“If? I’d dig twenty years on my own for that kind of payout.” After wolfing down the last of his beans, Solomon leaped to his feet and, high on life and good fortune, scooped Varinia up in his arms. She gave a surprised girly squeal, hiccupped, then laughed.
Clay rolled his eyes wryly as he sat up, trying his best to share the merriment. In the flickering sapphire firelight, Varinia’s long, bare legs were sleek perfection, her exposed neck as she dipped backward a thing of indescribable beauty. She met his stare and seemed to instantly ignite from within, a change only he seemed privy to.
Dazzling.
His heavy pulse struck in the bases of his hands supporting him upright, and echoed through his fingertips. A jaded flak-jacket he hadn’t realized he wore, buried under weathered and laser-scarred skin, began to slip. In its place, an impish pubescence bucked against disapproving glares from Grace and Solomon. But Varinia appeared equally rapt, her slight, insecure smile every bit as wondrous as he felt.
Be mine. Forget everything else.
The moment lingered past all excuse or prudence. Even when Solomon lowered her onto the sand and stood, legs astride, arms folded, towering over them, their gaze didn’t break. Despite the side-effects of Grace’s antibiotics rolling pinecones behind his eyes, Clay could not look away from Varinia. The compulsion was strange, an insanely defiant, semi-conscious fervor he knew he should not be indulging. He’d hate himself later, for Lyssa’s sake. But he’d also endured so much, compromised for so long, the urge to claim what his heart truly desired had uncorked when he’d least expected it.
First the ether warp, now this…
He looked away.
His secrets were practically spilling out of him.
“As I was saying…” Grace cleared her throat, attempting to dispel the tension, “…a billion is tempting, mighty tempting, but we have other factors to consider.”
Solomon kicked a boot load of sand onto the fire before crouching at an appreciable distance from Varinia, his massive shoulders hunched like a brooding dragon’s. That Clay couldn’t see the big man’s eyes anymore—Solomon was silhouetted in front of the fire—suggested this was no time to belabor the obvious rancor between them. If there had to be a confrontation over this, it would be in private, and not in the grip of intoxicants. Tomorrow, as much or as little would be read from the incident as sober minds could prevail upon. Until then, he’d keep himself to himself.
He was used to that.
“Soon as we’re done, you all need to go sleep it off. Bunch of fucking high-schoolers,” Grace snapped. “Sort this shit out before I split you all up and exile one of you to the donkey pen.”
No reply.
“All right, then. We have a decision to make. Stay or go. With all that’s happened—an unstable pyro mine, killer amphibians making themselves known, a mystery craft in orbit, and losing Lyssa—we’re on borrowed time. The longer we stay, the more likely our operation will go belly-up and us with it. And I don’t have to tell you, over twenty-five million apiece is enough to start afresh anywhere inside a hundred zee. We could pack up and leave tomorrow, no regrets.
“Except one.” She licked the bean juice from around the rim of her plate, something she also habitually did after finishing soup. “We’ll always wish we’d stayed a bit longer, seen this thing through. Years from now, when you’re settled somewhere, tucking your kids into bed, begrudgingly coughing up taxes to ISPA, what’s gonna be your abiding memory of leaving Zopyrus? The satisfaction of scratching the surface, making a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it snatch op to the tune of solid millions? Or leaving behind the biggest pyro lode ever discovered by man because you chose to play it safe?”
Clay shuffled position under his blanket. Grace was right. On both counts. Leaving now was the smart thing to do, but not without its own cost—the nagging, festering kind that never left a person. Insidious regret.
“Jeez, Grace. When you say it like that?” Varinia’s inappropriate attempt at sarcasm only beckoned a searing glare from the good doctor.
“Let’s look at the threats one at a time,” Grace said, bunching her knees up under her chin, “then take a vote. Okay?” She didn’t wait for a consensus. “Solomon, you’ve done the most work inside the mine since its collapse. What’s your appraisal?”
“It’s sealed itself off. That collapse brought down half the ceiling, and all we’re doing is breaking up the fallen rocks. Some of them are as big as sky-cabs, but they’re bone dry. That place ain’t gonna collapse again, at least not in the way he said it did.”
Aimed half-accusingly at him, the word he rang through Clay as his codename had when read from the roll-call by his smarmy CO on Ladon, singling him out as guinea pig for the day’s new experimental testing. He shivered and tugged the blanket up to his chest. “It was a section of damp rock,” he said defensively. “The pyro sparked like fireworks every time we struck. But if these new boulders are bone dry, no reason it should happen again.”
“That’s what I said.” Solomon scowled.
“Yeah. So you did. Hoorah—”
Grace once again interrupted. “Then we’re sorted on that count. I’d say it’s easy pickings for a while. Now…what about our rogue voyeur? Has anyone seen the orbiting craft lately?”
The others shrugged.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Clay argued. “Maybe it’s shifted orbit and passes over us in daytime. Or maybe it’s spotted us and has returned the information to whoever sent it. If that’s the case, we should get the hell off Zopyrus immediately. Not that we haven’t been walking that tightrope ever since we clocked the satellite. I mean, if you ask me, this whole trip was a last-ditch Cydonia hand anyway.” He glanced at Varinia, but her gaze was fixed on the fire. “We’re living life out on a limb. No use crying when the limb jives.”
“So you’re saying we should pack up and go home?” Grace asked.
“No, I’m saying we should finish what we’ve started. Or at least give it a few more weeks. And if we run into any more trouble…well, we didn’t bring target rifles to hang over our mantel.”
Solomon interlocked his fingers, as though in prayer, and gave several deliberate nods behind them. “Dig as long as we can,” he agreed. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime shot. No regrets.”
“Fair enough.” Grace got to her feet and brushed the sand from her legs. “I’m with you blokes, of course. This was always gonna be my swansong, so I don’t mind rolling the dice a few more times. And I bet I can outshoot you any day, Clay, baby. Just sayin’.”
“I’m sure.” He yawned.
“And what about you, Varinia?” Grace turned sharply toward the young glamour girl.
“You want to know if I can shoot?”
“I want to know if you’re willing to shoot dice, here, with us…for however long it takes.”
“And if I’m not?”
Grace scoffed. “Good point. You’re outvoted anyway, chick. But you know what—you’ve got the biggest decision to make of any of us.”
“I have?”
“Uh-huh.” The old woman trudged away into the darkness, back to her tent, without another word.
No explanation was needed.
Clay engaged Solomon’s muscular silhouette with a proud gaze but couldn’t tell if the big man reciprocated. It had been a strange supper, brief and epic. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so open in a group like this. It had to be the antibiotics. Had to be.
But they didn’t account for everything he was experiencing right now.
Varinia took delicate sips of her brandy while offering him and Solomon insufficient, periodic glances through the campfire’s cool heat. The breeze shifted direction, tossing sparks one way, then switched back, shooting them the other.
Sooner or later, someone was bound to get burned.
Chapter Nineteen
Joyeux Noel
Day 79, C143,000,000
Millions and millions.
Her exotic initiation into th
e world of deep-space prospecting now at an end—ever since the cave-in, her existence had relapsed somewhat to the daily, inescapable grind she’d endured in the Delfin—Varinia found herself thinking too much of her girlhood home, and of the rolling green fields where she used to while away summers with her treasured mares. Here there was beach, emerald water, extraordinary sky, but the oppressive tension broiling between Solomon, Clay and herself rendered the place somehow bleak, banal.
She hated the suppers. Everyone sat outside their own tents, and there hadn’t been a campfire since that cringe-worthy exchange over a week ago. What had she been thinking? Clay might be ungodly desirable in a deep, tortured-artist sort of way, but she should never have let the brandy get to her like that. Dumb. Then again, poor Solomon had assumed too much from the very inception of their pact on Kappa Max. Was it her fault he loved her when she didn’t love him? She’d gone along with the partnership for months, trusted him when he’d said the feelings would grow between them.
A part of her had wanted him to be right. Outwardly, Solomon Bodine was everything a woman could want in a man. Inside, he was sweet and loyal and had good morals. She’d never forget the time he rescued her from the Delfin’s Aqua cube. But no obligation should be interminable. He’d have to accept the fact that she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with him. Some other girl on some other rock would have to worship the ground he walked on.
But how could she tell him without flaring up the already brimming jealousy between him and Clay?
No one spoke much anymore, except in “pyro-talk,” as she dubbed it—a kind of shallow, declarative communication that wasn’t aimed at anyone in particular but, to the babbler, seemed worth sharing somehow. While digging, she’d listened to reams of absolute crap from all three of them, Grace included. Interior monologue aired like headshrinker piffle during what had become a Sisyphean routine in the mine. Swing pick, gather rocks, pile rocks on trolley, swing pick…
As the sun set behind one of the moons, barely dodging an eclipse, Varinia ladled her last glob of pyro extract into the third vat. It plopped and began to hiss. Whew. Enough of that. It had been an arduous day, most of it spent hammering alongside Grace and Solomon in the mine, and her shoulders, biceps and abdominals were heavy as sopping plaster.
She trudged back to her tent, too tired to bother with supper. Tomorrow, she’d take it easy, maybe try and reacquaint herself with Danai, who hadn’t ventured inside the inlet while Clay had kept vigil at the camp’s perimeter during his convalescence. Now that Clay was up to performing outdoor duties again, and would soon be back in the mine, the wayward mare had her chance to prove Varinia’s two-thousand credit investment wasn’t a complete waste.
Oh, great. Now I’ve got clips on the brain. Not even poor Danai is safe…
“Hey.” Solomon threw his damp mining jacket down next to her. It landed with a thump and wafted an unpleasant smell of sweat and acrid pyro fumes up her nostrils. “Man, I’m starved,” he said.
“Grab a bite.” She unzipped the tent door. “I’m gonna turn in. We really pushed it today.”
“Yeah. Hey, Varinia…” His eyebrow curled, his cheek and jaw muscles gave a little twitch, which she’d learned meant he was fretting about something. “You wanna, you know, fool around tonight? It’s been a while.”
“Sorry, I’m a bit tired for what you have in mind.”
“Nothing like that. We could just get naked and, you know, make it relaxing. Might do us good.”
She had to hand it to him, he was awfully sweet for such a big guy. And damned sexy with a short beard. “All right, we’ll give massages or something. I’ll get the beds ready while you have supper.”
“Amen to that.”
By the time he returned, Varinia was wide awake, her brain besieged by tangible neuroses she could almost taste and touch, blazing in front of her eyes in the dark. She craved his muscular lovemaking, needed it to remain at her beck and call. But that was a shitty attitude. She was cheating him out of the romantic fulfillment his brittle heart desired.
She sighed. This had to be her farewell night spent alone with him, a last gentle bit of intimacy to show him there were no hard feelings. She had to tell the poor bloke how she really felt about him, once and for all. She’d strung him along for too long.
But that didn’t mean she was free to shack up with Clay. Hell, no. Poor Solomon’s heart had already been broken once recently. That slag at the Pyramid. Hatcheck girl with a penchant for storeroom quickies. And based on the wild abandon he’d displayed afterward—spiting his religion by chasing the uber-temptress of deep space, the black-hearted, all-devouring Varinia Wilcox—he was not likely to take rejection well here, under the volatile influence of pyro. Christ, he was big enough to rip any rival apart.
And Clay probably wouldn’t want her anyway. Not with a fortune like this at stake. He wasn’t dumb.
No, if she left Solomon, it would have to be a clean break. She would simply move out of the tent and erect the spare one for herself. For the remainder of their stay, she would either keep herself to herself or, if either man had further designs on her, rebuff any and all advances. Simple. Yeah, right. The one she had to worry about most was herself.
In close proximity to Solomon and Clay…in heat? No fire retardant yet invented could—
She maneuvered the folded-blanket pillow and rolled onto her front when he unzipped the door. “Varinia?” he whispered. “You still awake?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I can’t see a thing. How about a low light?”
“Sure. Whatever works.”
While fumbling for the light glider on the ceiling, he overbalanced against the tent’s inner wall. Whump. The illuminating strip running around the dome roof blazed on, flooding the interior with fluorescent pink light. Varinia mashed her eyes closed.
“Sorry. Oh my God. Wow, don’t move.” He adjusted the glider to a dimmer wattage.
She secretly enjoyed his blunder. It had helped punctuate her surprise.
Lying fully naked, face down, diagonally across the tent, she thought only of his lovelorn fantasies enjoying her from head to toe, the things he wanted to do to her, and could easily if he had a mind to. Solomon was by far the strongest man she’d ever had in bed.
Her pulse thudded in her chest, then in her wrists folded under her chin. Another whump followed by the frantic sound of heavy pants being hustled off fed her sense of empowerment. She bristled. But no matter how horny he was, she had to call the shots here. They’d agreed on a massage. Nothing more. If she could keep him to that, it was an important step to his accepting they weren’t a couple anymore.
Tame him?
For one horrifying moment, what she was doing didn’t make any sense whatsoever. She was the most evil bitch in the known universe—the uber-temptress finally living up to her reputation.
His huge, coarse hands ran over the small of her back, settling on her hips. From there he rubbed lightly over her ribs. Gentle but firm. A little ticklish. He shifted position, straddling her on his knees, his not-quite-flaccid cock brushing warmly against the middle of her back. She shivered with delight.
“So I was thinking,” he said in a smooth, confident voice while massaging her sore shoulders. Sublime, masculine rubs. “When we reach a hundred zee, we’re gonna need somewhere to store our clips. Somewhere with lax immigration. We don’t want them asking too many questions. With my ID history, the jobs I’ve always worked, I’d be flagged for anything over a hundred thousand. You think Grace knows how to get fake IDs?”
Great, more pyro-talk.
“Mmm. I’m sure she has it covered.” Varinia closed her eyes. “When she sells the treasure, her contacts will probably deck us out with blanket visas, fake IDs, immunity cred, the works. They’ll be used to that stuff.”
“Sounds like you’re no stranger either,” he said.
“Maybe not. You don’t really think I got from there to here just by shedding kit, do you?”
“Hey, knock it off, brick-brawn,” she joked. “I’m naked here.”
“And your point is?”
She lifted her butt a few inches, couching his balls on her spine. “I can feel where your point isn’t?”
Solomon let go of her shoulders and slapped her ass with both hands.
“Oh, you’re so gonna pay for that.” She settled again, smirking at his deep chuckle.
Oh, brother. This is gonna be trickier than I thought.
His slow rub grew a little repetitive, as though he was trying hard to impress, but she couldn’t complain too much. Solomon had skillful hands and was a natural masseur. Her shoulders, neck and lower back fell asleep.
Then, without invitation, he slid his hands slowly round her sides, his fingertips questing farther and farther into forbidden territory, up and down, again and again, inching from the edges of her breasts to the sensitive ramparts of her hips. She gave in to the gentle ebb and flow, the warm stirring beneath it all that threatened to grow into a maelstrom through sheer acuity. Anticipation. Longing.
To hell with it.
At the apex of his next ascent, she clasped his hands and fed them under her breasts. He let go in order to roll her onto her back. The sensation of being completely exposed and at his mercy gaped her mouth, curled her cravings into a serpentine coil. Knees raised, legs apart, she was undone and waiting.
Solomon’s ripped arms were scarred about the shoulder. His beautifully defined pecs and abdominals towered over her, flexing with his heavy breathing rhythm. In the pink light, his dark beard recast him as a man with great experience, while his hungry gaze and impish grin reminded her of the youthful eagerness inside. A potent combination. Power and appetite.
She reached up to his abs, loved the film of sweat and grime slick under her palms, then further to his pecs. As if he’d read her mind, he dropped his grin and his shoulders to reciprocate. God, how she wanted his huge miner’s hands all over her.
Sparks in Cosmic Dust Page 18
