The Initiative: Book One of the Jannah Cycle

by D. Brumbley

  “Of course I said nothing happened.” She laughed after she squealed at his smack to her backside. “I’d only just met you. And you were so drunk, I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me something if you knew the truth about our heavy makeout session. I just wanted to get to know you better first.” Rachel kissed him roughly in response to his own kiss. “And of everything, you remember my skirt?”

  “Hey, I have a very selective memory, and ten times out of ten, I am going to remember a skirt that shows off your ass the way that one did.” His hands moved over her back to press her against him in their kisses, but he pulled back after a second. “Okay, I vaguely remember now saying something like I couldn’t fuck you because I’d end up breaking you in half. I’d like to formally apologize for ever underestimating you in that respect.”

  “I’m glad some pieces are coming back to you now.” She laughed again and then wiggled herself against him, since he was clearly as turned on as she was. “You really do have such a foul mouth, Liam Bickford. And I love it.”

  “Lucky for you, the rest of me is just as foul.” He groaned as she moved against him, and his hands went back to her hips to encourage her to take him however she wanted him. So long as he had her and she enjoyed him, he didn’t care what their lovemaking consisted of, vanilla or otherwise. “Few days later when I had you to myself the first time…or the first time I really remember, anyway…” he said in halting breaths, kissing her between as she began to rock her core against him, wet and needy for him, “we should go back to that spot in the basement sometime, just for old time’s sake. See if the fucking acoustics are still fucking amazing now that I know the right way to really make you scream.”

  “Mmmmm. Let’s do that.” Rachel didn’t want to tease him any longer than she wanted to be teased, and she definitely wasn’t quiet as soon as she had him inside of her. She may not have his dirty mouth, but she had a noisy one. Rachel knew that if Liam really wanted to know her secrets, she wouldn’t be able to keep them from him, and she didn’t want to. Everything, really, was just a matter of time.

  * * * * *

  “Here, pull this one over this way. Yeah, like that.” Cory grinned as he worked in tandem with Larissa, who was sitting on his lap at the moment between him and the worktable that was occupied with their project. The fabric they were using was so strange that it had taken some getting used to before they could get it to do what they had wanted, but the piece they’d conceived of together looked like it was finally finished. “And there we go. I think that’ll pretty much do it.” He sat back in the chair and returned his hands to Larissa’s waist to hold onto her as he looked over the fruit of their efforts. “Not his usual style, but he’s not exactly gonna be working on tractors up there. I’m sure he’ll like it.”

  “You are a man of many talents, Cory Prince.” Larissa said with a smile as she looked back at him briefly before she focused on their project again. It was a very unique coat, but she hoped that Logan would like it, even though she didn’t want to give it to him. Giving him the coat would mean saying goodbye. She sighed as she placed her hand on the fabric and her smile was quickly chased away. “I can’t believe they’re really going to go.” Her tone was soft, mostly because she didn’t want to start to cry. Larissa had spent a lot of time with Cory recently but she was still trying to impress him, and turning into a sobbing mess wouldn’t be impressive. Or, at least, not the right kind.

  Cory wrapped an arm around Larissa’s waist to hold her back against him, just to let her know he was there as they both dealt with the implications of their oldest sibling leaving. They had gotten started on the coat as a means of working on something together, but also as a way of dealing with the fact that they were being abandoned. Now that it was finished, the impending departure had to be thought of again. “I’m still gonna talk to Anna. I don’t think it’ll do much good, and she may even tell me where I can shove it, but I’m still gonna talk to her.”

  Larissa turned sideways on his lap so that she could look him in the eye, and she looked into his eyes for a little while before she brushed her lips against his. It said a lot that Cory was willing to go toe-to-toe with his sister. Cory didn’t usually go looking for confrontation and normally no one want to go toe to toe with Anna when she set her mind to something. “I just hate knowing that we might never see them again. That Logan won’t be here to walk me down the aisle if you…if we…”

  Cory nodded against her forehead as he held her. One of the stranger things for him to get accustomed to as he got to know Larissa better was the way she viewed her brothers. There wasn’t too much of an age gap between the two of them, but she would be turning fifteen in a few months, while her brothers were almost five full years older. Most of the time it seemed like she viewed Logan as more of a father than an older brother, and Liam was the corresponding annoying uncle. He understood where it came from, but it was still a little strange sometimes. “We’ll see them again. Even if it means running halfway across the galaxy to chase them down. And if they do leave, and they manage to pull it off, make it to Jannah, then maybe Logan won’t be here to walk you down the aisle. But it might give us the chance to live long enough to dance with our own kids at their weddings.” He shook his head and kissed her again gently. “Still doesn’t make me want them to go.”

  Despite the conversation about Logan and Anna, Larissa couldn’t help but smile as Cory mentioned the idea of children without even batting an eye. She kissed him eagerly, her tongue teasing a few times along his lower lip. She didn’t have a lot of experience with boys, but she certainly liked kissing Cory and she was learning quickly. “I’m glad you see that in the future. Us. I love being with you.”

  “Love, huh? I think I’m comfortable with that.” Cory grinned up at her under her eager lips, and pulled her into another one as her cheeks began turning red. Love wasn’t a stage they had gotten around to yet, with everything else going on, but Cory was certainly getting there. “I love being with you too, Larissa. Most of the time I still feel like there’s something I’m missing or something I’m not catching when it comes to what you need, but I like learning.”

  “You’re not missing anything.” She stole another kiss between speaking. “I don’t want you to feel that way. I’m just shy. Especially when I’m with someone who I want to think the best of me.”

  “I do think the best of you.” He reassured her with a caress along her cheek and a teasing grin. “You’re probably the single most ticklish person I’ve ever met in my entire life, so I still have to work on not setting you off nineteen times a day, but that’s funny, not a flaw. I’m starting to believe you don’t actually have any of those.”

  “I definitely have flaws.” Larissa tensed up slightly at just the thought of being tickled, but she tried not to be obvious about it. Thinking of flaws had her comparing herself to whoever she thought Cory might want, and the girl he’d waited for before her came to mind. She knew about the girl because Anna warned her about Cory’s past interests. “Why didn’t you apply to Jannah?” She asked abruptly, but she wondered for awhile now and just never asked.

  It was Cory’s turn to tense up at the question, and his smile faded as he shrugged, trying to look casual again. “I did. I was rejected just a few weeks after the application deadline. They didn’t even wait until they sent out the rest of the determinations. Something about them finding anomalies in my genetic code that gave them concern about blah blah blah. I went to Doc Weber and she did a full workup on me afterward, said she didn’t find anything they could’ve been talking about. So I don’t know.”

  “Oh.” Larissa replied softly, since she had just assumed that he hadn’t applied. She felt bad that the truth was that he had applied and was rejected. “Why don’t you want Anna to go if you wanted to go?”

  Cory actually blushed at that question, but he held onto her a little tighter as he considered how to respond to that. “I um, didn’t really want to go to Jannah when I applied. I only applied b
ecause a girl I knew applied and I thought I’d have better chances with her if I was accepted and went.” He shook his head. “It was the wrong reason to apply and it would’ve been the wrong reason to go. I’m fully aware of how stupid I was being. Especially because it was a pretty classic example of a girl really and truly not being that into me. But that’s a long story. Anyway, I don’t want Anna to go for the same reasons I thought it was stupid of me to apply in the first place. It’s dangerous, there are no guarantees, it’s too far from family, and overall…I just…I don’t trust it. Any of it. Maybe I’ve been hanging out with Ben too long, but there’s some places I’ve read online that people don’t even believe Jannah even exists. That this whole Initiative is just a cover for something else. They make some pretty compelling arguments, even if I’m not a hundred percent convinced either way. No matter what the truth is, it’s shady enough that I don’t want to be a part of it, and I sure as fuck don’t want anyone I care about to be involved.”

  “Anna told me about the girl. But I didn’t know you cared about her so much that you wanted to go.” She cleared her throat in nervousness and Larissa wondered if she was just a choice of convenience. Would it be bad if she was? Convenience wasn’t the worst reason to start a relationship. Larissa nodded after she considered his explanation about not wanting Anna and Logan to go, though, and she attempted to ignore her self-doubt. “I agree. I think it’s too dangerous. But I also don’t think that Logan will let anything happen to Anna. Even if you can’t change their minds.”

  As much as he did feel as though he had a hard time getting to really know Larissa, there were some things that he did know for certain, so when she looked away to talk about his former acquaintance, he reached up to gently pull her face back to look at him. “It would have been a mistake. Because I never would have gotten to know you. If it was you who was running off to the other side of the universe, I would go with you. I’d try and talk you out of it first, probably, but I would go with you. And if I had been really pumped to go to Jannah for some reason, I would stay here for you, if that was what you wanted. She pretty well showed whatever regard she might once have had for me when she decided to leave without me, and I haven’t even thought about her almost since the day they got their acceptance. I’m not looking up and wishing I was there. I’m looking at you, and grateful I’m here.”

  Larissa blushed after that but she didn’t look away, since she felt like her chest was going to explode with happiness and reassurance. It was rare for a woman on Earth to find someone who would say such things, especially without a pregnancy first. Larissa pressed her hands to his cheeks before she pressed her lips warmly to his and turned completely into him with her legs winding around him and the back of the chair. Her fingers slipped into his hair as she kissed him, but when it broke, she was back to looking into his eyes again. “I’m glad, Cory.” She replied between quick breaths from the intensity of the kiss. “I would do all of that for you too. I care about you so much. I wish I had gotten to know you sooner.” Larissa had never felt this way about anyone in her entire life, and it was the most amazing feeling. It felt like nothing in the world could be wrong as long as Cory wanted to be with her. It was fast, but everything about life on Earth was fast.

  His hands caught on the hem of her blouse as he moved them to hold her tightly against his body, and it made his heart skip a little as he kissed her again. Was she going to think he was just sweet-talking her to get something from her because it felt like he was trying to do something to her shirt? He hoped not, but he had no idea. They just hadn’t been with each other long enough for him to know what she would think when certain things happened or when they didn’t. He also had to move a little to adjust himself after the way she had just kissed him, but with her in his lap, it would be impossible for her not to know why he was moving her around a little to get himself comfortable. Would she think that meant he had just a one-track mind? There were a lot of things in the world that he had no idea about, and he was learning that most of them had to do with Larissa. “I’m just glad I get to know you now. But I’m with you. The last couple years I’ve spent a lot of time on people that weren’t worth the expense. I wish I’d been spending them with you.” He shrugged slightly, his usual grin starting to return. “Although this way, I’m past the whole acne-ruining-my-life phase, so you get a much better looking me than I was two years ago.”

  “I’ve always thought you were good looking.” Larissa assured him as she kissed along his neck and put one of his hands back where it had brushed along her side, but underneath her shirt so he would know that she was okay with it. He could touch her anywhere. “Two years ago I didn’t look like this either. Thank goodness for puberty.”

  He let out a low moan that he was immediately self-conscious about, but then he kissed her again and traced a caress along the skin beneath her shirt as his eyes looked obviously down into the cut of her neckline. “Thank goodness for puberty. Amen to that.”

  “Ahem.” The two young lovers were interrupted a few moments later by Logan clearing his throat from the doorway, though when they frantically turned around to face him, he was smiling rather than scowling, leaning against the doorframe with Anna beside him and his arms crossed over his chest. “This looks cozy. Did you text me to come out here with the intention of getting walked in on? Because that was poor planning.”

  “No! No.” Larissa said quickly as Cory slid his hands back down to a safer area on her waist. She had forgotten all about texting Logan after she got all caught up with Cory telling her how much she meant to him. Her brain was all scrambled for a moment as she tried to remember why she had texted her brother. “I, um, we…” She looked around and saw the coat on the work-table. “Oh! We have a gift for you.”

  “A gift?” Logan wasn’t entirely sure how to take that, since anything anyone gave him would be his for maybe the next few days, but it was Larissa. He wasn’t going to say no.

  Larissa got up off of Cory’s lap slowly but then she grabbed the coat off of the work-table and walked it up to her brother to present it to him. “You can take clothes with you, right? We made this for you. Cory and I, together.”

  Logan held up the coat with a surprised look at the two of them, and shook it out to get a good look at it. It was a great deal lighter than it had looked on first glance, but it was comfortable against his skin and certainly felt sturdy as he tossed it around. The coat would fall roughly to his knees when he had it on, a dark brown that was eminently practical when working on a farm but which he was sure would stand out like a sore thumb up in space. It had a multitude of pockets on it both inside and out, and when he shrugged it onto his shoulder the fit was perfect. “How the hell did you two…” he looked up at Larissa with a smile. “Liam helped, didn’t he?” It was the only way they could’ve gotten the size right without involving him directly.

  “Maybe.” She said with a smirk. “Also, you live like a pig sometimes. You leave your clothes everywhere. Liam and you aren’t exactly the same, after all. I won’t say who is bigger-chested, because that’ll just start a fight.” Larissa smiled as she teased Logan. “Do you like it?”

  “I do.” He adjusted it around his collar and gave Larissa a grin. It was more formal-looking, somehow, than almost anything else she had ever seen him wear, but it suited him nonetheless. He didn’t look like he was going to be crawling under any engines or changing any oil, but he did look like a man about to do business, and a man who meant what he was about. He pulled Larissa into a tight hug, closing his eyes against her hair. “Thanks, sis. It’ll go across the universe with me.”

  Larissa held him in a death grip after he said that and she buried her face into her brother’s embrace. She mumbled into his shoulder just so that she wouldn’t tear up in front of him. “I don’t want you to go.”

  Logan held onto her even tighter at that, but moments later let her go slowly, setting her feet back down on the floor. “Come on, Anna and I were talking about it on the way
over here. You and me are doing omelettes for dinner tonight, like we used to do.” He kept one arm around her shoulders as he let her go, with a look over at Cory. “If I can steal her away for a while, of course.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure, that’s…yeah, that’s fine.” Cory nodded at Larissa, obviously more than a little uncomfortable at being deferred to by the older brother who had arranged the match between them.

  Anna hung back so that she could walk with Cory on her own, since she wanted time with her brother as much as Logan wanted time with his little sister. “Looks like things are going really well.” She teased with a knowing smirk as she jabbed her brother in the ribs with her elbow. “If we had taken any longer to show up, I’m wondering how far you would have gotten.” Anna was relentless, mostly because she liked to see her siblings squirm.

  Cory just gave her a sideways glare as they made their way out of the house to meander around the estate. “We’ve gotten…a ways. We decided early on that we want to get to know each other before we get…well, we kind of commented to each other on our first date that as soon as we start having sex, we’re not likely to want to stop, so…yeah.” He shrugged, but he was still smiling confidently. “Things are good. I finally talked to her about Holly today. That was easier than I thought it would be.”

  “Easier for you or her? Or both?” She asked curiously as they continued to walk. “I know what Holly did to you was extremely hurtful, but I really did hope that being with Larissa would make you forget all about someone who didn’t think twice about hurting you.”

  “I actually haven’t thought about her lately. Ever since I started hanging out with Larissa. So your diabolical plan seems to be succeeding.” He gave her a sheepish smile and turned up the driveway toward the street, since there was plenty of ground to cover even on the main portion of the Bickford estate. “I do, however, have a really, really angry letter that I wrote to her right after she told me she was going up to Jannah with the other guy. So if you’d be willing to deliver that for me when you see her up there, I’d be grateful.”