“Do you know how these engines work?” she asked him.
“Please stop trying to change the subject,” Erik begged.
“For some reason, I don’t remember them bringing up antique starship engines when I went to school,” Jewel said. “Do you know anything about these?” Of course, the information was almost certainly locked away somewhere in her bioware but that really wasn’t an option.
“Jewel!” Erik snapped.
She turned around to face him, reluctantly deciding she was going to have to deal with him. Why the older man had to be more immature than she was, Jewel couldn’t fathom. “Look, Erik, you’re probably a basically good guy and I think we both know I’m attracted to you, but my life is very complicated. I hadn’t intended to have an affair on this ship, and I’m frankly insulted that you didn’t warn me about Ana before we got started. I guess you should know now that I’m definitely not signing up for another tour with the Euripides. If you want to go back to Ana or Captain Kiara, I’ll understand.”
“Go back to Ana?” Erik repeated. His face scrunched up as if he actually hadn’t considered that possibility. “Whatever put that crazy idea into your head?”
“I don’t care one way or the other,” Jewel lied. “I’m just saying that we’re both adults and I’ll understand.”
Erik tried to cup Jewel’s chin, but she stopped him with a hand on his wrist. Frustrated, Erik pulled out of her grip and shook his finger in her face. “Stars, Jewel, what are you running away from?”
In a moment of prescient insight, he had put his finger directly on the central issue in Jewel’s life and she didn’t know how to evade the question. “I’m not running,” she lied. “I just want to see the universe. What’s wrong with that?”
Erik’s eyes widened with surprise and Jewel realized too late that he had been talking about running from him—not running from her parents.
Erik took a step back as he pondered the implications of her statement, then he squared his shoulders and stepped toward her again. “I don’t know what you’re running from,” he told her, “but you don’t have to do it alone. I can help you. I’ve been on the Fringe my whole adult life. I know how to survive here and I know how to disappear.” He took hold of her by both shoulders. “I love you. Nothing is holding me on this ship. We can run together…if you want to.”
Jewel couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. It had never, ever, occurred to her that someone might care enough to go into hiding with her. “Together?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Erik said, “but I don’t have a home world anymore. My home is with the people I care about. And right now, the only one I care about is you.”
“Erik, you don’t understand. You don’t want to run with me. You don’t want to get caught with me.” Her babbling mortified her, but her brain couldn’t make her mouth stop moving. “You don’t understand.”
Erik slipped his arms down around Jewel’s waist. The bulky coat was still a problem but it didn’t bother her as much as the first time they had hugged.
“I’ve seen trouble before,” Erik assured her. “And I think I proved twenty years ago that I’m pretty good at running away.”
“Oh, Erik,” Jewel whispered. Her concern shifted from herself to him. In a heartbeat her fear and panic disappeared, replaced by compassion and tenderness for the man in front of her. “Is that what you think you did? You didn’t run away. You survived. You fought with all your heart and soul and you survived. There’s absolutely no shame in that. You said it yourself. The Armenites defeated you without ever coming within range of your weapons. They’re the cowards. Not you. Never you!”
Erik kissed her. For a few beautiful moments, his lips tenderly pressed against hers and she stretched up on her toes to kiss him back. His tongue gently entered her mouth and sought for hers. She responded by pressing her body against him, greedily breathing in his air, hungrily pulling him more tightly against her as she desperately thrust her tongue against his.
The gloves on her hands irritated her, so she shucked them off and dropped them to the floor. Erik’s coat was even more annoying, but she knew how to take care of that, pulling open the fastenings and pushing it off his shoulders. His hands on her coat were more tentative so she helped him, roughly pulling it open and guiding his strong fingers to her breasts where they belonged.
Unlike in their previous lovemaking, Erik remained slow to take the initiative, so Jewel continued to lead the way. She opened up his shirt and ran her fingers over his hard chest. She undid his heavy winter pants and the uniform trousers underneath, filling her hands with his penis, warming the cold flesh, trying to make it grow hard as it had been in the shower and when he took her on the crate. When it didn’t happen fast enough for her, she sank down onto her knees and prepared to swallow Erik’s dick for the very first time.
Half flaccid, Erik’s cock was not as intimidating as it had been fully erect. Jewel curled her fingers around it so that the head peeked out at her. She licked the top of it with the tip of her tongue then did it again, caught between a burning curiosity to explore this mysterious piece of male anatomy and a desperation in her heart that drove her to make it long and stiff as rapidly as possible. She needed to climb up Erik’s body and impale herself on it. She wanted to bind Erik to her through the flesh and through the heart. She wanted to envision the two of them running across the galaxy together, staying far ahead of her parents and their agents and any Armenites who might trouble themselves to try to snare them back again. She needed Erik hard and powerful and in control, guiding her into the new life they were going to create together. She wanted to spend her life with someone who would share with her, treasure her, love her—not a man looking to fulfill a commercial contract.
She licked him again, using the flat of her tongue this time. He had a slightly salty taste and his penis stirred encouragingly in her grip. It pushed out of the cover of her fingers to stand straighter for her inspection despite the frigid air surrounding them. He was large enough now for Jewel to hold him in her hand and still engulf him with her mouth. She embraced the head of his lengthening dick with her lips and sucked gently while her tongue tasted every bit of the smooth surface, swirling around the sensitive tip of his cock so that her lover groaned and hardened further.
She tightened her fingers around him as his girth broadened. She dripped saliva down his shaft to lubricate her hand and began to bob her head up and down, simulating the friction his dick would feel when it entered her vagina.
Erik groaned loudly, the sound echoing hollowly in the cold chamber. No longer content to passively accept her love, he began to run his hands tenderly through her hair, pulling the long strands back from her cheeks while she continued to move up and down on his thick erection with ever-greater confidence. Her fingers caught the rhythm of her mouth, rubbing against the veins in his dick where they stood out proudly on the sides of his shaft like cords of steel wrapped around an iron bar. The head of his cock became so thick and broad that she had trouble keeping him in her mouth. Puffs of mist preceded each ragged gasp of breath. His fingers burned against her cheeks. His cock swelled inside of her.
“Oh, Jewel,” he whispered. “That’s it, that’s it, I’m going to come.”
Jewel stopped bobbing and pulled off Erik’s cock. She didn’t want him to come yet. She wanted him to do that inside her—deep in her pussy where he belonged—not here in her mouth.
She stood up, pulled her shirt off and flung her bra after it. She thrust her winter pants and trousers down about her calves. No mental slouch, Erik quickly figured out what she was doing and lay back on the cold floor, his long cock in his hands pointing up to the ceiling like a flag pole. She started to clamber on top of him, but the pants around her ankles were such a hindrance that she had to pause and kick off her shoes so she could finish removing them. Then she straddled her man, took his cock from him and guided the head to the hot lips of her pussy. Her cold nipples pointed straight out a
head of her as she eased herself down and brought her lover’s dick inside of her.
Erik was big, but she’d taken him before and knew she could again. She caught her breath and eased him past her lips. Her thighs burned with the strain of controlling her descent, but she did her best to ignore that pain and focus on the sensation of Erik filling her.
She gasped for breath when the thick rim of his cock finally passed inside of her, then closed her eyes and began to move up and down on him. His hands found her hips and ass, guiding her, encouraging her, even as he clearly restrained himself from thrusting his cock up deep inside her. Instead he let Jewel take her time, finding her rhythm as she began to move up and down on his long, stiff cock.
When the burning in her thighs became too great, Jewel slipped down onto her knees, backing onto Erik’s thick erection so that his cock slid all the way inside her. She wiggled her hips a little so that he stirred around inside her, then eased forward again, stopping just before his long dick popped out of her body.
She did it again, gasping for breath—the frigid air chilled her throat before turning inferno hot in her lungs.
Erik began to pump in complement to her rhythm, his strong fingers encouraging her to slowly increase the pace of their lovemaking. His mouth nipped at her nipple, making her breast tingle. “I love you, Jewel,” he whispered.
They were words she’d longed all her life to hear.
She squeezed his dick inside her as she sat back on his cock and Erik shuddered beneath her.
“I don’t know…how long…I can hold out,” he muttered.
She squeezed him tighter, the pressure transmitting some of his excitement up through her body so that she began to shake with her own intense need.
“Want you…to come with me,” Erik panted.
Jewel wanted that too, but she wasn’t quite ready. She knew she could get there with him if he could just hold on a little longer.
“Can’t…wait,” Erik groaned. “Touch…yourself.”
Tentatively, Jewel did as she was told, reaching between their sweaty bodies to touch her swollen clitoris. The cold of the spaceship chilled her knees but the heat of Erik’s dick inside her kept her warm and excited.
She pressed the swollen nub of flesh and almost collapsed on top of her lover—the shudder that racked her body was that intense, that encompassing.
“I felt that,” Eric panted. “Do it…again.” His last word twisted in the pain of holding in his ejaculation.
Jewel rubbed her fingers so hard on her clit that she could feel Erik’s cock moving deep inside her through the flesh of her pussy.
He gasped, still struggling to contain his climax. “Oh, Stars, Jewel. Oh…”
A tremendous groan erupted from deep inside Erik and his cock spit liquid fire into Jewel’s womb. His mouth found her breast and clamped down, half sucking and half biting as he shuddered through his orgasm.
Startled by the feel of Erik’s teeth, Jewel lurched back away from him. Her tit popped out of his mouth but her body couldn’t pull back any farther. She was impaled on his hard cock and her movement shoved it all the way up inside of her, her own weight pressing Erik’s erection as deep as it was possible for it to go. His rigid flesh rubbed against the G-spot beneath Jewel’s clitoris just as she pressed that swollen nub of flesh again. Suddenly she was screaming her own crescendo as wave after wave of pleasure exploded through her body.
Erik continued to thrust into her, bouncing Jewel about on top of him. Her breasts waved from side to side as she struggled to retain her balance. He got both hands on her hips to steady her and thrust and thrust until his cock finally stopped spitting and he began to lose his erection.
He pulled Jewel into his arms and held her close against him until her own climaxes ebbed and she drifted off to sleep in the comfort of his arms.
* * * * *
“Mr. Gunnarson, can you hear me?” Everson’s tired voice reached through the com unit and emerged in the engine room of the Genesis.
Erik groaned and rolled away from Jewel’s naked body. He reached for his pants. The sudden loss of heat set Jewel shivering.
“Where’s the damn com unit?” he muttered as he finally succeeded in hooking his pants with one finger so he could grasp the instrument attached to his belt with the other hand.
Jewel reached for her clothes as well. If she’d felt a little unhygienic before, now she had a lot more to complain about. Strangely she didn’t feel like grouching now. Weirdly enough she felt disturbingly happy and warm in her heart despite the overwhelming cold chilling her body.
“Gunnarson here, Everson. What can I do for you?”
The voice at the other end of the com-link changed to that of Captain Kiara. “I want a status report, Mr. Exec. How much progress have you made?”
Erik glanced over at Jewel and arched an eyebrow. She almost burst out laughing.
“Mr. Exec?” the captain repeated when his answer was not immediately forthcoming.
“We’re in the engine room,” Erik answered without any of the humor in his face revealing itself in his voice. “There’s equipment here we might take if we have room and time.” As he spoke, he padded around the room in his socks, his feet protected from most of the cold embedded in the floor by the polymers in the fabric. He stopped and tapped a gauge as if surprised by something he saw, then waved at Jewel to come join him. “But the really interesting thing is the fuel supply,” he said, tapping the gauge again.
Jewel padded over beside him, trying to untangle her bra. It was damn cold in the engine room and it was hard to do anything but concentrate on getting dressed again, but despite the way she’d recently taken leave of her senses, she was determined to be professional and that gave her the steel courage needed to brave the icy temperatures.
“I’m waiting!” Captain Kiara reminded him.
“Well it seems that the Genesis has essentially full fuel tanks,” Erik told her, “Ninety-seven percent full, to be exact.”
“Full of in-system propellant?” the captain asked. They suddenly had her full attention.
“There wasn’t a distinction on the old colonizers,” Erik explained. “But as to your real point, no, it’s not the same mixture that the Euripides uses. We could burn it if we had to, but it would be hard on our engines.”
“There better be another but coming,” the captain warned him.
“But,” Erik added, “there are a lot of the older style in-system craft along the Fringe. This fuel is marketable. I just wonder why my countrymen topped off the tanks like this. I mean, presuming that they are the ones who did it, of course.”
Unsurprisingly the captain showed absolutely no interest in the motivations of the former owners of the vessel. “Ms. Aurora, do you agree that this fuel mixture is marketable?” she asked.
Jewel might not understand a lot about engine theory but she was a Cartelite. She’d studied the markets on the Fringe in preparation for her flight and she knew the relative value of their find. “Oh, yes, Captain. This will be better than cash in a lot of places, and maybe even more useful to them then armenium. And the best thing for us is that it doesn’t take up space that we could use for anything else. You’ll have to check with Ana Yang, but our reserves should be low enough that we can shift what remains around to free up tanks from the Genesis reserve.”
“And you think there’s enough fuel to fill us to capacity?” the captain asked.
Erik nodded to Jewel but spoke to the captain. “Yes, Ma’am. Half of this ship is probably fuel tank. We could seal off the Euripides’ reserve tanks and fill them without making a significant dent in the Genesis’ reserves. We’ll have plenty to sell.”
Captain Kiara sounded genuinely happy. “Very good, then. I’ll get Ms. Yang working on this from our end right away. In the meantime, Mr. Peron has discovered something interesting bouncing sensor beams off the hull of the Genesis. He’s been comparing his findings with the schematics in Carter’s collection and it appears that some
one has done some remodeling on board the Genesis. They’ve taken out most of the passenger accommodations—both sleeping capsule berths and passenger cabins—fortified the walls and made other structural alterations. I want to find out why and if there’s something in that section of the ship we can salvage. It must have been important to them. Why else would they waste time remodeling an antique sub-light ship?”
“Will do,” Erik confirmed their orders. “We’ll contact you as soon as we figure out what they’ve done.”
“See that you do, Mr. Exec,” the captain said. “I don’t have a lot of patience for members of my crew who fool around.”
Jewel disconnected the call and reached for her clothes. “You know I’m getting tired of people making allusions to my sex life over the com-link.”
Erik laughed and joined her in getting dressed for the third time in about two hours. Then they made their way to the passenger compartment, using the schematics Jester had provided them.
The doors to the remodeled area were large enough to accommodate a tractor-sized cargo-loader—two of which they’d found parked in the loading bay whose entrance faced away from Brynhild Station. Clearly the Ymirians had anticipated moving large amounts of bulky cargo into the colonizer, which was actually a fairly cheap way of transporting the goods if you didn’t mind a few years passing between placing the order and making the delivery.
The area on the far side of the bay doors had been significantly redesigned. Walls had been broken down to make room for the tractors. Carpeting had been torn up and the floors reinforced to handle much more substantial mass than the original design provided for. The new walls also gave the impression of great strength—so much so that the image of a bank vault flashed through Jewel’s mind.
“It reminds me of a prison,” Erik said. “This is damn strange.”
Jewel knew why she had thought of banks—in her childhood she’d had a significant amount of experience with them. But why, she wondered, had Erik’s first thought been of prisons?
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