by D. Brumbley
Mercury gave him a warm smile for his own disclaimer, as it made her feel more at ease about all the things that she knew would be difficult about her. A flirtatious, somewhat religious man who had trouble keeping his mouth shut didn’t really bother her. There wasn’t much that did bother her, as long as someone was being genuine. “I’m not religious, but I have nothing against those who are. I’ll apologize if I don’t always understand your jokes, and flirting doesn’t bother me. If you promise me that you’re going to be faithful to me, then unless I learn somehow that you haven’t been, I don’t care about flirting. It’s a natural expression of emotion for some people, and it is healthy. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
The next time she had to wiggle on his lap to reposition herself, she felt something that was distinctly not a part of his uniform. He just pulled her in to lean against him afterward, though, one arm around her back leaving the other free to explore her. “I think we’re going to get along well, Mercury.” It was the first time he had said her name out loud, and his accent shaped the word differently than most, rolling the Rs and accenting it strangely in his gentle baritone voice. “What do you think?”
“I would definitely like to get to know you better, and work in the direction of making something permanent. I like…being with you. I feel at ease.” Her body certainly liked him more than she thought was possible, especially as his hands wandered all over her. She couldn’t quite convince her muscles to keep her still where he was holding her, something in her hips wanting to move of their own accord and dig more into the man.
When his fingers trailed along the exposed skin of her back, she leaned into him even more, pressing her breasts into his chest. She hesitated, her lips hovering close to his, but she didn’t know what she should do, or even how to do anything well. Even kissing someone seemed like a complicated thing in her mind.
He thought at first that she was going to kiss him, but he could feel her hesitation in the way she moved, and he smiled, renewing his caress along her back. “I like being with you too.” He whispered against her lips, right before claiming them with his own.
‘Claimed’ was the only word that came to mind as sufficient to describe the feeling. He was clean-shaven, unlike Greg and her one other sexual partner had been, so kissing him was a very different sensation than either of them had been. Most of the difference came from the fact that while both of her previous lovers had been nervous or awkward in their own ways, no such emotion came through the touch from Orion. His lips took hers slowly, easing her into the kiss gently as his arms held her body tightly pressed against his. It was like gravity, drawing her entire body in against his with the heat in the single kiss, a slow, patient burn to go along with the low moan that escaped him at the taste of her.
Mercury remembered the noises that her previous lovers had made when she was with them, but no noise they made had impacted her the way that Orion’s moan worked through her body. It made her ache for him even worse, but she tried to only focus on his lips. She didn’t make any sound until his hands moved down to grip her backside and press her body into his while his tongue teased the seam of her lips. She felt more needy instantly and the whimpers and moans that escaped her chest had quickly forgotten any measure of her usual control.
When the kiss finally broke, Orion was breathing heavily and his grip on her had gotten rougher, raising questions about what the man beneath her might be like when he really got going. “So.” He finally said without pulling away from her lips, kissing her gently between words as he spoke. “Mercury” kiss “Finnegan, will you do me” kiss “the great honor and pleasure” kiss “of marrying me for the next month?” A typical Introduction trial period was two weeks, but a month wasn’t unheard of. They would still only be given two weeks of liberty from their jobs to get to know each other more thoroughly and meet family, but Orion wanted to see what they could be together even beyond that initial period. A contract was nothing if it was only beneficial when they had the leisure time to devote every moment to each other.
Even a month of being someone’s ‘wife’ was a huge adjustment to consider, but especially for someone as singularly focused as Mercury. She wasn’t sure how it would go, but she wanted to try. Especially if he was going to kiss her like that again. He needed to teach her how to kiss like that. Mercury nodded as she lifted a hand and caressed along his face before her hand rested at the back of his neck. “Yes, Orion Al-Jabbar, I want to be your wife. At least for the next month.” She gave him a small smile before she kissed his cheek innocently. Mercury didn’t know much about being anything else. Certainly not seductive or sexy. “I really hope your confidence in us is not unfounded.”
“So do I. I hate being wrong. Good thing it doesn’t happen often.” He teased as his hands wandered down over her spine to her backside again, since he had very much enjoyed the whimpers he had gotten out of her before. “I’m licensed to take private pods at the major Stations for personal use back and forth between them. They’re cramped, but they’re fast and they don’t require waiting for another carrier heading for Three or Seven. I made sure to clean up my cube back on Three before I left, in case you’d be coming back with me, but we can go to whichever first that you’d prefer.”
“I don’t want to be tempted by work or my patients if we go to Seven. Pregnant women have a lot of things that concern them, and I always want to ease their minds when I’m around to be on call.” It almost sounded like a joke, except the expression on her face was serious. Pregnancy was not an easy time, and even though she had never been pregnant, she wanted to comfort her patients as often as she could. “I’d like to see your home. If your body doesn’t drive mine crazy before we get there.” She was definitely feeling all sorts of aroused, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Whenever he kissed or touched her it made things so much better and somehow so much worse at the same time.
“I think I’d be okay with seeing you a little crazy.” He chuckled and kissed her again, giving another quiet moan before he began to stand up, holding her in his arms until he could set her on her feet. The deck where they’d met wasn’t full Earth-norm gravity, but from the ease with which he picked her up, it was still obvious Orion was stronger than his lean form let on. “Window from here to Three is faster anyway, this time of the morning. I also got you some things that are waiting back at my place. I hope you’ll like them.”
“You got me something? You were that confident?” She was definitely surprised by that, but flattered too, since she was glad that he felt she was worth gambling on after only reading about her. “That’s very kind of you. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. It’s still possible you’ll hate it.” He stepped back from her just enough for her dress to fall back into place from where he’d gotten her all askew on the couch, but then leaned down to kiss her again, just because he wanted to. His arms were loose around her as he tipped her head back to capture her mouth, kissing her a few times more gently afterward when he pulled away with a smile. Without saying anything else, he looked off to one side at the panel where she had given her authentication for him to come in for the Introduction. He placed his hand on the scanning plate, leaving room for hers beside it. “Certifying Introduction complete and accepted. One-month contract also accepted. Enthusiastically. Orion Al-Jabbar.” The ‘Enthusiastically’ bit wasn’t something the computer would require or understand, but it was something Orion wanted as part of the official record anyway.
She smiled at his enthusiastic acceptance, and placed her hand next to his on the panel. “Mercury Finnegan, one month contract accepted. Computer, please notify my parents also.” Usually only employers were notified, but she wanted her parents to know just in case it was difficult to get ahold of them. “I feel…so spontaneous. I never do anything this quickly.”
“Oh, I do all kinds of things quickly. But I didn’t come here this morning thinking this would be one of them.” He reached down and swept her up into his arms with ease
, checking briefly to make sure her dress wasn’t hiked up so far that she’d be giving the rest of the station a show on their way back up to the docks. He hit the button to open the outer door and just glanced behind him to watch the luggage carriers exit the unit behind him, drawing his paltry duffel bag and a much more professional-looking luggage case of hers with her own belongings. It was protocol to bring an overnight bag. Just in case. The machines would keep up until they got to the pod, that was all that mattered. “I really thought I was gonna come here, we’d do Introduction, maybe meet later for drinks, see how things went, then I was going to be very responsible and very meticulous and sleep on it before making any kind of decision. Honest I was.”
“Are you sure that’s not what you want? We can stay here and sleep on it.” She didn’t want him to change his mind about her so soon, even though they had only agreed to a month-long contract. It was also very strange to be carried through the halls, but it made her feel dainty and ladylike. “You must be very strong to carry me like a feather.” She wasn’t too heavy, but she was nearly six feet tall, after all.
“Oh, right, I probably should have included that in my disclaimer. I’m prone to showing off from time to time. Usually gets me in trouble.” He shrugged, but loved the feel of her against him too much to feel bad about showing off. “And no, I don’t want to go somewhere and sleep on it. I’m good just like this.”
“You’re not in trouble with me.” She smiled again and she kissed his cheek once as he carried her. After one kiss on the cheek, though, she felt as though she should continue the spontaneity, and she leaned in to kiss along his neck. Mercury truly didn’t know what she was doing, only what she wanted to do, and that was incredibly intoxicating. There were other people walking through the hallways, matched or not, and they all turned to look at the giant man carrying the redhead. “You taste good.” She said softly into his ear, but from her tone he could tell that she wasn’t attempting to be sexy. She actually sounded surprised, as if she never expected that the taste of kissing someone’s skin could actually taste good.
He grinned at the matter-of-fact tone, and turned his face so he could return the next kiss she gave him, still walking toward the lift at the end of the corridor without looking. “So do you.” His voice had a slightly different thrum to it as he said so, something more hungry than factual.
“It probably has something to do with diet.” She said as she considered the cause, then she realized his tone afterward, and it shook her out of her critical thinking. “How long does it take to get to Three from here?”
His eyes turned upward to think on that, and though she could see calculations and schematics running behind his eyes as he did his analysis, he didn’t miss a step or falter as he carried her. They were in the lift with the luggage-carriers parked next to them by the time he answered, flicking the button for the dock level with the hand around the small of her back. “If I’m right about our positioning right now, I can probably swing it in about four and a half hours. Might actually be a little less, depending on orbital corrections. Between four and six, though, at the outside.”
“That’s not too bad.” She said with a slight nod. “I don’t handle flight very well, it makes me queasy. But I did bring medication with me, so you don’t have to worry.”
That got a full laugh from him for the first time, and she could feel from how close she was against him exactly how it bunched the muscles in his abdomen as the sound resonated in the rising lift. “Anyone who says machines don’t have a sense of humor needs to hear that. The pilot matched with a woman who gets queasy while flying.” He kissed her again, still chuckling, but didn’t put her down or let her get any farther from him. “I’ll try and keep it a smooth ride, for your sake. And keep your mind off flying while we’re in transit.”
“I’m sure we have a lot to talk about to keep us distracted. Flying out here I was nervous on top of everything else, and that didn’t help at all.” They noticed an influx of people when they got off the lift, and the shift in gravity made her hold tighter to him as he kept her in his arms. “There are a lot of people around here. I wonder if that is normal.”
They had gotten off at the edge of the dock, where the station’s rotation had them almost weightless. The influx of people was coming up from the stairwells of the arm they had just ridden the lift through, and it gave Orion pause as he looked them over. They were dressed like technicians, carrying tools and protective gear, but they didn’t move like technicians. Techs off-duty always looked loose, relaxed, glad to be finished with their work or grumpy about the prospect of more to come. These men and women looked singularly focused, and they weren’t speaking to each other. Some were carrying bags over their shoulders, a few were carrying a large case between them, guiding it through the near-zero gravity space carefully. “Maybe there was some kind of mechanical trouble that’s got them all in a bad mood.” He floated up toward the registration desk of the dock with their luggage following in precisely calculated jumps, to remain as close to them as possible.
“I don’t think I want to know what kind of technical failure could cause that kind of distress.” She kept ahold of Orion and suddenly felt an urgency to get on their pod and get away to the privacy of his home. “I don’t know enough about this station to know if I should be worried, but I feel worried.”
“You and me both.” It was the first time she had seen him look serious, and it brought out the clarity of his blue eyes as he glanced around the area to take in everything he could about what was happening. The technicians weren’t speaking to anybody else, heading for a corridor that would take them to their ship docked outside. Maybe their work was finished and they were just leaving for the day. He hoped that was true.
“In any event,” he attempted to restore some playfulness to his voice as they approached the registration desk, “I think in the interest of time, we can forgo getting into jumpsuits for the flight. They’re not regulation in the pods anyway. Sound alright with you?”
Mercury looked down at her dress, then looked up into Orion’s eyes again. “If it’s not regulation, I suppose that’s alright.” Just by that statement alone he could tell that she wasn’t much of a rule breaker, but if he said it was alright, then she would take his word for it. “I should get the nausea medication out of my bag before you store it, though.”
He nodded and gave her another kiss before he released her to get to her bag while he made arrangements with Registration. They recognized him by his identification and were fairly subservient to him when he made his requests, though he still spoke with them amiably enough, rather than the kind of condescending officer that he could have been to them by virtue of his rank. He took their luggage off the carriers that had followed them once she was done with her bag, and headed with her off to a pockmarked section of the dock that had dozens of small pods attached to its surface for individual use.
He hadn’t been kidding when he said it was a cramped fit. A third person could have fit inside the pod they were taking, but not comfortably. Instead of seats, there were three backboards with harnesses attached to them, one for the pilot and two for passengers, all facing out toward the pod’s exterior with just a few centimeters between their bodies and the outer shell of glass and steel. Orion didn’t actually fit comfortably in the harness at first, but she could tell that the way he had to slouch and bend his knees between the board and the glass was something he had long since gotten accustomed to, with his height. He helped her get secured first, making sure all the webbing and straps were secured across her tightly before he started work on his own. “Good news is, you don’t have to stay in harness the entire time. And the third board will collapse once we’re at momentum. Just a little cozy for breakaway and docking.”
Mercury nodded as she looked down at the harness and webbing, and she was grateful that she had quickly taken the nausea medication, since she had a feeling she would need it in the small pod. The shuttle she had taken to meet him was much
bigger, and she hadn’t seen as much of the outside as she could at the moment. She reached up and ran her hand along his arm as he finished helping her get fastened. “I’m really glad you know what you’re doing.”
“I do.” He promised quietly, turning to kiss along her palm as he finished with her. He was rough with the straps and the webbing, but clearly he knew he had to be in order to make sure she was secure, and wasn’t afraid of breaking her in the process. Once he did have her settled, he leaned in to kiss her, though he had to do so from the side, since his own body didn’t fit between hers and the glass. “How do you feel, alright? Anything else need a little more attention?” His hands were moving over her netting in ways she could tell were purposefully naughty, judging by the smile on his face.
