LC01 Sweet Starfire

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  At the mention of Mercer, Cidra flinched. She hadn’t thought about him or about Clementia for quite a while. The humor faded from her eyes as she grew pensive. “Yes, you’re still better at Free Market than I am.”

  Severance swore somewhat viciously and asked himself what in a renegade’s hell had made him mention her idol, Mercer. Cidra was right. He might be good with his hands, but he wasn’t always the fastest thinker in the universe. Severance slowly finished the last of his prespac, aware that Cidra had slipped off into her own thoughts.

  She was thinking of Clementia. He knew it, and the realization hit him in the gut: Clementia and a lofty relationship unsoiled by a Wolf’s passion and need. Severance asked himself bluntly what he had to offer compared to the wise and distant Mercer. The cabin of Severance Pay was a far cry from the formal gardens and glowing fountains of Clementia. Hardly the sort of place in which a gently bred woman would want to set up housekeeping with a man who occasionally drank too much ale and who would frequently reach for her with a hunger he couldn’t disguise as platonic love.

  “Are you going to give up your search, Cidra?”

  She blinked herself back to an awareness of him and smiled wanly. “I think I’ve had enough of alien mind-tapping. Perhaps one has to be born a Harmonic to feel comfortable with the idea of someone or something else inside one’s head.”

  “It doesn’t seem right somehow,” he agreed. “I didn’t like being manipulated by either the good guys or the bad guys during the past couple of days.”

  “We learned to control the manipulation to a certain extent,” she reminded him.

  “I still don’t feel comfortable with the whole idea of mind communication.” Severance set down the prespac and leaned back on his elbow, gazing into the flamer. “I never will.”

  She followed his gaze. “As I said, perhaps one has to be born a Harmonic to have mind-touch feel natural and right. I wasn’t born a true Harmonic.”

  “But you were raised as one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Cidra,” he began with a rough edge in his voice that he couldn’t control, “you can go back to Clementia, can’t you?”

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Of course. No one kicked me out. I left of my own accord. It’s my home. I can go back whenever I wish.”

  “And work in the Archives?”

  “I’m a good archivist, even if I’m not a Harmonic,” she said firmly. “Besides, I’m the only archivist they’ve got who’s bothered to make a specialty out of First Family tales. I have virtually a whole field to myself.”

  “What would they do without you?” He tried to make it a joke but didn’t think he pulled it off. She took the question seriously.

  “They’d relegate First Family tales to the bottom of the pile of acceptable literature. No big deal. It’s already on the bottom of the pile. I did get Mercer to admit once that the sociological implications of some of the first traditions were interesting, but that was about all.”

  Severance stared at her grimly. She could and would go back. He had nothing to offer her to induce her to stay. Nothing to put up against all that Clementia could offer. She would go home and take with her all the tenderness, companionship, loyalty, and passion she had brought into his life. Severance’s hand tightened into a frustrated knot on his thigh. Coolly he forced himself to relax. He would take her back to Port Try Again, put her on a freighter, and never see her again. Something knotted up again, this time inside. Never see her again. The years stretched out ahead of him, as empty as the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

  “We’d better go to bed. We’ve had a long day.” He got to his feet and began the small ritual of checking the deflectors. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cidra obediently pick up the remains of dinner and dispose of them. A few minutes later she disappeared into the tent. He kept himself busy for as long as possible, thinking of her crawling into her own sleeper and fastening the closure. When he could delay things no longer, he went into the tent.

  She had blanked the light, and it took a while for his eyes to adjust. Severance peeled off his shirt and yanked off the boots. Unconsciously he put the pulser and utility loop within easy reach and fumbled for the opening of his own sleeper. Deliberately he kept his eyes off the other portable bunk. If he allowed himself to look at Cidra in bed, he knew he would crawl in with her, regardless of whether or not she invited him. He was selfish enough to take what memories he could. Hell, he was Wolf enough to take what he could.

  He took a deep breath and a savage grip on himself and turned to slide into his sleeper. His hand touched a bare female shoulder before he realized that the bed was already occupied.

  “Cidra! What are you doing in here?”

  She smiled up at him in the shadows. “Waiting for you. What took you so long?”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Going to throw me out?”

  “Sweet Harmony, I haven’t got the strength.” He unfastened his trousers and stepped out of them, leaving them lying on the floor of the tent. With a heavy groan he crawled into the sleeper and found Cidra naked and waiting. He buried his face against her breasts, aware that his body was hardening already with a fierce desire. “I doubt that I’d ever have the strength to throw you out of my bed.”

  “I’m glad.” Her fingers laced through his hair as her body stirred against his.

  He felt her soft leg moving along his thigh, and the tight ache in his loins became a fire almost instantly. She had such a powerful effect on him that he would have been alarmed if he hadn’t been so excited. Severance stroked her, savoring the curve of her hip and the smoothness of her belly. At this moment he easily convinced himself he had a right to this night. She would be gone all too soon from his life.

  Hungrily he sought and found her lips, drinking the taste of her into his veins. He would never forget the sensation of probing the sweet warmth of her mouth. Her small tongue darted around his a little anxiously at first and then with greater boldness. Her body arched, opening to his touch. When he drew a palm across one breast, he could feel the nipple tighten. The response sent a wave of excitement through him.

  She was his. The need and the longing roared through him swamping the knowledge that soon he would have to send Cidra back to Clementia. The primitive certainty that she belonged to him and no one or no place else was too strong in that moment. Severance forgot about the morning and what it must bring in the way of reality. Tonight was his, and he was going to take all he could get.

  “Cidra, you feel so good. Do you know what you’re doing to me?”

  “I’m learning.”

  He moved one hand lower, threading his fingers through the wonderfully soft tangle of hair below her stomach, and then he could feel the gathering moistness between her legs. The sensual dampness dazed him, almost overwhelming him with a sense of anticipation. He probed gently, and when she gasped, he probed again. He could never get enough of her soft cries of excitement. “Touch me, Cidra. I want to feel your hands on me.”

  He caught her hand and guided it down to his throbbing manhood. When her fingers closed tenderly around him, he shut his eyes and forced himself to take a calming breath.

  “What’s wrong?” She sounded anxious.

  “Nothing,” he told her, his voice tight. “You have the damnedest effect on me, little Saint. Touch me again. I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  “Like this?”

  He nipped her shoulder as she obeyed. “Yes,” he muttered as she gently used her nails on him. “Yes, sweetheart. That’s exactly right.”

  He gloried in the feel of her, moving his hand beneath her lushly rounded buttocks and finding the dark cleft between them. She flinched in the unfamiliar caress, and he held her more tightly until she relaxed again and let herself respond. When he had her straining urgently beneath him, he let his hand rove elsewhere. He teased the parting folds of flesh that guarded the entrance to her warm, fragrant core. She moved pleadingly under the touch cl
osing her thighs around his hand as if she would draw him further into her.

  “Do you want me?” he asked, his voice harsh with his own need.

  “I want you. I want you, Severance.”

  “Not half as much as I want you.” He lifted himself, sliding her into position under his heaviness, and then lowered himself along the length of her. “Wrap your legs around me, love.”

  She did. He had been poised on the threshold, and when she lifted her legs to clasp his thighs, the movement forced him into her. He heard his name on her lips and felt her shiver as he thrust forward, taking her completely.

  Then she was clinging to him, her breasts soft beneath his chest, her body strong and supple as she held on to him with all her might. He would never be able to get enough of her, Severance thought fleetingly. Not even if he had her all to himself for the rest of his life.

  She accepted the rhythm he established, augmenting it with her own inner muscles. The resulting harmony sent both of them spiraling upward to an inevitable conclusion. Severance lifted his head to watch her face as he felt the beginning of her joyous release. He wanted to watch her expression forever, but already the sight and feel of her satisfaction were driving him over the edge of his own. He sucked in his breath and surged forward one last time, sinking himself into her until all sense of separateness was gone. The two of them felt like a single entity. And then he just held on, clutching her more tightly than he would hold on to a pulser in the middle of the jungle.

  “Cidra. “

  It was a long time before either of them surfaced in the darkness of the tent. In mutual silence they lay listening to each other’s breathing and to the sounds of the night beyond the deflectors. At long last Cidra stirred, stretching luxuriously in a movement that brushed her breast along Severance’s rib cage.

  “Good night, Severance.” Her voice was soft and sleepy as she curled into him.

  “Good night, Cidra.” He felt her drift off to sleep, a bundle of feminine contentment in his arms. Then he lay awake for a long time and thought about the future.

  Cidra awoke the next morning feeling decidedly stiff. The sleeper could accommodate two people in a pinch, but it wasn’t really designed for the extra crowd. Tentatively she moved her leg and felt Severance turn in response. His arm, which was lying across her breasts, tightened. He yawned in her ear.

  “Do you think your bunk on the ship is going to be big enough for both of us, or will you rig up something to connect the upper and lower berths?” she asked drowsily.

  “My bunk? Do you mean on the ship?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Well,” she announced grandly, “you’d better, hadn’t you? You’re the one who’s always worrying about little details.”

  He stilled for a moment and then slowly levered himself up on one elbow to gaze down at her searchingly. She smiled smugly, wondering why he was looking so serious.

  “You’re talking about staying on Severance Pay with me?”

  “I’m a full-fledged member of the crew; remember?” She reached up and toyed with his tousled hair. He ignored her.

  “You’re going back to Clementia.”

  “Nope. I’m going to QED to help deliver the mail.” She tugged at a lock experimentally. He didn’t seem to notice. The first faint trickle of alarm passed through her. “Severance?”

  “You have to go back to Clementia, Cidra.” His voice sounded raw

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s where you want to go.”

  She shook her head with grave certainty. “No. Not anymore, I want to be with you.”

  “But you belong in Clementia. It’s your home. Your work is there. The people you care about . . .”

  “I care about you now”

  He drew a deep breath as if preparing himself for an unpleasant task. “You have to go back.”

  His dogged stubbornness began to make an impression. “Why do I have to go back? Just because you say so?”

  “Yes, damn it!” He sat up abruptly, pushing aside the cover of the sleeper. In the muted morning light that passed through the tent screen, the muscles of his shoulders and back were set and rigid. “You have to go back to Clementia because you’ve been saying all along that you belong there. Your life’s ambition is to be a Harmonic.”

  “I’m not a Harmonic. I never was one and I never will be one. I know that now.”

  He looked at her. “But you can live like one. You can change your fancy gown four times a day, practice all the rituals, study the philosophy and the laws. Part of you is Harmonic, Cidra. Hell, Harmonics aren’t an alien race living among humans. Some part of every human being is Harmonic. You can indulge that part of yourself. All you’ll lack is the telepathic ability. You were born into that world, and you can’t possibly know for certain that you want to leave it permanently.”

  “I do know for certain,” she said calmly. “I’m ready to leave it permanently.”

  “Get one thing straight, Cidra. If you do leave it to come with me, you can never go back. I wouldn’t let you go back. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” she countered.

  He closed his eyes for an anguished instant. When he opened them, his gaze was very hard. In that moment he was all Wolf. “Sweet Harmony, yes. Yes, damn it, I want you to come with me. But not unless you’re absolutely sure it’s what you want too.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Cidra, you can’t possibly know that. It’s too soon.”

  She tilted her head as understanding dawned. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

  He was startled. “What do you mean, I don’t trust you?”

  “It’s true. You don’t trust me. You’re afraid I don’t know my own mind. Well, that’s one thing about being a Wolf, Severance. You have to learn to trust the hard way. You have to take a chance.”

  “I’m not going to take a chance on this. It’s too important. And don’t give me any lectures on what it means to be a Wolf. I’m the Wolf here.”

  “So am I.”

  “Only because I made you into one!”

  Cidra began to get angry. “Don’t go taking all the credit for everything, Teague Severance. You’re always so anxious to assume responsibility, to be the pilot in command, that you tend to forget I’m capable of free will and clear thinking too. I’ve got news for you, this is a decision I’m making all by myself.”

  “Be reasonable, Cidra. You’ve only been away from Clementia for about three weeks. So much has happened to you in that time that you can’t possibly be thinking clearly.”

  “I was trained to think clearly under all circumstances!”

  He eyed her. “You’re starting to lose your temper.”

  “Astute observation. I’m getting very angry, Severance.”

  “Cidra, all I’m asking is that you consider this in a calm, rational manner. You’ve been under a great deal of strain lately.”

  “Strain? I’ve been seduced, assaulted by wild beasts, attacked by alien illusions, obliged to eat meat, and taught to gamble. Yes, I’ve been under a strain. But that doesn’t mean I can’t think straight. It’s Wolves such as you who get muddle-headed in emotional circumstances. And the fact that you are presently in just such a circumstance is the only reason I’m making allowances for your behavior at the moment. I’m the best crew mate you ever had, Teague Severance. I’m loyal, trustworthy, and intelligent. If you had any sense, you’d realize just how lucky you are and get down on your knees in gratitude!”

  He stared at her as she sat up in the sleeper, her long hair spilling around her shoulders and dancing across the tips of her breasts. Her eyes were full of fire and daunting determination. He felt himself wavering in the face of it. Summoning all his fortitude, he stood firm. “Cidra, I know you think you mean what you say.”

  “I do mean what I say!”

  “But this decision is too important.”

 
“To, whom?”

  “To me, you little idiot. Will you listen to me? I’m trying to do what’s best for both of us.”

  “You’re just trying to protect yourself,” she retorted.

  He started to argue and then halted abruptly “Maybe I am.” He looked away from her. “I couldn’t bear it if I took you with me and you changed your mind a season or two from now. I couldn’t bear to watch you pining for the gardens of Clementia and the love of a man who will never want to make love to you. It would destroy me, Cidra.”

  She heard the gritty truth in his words and knew her first sense of genuine uncertainty. She didn’t doubt her own feelings for a moment, but she had to acknowledge that Severance had a right to be unsure of her. From the moment he had met her she had talked mainly of finding a way to go back to Clementia. She couldn’t blame him for doubting her change of heart and mind.

  “What about a compromise?” she asked softly.

  He swung around to face her. “What kind of compromise? I’m not going to be a visiting lover for you. I won’t agree to just drop in and sleep with you occasionally when I happen to be near Clementia.”

  Her head came up proudly. “I’m not interested in such a . . . a thin relationship, either. For the record I won’t be a convenient resource for a little special handling when you’re between mail runs.”

  “I know that.”

  “Very well, then, why don’t we try a more or less platonic association for a while.”

  “The way we did for two weeks on the hop from Lovelady to Renaissance? You’re out of your tuned mind. I’d never survive. Talk about strain!”

  “Then you suggest something,” she shot back.

  His face hardened. “All right, I will. Go hack to Clementia . . .”

  “But, Severance . . .”

  “Go back to Clementia while I finish the run to QED. When I get back, I’ll come to Clementia. If you’re still sure you want to come away with me, I’ll take you.”

  She drew a breath. “It’s six weeks from here to QED and then eight more to get hack to Lovelady. That’s a long time, Severance.”

  “Long enough for you to be sure of what you’re doing.”