her in the cargo hold with my cock between her thighs and her scent calling me home. “Before this, you were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Now you are the most beautiful woman in the galaxy.”

Her smile grew. “That’s a good line, Kerian Nos. But I’m immune to lines. Do better.”

I dared to lean close and run my keen nose and one of my antennae along her shoulder and up the graceful curve of her neck. “It’s only a line if it’s not true,” I murmured into her ear. She shivered. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes, Captain Drae. Then you would know I’m speaking the truth.”

She chuckled low in her throat. “Call me Gen, Kerian. I’m covered in your stardust. I think we’re on a first-name basis now.” She turned her head so her mouth was near mine. Even her lips shimmered. I longed to kiss them. “If you’ve never made this stardust before, what’s going on here?” she asked.

“How can I tell you?” I caressed her shoulder and neck again, this time with both my antennae so I could drink in her taste, her scent, the silky smoothness of her skin. “I cannot explain it to myself.”

“Then I’ll explain it.” She slipped her free hand around the back of my neck. My hearts raced at her cool touch. “We survived a disaster in space. Nearly dying has a way of making us want to enjoy the best things about being alive.”

I did not imagine it; she wanted me. Her desire shone in her eyes. The smell of her arousal made my antennae twitch and my cock harden.

“Yes, it does,” I said, my lips on her jaw. “What did you have in mind?”

“I think you know.” She shivered again. “If you’d like me to spell it out for you, I will. I was disappointed when I saw you’d put clothes on.”

Gods above, if I’d thought she would want to see my naked body in her bed, I would have left these uncomfortable coveralls in the medical bay.

“I want to know what you look like, from your antennae to your feet,” she continued. She ran her fingertip along one of my antennae, her touch as light as a feather, and the scent and taste of her felt like a bolt of lightning down my spine. “You saw me naked,” she said, her smile a playful pout. “But I don’t remember how you looked in the stasis pod because of the damn concussion. It’s not fair.”

“I only saw you as a medic who treated a patient,” I countered, but my voice shook because she’d begun stroking my scalp and running her fingers through my hair. Her flesh was at least ten or fifteen degrees cooler than mine, and the sensation of her touching me made it difficult to think clearly.

“Fair enough. But I’m no longer your patient. I’m healed and rested and feeling very good about being alive.” She slid her hand from my head to my chest and rested her shimmering palm above my primary heart. “I’d like you to look at me in a very different way now.”

What would she think if I admitted I had looked at her in the way she described when she’d tried to stab me in the very place her hand rested now? As strange as those words might sound to someone else, I thought she might understand.

But does she want my touch because I saved her life, or for some other, deeper reason? I wondered. Perhaps the answer should not matter to me, but it did.

Gen pressed her lips to my chest, then met my gaze. “I can guess what you’re thinking because I’d be thinking the same thing. I’ll tell you plainly so there’s no misunderstanding. You saved my life even after I tried to kill you. In return, I’m letting you stay on my ship and share my limited emergency resources all the way to Ymar II.” She rolled to her knees so she was closer to eye level with me. “What we do on this bed is not a reward for services rendered.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” I said. “For the record, I would not have turned you down, but it makes a difference.”

“Of course it does. We each have rules that we live by.”

“What are your rules, Gen?”

Her smile turned brittle. “No passengers aboard my ship, ever. No one in my bunk when my alarm wakes me in the morning. No touches from anyone I think might want anything more than a few pleasurable hours. No one at my back. Those rules have kept me alive a lot longer than someone like me has any right to expect.”

She curled her fingers so her nails dug into my skin through the jumpsuit. It hurt, but I liked this kind of pain. I wanted more of it.

“And yet here you are,” she continued. “On my ship, in my bunk, at my back. You were here when I woke up covered with your stardust. I’m breaking all my rules for you.”

“Why?” I genuinely wanted a truthful answer, and wondered if she’d give me one.

She twisted her fist in my jumpsuit and pulled me closer until our lips almost touched.

“Because I’ve always liked being cold,” she said. “I like being in front, in the lead, taking charge and giving orders. I like making decisions, issuing commands, and keeping myself alive and my ship fueled and full of cargo. I have a good life, especially compared to the ones I’ve left behind. But now I want heat, and I want you to give it to me.”

I didn’t need my enhanced senses to discern that she had spoken the rawest kind of truth, in words she might never have even articulated to herself.

“How much heat do you want?” I asked.

“All you can give me.” She flicked my lower lip with the tip of her tongue. The movement mesmerized me.

“Until we get to Ymar II?” My voice sounded strained with the effort of holding back as the scent of her arousal grew.

“Until then.” She looked up at me, her eyes dark with desire and some other emotion I couldn’t identify. “By the time we dock, we’ll know whether we want to keep breaking our rules or go back to the people we were before.” Her expression changed, became something almost feral. “I’m cold, Kerian. I’m so fucking cold. Give me heat.”

If Gen wanted heat, by all the gods above and below, I would not stop until she blazed like a sun.

I pulled her body to mine and kissed her.