by Mason, Jolie
The image of her as a young girl played through his memory. She’d been barefoot and wearing a long summer dress in the overwhelming heat of a withering drought season. He’d turned a corner and passed a dirty alleyway to find her bent under a dumpster trying to coax something out with a bowl of something. She’d been fifteen.
“Ari, you’re getting your dress dirty. What are you doing here? What did you lose?”
“It’s not mine. There’s a kitten under there, and he’s starving.”
He’d laughed and pointed to the deli sign above the alleyway entrance to a restaurant. “I doubt he’s starving.”
She’d stood up and stomped her foot; hands on her hips, frown on her face. She’d been such a young fifteen, so innocent and open. “He’s alone, Caden. That’s worse. Now, are you going to help me or just stand there?”
At the time, she spoke with the overconfidence of youth and a loving family who never gave up on each other. In Ari’s world, nothing and no one would ever be lonely. He’d known the world to be a much colder place in his own experience, until he’d found her.
Caden wondered if that’s when he’d really fallen in love with her, or if maybe he had known she would collect him the same way, then he wouldn’t be wandering the streets starving like the scrawny cat he pulled out of that tight space for her that day. That’s just what she’d done, too.
Caden felt her physically pulling away from him as he came back to the harshly lit public restroom. Ari had never been made to be alone. She was a familial creature, and she’d been separated from everyone and everything she loved for more than a decade. He pulled her back into his arms roughly.
“Stop it”, he said sharply. “Stop it. Ari, I’m here! You aren’t alone anymore. Please.”
Shock and sadness filled her eyes. She looked over his shoulder rather than deal with the reality of him. When did she ever run from reality? He thought. For the first time, he felt genuine fear that he wouldn’t get her back, not really. The specter of the past stood between them when she pulled away like this.
“Do you think I don’t know that I’m the worst thing that ever happened to you?” He forced her to see him by pinching her chin, dragging her gaze back. “Do you really believe I don’t feel it? Are you punishing me or are you punishing yourself for loving me?”
She floundered for something to say. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“He doesn’t hate you, and you didn’t ruin his life. You saved his life and your own. Will you ever trust me, Valah?”
Had she grown so used to standing on her own she’d forgotten how to trust people, or was it only him she didn’t trust?
His mouth sought hers, tasting salt on her lips as he teased them open softly with his own. Caden couldn’t process how badly he needed her to be all right, how badly he needed her. He felt it, but it was like seeing part of the ocean. You were always aware there was much more beyond the horizon, and it was dangerously treacherous with currents and massive waves ready to suck you under in a moment.
Her small hands uncurled and slid to his neck and into his hair. He deepened the kiss.
They were twined around each other so tightly they were scarcely aware of where they were, until a cough sounded behind them. He turned to see a nurse’s disapproving glare, until she caught sight of Ari’s swollen and tear stained face. Then, pity spread over her features.
Caden let out a short laugh before brushing Ari’s head with his lips. “Come on then, Valah.” To the nurse, he said, “Sorry”.
With a soft look for Ari, she shook her head and said, “Don’t worry”.
He held Ari close to his side as they made their way out of the hospital.
****#*****
While they waited for Jace to be released to go home, Ari and Caden had been aboard the Bell together. He slept in her cabin. He worked in her office. He brought her her coffee in the morning. Caden tried his best to win her, and he thought he might be losing. She was braced for impact.
She continued to hold something back from him, like she hoarded away some precious part of herself for later. He felt it in her touch, heard it in her voice.
He walked through the conference room hatchway where the coffee was already brewing. Caden padded shirt-less and barefooted across the soft carpet to the cabinet. Taking Ari’s cup from the top shelf as well as one for him, he started preparing coffee for both of them.
The hatch hissed open behind him, prompting him to turn and look. “Morning, Jack”, Caden grumbled.
“I hadn’t noticed, Carnes. You’re making yourself comfortable, I see.”
“Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”
“You tell me”, the man said. Caden blew out a breath because this had to come. There really was no way around this kind of unpleasantness. If Jack wanted a brawl, he would start one eventually, possibly in front of Ari or the crew. Might as well deal with it now when no one was around to hear.
He turned to face the man. “Go ahead, Smith. Let it out.”
That’s all it took. Jack, the ever-in-control paragon of self-discipline, marched forward and swung a beaut of a right hook right into Caden’s face. He nursed his jaw a moment. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”
“You self-important bastard, do you know what she’s been through? No? Well, I do! I’ve watched that woman put herself back together from the scraps you and your father left behind, and here you are again. How long will you be here this time? Just long enough to tear her apart and be on your way, I imagine.”
“No, Jack”, he answered. “I’m here. I’m not leaving as long as she’ll let me stay.” The two men stared one another in the eye, each calculating the other’s words.
“I believe you”, Jack said. “Damn it.”
Raw pain echoed in the last two words. Caden rubbed his jaw. “I know what it’s like you know.”
“What?”
“I know what it’s like to love her and lose her. She’s a hard woman to forget.”
Jack rubbed a hand over his brow as if he had a headache brewing. “All right. I admit it.”, he said. “It’s not exactly a well kept secret.”
Caden’s features tightened. “It’s not exactly been platonic, either.” It was a statement not a question. The other man puffed up again like he might hit him before he must have realized that jealousy ate at Caden as much as his own rode Jack.
“She didn’t tell you”, Jack said in reply. Also, not a question.
“She didn’t have to tell me.” He turned to grab sugar for her coffee. “I’m a businessman. Body language is most of communication, and I communicate for a living. It’s in your body language, hers and yours. When you’re together, it’s. . . intimate.” He stirred the coffee to keep from throwing his own punch. “Out of curiosity, when?”
“The last time? Like I’m gonna tell you.” Jack laughed, then looked at him closer. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Caden inhaled a long, steadying breath. “No need to be fucking specific. I just need to know how long it’s been.”
He thought he detected a look of pity in the other man’s eyes.
“More than a year since she called it off.” Jack blew out his own steadying breath. “It wasn’t my call. It was hers.”
“A year”, Caden said.
Jack sat at a table nearby and rubbed a large hand across his face. “I think you may actually be more twisted up than she is. Didn’t think that was possible.”
A slight smile tugged at the corners of Caden’s mouth as he leaned heavily on the counter top. He turned and grabbed the cups of coffee. “Easily” was all he said as he left the room to walk swiftly back to her cabin.
He waved at a passing crewman as he hit the button to enter Ari’s quarters. A year was a long time to be out of a relationship. His son was soon to be safe in medical, healing. Today was a good day to be him.
He walked through the door to see the woman he loved tangled in incandescent white sheets, stretched on her stomach with on
e long, smooth leg revealed in the dim shipboard lighting of an early standard morning. It was four in the morning, and they were still in dock. Yet his stomach dipped like they were in a spin up to FTL. Even after all the effort he’d gone to the night before to tangle those same sheets. He wanted to do it again.
Placing her coffee on the stand, he ran one of his darker hands over the pale skin of her outer thigh. His eyes followed as it traveled up under the sheet to the smooth curve of her backside and waist. She wasn’t perfect or flawless, he marveled. She was real, solid.
Any jealousy he’d felt moments earlier faded at the sight of his hand on her. The knowing feel of it whispered, ‘she’s yours’, even if she didn’t know it yet.
She floated up on her elbows breathing in a deep breath, “Oh, thank god. Coffee.”
He chuckled as she reached for the cup exposing her back and the soft curves of her breast. His hand moved higher to touch the soft skin, transfixed. She stacked pillows higher to lean back on them tiredly before embracing the cup more lovingly than she did him. She moaned vaguely as her throat worked the hot liquid to her stomach.
“Would you and your coffee like to be alone?” He moved closer. She hadn’t pulled the sheet over her torso very thoroughly. His fingers traced over the top of her breast to her shoulder. She relaxed into his touch as she sipped.
“We’re alone with you already. I love how you do that.”
Meeting her eyes, he asked, “Do what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s how you touch me.”
He ran a long finger over her breast to tease one nipple. “Like this?”, he asked.
”Hmm,” she hummed. “It’s been a long twelve years. It’s never been like this.”
Caden caught her hair from beneath and turned her head to bury his lips in her skin. He grazed her neck with his teeth. “We don’t have a lot of time”, he whispered.
“We have all the time you’re gonna need.” She teased him. “Call me Valah.”
“Bossy”, he said. Then he leaned in to taste the skin of her collar bone with his tongue. “Valah”.
“What do I call you? Valah?” He adjusted to take her breast in his mouth distracting her with his tongue. “Hmm.”
“It’s not masculine or feminine”, he said against her skin.
“Valah, it is then.”
He began tugging her pliant body down into the tangled sheets. He pressed her deeply into the mattress with his full weight, and took her mouth in a scalding tangle of warm tongues and teeth. He wanted to lose himself in her again. He’d never stop needing this.
Caden aligned their bodies, his hard parts to her soft, welcoming ones, and pulled her knee around his hip before plunging forward into her. His forehead to hers, he breathed in harshly. “Wet. Valah, so wet. So soft.”
She moaned, pressing up with her hips forcing him farther into her warm channel. He returned to her lips for more of whatever it was she did with her mouth that made him forget everything. When she responded to his kiss, he lost track. Things got hazier. He broke down to his most animal self. Worse, she knew just what her kiss did to him. She would laugh into his mouth wickedly, swirling her tongue artfully across his teeth and change her tempo. Her mouth seduced him.
When she got him completely at her mercy, she’d start talking, just like she was doing now. “Come on”, she whispered. “What’s keeping you?”
He slammed himself home in her twice, three times, mindless in his need. She purred satisfaction and strained her hips over his. His mind caught on the sound she made in the back of her throat. She’d made it a lot last night. Images of the night before flitted through his head making him even harder.
Her hands on his shoulders pushed him onto his back. “You’re too slow. We’re on the clock here.” Her nails dug into his chest as she slid up and down on his body reducing his world to total sensation. He gripped her ample bottom in both hands and squeezed. Ari grabbed the solid block headboard above him, He adjusted himself so she didn’t have to reach so far, and then the snap and glide of her hips as she took what she wanted literally paused his thoughts. There was nothing but her.
He watched her. Her skin grew pinker and she bit her lower lip and closed her eyes with each long stroke down his cock. “God, Ari”, he sighed. She curled her body around his on a particularly tight pass. She rode him like she owned him. Caden started counting to control the orgasm. He had to hold off a bit. She couldn’t last much longer.
His hands traced her body, her nipples, until he pinched each one firmly. She bucked, missing her stride, and cried out in pleasure. He did it one more time, as her hips began to snap faster over him. He breathed deeply and thrust himself higher into her. She shuddered beautifully and then came on him in a gush of warm, slick heat. Her sexy moan reached a peak just as he felt her lock down on him and sigh. Waves of sensation heated his blood as she came on him.
He wasn’t ready for it to be over. He growled, then flipped her over to her back. “You can be late. You’re the captain.”
Caden moved her like a rag doll, a limp satisfied rag doll. He got to his knees and wrapped her legs around his back as he watched his cock glide back home in her sweet, pinkened folds. He hooked her body at her hips, and gave his own teasing thrust slowly, in and out. Her breathing quickened again, as he aimed for that sweet spot that made her so crazy. “Mmmmm. Not again”, she begged.
“Again”, he insisted. He used her hips to lever her up and down on his arousal, teasing them both. Then, Caden set a pace of hard thrusts, using her body the way she’d used his. In a way that got them both what they wanted.
His mind kept repeating, more, more time, but his body wouldn’t cooperate with that wish. He felt the boiling need rise as he pounded powerfully into Ari, making her body shake. Her hands fisted in the already destroyed bed sheets, as she kept arching up into him, prodding him to go faster, harder, begging him to end it.
When she finally came again, he grabbed her tight and came slow and hard, deep in the woman he loved. His whole universe narrowed to this moment with this woman. He couldn’t think about anything else.
They lay there breathing in and out, boneless for what felt like hours. He’d managed to fall to his side curled around her protectively. She stretched like a cat in the sun, enjoying the relaxation that followed. Then, she did something that had the potential to break his heart. He couldn’t lie to himself. He’d seen something coming. Maybe not this.
Smiling brightly, she extracted herself from him, and stretched languidly above the bed. “Time for work. You want a shower? No?”
As she walked cheerily away, he watched her swaying backside in wonder as he lay there, first, he thought, How is she walking? Then he wondered, how in the hell she was walking away with no affection, no intimacy, just time for work. She'd been putting up this wall for several days. Looked like it was finally about to come crashing down on Caden's head. He let his head fall back onto the mattress limply. Disappointment seeping into every pleasure he'd just experienced. Was he about to find out he didn't fit into Ari's collection any better than Smith had? He rubbed a hand down his face. He hoped he was being paranoid.
*****#*****
Chapter Nine
Midday heat had Taarken firmly in its grip as the Carry Bell docked. They had a medical transport coming to get Jace and take him to the new house that had been prepared for the whole Badu clan.
She’d listened to Caden’s plans all the way back to Prime. While she’d given Jace the distance he needed, she’d caught up on her own plans and paperwork. The Bell had a few things to catch up on as well. The crew accounts were lighter for having missed work during the crisis, which meant that pay came out of Ari’s share.
Ari watched from the peaceful upper deck as they pushed Jace noisily out of the bay door and parted the crowd of crew and staff gathered at the ambulance. Dust swirled on the street as a warm breeze blustered through the dock. The perfect blonde hair of one of Caden’s comp
any minions shone in the glare of the sunlight. She was stylish and poised, dressed in a sexy jacket and boots perfect for either the board room or dusty, messy dock of Taarken Prime. Ari realized that was the kind of woman he was used to; the paragons of womanhood.
Caden issued orders and spoke to individuals in the large group of people, including Kent Abernathy who he clapped once on the shoulder before the bodyguard took charge and hurried them all into the transport. The crew broke up and filled the gangway of the Bell, bringing their excited chatter with them.
She could admit to herself she had some insecurity going on here, but there wasn’t a damn thing to do about it. Caden was still Caden. That hadn’t changed. She’d always be the poor girl straight off the docks, and Jace had a family. Ari really didn’t want to hurt anyone. She just didn’t belong here.
She watched as Caden waved at the departing transport and, beaming, made his way back on board. She braced for impact because this was going to be a huge crash. He had to be so damn happy. For now, he was happy. Wait a few years with Ari, he’d be singing a different tune when she didn’t fit in with his friends. What if she wanted to go back to space for a while? Would he be angry, lost, annoyed? These thoughts had twirled around in her mind for days like that dust down there on the street, swirling around till she was nearly mad with it.
Ari clutched white knuckled fingers around the industrial railing she leaned on.
Even as she made them, she knew they were excuses. She walked slowly down the spiraled stairs in no hurry to talk. Having Caden in her life had turned out to be as painful at times as it was exciting, joyful, passionate. She looked at him intently.
He smiled as he climbed the ramp toward her. Crew rushed around them to prepare the hold for the next load of ore outgoing from Carnes Industries. She leaned on the back wall out of the traffic, until he stood before her.
