Star Crossed

by C. Gockel

  He pulled her to the bed and sat her on the edge, then kneeled before her and started undoing the fasteners on her boots. She awakened from the haze of desire enough to get the idea and did it for herself, while he removed his boots and everything else. He was gloriously, rampantly male. She wanted to taste every centimeter of him.

  She stood and fumbled at the hook for her pants. He sat on the bed in front of her and gently pushed her hands away. He undid her pants and helped her slide them and her underwear down so she could step out of them.

  “Falleg,” he breathed. “Beautiful.” He skimmed his hands up the sides of her hips, thumbs skimming over the matching scars, and onto her abdominal muscles. He stood and wrapped her in his arms, molding his body to hers.

  “We fit together perfectly.” He kissed her long and deep.

  She slid her hands down his back to skim and cup his beautifully muscled rear, pulling his pelvis into hers because it felt right.

  She felt a deep shiver flow through his core. Worry washed through her. He’d turned up the heat, so he shouldn’t be cold. Was his talent working?

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he whispered, “I just want you.” He tightened his hands on her hips and ground his hard arousal against her. “A lot.”

  She was thunderstruck. “Trembling is normal?”

  “It is when you desire...” he trailed off. He took a deep, uneven breath and looked at her with dawning revelation. “When we kissed in your apartment, you were afraid it was because you’re...”

  “…no longer human,” she whispered.

  He smiled at her with such loving compassion she thought she’d melt. He pressed butterfly kisses to her face. “It’s because you are human.”

  Her eyes were filling with tears again, and she added profound relief and hope to the list of things that made her cry. The list was getting disconcertingly long.

  He pulled her onto the platform bed, entangling his limbs with hers and kissing her wherever he could land his mouth. “Delectably… delightfully…”

  She found the most sensitive part of him with her greedy tongue, and he bucked.

  “I won’t last two minutes if you do that… human.”

  28 * Interstellar: “Padrashan Librero” * GDAT 3237.048 *

  SHE HAD NO words to describe making love with Luka. Becoming lovers. Becoming one.

  Her body still simmered and her emotions still swamped her rational brain. Slow had turned into fast, and into slow again, and pleasurable release was only part of what they’d shared with each other.

  She lay at his side, half draped over him, their heart rates only quite recently slowing to something like normal. He was caressing her with smooth, lazy strokes. Every breath she took was laced with the perfect scent of him. She didn’t know how she could feel both energized and drained at the same time. The floor of the stateroom looked like an explosion of clothes.

  His wonderfully sculpted stomach growled, and it made her smile.

  “How long until breakfast, do you suppose?” His voice was deep and quiet as it rumbled in his chest and vibrated against her ear. “I need a flux resupply.”

  She calculated from when they’d stepped into the stateroom together. “Three hours, seventeen minutes, if they serve on schedule.”

  “You’re really accurate with time.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. Honesty made her add, “Except I lose track of it when I’m engaged with you.”

  “Do you have a chrono implant?” His voice was so quiet that only she could hear it. As was often the case, the direction of his thoughts was mysterious to her.

  “No, just training. Time slows when I’m in full... action. I need an anchor to the real world.”

  “Action, like what you did with Haberville, or the ramper in Etonver, or the mercs?” He smiled at her, his eyes sparkling with intuition. She delighted in his mercurial, brilliant mind.

  “Yes,” she said, responding to his smile with one of her own. She’d known he’d eventually figure out the right questions to ask. He was the one person in the universe she would ever trust with the answers.

  He kissed her forehead. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, by the way. I noticed you didn’t kill those two mercs who jacked me in Etonver.”

  She guessed he was wondering why she’d let them live. She shrugged a shoulder and looked toward his face. “It would have been easier, but I thought you’d seen enough death already that week.”

  He laughed and kissed her lightly. She loved that he laughed so easily. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

  She slid her hand lazily down his chest. She couldn’t get enough of the feel of him. She lingered on two jagged scars between his ribs.

  “Why do you still have these?” She knew they were from a year ago, when he’d nearly been killed by the collector pedophile he’d cornered. Any half-decent body shop could easily erase them for a reasonable fee.

  “A memento, I guess. Some people have skin art; I have scars.”

  She’d found another, longer scar when memorizing every surface of him with her hands and mouth. She slid her hand to his hipbone and touched the much older, faded mark, but still pale against his exquisite light brown skin. “And this?”

  “The reason I went into forensic investigation.”

  “An old, bad memory?” She didn’t want to make him think of painful things. His extraordinary talent made him remember more than enough as it was. She started to slide her hand away, but he caught it and held it fast.

  “Bittersweet. I was thirteen, and a friend of mine was beaten and killed. I found his body and the crime scene. The man who did it was my friend’s uncle. He was a respected business owner and charity director, but he also liked anal intercourse with adolescent boys. My friend resisted, and the man panicked. My mother had died only a month before, and the detectives thought I was delusional when I said I could see some of the things that happened. But the forensic investigator not only listened to me, he believed me, and it led them to the uncle. He tried to kill me because he thought I had to be a witness.”

  She wove her fingers through his, then pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. It reminded her of the first time she’d touched him, barely knowing how to offer comfort. She would never willingly go back to being the person she was then.

  “Have I told you I love the sound of your voice?” She’d meant to tell him several times, but couldn’t remember if she’d actually said it. She wanted to be better about words with him.

  “I thought you loved my scent. And my taste.” He began to caress her with less-than-lazy strokes, and her arousal began to surge along with the pace of his heart.

  “I do,” she agreed, as she released his hand so she could rise and slide herself sensuously up and over him, to where their hips fitted together perfectly. “Let me show you what else.”

  29 * Interstellar: “Padrashan Librero” * GDAT 3237.049 *

  LUKA FINISHED HIS official report for La Plata and sent it to Zheer’s workspace in the shipcomp. He’d volunteered to compile it with input from Mairwen and Jerzi, rather than making them create separate reports. The Padrashan’s ship days were synced to Etonver time, but his body clock was still confused. The ship’s food was passable, but not as good as Jerzi’s, and it was about time for the evening meal, but his stomach thought it was mid-morning at best. They’d be arriving in Rekoria space in about thirty hours. He could have used something from the med kit to reset his sleep pattern, but since Mairwen couldn’t take it, he’d rather stay synced to hers.

  Jerzi was young and resilient, and his bullet wound was almost healed, but he’d grown increasingly quiet as they got closer to home. Now that Luka had filed the report, he sought Jerzi out and found him sitting in his room, feet up on the narrow desk. The brand-new, military-issue pants and pocket-covered tunic were a marked contrast to his battered gunnin boots.

  “Everything okay?” asked Luka.

  “Yeah, sort of. It’s just
little things, now that I have time to think about them.” He waved, inviting Luka to sit.

  “Dom DeBayaud was a friend, and I’ll miss him. I feel like an idiot that Haberville manipulated me. I know the pharma companies involved in all this won’t get what’s coming to them because money can buy a lot of immunity.” He sighed. “I don’t know that I want to go back to being just another ex-gunnin on a security team, but I don’t know else I can do.”

  Luka knew the feeling, from when he’d left the military, before Leo had brought him into La Plata. “What do you want to do?”

  Jerzi shrugged. “Whatever I can so I can get my kid and her mother away from where they are. We needed her family to support them while I was still in the service, but that family is nasty crazy. Now it’s just a question of money. I miss them a lot. I’m going to use some of the extra downtime Zheer authorized to go see them.”

  “Before you do, talk to Beva Rienville when we get back to Etonver, and tell her I sent you. She’s heading up a new division for personal security. I can personally attest that you’re damned handy in a firefight.”

  Jerzi looked a little surprised. “Thanks. I will,” he said after a moment, then gave Luka a knowing look. “I’m a piker compared to Mairwen.”

  “Aren’t we all,” said Luka, with a small smile for the shared secret.

  After that, he went looking for Mairwen and found her in one corner of the large exercise room. He didn’t recognize the other man in the room using the free weights, but then again, he didn’t even know how many people were on the ship. He hadn’t spent much time outside of the room he shared with Mairwen.

  She was working gingerly on the force isolation machine to strengthen her lower left leg where the projectile had pierced it. The wound pack had done its job promoting rapid healing, but the bruising and scarring were still evident. All her injuries were getting better, but he knew she was still in moderate pain. He wished his minder talents included healing so he could help her.

  He watched her do five more repetitions, then turn the machine off. She grabbed her towel and crossed to where he was standing. She’d been working hard and sweating. The dark military-style sleeveless tank she wore was plastered to her chest, outlining her firm, high breasts with their delightfully sensitive tips. He drew a deeper breath, suddenly in need of more oxygen.

  “Want to read our report?” He tried to achieve a business-like tone.

  “I don’t know. Is it odd?” She gave him a small smile.

  He grinned at the unexpected teasing. “Yes, and boring, too. It’ll be ready after your shower.”

  He was waiting for her when she came back to their room. He openly admired her as she dressed, glad she wasn’t shy about her body. She wore the new tunic over her own patched pants because the ones purchased from the Khong Met Moi were hugely too big for her slender hips. She sat at the small desk to read his report on the display. Tempting as it was to make love with her again, they needed to talk. His discussion with Jerzi had him thinking about the future.

  “Mairwen, what do you want to do when we get back to Etonver?”

  She froze, her face suddenly neutral. He remembered seeing that look when she’d thought she was going to be fired. That wasn’t what he’d intended at all. He pulled her up and into his arms, and felt her stiffness.

  “I’ll tell you what I want, my love. I want you in my life, any way I can have you. I’ll visit you and stay the night as often as you’ll let me. Better yet, come live with me. Be my partner, work cases with me, help me think.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “I don’t want to stampede you or pressure you, because I’m afraid it’ll make you pull away or leave me, so I’m asking, what do you want?”

  She’d relaxed slowly as he spoke. She took a long time answering.

  “I feel things with you. I didn’t used to care one way or the other about people, or different foods, or having preferences, because they weren’t real to me until I met you. I don’t know if our relationship will survive a normal, daily routine that doesn’t involve murder, combat, and running for our lives. I don’t know if La Plata will let me stay, because Zheer knows my records are incomplete. I don’t trust other people to keep you safe, except perhaps Jerzi because he admires you, but I’m not even sure I can keep you safe, because you distract me to where all I think about is having sex with you in inappropriate places.”

  It was the longest personal speech he’d ever heard from her. He held her strong, beautiful face in his hands and kissed her with thankful reverence. He sat in the small padded armchair and pulled her into his lap, cradling her in his arms.

  “Three things. First of all, I’ve been dreaming of a normal, daily routine with you, preferably one that has us going to sleep together every night, like we did in the hybrid forest, though I prefer actual beds to tarps. If you hate my townhouse, I’ll sell it and we’ll find something together, when you’re ready. Second, La Plata damned well better let you stay and be my partner, or I’ll find somewhere else to work. Zheer may suspect you’re much more than what your records say, but you already passed a mid-level background check, and I’m betting there’s nothing to find. More importantly, I don’t think she’ll care. Something she said yesterday makes me think she sees value in a surprisingly skilled employee with such an innocuous background.”

  “I can’t be your partner. I don’t know how to investigate. You’re creative and brilliant and good with words and people. I’m just a…”

  “…a night-shift guard?” he finished. “To quote the late and entirely unlamented Haberville, then I’m the First Flight Queen of Albion Prime.”

  Mairwen, his beloved warrior, had invaluable unconventional knowledge in the ways people could be traced or killed. She was controlled, well-prepared, and crafty, not to mention as tenacious as he was, and together they made a formidable team. And that wasn’t even taking into account her extraordinary senses and tracker skills. He’d tell her all those reasons and more when he was sure they were truly alone.

  She snorted, half in exasperation, half in amusement. “What’s the third thing?”

  He’d forgotten his third point. The feel and smell of her were sending warmth into his core, and his brain was getting short shrift as his blood flow went south. He kissed her neck and nibbled her earlobe with teeth and tongue, which made her tremble in response.

  “Third, engillinn minn, my angel, tell me about these inappropriate places you have in mind...”

  30 * Planet: Rekoria * GDAT 3237.157*

  FOUR MONTHS LATER on Rekoria, winter winds blew with full force, rattling the dark windows of the small but luxurious apartment. Mairwen saw Luka suppress a shiver, despite the thick dark green sweater he wore. The storm was only one reason he was cold. The other was because he was using his talent to reconstruct the crime scene of an unknown blond male lying on the floor in a pool of congealing blood. From what the preliminary police investigation said, and Luka was confirming, not all the blood spilled and splattered on the walls belonged to the dead man.

  Mairwen looked at Nouri, the police officer who’d been ordered to stay with them, to see if he’d noticed Luka’s reaction. So far, the older, thick-bodied man had paid them scant attention. It was late enough that he probably didn’t care what Luka did, as long as it was expeditious and didn’t involve tampering with the evidence. Fortunately, Nouri wasn’t the chatty type, and didn’t seem to be disturbed by the violent crime scene.

  To reinforce her role as Luka’s uninteresting assistant, Mairwen parked herself in a security-guard stance near the large forensic kit. Luka had done most of the talking, though she had pointed out that the apartment’s upscale security recording system had been turned off.

  Someone who knew Luka would have said he was looking distracted and stressed, but not unduly so. Seshulla Zheer hadn’t expected him to agree to do the rush crime scene reconstruction job, but it didn’t surprise Mairwen. Since they’d returned to Etonver, he’d worked diligently with his brutal memories t
o gain control of his reconstruction talent. A fresh, violent crime scene would be the acid test.

  He rose from where he’d been crouching and crossed to the kit. He pulled out a small instrument and handed it to her.

  “Do a preliminary check of the other rooms for blood splatter.”

  He caught her eye and rubbed his nose briefly. He was suggesting she use her extraordinary sense of smell. The hemolytic vapor spectrum analyzer, known as a blood sniffer for short, would be a cover for her actions. He’d been using forensic reconstruction instruments as a cover for his own talent for years. She nodded her understanding and headed down the tiny hall.

  Although it had been simpler in this case to let the police assume she was Luka’s minimally skilled assistant, she’d actually been promoted to investigator and Luka’s partner two months ago. He professed innocence, but she was still convinced he’d pressured Zheer into it. The new position made her far more visible than she’d ever imagined being able to tolerate. But then again, she’d never imagined having friends or falling in love with Luka. She would have taken almost any job that let her keep that.

  Her examination found nothing to contradict their client’s story of having been alone before the dead man broke in, raped and tortured him, and nearly killed him. The bedroom, closet, and fresher only had one person’s scent, and it wasn’t that of the dead man. The client’s rich parents had hired La Plata when the focus of the police questions implied they thought it was a lovers’ disagreement turned tragic, meaning they might be arraigning the young man for homicide.

  She returned to the living area, where Luka pointed out other specific areas of interest where she should use the sniffer. For tiny samples such as blood drops, the device was better than her nose at differentiating between sources. She thought she might be able to taste the difference since the crime was only hours ago, but she thought Officer Nouri might object if she licked blood splatter from the wall.