Sea of Stars (Kricket #2)

by Amy A. Bartol

  Leaning my head back, I soak my hair, dampening it. Trey strips off his trousers and enters the spa behind me. He sits on the bench and draws my back to his chest, so I’m on his lap. I gaze up at the high ceiling, my head resting against his neck. The scent of him makes the blood run faster in my veins.

  Trey touches a few buttons on the panel beside us; a compartment lined with glass bottles emerges from a recessed portion of the tile. The bottles look like potions from some long-ago apothecary in different shapes and colors. He selects one of the stout, red bottles, unstopping it and pouring a small portion of it into the palm of his hand. After rubbing his palms together, he gently touches them to my hair, lathering it and working cinnamon-scented soap into each strand. When he’s finished, I twist so that I face him. I rinse my hair by leaning my head back into the water once more.

  Straightening, I gaze at him. Trey’s eyes wander over what he can see of me. I’m the dark secret that he can’t keep hidden—his crossed fingers—his hold-my-breath-to-keep-from-feeling. But I make him feel everything.

  He reaches his hand out; his thumb traces my lower lip. I take it in my mouth, sucking on the pad of his thumb gently. He in turn sucks in a harsh breath. Finding my waist, he pulls me to him. Settling me on his thighs, I straddle his lap. His hands explore my curves, running down my sides, skimming the outline of my breasts.

  Releasing his thumb from my mouth, I lean near him, reaching to take a honey-colored bottle from the ledge near his head. My breasts press against his chest with my cheek brushing the stiff hair on his face. He turns his mouth to kiss my neck. My eyelids flutter closed briefly, and I release a soft “Ahh.” I thread my fingers in his hair to hold him to me. His lips are heaven, making me want him more.

  Opening my eyes, I take the bottle from the shelf. I unstop it, inhaling its scent—sandalwood. I pour some of its syrupy body wash into my hand. Unhurriedly, I run my soapy hands over his hard shoulders and chest. I trace the path of his tribal tattoo as it winds over his ribs and downward. His eyes stalk me, taking in my every movement as he rests his shoulders against the side of the spa. Reaching out, Trey cups my breast, his rough hand sliding gently over it. The love letter he’s writing on my paper heart stutter-stops, and then riots within my chest with scribbling beats.

  He leans forward and captures me in his arms; the water sloshes over the side of the spa. His lips press to my breast. Something within me stretches taut: it winds and coils until it elicits a soft cry from my lips. My head falls forward while I wrap myself around him, a vine of soft skin and golden hair clinging to him.

  “Do you know what you mean to me, Kricket?” Trey asks in a raspy voice, looking up into my face. “You’re my every thought. If you don’t feel the same, you should stop this now—I won’t touch you again. But if you decide that you want this—us—once I have you, I won’t be able to give you up—you’ll have my soul.”

  His words make no sense to me: I could no more stop what’s happening between us than I could stop the wind from blustering in Chicago. You already have my soul, I think. It must be written all over my face as it is written all over my heart. “It scares me, how much I want you, Trey,” I admit against Trey’s lips.

  My words soothe him. “No matter what happens, Kricket, I’ll fight for you. Until death do us part . . . and then forever after that. I love you,” he says honestly. “Say you’ll be my consort.”

  “Yes,” I breathe out the word. “I promise I will. I love you. Now . . . finish what you started. Show me what it feels like to be yours.”

  Stealing oxygen while being tethered to the sky, that’s what it feels like to be loved by Trey. His mouth strokes me while I pull his hair, my lips cooing with bribes not to stop—never to stop. My pale skin turns the pink of a desert flower. I drown in fire. My paper heart is a folded, flaming phoenix. He shifts me against him, claiming my soul in exchange for his own . . .

  Trey emerges from the tub, leaving me to languish a bit longer while he retrieves a towel. He wraps it around his hips before selecting another one for me. He brings it back to the tub, extending his hand for me to take. I step out of the water onto the white carpet. Trey unfolds the towel, wrapping it around the back of me but leaving the front open. With the ends of the towel, he pulls me against him once more, capturing my lips with his own for a deep kiss that makes my knees weak. My hands rest against his chiseled abdomen, before slipping around him and hugging him tight. I never want to move; I want to stay like this forever.

  The silky sheet leaves my calf and thigh exposed. As I lie on my stomach, my head turns against a sumptuous pillow. I’m half asleep, having only just finished another round of lovemaking with Trey in the enormous bed. Every available inch of which has been covered by one of us at least twice. The sheet inches downward, slipping over my skin like water over a river rock. Firm lips press a soft kiss to one rounded cheek of my posterior. My lips curl in a satisfied smile as Trey straightens and rests his back against the propped pillows near the headboard. He pulls me to him so that my head rests on his chest. He toys with my hair, smoothing it and wrapping strands of it around his fingers.

  “Sleepy,” I say as though dead.

  “Am I keeping you awake? I just wanted to hold you.”

  “You should sleep,” I murmur.

  Trey grunts like I said something ludicrous. “You have no idea how long I’ve been dreaming of this moment, do you? I don’t plan to miss any of it to sleep.”

  “You’ve been dreaming about this?” My eyebrow arches.

  “When I said you’re my every thought, I meant it.”

  “When did you first begin dreaming about it?” I ask, warming to the subject.

  “After I first saw you. My daydreams of you were nightmares,” he says.

  “Do tell,” I say, all in for this conversation.

  “I didn’t intend to smack you on your bottom—when you were pretending to be unconscious in the limousine on Earth,” he admits.

  “Oh, no?” I asked him, suddenly not as tired as I was a second ago, feeling him caress my bottom now.

  “I’d been next to you for hours with your perfume filling my nose, your hair tangling around your body—and then there were the sounds you made right before you became conscious—”

  “The sounds I made?” My cheeks flood with color, trying to think of what sounds I could possibly make while I was unconscious.

  “Breathy sounds—just like the ones you made a second ago when I was—”

  “Got it.” I blush.

  He peeks down at my face. “Are you blushing?”

  “No!” I lie.

  “You are blushing.” Bending down, he lifts my chin up so that he can give my lips a quick kiss. When I rest my head back against his chest, he continues, “And then, when you sat up and you called me a chester, I thought for sure that you could read my mind, or that everything I was thinking was written all over my face.”

  “I had no idea you felt any attraction to me whatsoever,” I retort. “In fact, I thought you thought I was trash.”

  He sobers immediately. “How could you think that? I thought you were the most remarkable person I’d ever met—surviving like you had, all by yourself—and you managed to escape us on the train. That never happens. We don’t lose prisoners.”

  “Really?” I lift my face to see if he’s being serious.

  “Yes, really.” He leans down and kisses me again, sucking on my bottom lip with a sensual growl that makes me feel it everywhere. “You mean you couldn’t tell that I was infatuated with you by the fact that I was holding your hand at every opportunity?”

  “I thought you were making sure that I stayed with you.”

  “I didn’t know what I was doing; my hand just kept seeking yours out on its own. Then you took my hand when we saw the Alameeda ships—” He sucks in his breath like his heart is being squeezed. “You were afraid the sh
ips would see us. Do you remember?”

  “Yes.” I’m fascinated by what he’s saying. I trace my fingertips over his abdominal muscles and watch as they tense.

  Trey’s voice deepens. “You were wrapped in a blanket, but you held it to yourself so that your back was almost entirely bare. Your hair fell in waves down to here.” His hand moves now to caress the curving flesh below my back. “You were arguing with me about the direction we should take to avoid the Alameeda.”

  “I wasn’t arguing. That was me suggesting we go the other way so no one would get caught and tortured.”

  “You were inserting yourself into my heart was what you were doing. I never had dreams about anyone like the ones I’ve had about you. You are all I ever think about.”

  “I am?”

  “You and your stone heart.”

  “It’s a paper heart now, like I told you before, and your name is written all over it.”

  “I want it to be burned there permanently.”

  “You brought me to the end of the Earth—then you made me jump off it with you. I can safely say that you stole me and my heart.”

  “If it’s any consolation, you own mine,” he admits. “You should hear it beat when you’re near. My heart has a special rhythm for you.” He pulls me on top of him so that my hips straddle him. My hair runs over my shoulders and pools on his chest. His hand goes to my nape, pulling me down to meet the lust on his tongue.

  “Show me this rhythm,” I murmur against his mouth. When he demonstrates the rhythm with his body, I cry out his name as my heart beats as one with his.

  CHAPTER 11

  STOLEN MOMENTS

  What was that?” I ask, startling awake by the ground trembling.

  “It was nothing,” Trey murmurs next to me. His voice is deeper; he must’ve fallen asleep too. It’s no wonder; he hasn’t slept much since we’ve been here.

  “There’s something going on outside, Trey!” I hiss with alarm. “The ground is shaking.”

  I rise from the bed, wrapping the sheet around me, taking it with me. I pass the high-backed chairs in front of the massive window wall. The smoky glass swirls around inside the panes, obscuring my view of the courtyard outside.

  “How do you make this transparent?” I ask Trey over my shoulder.

  “You don’t want to see outside right now, Kricket,” he says softly from the bed.

  “Why not?” My alarm turns to deep-seated fear instantly. He doesn’t meet my eyes.

  “It’ll scare you. I don’t want you to worry. I’ll take care of you. We’re going to remain safe. There’s a plan in place to move from this position. We just have to wait a few more parts until it is feasible to do so.”

  “Is there a way to unsmoke the window so I can see what’s going on?”

  “Yes,” Trey says reluctantly, sounding irritated that he isn’t able to lie to me, “but I don’t want you to see what’s out there.”

  A part of me trusts him to know that I shouldn’t see it, but another part of me, the survivalist—the chameleon—has to know what’s happening—has to take it in—has to learn from it so that I can somehow avoid a similar fate in the future.

  “Please let me see what’s going on.”

  Trey climbs off the bed, his naked form a distraction from fear. He moves to the lavare, retrieving his clothes. When he returns, he has on black military-issue pants. He shrugs into a black shirt he normally wears under his combat gear. As he passes the closet, he ducks into it for a moment, coming out with a long, black robe. He brings it to me, holding it open.

  “Won’t the person who owns that robe mind if I wear it?” I ask casually, but there is nothing casual about my question. It makes my stomach tighten.

  “It’s Charisma’s and she wouldn’t mind—but it won’t matter anyway. She’s not coming back here,” he says grimly.

  I wonder at his response while he holds the robe open for me. I turn away from him and allow him to ease the robe around my shoulders as I step out of the sheet. It’s more like a gown than a robe. I fasten the thongs that hold it closed before tying the ribbonlike belt that wraps around my waist several times. When I’m done, I suspect that I look like a blond-haired geisha in it. The black silky fabric trails on the ground; the waist is stiff with an internal corset. The bell sleeves fall over my hands; only my fingertips are visible. Turning to the window, I weave a fishtail braid into my long hair, tying the end of it in a knot while I wait patiently for him to defog the glass. I worry my lip between my teeth, afraid of what I’ll see.

  Trey watches me for several moments, aware that I’m unrelenting in my need to see outside. He sighs heavily. “When I transition the window, Kricket, you’ll be able to view what’s out there, but nothing will be able to see in. Is that clear? You’ll remain obscured from the outside.”

  His words cause me some panic. I nod, feeling my hands tremble. Why did I allow myself to believe that we were okay here? I wonder. Am I naïve or am I stupid?

  Trey takes a deep breath before giving a voice command, “Quadrant four casement. No fenestration. Transparency one way only: interior to exterior.”

  The roiling smoke between the glass panes dissipates, showing the courtyard beyond. It’s dark outside; the stars are the only things I recognize. Rubble covers the once pristine grounds, bathing the topiaries in gray with a thick coating of rock dust. Fires rage in some of the buildings surrounding this one. Others that aren’t on fire light up sporadically with blue flashing lights. It looks like blue lightning strikes behind the glass of the tall buildings. I wonder about it until I realize that Alameeda laser fire glows blue.

  “They’re death squads—they execute civilians,” Trey says behind me, following my line of sight.

  “Wait. Civilians?” I ask, feeling like I might vomit.

  “Alameeda don’t take prisoners. It depletes their resources to keep them alive—so they don’t do it. But that’s not the only reason why they don’t. They hate our blood—our genes. They want to eradicate us.”

  War is raging—they’re killing more people. I take an involuntary step back from the window as a dark shadow blots out the stars; it’s a drone ship flying nearby. No bigger than a hovercycle, the Stealth-like drone flies through the wide, grassy streets that are now killing fields. Bone-white lights shine from the drone into the crawl spaces, alleys, and niches of the vacant street. Searching slowly, the evil unmanned bot passes over garbage and debris stirred up by its forced air; the rubbish skips past it in the wind like dead autumn leaves.

  Trey’s mouth is close to my ear, causing goose bumps to form on my arms when he says, “We did a controlled detonation of the top floors of this building when they were bombing the area, so that they won’t be tempted to land here.”

  “When did you do that?” I ask. “I never heard an explosion.”

  “Just after we arrived. You were hurt—Jax made sure you slept through it. I gave the order. Hollis executed the plan; he’s quite precise with explosives. The architecture was designed with a reinforced core. The debris slid to the sides of the building, allowing the core of the structure to remain intact.

  “How did you know it would do that?”

  “I designed Charisma’s building with defense in mind—the way I designed all my buildings. This one has layers of sensor jammers installed in its infrastructure. It won’t show heat signatures if it’s scanned from without—the drones will detect no signs of life. It’s soundproofed to a hundred and eighty xerts—that’s nearly the same in decibels—you’d lose hearing if anything were louder than that. The glass panes are equipped with hologram imaging. We’ve been projecting a desolate interior—broken windowpanes, looted and burned-out lobby, and uninhabited rooms. Right now, it looks like a shell from the outside. We only need to maintain this façade for a few more parts, until the Alameeda extract their death drones and attempt to take over the city.
When they mobilize, so do we.”

  “How?” I ask, trying to be an active participant in my own survival.

  “We have a few options available to us. We’ll choose the best course when the time comes.”

  “When were you going to tell me all this?”

  “When it was time to go.”

  “Why?”

  “You didn’t ask me your thousand questions—when we were in the lavare. You were different—fragile. Nothing I said then about this would’ve been to your advantage. I didn’t want you to be afraid.”

  “Fear is a good thing, especially in a situation like this.” Just as I say that, a drone enters the rubble-infested courtyard of the building. Sharp, white lights pass over the fountain feature in the center of the yard. The machine creeps stealthily over the terrain; it pauses on a topiary in the shape of a spix, scanning it with a grid of blue lights before it moves on, coming closer to where we’re standing behind the glass. My heart beats so hard that it hurts.

  “Wayra,” Trey says in a low voice, speaking into the com-link on his wrist communicator.

  “We see it,” Wayra’s voice responds immediately. “Do you want this one too?”

  “I want them all,” Trey responds with a hushed, hunterlike quality, “but we let this one go home. It’s too close to our position. We don’t want them tracking its last-known position and then coming here to investigate.”

  “It’s hard to let it go,” Wayra murmurs from wherever he is.

  “We don’t have to let it go unscathed,” Trey replies.

  “You got something special for this one?” Wayra asks.

  “I do. I’m sending it to you now.” He presses buttons on his watchlike communicator.

  “What’s this program called?” Wayra asks.

  Trey replies, “I think we should call this one whahappened.”

  Wayra gives a low laugh, “Is it as good as your someone-elsie virus? I truly enjoyed hacking the last drone’s navigation and taking over. It felt so right flying it down the throat of that death squad.”