RAWN

by Bonnie Burrows

  The most interesting part of it, which Joanna also played back, was the holorecording from the camera drone ship that had been sent out with the freighters into which loads of wreckage had been collected. In the playback, Joanna saw the freighters approach the mighty yellow-orange orb of Catalan and come to all-stop at a safe distance.

  She saw the vessels launch their carrier drones containing the pieces of Scodax craft and

  weaponry. A swarm of little ships came shooting out from the larger ones, all headed on a one-way trip into the corona of the star, where they would be safely vaporized. Any further

  explosions from the nodes that the debris contained would now happen where they would be like the popping of firecrackers in the outpouring of starlight that engulfed them.

  Joanna played that part of the recording over and over again. She watched those little ships taking off from the freighters and watched them speed away into the blazing face of the star. And as she did, she remembered the upheavals and the fires and the awful tearing asunder that happened in the spacedock, and how she nearly plunged to her death in the middle of them until he appeared out of nowhere, breathing fire of his own, and snatched her up and bore her away to safety. The cargo of those drones would never be a danger to Joanna or anyone else again. She watched them go like tiny moths into an immense flame and was happy to see it.

  It was all satisfying enough to watch, except that it inevitably reminded Joanna of the

  explosions of a very different sort that a certain Knight could be firing off inside her, and the blasts of ecstasy that he would make her feel.

  Her annoyance and frustration returned, as piercing and poignant as ever. Ending the

  recordings, she forced herself up from the desk and made for the kitchen to prepare dinner. Perhaps the pleasure of food would be enough to make her forget other pleasures she was missing.

  She wondered why she even bothered. Sitting in her little dining room, she found dinner was delicious, but spent half the time just picking at it. The roasted Lacertan waterfowl was

  succulent and tasted divine, but she could be helping herself to something even more succulent if she had only been a little less solicitous of her professional ethics. Rather than losing her

  frustrations, she only lost track of time ruminating over her meal. When she was finally done with dinner, she had another appetite still unquenched.

  _______________

  After leaving Joanna and flying back to his rooms at the Spires, Rawn was more restless than he could ever remember being in his life. He needed to do something to burn off the energy that he could be consuming in bed with her. The gymnasium was still not set up to accommodate him; the Spires technicians would have it ready soon, but had nothing for him yet.

  He walked the floors of his chambers, deliberately avoiding the bedroom, and inside him burned the dream of his bare skin against Joanna’s, the softness of her breasts, the firmness of her nipples, the slippery wetness of where he most wanted to go on her.

  If he continued to dwell on it and do nothing about it, he feared he would go spinning into the madness that he had escaped while he was lost so many light years from home. For want of going to bed with Joanna, what else could he do?

  He thought of all the messages and greetings and well-wishes he had gotten from all over Lacerta and all over Silverwing. This planet, this city, was full of women—and more than a few men who would be more than happy to let Rawn do to them what he offered to do to Joanna. With a few minutes on the Interconnect, he could be in touch with any number of beautiful and very willing partners. Within the hour, or perhaps less, he could be in bed on top of a lovely and admiring female, humping and ejaculating to his heart’s content.

  The only problem was that none of them would be Joanna Way. Why was it that a

  thousand other partners could not take the place of one who had proven unattainable?

  So what was left for him, then? He could go flying. He stopped his pacing and looked out one of the windows of his suite at the gathering sunset, the hues of pink and violet that it cast in the sky, the way it gilded the buildings of the city. He could morph to dragon, hurl himself into the air, and go chasing the Sun until he found morning again—a morning in which he would have liked to wake naked with Joanna beside him, waiting to be under him again. But he had about as much chance of catching Catalan as he had of slipping himself inside Joanna.

  “Bane and damn,” he muttered.

  Beyond the skyline of Silverwing lay the mountains whose dark green rim appeared to be swallowing the orange ball of Catalan. He could fly up into the mountains, perhaps, and spend the last of the waning daylight there. To work off the churning energy of his unspent libido,

  perhaps he could find some boulders to use as punching bags, using his strength that exceeded that of human or dragon to pound them into pebbles. Or perhaps, he might find some fallen tree trunks and chop them with his dragon hands into splinters and sawdust. That would certainly burn off a generous amount of energy. It would leave him spent and purged from the exertion.

  The trouble was that it would not leave Rawn purged in the way he most wanted to be.

  “Bane and damn!” Rawn muttered more loudly, almost shouting.

  Grunting and swearing, he tore off his armor skin and flung the metallic cloth garments about the room. This should be a simple thing. Rawn was accustomed to the two most

  important things in his life—battle and sex—being simple. Battle was the simplest thing of all: identify the enemy, find the enemy, engage the enemy, and conquer the enemy.

  Sex for Rawn had been only a little more complicated, but not much, since he joined the Knighthood. He approached a female or she approached him. They spoke, they smiled. They might laugh a bit. They flirted. If she happened to be a weredragon herself, they might take a flight together. But they finally, simply went to bed and enjoyed each other, and that was that. Sex was simple, as it should be.

  Except that with Joanna Way, for the first time since he donned the colors of a Knight, it was not. How could this human female sit beside him, wanting him as he wanted her, and not go to bed with him? Such a thing was not even a part of Rawn’s world.

  Standing alone in his suite, naked and erect with no place to put it, Rawn grunted his

  displeasure. He should just fly over to that guest house, face Joanna again, and this time…this time…

  He slumped his shoulders, dejected. This time, “nothing.” There would be no “this time.” To confront her in that way, to demand a place in her bed as if she was obliged to give it to him, would be conduct unbecoming a Knight. First and foremost, he was a Knight of Lacerta. He would not demand from Joanna or any female what she was not prepared to give freely.

  Given that he had made himself naked, Rawn decided to take himself to the bath for

  another soak and then program himself a large, hot meal. Food, he reasoned, would make him sleep. If he must sleep tonight lacking sex with Joanna Way, at least he ought to sleep on a full stomach. His head hung low, his erection half softened, he trudged off to the bath to have done with it all.

  Night had fallen and the city outside was lit up and looking like gold and diamonds when Rawn, having devoured a large meal of Cygnian steak with all the trimmings, dropped himself naked into bed and shut his eyes. If he could not mount and hump Joanna in reality, perhaps he would go to her, or she would come to him, in his dreams. A dragon could always hope.

  He drifted into and out of a furtive state of half-slumber, lying on one side and rolling onto the other and shifting onto his back, his not-quite-sleeping mind filled with Joanna and a thousand other things, memories of his life alone in space and his exploits as a Knight.

  Eventually, his half-conscious mind thought, sleep would claim him completely and give him a respite from unfulfilled desires.

  That was when he heard the trilling of his Interconnect.

  He thought, at first, it was part of some dream on the edge between waking
and sleep. Then, he heard it again. His eyes snapped open and he sat up on the bed. In the air, the

  identification system in the suite’s computer cast words in light into the dimness of his bedroom:

  INBOUND CALL FROM JOANNA WAY. ACCEPT OR DISMISS?

  His eyes widened. He spoke her name aloud: “Joanna?” His heartbeat spiking, he said to the suite’s computer, “Accept!”

  The hologram of Joanna blossomed like a flower of light before him. Rawn quickly

  added, “Scan face only!” For some reason he could not name, he did not want Joanna to see a full scan of him naked on the bed, nor did he want to do anything so prudish as to pull a pillow over his crotch. Just showing her his face would be enough.

  Her own face resolved before him, and he wondered whether she was as naked in bed as he was. He chased the thought away, suspecting he would need his wits about him in the next few minutes. Joanna’s voice came through the transmission: “Rawn?”

  “Yes, Joanna?” Rawn answered. “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine—sort of,” she said.

  “‘Sort of?’” This response made him curious.

  “I was trying to sleep,” she said. “I…couldn’t. I’m a little…distracted, I guess.”

  This made him more curious yet. What was she saying? Was she as “distracted” as he? Was she distracted for the same reason?

  “Did I wake you?” Joanna asked.

  “No,” said Rawn, only half-truthfully. “Not…exactly.”

  “Oh,” she simply replied.

  He ventured the question, “Did you call only because you wanted to talk more?”

  “I did want to talk, yes. But…not over the ‘connect. I wanted to ask if you wanted to…. That is, maybe you might like to…”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you maybe want to…come over?”

  Rawn stared at her, weighing the question and its possible meanings. The words hung in the air like the hologram itself. Somehow, he was not able to answer.

  “Oh,” she said again. “Well…maybe not. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  Now, he found his voice again: “You’re no bother, Joanna.” His hesitation was gone now. “Yes. Yes, I would like to…come over. I’ll be right there.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be here.”

  She broke the connection, and the hologram disappeared into pixels, leaving Rawn alone on the bed, but only for a second. With a new energy, he bounded up and went in search of the armor skin pieces he had flung off. He donned everything but his gauntlets and armbands and was out the door faster than the thrash of a dragon’s tail.

  _______________

  When he rang the chime and the guest house door slid open, Rawn found Joanna standing in the doorway clad in nothing but a thin, flowing robe that he dared to hope had nothing

  underneath it. That would save time for what he hoped was soon about to happen.

  Joanne let him into the living room and let the door slide shut behind him. They faced each other, a bit awkwardly. “Rawn,” she said.

  “Joanna,” he said back.

  “I’m glad you came over,” she said.

  “I’m glad you asked me,” he replied.

  They were still awkward, but now awkward and silent. Rawn broke the silence with, “Why did you ask me?”

  “Because…,” she began, then shut down and stopped.

  “Because…?” he answered, trying to get to what was on her mind. Or what he hoped was on her mind.

  “Because I kept thinking about what we talked about today.”

  “Were you thinking of what I asked you, what I told you that I wanted? Or were you thinking of your reasons for not letting it be?”

  Sighing, rolling her eyes up as if to ask for guidance from on high, she said helplessly, “I don’t know. Both, maybe.”

  “Joanna,” he said, “you asked me here at this hour. There must be a reason. Either you have more to say, or…” He left it at that, to give her an opening.

  “Or…,” she began, not knowing where to go next. Or knowing where to go next and still hesitating.

  Rawn frowned, his nostrils flaring. This impasse would go on forever, he feared, until one of them broke it. “Joanna, I offered you something today. And I asked you for something. And you said no. Then you asked me here. Did you ask me here because your answer has changed? If you did not, then why are we standing here now?”

  “Because I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she answered weakly.

  “Don’t think any more,” Rawn insisted. “It’s all thinking that’s brought us here now, standing here as if neither of us knows what we want, when we do. Joanna, I ask you simply: Do you want me?”

  At this question, this pointed, simple question, something broke inside Joanna. That was the way it felt, like something inside her snapping off, coming loose, falling away. In a voice that was almost a sob, she said, “Yes. Yes.”

  Words turned at once to action. Saying nothing more, they moved. They ran to each

  other and crashed together like ancient, giant rocks in a mythical ocean. Joanna threw her body into Rawn, and he threw his into hers, and his arms around her locked them together. They fused themselves into a kiss as if the press and slide of their lips would make them a single being.

  Rawn kissed her again and again, embracing her mouth with his, slipping his tongue against hers. Every new kiss seemed a little longer, felt a little more urgent. And the kisses gave way to something more. He parted kiss and embrace, and quickly undid the top of his armor skin, letting it tumble to the floor at their feet, exposing his incredible expanse of hairy pecs and grid of abdominals. He was half-naked now and reminded her of the day she saw him come out of the restorative tank, and Joanna knew there was something even more glorious yet to come. As if sensing the thought, Rawn reached out and took her in his arms again, crushing her against that magnificently hard, sculpted and haired chest.

  He put his lips to hers and, once again, made a dragon’s fire rise inside her with his kiss. But this time, he did still more. Uninhibited, filled with need, he put his hands to her bottom, covered as it was in the thin, silky-satiny robe, and with each of his big hands, he cupped and squeezed one of her cheeks. Joanna moaned into his kiss, feeling herself begin to be claimed by the conquering warrior.

  She felt it all the more, and moisture began to pool in her most sensitive place, at what he did next. He started to bunch and slide the fabric of the robe up her legs,

  rendering them bare—and putting her buttocks in full view. As he had hoped, she was wearing nothing under the robe, at least not below the waist, and he parted their kiss long enough to whisper roughly, “Yes…”

  “Yes…,” Joanna whispered back and gave herself into another kiss, encouraging Rawn to do whatever he liked with her. And he did. Holding the hem of her robe up to the small of her back with one hand, he grasped her bottom with the other and squeezed the soft roundness of it, making her feel as if she would turn to warm, soft putty in his arms. He let one kiss melt into another, and in the next moment, he did something even more wonderful.

  Now using the hand that had grasped her bottom to hold up the hem of her robe, he let the other hand slip under the robe to find the place where he most wanted to go. Joanna moaned into his kiss yet again, feeling his fingers brush and sift the dark bush at the junction of her legs, then slip under them to tease and test the buttery-soft, slick folds that were the entrance to his promised land.

  He felt how wet Joanna was, and how ready for him, with his fingers probing where he most desired to put another part of him. He parted their kiss again and, with another rough whisper, told her lustily, “I must have you now.”

  Rawn withdrew his hand from Joanna’s sex and made her almost gasp by sweeping her from the floor and into his arms. She raised a hand to his pecs and clutched and groped at them, pouring out her desire through the fingers that moved through the hair and over the thick, hard muscles of his godlike c
hest. She was a woman who had made her living with words, yet she found Rawn’s body too good for words. No language she knew could do justice to the male flesh that she was now touching.

  “The bedroom…where?” he half-asked, half-demanded.

  Joanna tilted her head, nodding behind him to a short hallway at the end of which a warm light glowed. He carried her there swiftly, and there he found the bed in which she had been

  lying sleeplessly, the sheets turned down and slightly rustled—not nearly so much as they soon would be, Rawn thought. He put Joanna down on the foot of the bed and, at once, went to work on the bottom of his armor skin and his boots, stripping off the boots and peeling down the

  leggings, showing her that he, like her, was wearing nothing underneath his garments. Showing her the full, manly splendor of his nakedness.

  She looked him up and down, feasted her eyes on the tall, dark tower of muscle that was Sir Rawn Ullery, the heroic and superbly muscled beauty of the proudest of the order of Knights of Lacerta. He belonged to a Knighthood but could well have been part of a godhood. And her eyes settled on what loomed toward her from under the wreath of hair between his legs.