by CJ CADE
Her cheeks hot, she turned back to the room. Van looked away, running a big hand over his rumpled hair. It settled in sexy disarray. He was showing a beard, she noticed. Whiskers prickled on his wide jaw, and across his upper lip. Even that made him look sexier, like a... a space pirate.
"Frost, why don't you ask our guests if they'd like a drink?" Lacey suggested."It will help them relax after the day they've had."
"Certainly. I assume you stocked the refrigeration unit with beer?"
"I did. Beer is an ale, brewed from Earth grains," she explained to Van and Reva. "Not too high an alcohol content, and quite tasty."
Van nodded, so Reva did too. Trying a new beverage was minuscule, compared to what they'd been through already.
Physically, she was tired. Emotionally, she was exhausted.She didn't want to think anymore—about the way their jump had gone so wrong, or any of the rest of it.
Relaxing, and then sleep, sounded wonderful. She would drink as many of these ales as required to help her do so.
CHAPTER SIX
Reva liked Earth beer—a lot.
In the shadows of the back porch of their new dwelling, Van smiled to himself as he watched her sipping at her second container of the cold, prickly beverage.
The witch and her husband had left them a short time ago, after Frost showed Van how to operate a com device he called a 'cell phone'. It had two links he could use to communicate instantly—Frost's number and the local community guard, called a 'sheriff'.
Frost and Lacey assured him he and Reva were safe here, but Frost also added quietly that he understood Van's unease, far from home and without communication to their people. Lacey had smiled mysteriously, and promised to do her best to help them 'phone home' tomorrow.
Neither Van nor Reva understood why she thought this phrase amusing, but thanked her for the offer of help.
Van thought they could just as easily have attempted the com-link tonight. But apparently these Earthlings held to a strict schedule of being active in the light, resting in the dark.
He did not expect to get any rest himself. He must stay alert, and on guard, in case behind this bucolic facade peril waited.
He, like Reva, held a second container of beer. He found it incomprehensible that Earthlings stored their drinks in breakable glass instead of compostable plas-wax. But he had to admit, it was pleasant to hold the chilled, sweating container in his hand.
He sat in a comfortable chair woven of some light, strong fabric on a metal frame. A table stood to one side with two more of the chairs, and in the corner leaned a pole with what appeared to be a round awning wrapped around it.
Reva perched on the step near his feet, a pale, slim shape against the darkness of the grass and shrubs beyond. She'd been attempting to lure back the small feline that had sprinted away into the darkness at their arrival. Now she sighed, and tipped back her bottle to drain it, then burped, before heaving another deep sigh.
"What is it?" he asked, amused.
"I wanted to pet the feline," she said."I'm certain we'll be leaving tomorrow, so this may be my only chance. I've never been so near one before."
"What about the mawwrs around base?" he asked, glad to be distracted from his worries.
Mawwrs were small furry felines with two tails that came from Frontiera. They'd become popular pets around the galaxy.
Apparently Earth felines had only one tail. He wondered what the creatures did if a lizard or bird of prey bit one off. How did they then balance when climbing?
"The base mawwrs are too wild," Reva said. "I caught a baby once, but it was frightened, and scratched my hand. I let it go."
"So you've never had a pet?" he asked. Anger lit in his chest at the thought of a lonely little girl, with no mother, a father who lived for his post as quartermaster and nightly sessions at the post bar, while she had not even a pet to keep her company.
Van had grown up in a military household too, but on Aurellon, they'd had pets, a mawwr or two, a lizard and once a snake. Once he graduated the military academy, and followed his father to Hamor, there was no time or place for pets.
"I'll catch you another mawwr," he offered."I'll procure a collar and a cage. Once you've fed it for a few days, it will settle, and you can tame it." Nela would help, she loved animals, and she liked Reva.
Reva turned to face him, striped with the lamp-light through the crack of the partially open back door of the dwelling. Her eyes were luminous. She tilted her head, her pale hair falling over her shoulder."Why would you do that for me?"
"Because you want one, so I'll get it for you," he said with a careless shrug, and drained his beer, which was getting warm.
"Why?" she asked again, and this time she rose onto her knees, peering at him through the shadows. One of her slender hands landed on his thigh for balance. He felt her warmth through his pants."Why, Van?"
His turn to sigh. This female truly was like a mawwr, pretty and harmless-looking but relentless in search of what she wanted. "Because I'm a nice guy."
She made a disparaging sound and smacked his thigh with the flat of her hand, hard enough to sting. "No, you're not. You're ambitious, stubborn, and blind in some ways."
Irritation at her assessment flamed in his chest. "Well, you seem to be aimless as a coota-bug, flitting about base." The large, glowing bugs could be heard after dark, thudding against doors and windows as they mistook base glow-lamps for an attractive mate.
Her face fell, and she sagged against his knee. "I know. At least... I was, but I recently changed my path."
"Hey," he said, putting his hand over hers."I'm sorry, sweet. I didn't mean it. What is your new path—and why the hells did you think jumping would achieve your goal?"
She sat back on her heels, this time propping her chin on their clasped hands. Her skin was so soft, and her hair fell over his bare wrist like living silk. She heaved another sigh. "I just wanted to get away," she said, tracing a pattern on his other thigh with her free hand.
"From what?" he asked, fascinated by this glimpse into her thoughts. "From the base? Your father—has he mistreated you?"
Reva snorted. "He'd have to notice me to mistreat me, Van. No, he's same as always. I wanted—I needed to get away from the patterns my life had fallen into. Always the same, never getting me anywhere."
He frowned. Hamor was a small, sere planet, and he supposed life on base would be repetitive for a civilian, without the warriors' constant drive to improve one's mental and physical fitness, to stay alert and ready to fight. But what were her patterns? "So you help your father—"
"I take over for him," she corrected. "I can do his job anytime, but as soon as he recovers from his latest bout, he shoos me away."
Van nodded. "I know what that feels like," he told her. "Being pushed aside in favor of others who have the epaulets, but aren't any better for the mission."
He stroked his fingers through the ends of her hair where it spilled over his thigh. Picking up a long strand, he began to wind it around his finger.
"So what are your other patterns?" He grinned when she was stubbornly silent. "Never mind, I'll list them. Let's see, you help at the creche twice a week, leading fitness play with the littles. Once a week, you play in the holo-dice tournament at the bar on base. You always lose, but you come back anyway—good thing the warriors like you so much, and take turns paying your debt. Yeah, didn't think I knew about that, did you? Who d'you think paid your losses last week, hmm?"
When she groaned, he chuckled, and tugged at her hair."What else? Oh, right. You love travel holo-vids, and never miss them.And you also enjoy those sappy romance vids where the hero behaves like a complete idiot to win the heroine."
Reva smacked his thigh again, and he chuckled again. She was fun to tease, and even more fun to touch. She was leaning full against him now, within his open knees. So pretty in the band of light streaming from the dwelling, and so lithe and sweet under his hands.
"And sometimes," he went on, leaning closer to her,
dropping his voice to a croon, "Make that frequently, you like to find me and make my life—" Reva flinched, turning her face away as if waiting for a verbal blow. And Van realized that he'd nearly gone too far, and been cruel in a way which he could never take back. "—a little brighter," he said. "A little more interesting."
"You don't really think so," she mumbled, her voice muffled. "You think I'm a—a pest, a coota-bug."
"Coota-bugs are pretty," he said, stroking the length of her hair over his knee. "You know, my grandparents used to call them lamp-lights. They told me if you’re lost, you can follow one and it will lead you where you truly need to be."
She snickered, her breath hot and moist on his skin. "Especially if you need to thump your head against a hard surface."
Van chuckled. "According to you, I need that."
She lifted her head, and shrugged, her pretty face alight with mischief. "Maybe sometimes."
He slid his free hand around the back of her neck, and tugged her closer. "Probably, but I'm not as blind as you think," he told her. "I see you."
"How do you see me?"
"Like this," he said, and bent his head, cocking it to one side. Then he kissed her, full on her soft, damp, parted lips.
She tasted of beer and of the essential sweetness of fresh, healthy young woman that he'd sampled earlier, when the witch had tricked him into believing Reva was his ideal female, there for the taking.
Now, there was no one here but the two of them.
And he was thinking maybe his earlier notion hadn’t been so far off target. So this time, he wasn't stopping until he had his fill of her sweet mouth. She gasped, and then sighed into his mouth, her lips parting to accept his tongue. Van cocked his head farther, and parted his lips over hers, licking into her mouth to find her tongue and entice it to play.
Her tongue darted eagerly to meet his. Her teeth mashed against his upper lip, and her fingers grasped his thigh so hard her short nails dug in, tiny pinpricks of pain that shot heat straight to his groin. His cock stiffened, surging against his snug pants.
Van dropped his empty beer bottle with a clunk, letting it roll away along the wooden porch. He reached blindly to grasp Reva's slim waist, and pulled her up on his lap. When he leaned back in his chair with her, she landed astride him, so that her soft breasts were snug against his chest, and her soft, heated center was snug over his cock. He filled his hands with the firm globes of her ass, and squeezed as he kissed her ravenously.
She was slim and lithe in his arms, her mouth untutored, her nails digging into his shoulders now, and hurting even more than on his thigh. And yet somehow, it was the hottest, sweetest embrace he could remember.
* * *
Reva was drowning in sensation, in heat and hardness and strength, in Van's powerful embrace, in the knowing squeeze of his big, calloused hand on her ass, in the devouring caress of his mouth, and in the sheer, aching delight of the long, hard shape rubbing rhythmically against her most sensitive flesh.
Astride him with that bulge in the furrow of her labia, the soft fabric of her panties abraded her in the most tormenting way possible.
She rode the crest of some mounting need she barely understood. Whimpering into his mouth, she flexed her hips and rubbed shamelessly against him. Then he clamped her harder against him, and one, two, three more strokes.
Pleasure clenched and then imploded inside her, sending her tumbling over the wave and into bliss.
She moaned, shuddering in his arms, then pulled free of his kiss to gasp for breath. Tipping her face into his, she panted for breath, drawing in his scent with every breath.
He groaned, his hands working on her bare back under her top, and on her ass. "Fuck, that was hot. You have a sensitive trigger, yeah? Next time I'll get you off with my tongue, let you come all over my face."
His deep voice, his graphic words wrapped through her in a velvet cocoon. She'd think about what she'd just done later.
"I need to come too," he told her, working his hand between them. "You gonna give me a hand with that?"
Since he gave her another, soft kiss, she nodded, then gasped as he pulled her hand between them, and closed her fingers around a hot, silken column of flesh that quivered in her grasp. He groaned again. "Oh, yeah. Like that. Now stroke me, harder."
"Show me," she managed, torn between wishing she could see him, and relief that he could not see her, because she was sure her uncertainty was writ all over her hot face.
He showed her with the simple expedient of keeping his big hand wrapped around hers, and guiding it in swift, almost rough motions up and down his shaft. Leaning forward, he kissed her again, deep and hot, then groaned, and tipped his head back and stiffened under her, his brawny thighs going hard as cerametal.
Hot liquid spurted over their hands, pulsing while Van shuddered under her. "Oh, God," he groaned. "Oh, yeah."
Reva watched him in awe. So that was how he looked when he found sexual pleasure. Enthralling.
She had done that... with T'Van A'Ralle! And he'd said they would do more. She wanted more, she wanted it all. After she slept—the ale, and the orgasm had her swaying on the verge of falling asleep right here.
Van yawned, his jaw popping from the force of it. He gave her thigh a perfunctory pat. "Reva. Need you to get off me so I can clean up."
She reluctantly let go of him. "But, what do I...?"
"Huh? Oh, just wipe your hand on my shirt. Gonna need to cryo-cleanse these anyway—or whatever they use here."
"Okay." Reva scrambled off his lap, cast a last look at him as he tucked his clothing back together, then hurried into the house, where she used the galley faucet to wash her hands and pat cool water on her flushed face.
Her body was humming with satisfaction. Her mind reeling with awe. She actually experienced an orgasm at a man’s touch. At Van’s touch.
So much for her resolve to keep him at a distance. A cold chill wormed its way through her. What was she doing? She needed to show him she was a strong, independent being, not a fool who would melt any time he touched her.
It was just that part of her wanted to keep melting in his arms.
A moment later, Van walked into the house behind her. He locked the door behind him, mumbling over the inefficiency of the archaic locks. Then he walked toward her, and stopped so close she could feel his heat behind her. Towel to her face, Reva froze.
"Reva," he said, his deep voice relaxed and teasing."What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she said, turning to move away from the sink. He blocked her with one long arm, and used it to turn her to face him, then bent his head to peer into her face.
"Don't believe you," he smirked. "Are you disappointed we didn't fuck? Thought we'd save that for after a shower-dry. Been a long, strange day."
She shook her head, tipping her face down to hide her hot face. "No. No, that's not... I'm fine. Just, you know, tired.Very, very tired."
He grunted. "Right. I'll make sure this place is as secure as possible."
This got her to look at him, a cold chill of fear dousing the warmth of the summer night. "You don't believe we are safe here? You don't trust these beings?"
He shook his head. "No, no. Just, we're in a strange place—emphasis on the strange—with only ancient security. But you go on to your bunk, get some rest. I'll stand watch for a while."
"You must rest too," she said. Forgetting her resolve, she caught his hand in hers, and tugged. "Come. We'll stay together, and one of us will wake if there is danger." It didn’t have to be sex. She really would feel safer with him near, and he did need rest. The jump had been harder on him than on her.
He gave her an odd look. "I'll watch over you, don't worry."
"Van! You may be a warrior, but you're not a cyborg. You need to rest."
His gaze warmed, and he nodded. "Right. We'll stick together."
Reva used the strange lav to wash and do her business, and clean her teeth. Then, realizing she had an actual shower at her disposal, with no ap
parent restrictions on water, she fastened the door securely, undressed and stepped into the stall.
Water on Hamor was zealously guarded, and although shower-dry units recycled most of the water used, some was inevitably lost to evaporation, which meant such use was limited. Cleansing gel-towelettes were used the rest of the time. They left a body clean, but not feeling fresh.
It took her only a few secs to understand the water controls, and soon she was blissfully clean and fresh.
Of course, that was when she realized there was no air-dry control to be found.
Wet and shivering, she stood for a moment, wondering if these Earthlings simply waved their arms and legs about to dry, or... Ah, the thick fluffy lengths of cloth hanging on a rack must be for drying. Another quaint custom on this backward planet.
She was dry and warmer in moments. There was a bottle of lotion on the small counter that smelled very nice, of citrus and mint. After washing, she smoothed the lotion on her face, throat and hands, then massaged some into her feet, which was very relaxing.
Now she had a problem—the only nightwear she'd packed was one of Van's tees, filched from his quarters. She was not about to wear that in front of him, so she put the yoga pants and top back on, without the lovely new undies Lacey had given her, which she washed out in the basin and hung over the shower stall door to dry.
Then she yawned hugely. She walked to the big bed in the room Lacey had shown her and sat on the edge.
She’d just lie down and wait for Van.
ffCHAPTER SEVEN
Van moved on silent feet into Reva’s room. He stood for a long moment, looking down at her.
She slept on her side, facing the door, her long, silky hair spread over the pillow. His fingers twitched, longing to comb through the silky length, and wind it around his fingers again. It felt good around his hand, and a man could use it to tug her in close for a kiss, on his lips or somewhere else on his body.
