The Sunfire

by Mike Smith

  “Why not?” Marcus interrupted, already having an inkling of the answer. “It was your duty to stay and protect her.”

  Finally lowering his head in shame, Jon whispered quietly, “I did everything in my power to protect her and make her safe, but I couldn’t stay.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I could not bear the pain of one day looking into her eyes and seeing the love she once had for me directed at another. To watch somebody else touch her in the way I dreamed, yet not being able to. To listen to somebody else whispering the words of love into her ear I longed to speak. To look upon her distended belly, round with somebody else’s child, knowing it could never be mine.”

  Tears were now running down his cheeks, the pain in his words beyond anything any mortal should bear. “I couldn’t do that. I was just not strong enough. I would have killed anybody who even tried to touch her. What sort of life would that have been for her? To be constantly alone because the one person who loved her could never have her. So I protected her as best as I could and left. I fled to the most distant place in the Imperium from her I could find. Then I spent the rest of my years, every waking moment imagining her lying in the arms of another, while every minute I closed my eyes I held her in my arms.”

  Taking a deep shuddering breath, Jon once again looked up and in a firm voice concluded. “Compared to that pain your threats are meaningless to me. There is nothing you could do to me or say to me that could possibly come close. Take my life for betraying you and your daughter. It would be a blessing, to put me out of this agony.”

  “Please,” Jon begged him. “I couldn’t do it before, not with my sworn oath to you. I swore I would protect you and your daughter with my life, for as long as I live. But I cannot do this anymore, I cannot continue living like this. Release me from my oath so I can escape this torment, that I can end this purgatory.”

  Marcus’s heart went out to the young man, who had sacrificed so much for his family, only for Marcus’ own plans, his only real wish in life, for his daughter to be safe and happy, to have caused so much anguish. Therefore it was only reluctantly he shook his head, taking a step backwards. “I am sorry Commander but it’s beyond my power to grant you that wish.”

  Jon just lowered his head and sobbed helplessly.

  “For you did not give that oath to me, but another. Therefore it’s up to her to decide your fate,” Marcus said, finally looking aside.

  Confused at what he was talking about Jon looked up once again. Then it came to him. He had sworn that oath, on his very life, almost a decade ago—to Sofia. Jon stared in complete shock as she stepped out of the shadows of the room. Like him she had tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes were red and puffy but Jon didn’t think he had ever seen her look more beautiful. “Sofia?” He asked hesitantly, looking between father and daughter. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Since you arrived,” Sofia cried. “Jon, why didn’t you say anything to me? Why this—” She waved her hands around, unable to find a word to describe the mess they had made of their lives.

  “Charade?” Jon finished for her.

  Sofia just nodded.

  “I had no way to tell you,” Jon explained in despair. “If I had tried to explain, you would have insisted on knowing why we could never be together. You are so tenacious,” Jon laughed. “It’s one of the things I love about you, but eventually you would have realised the truth.” Looking up at her standing in front of him, next to her father he explained. “I could never let you find out the truth. After your mother, your father was all that you had left. I couldn’t take that away from you. I’m so sorry,” he cried.

  “Anyway,” Marcus interrupted. “I think my job here is almost done. Honestly you two, how did you ever manage without me?” He laughed. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he added, passing the sword to Sofia. “I think this belongs to you. As I seem to remember Jon swore an oath on his life to you that he would keep you safe. I just got whatever was left of his time. Anyway I’ll leave it up to you to decide his fate now.” Looking thoughtfully between the two of them he added. “Perhaps it’s now time for you two to exchange a different set of vows.” With that cryptic remark he departed into another room, leaving them alone, together.

  Looking down at the blade in her hand, standing over the broken man she had spent years agonising over, wondering if he returned her feelings, and now she finally knew the truth. Sofia was at a loss what to say next.

  “There has never been anybody else,” she whispered to him, unable to meet his gaze, instead running it along the length of his blade. “I never wanted anybody else, only you. I will admit I went on some dates, mostly to spite you, but they never went anywhere. I compared every person I ever met to you, and found them all lacking. I never wanted anybody else.”

  Jon opened his mouth to say something, but Sofia quickly stepped forward, placing a finger on his lips to silence him.

  “No, please let me finish; you have said enough, now it’s my turn. I didn’t know what my father had done until Sejanus forced him to admit it on Tartarus. I couldn’t believe he would ever do such a thing. That is something he and I will need to work out in the years to come, but as for you. I am sure of my feelings about you,” she said firmly.

  “But how can you be so sure?” Jon replied. “Your father spent years pushing us together, twisting the truth, poisoning it. How can you be sure that what you feel is really true?”

  Taking a step closer, Sofia ran her fingers down his cheek. Brushing away the tears, she smiled a pure, innocent smile. “Because I never told my father the truth.”

  Jon frowned, not understanding. “I don’t understand, what truth?”

  Leaning forward until their lips were almost touching she explained. “The truth that I fell in love with you the very first time that we met. Long before my father even knew about you. In which case he could hardly twist my feelings, as there was nothing to alter as I was already in love with you.” She whispered softly. Finally their lips touched, unlike the earlier kiss this one did not have the desperation of years of separation and unrestrained need. The kiss was soft, gentle, of two souls that had finally found one another, reaffirming each other and coming together.

  Jon kissed her as if he drew sustenance from her, as if she were essential to his very survival. There was a fierceness and demand in his kiss that went beyond passion, beyond hunger, beyond need. The love flowing between them was mutual and Jon wondered how he could ever have doubted Sofia’s feelings for him.

  As one, the two of them looked at the door her father had disappeared through.

  “Where are your quarters?” Jon demanded urgently.

  “Deck three, corridor five. Yours?”

  “Forget mine. Yours are closer,” Jon insisted, dragging her by the hand towards the door.

  *****

  Fortunately they just about made it to Sofia’s quarters, even if they did get distracted by each other a couple of times along the way. As soon as they were through the door Jon’s hands were on her shoulders. He stroked down her arms and goose bumps swept across her skin. Then he gripped her hips and pulled her against him, into the hard ridge of his arousal. A rush of desire made her gasp.

  One of his hands slid into her hair, brushing it away from her neck, and she felt his mouth on the bare skin of her nape as his other hand moved up her body to cover her breast. She moaned and arched into him before she could stop herself. His hand tightened almost painfully on her breast as he thrust hard against her, and she moaned again. Then she heard his voice.

  “I have missed you so much.”

  Her heart was hammering in her chest, and it took her a minute to process what he’d said. “I know. Me too.”

  He turned her to face him, pressing her back against the door. She’d never been so aware of a man’s physical strength and she felt so feminine in comparison.

  “You know I dreamed of this. Us. Together like this every night. For five long years.” The look i
n his eyes made her shiver. He moved closer, until she could feel the heat coming off his body. He slid a hand down between them, and before she knew what he was doing he’d undone the button of her jeans. Then he tugged down her zipper.

  He leaned down close to her ear. “I know you want this as much as I do.”

  He pressed his palm against her stomach, and every muscle there tightened. When his hand dipped lower, stroking over her bare skin, her head fell forward onto his shoulder.

  “Jon,” she said helplessly, but whether she wanted him to stop or keep going she wasn’t sure.

  Then his hand moved again, slipping beneath her underwear to touch her bare flesh, and she felt her whole body flush when he found out exactly how much she missed him.

  He sucked in a ragged breath. “I don’t just want you in my bed, but I want you in my life. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.”

  “Jon,” she said again, moving in spite of herself, her body twisting against those searching, insistent fingers as they stroked over her most sensitive flesh. Her heart was beating frantically, her breath coming in short, fast, gasps.

  “Mine. Forever,” he said demandingly, his thumb settling over her throbbing centre as he slid two fingers inside her.

  She cried out, the sound muffled against his shoulder. His thumb was moving now in quick tight circles and the rising torrent seemed to lift her off her feet. She locked her arms around his neck and raised her head, her body arching and twisting against his hand. When she cried out again the sound was swallowed up as he kissed her, hard and fierce and with such longing, as her body spiralled tighter and tighter, higher and higher.

  He tore his mouth from hers. “You’re mine. Say it.”

  “Yes,” she gasped, and then her head fell forward as her climax hit her, and she bit down on Jon’s shoulder to keep from screaming as the explosion shattered her into a thousand pieces of light.

  From far, far away she heard Jon murmuring her name. His lips were in her hair and his arms were tight around her as she came slowly back to reality.

  He was shaking too, and something about that moved her. She tugged at him and he turned to her, and she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him. He groaned against her mouth as he pulled her close.

  “Bedroom,” he said, breaking the kiss. Breathing hard, as if he’d just been running. “Bedroom, or I take you here, on the floor, now.”

  She kept her eyes on his as she stepped back, wriggling out of her jeans, kicking them away, along with her shoes.

  His eyes darkened as he reached for her. “Here it is then,” he said, but she laughed and ran for the bedroom.

  They made it somehow, stumbling across the living room and into her bedroom, falling onto her bed and into a kiss that made her dizzy. She fumbled with Jon’s uniform as he fumbled with the rest of her clothes, getting his pants off while he slid her panties down her legs. Their shirts came off, and suddenly the fumbling stopped as Jon rolled her onto her back and then rose up on his knees, looking down at her.

  For a second they were both still.

  His grey eyes were so serious. Something in his expression sent a wave of fear through her, because she was afraid the same thing was in her eyes. Need. Desire. Love.

  She reached for him, impatient to satisfy her growing need for him, but he stopped her.

  “No,” he said, pinning her wrists above her head, on the pillow. “I’ve fantasised about you ever since I first saw you dressed in those clothes. You have no idea how hard it was for me at the time not to throw you onto the nearest bed and make love to you all day and all night.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him in surprise. “Only those clothes?” She said, with a smile. “In that case all the rest of my efforts were wasted. All those strapless, and indecent dresses I wore to try and catch your eye.”

  Jon groaned and broke away from her lips, then dragged his open mouth along her jaw and neck, tasting the hollow at the base of her throat before skimming his lips over her collarbone. “No, not wasted,” he said between kisses. “I also fantasied about you in those, but that was me making love to the Imperial Princess, jewel of the Empire. The other clothes had me fantasizing about making love to Sofia.”

  Panic rose in her throat. “But they are the same person,” she said, struggling against his grip. “I’m no different.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice suddenly harsh. “I get it. I know she is a part of you but it wasn’t the Princess I fell in love with. Your money, wealth, or power, I never cared for any of that. All I ever wanted was you.”

  Her body arched towards him, suddenly and instinctively. Something inside her, something utterly primeval, responded to his words and the look on his face, as if she’d been waiting for this her entire life. The feeling should have terrified her, as it went against everything she thought she knew about herself. But somehow coming from Jon, from this man who was so dear to her, she instinctively knew it was the truth.

  She met his eyes in the starlight streaming through the viewport, and she knew he could feel the change in her, the softness that made her whole body yearn for him. “What do you want me to do?” she whispered.

  He smiled. Then he leaned in and kissed her, slowly, leisurely, and thoroughly.

  “Tip your head back,” he whispered when he finally pulled away.

  She’d never felt so safe and so vulnerable at the same time. The helplessness of having her hands pinned down, of exposing her throat. Jon caressed her neck with his lips, and then his teeth, and then his tongue, and the sensations made her shudder and writhe against him.

  Jon knew he’d never recover from this. Every second he was with Sofia, he could feel the invisible marks she was leaving on him. “Leave your hands where they are,” he said, letting her wrists go and moving down her body to her breasts, stroking with his tongue, nipping with his teeth, teasing with his fingers.

  He’d never felt this way before with another woman. With Sofia, the most basic part of him forced its way to the surface. Nothing was more important than the need to claim her, to make her his, forever. His body knew she belonged to him.

  The sweet peaks of her nipples drove him crazy. He bit down harder than he meant to and looked up, afraid he’d hurt her. But her gasp of surprise held pleasure, too, and her hands were still on the pillow above her heard, where he’d put them.

  The sight did something to him. It made him feel powerful, like a knight of Old Earth, in his sister’s storybooks. With a groan he lowered his mouth, dipping his tongue into the dimple of her naval, feeling a rush of satisfaction when she shuddered against him.

  He went lower. “Spread your legs,” he said in a voice so raw he barely recognised it.

  She complied, and he moved between her thighs, kissing her all over as he moved closer to the place he really wanted to be. When he heard Sofia moan he smiled against her skin.

  He urged her legs wider apart. When he bent his head close he felt her trembling, and he gripped her hips hard, holding her in place.

  He was drunk in seconds, ravenous for her. He showed her no mercy, delving into her body with tongue and fingers until she was twisting against him, calling his name, helplessly.

  He’d never felt so attuned to a woman. He knew exactly where to touch her, when to go hard and fast and when to pull back, taking her close but not letting her go over until she was frantic with want, writhing so desperately it was hard to hold her down. Only then did he take her over the edge, his own heart pounding when she cried out his name, greedy for her pleasure as he drank in every spasm, every quiver, every tremor as she came slowly down from the crest.

  Even then he went on kissing her softly, moving back up her body until he could look down into her eyes. Her skin was flushed, her face glowing.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m going to make you pay for that.”

  He brushed the hair away from her face. Before this moment, he wouldn’t have believed anything could make her look more beautiful. “I certainly hope so. Should I be afrai
d?”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him onto his back, throwing a leg across him to straddle his hips. “Very afraid.” She stretched out along his body, kissing her way down his torso. Every muscle in his body was tense with anticipation.

  She took him in her mouth, and his hips jerked in response.

  It was too much. He slid a hand into her hair, the other grasping the bed sheets tightly, and tried to control himself, but there wasn’t a hope in hell he could handle this. Not when he’d waited so long for her. He barely lasted a minute before he rolled away, taking her by the shoulders and pulled her up to him.

  “You have to stop. I’m close, and I want to be inside you the first time.”

  “I thought that you were trained to resist all forms of torture,” she said softly, her mouth close to his ear.

  “I don’t remember that particular form during interrogation training. It was lucky you were not teaching that class, otherwise I would have failed miserably. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  She moved over him and pressed a kiss to his chest.

  He pulled her up for a kiss, so that their eyes were level. They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally she rose up over him, her knees on either side of his hips.

  She looked like a goddess, her skin drenched in starlight. Then, so slowly he thought it might kill him, she took every inch of his hard length inside her.

  He was afraid he would explode right then and there. He was harder than stone, every muscle in his body rigid as he stared up at her. She was hot and tight and so perfect for him. He would have told her so except his mouth had suddenly gone dry, and he couldn’t say anything but her name. Even that came out as a ragged whisper. His hands settled on her hips, trying to urge her to move, but she just smiled.

  “If I can’t torture you one way, I’ll torture you another.” She lifted up slowly, and came down again even more slowly.

  Grabbing her by the shoulders he flipped them over, pinning her against the mattress as he thrust into her.