Falling Into the Black

by Caitlin Ricci

  Without a word, he slowly lowered himself over my cock, and I wished I could take his hand or do something to ease his obvious worry. I thought he should be smiling, but he wasn’t. He looked scared and miserable. I hated that.

  “You look like you’re hating this.”

  That got a small smile out of him. “I’m really not. It just would have been nice if we’d talked more. Or if we’d kissed before now or something. I was always so worried when I was around you.”

  “With good reason,” I reminded him. He’d had every reason to be afraid of me finding out his secrets. “If you need some lube, I’m sure Monroe has some stashed in this room somewhere. Every room seems to have a decent supply.”

  But Arin shook his head. “It’s okay actually.”

  I tried not to think about what he was actually implying with what he’d said, but it was hard not to think about it. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I was stupid.”

  Arin shrugged and sank the rest of the way over my cock until he was sitting on my lap. “I understand why you did it, though. You thought you were doing the right thing by bringing a ruthless criminal runaway slave back to justice to serve out his term with his evil master. You were practically a hero.”

  He was mocking me, even in his pain. I wanted to hug him so badly. He looked away from me as he began sliding himself over my cock. I knew how well he could fake his moans, so when he started making noises, I looked to his dick. He was barely hard.

  I shook my head. “Arin, stop. It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend to like this.”

  He stopped moving and frowned at me. “Why do you think I don’t like having sex with you?”

  I would have thought the answer would have been obvious. “Because you’re not hard….”

  He looked down at himself, then back at me. And then, ridiculously, he shrugged. I sighed. “I don’t get hard,” he explained.

  I had no idea what he was getting at. “Have you always had sex like this? Has anyone ever gone down on you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Can I? I’d have to touch you, and you’d have to get off of me for it to work.”

  He hesitated, but after a few seconds, he did lay down beside me. He crossed his hands over his stomach and looked over at me like he was waiting for me to start. I just smiled at him and started kissing him instead. He was hesitant under my mouth, and I knew he was nervous. I walked my fingers down his chest and over his arms. I played with his nipples, and I tickled his ribs until he was laughing against my mouth and squirming to get away from me.

  Only when I was sure that he was relaxed did I move my hand to his thigh. He opened his legs for me easily, which was nice of him, but the second I got near his cock, he clamped his legs shut again. I wiggled my hand free, then tried again.

  “Easy,” I whispered against his lips. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He stopped kissing me when I touched him there again. I cupped his balls and held them for a bit before I moved on to the base of his cock. I was gentle, and I went slowly, but I could still tell he wasn’t great with being touched there. Surely someone must have touched him before me, and I wondered how he was able to hide his obvious apprehension from them. Perhaps they just didn’t care as long as they got what they wanted from him. That thought made me simultaneously angry and sad for him.

  I stroked him as I tried to get him to relax against me. When he was no longer so tense, I moved my mouth to his throat, then his sternum, and down to his belly button. He had his eyes closed when I took the head of his cock into my mouth.

  I sucked him slowly, ready for him to tell me to stop and to get off of him, but that never happened. He whimpered and trembled seconds before he came into my mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled as he turned onto his side the second I let him go.

  “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” I licked my lips clean, then lay down behind him on the bed. I was harder than ever now, but I only held him gently as we lay there together. He had to be able to feel my cock against him, though.

  “Can we try again?” he quietly asked me.

  “Do you really want to?”

  Surprisingly he nodded, and I lay back, expecting him to change his mind as soon as he saw how hard I was, but he didn’t. He only settled himself back over me again and took me as far as he could, just like last time. But unlike before, he met my gaze while he rode me. I didn’t touch him, and I didn’t tell him what to do. I only watched him, and every time he looked up at me, I smiled at him.

  It wasn’t the most intense sex that I’d ever had, but it was one of the best times I’d ever had as Arin sat there gaining his confidence as he rode me. It was as if I was watching years of horrors and abuse fall away from him as he took his time and enjoyed me. He smiled more toward the end when I couldn’t hold myself back anymore.

  “I’m almost there,” I warned him.

  He nodded, but he didn’t get off of me. I took that as permission to come whenever I was able to and he would accept what was going to happen. It didn’t take long for my orgasm to rush over me, but I managed not to touch him even then. He had told me not to, so I didn’t.

  I lay there panting under him with my come sliding down his thighs as he moved off of me. He lay down beside me, and I looked over at him. “Are you okay?”

  “I am. That felt almost normal again. Thank you for that.”

  I smiled at him. “You’re welcome.”

  “Resan, whatever happens now, it’s not your fault.”

  “Shh, don’t talk like that. We’ll get through this. You’ll see.”

  He didn’t say anything to me after that, and soon I drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Resan

  I AWOKE to the sounds of someone yelling. It took me a moment to figure out that it wasn’t just one person yelling. It was actually three. And one of them was Arin. He was bound, naked, on the floor between two peacekeepers, who stood there with their neutralizers trained on him.

  “What do you think you’re doing? I’m a peacekeeper. Let him go!” I shouted at them both as I hurriedly pulled on a pair of pants and went to get my holoscreen, which had my credentials on it.

  They quickly read over my license before looking at me again. “Taking in a murderer. What were you doing with him, peacekeeper?”

  “He didn’t know what I’d done,” Arin protested from the floor. “Resan doesn’t know anything.”

  The taller of the peacekeepers lifted his eyebrows at me. “A murderer and runaway slave who is willing to give his life for a peacekeeper. That is interesting. We’ll take you in too. Clearly you know something.”

  I darted over to my neutralizer and trained it on him. “Let Arin go.”

  The taller man laughed. The shorter just shook his head. “There’s no chance of that. You’ll both be sent to the prison planet now. There’s nothing else for it. You’re both obviously guilty of the charge.”

  I shot him and hit him square in the chest, but not before the shorter of the peacekeepers shot Arin. I’d neutralized my target. The peacekeeper hadn’t been so merciful. As blood seeped from the wound in Arin’s back, I adjusted my neutralizer and, unthinking, I shot the two peacekeepers. They fell instantly, and I wasn’t sorry that I had killed them either.

  I rushed over to where Arin lay, and I cut him free. He was breathing, but just barely. I remembered shouting for help and having Thierry of all people rush into the room. Monroe was with him, and they lifted Arin into Monroe’s arms. They spoke, but I didn’t hear any of it. I only heard the rush of my own blood through my ears as I stared down at the place where Arin had lain only moments before.

  SOMETIME LATER Em came into the room. Corbin wasn’t with him, but I knew he couldn’t have been far behind either. He touched my shoulder. “I need your help to get them out of here. The official word is that Arin killed them while trying to escape. That’s all anyone ever needs to know.”

  “How is he?”

/>   Em shook his head, and I knew that Arin was gone. I saw nothing as I stood up and began to help him take the two bodies out of the room. “Do you want me to stay with you?” he offered once I went back to the room.

  I shook my head. “I’d rather be alone right now.”

  “I’ll check on you later.” He touched my shoulder again, then left me alone. I spent the next hour scrubbing the blood out of the carpet until I was sure that even Monroe would have thought that it was clean again.

  A hot shower came next, but the spray reminded me of how Arin had yelped under the hot water. I went back to my rooms and lay down on the bed with a pile of chocolates as I tried not to think about him and how I’d failed to protect him, first from Bowman, and then from the peacekeepers who had finally found him.

  CORBIN EVENTUALLY brought me a tray of tea and cookies. He set them down on a nightstand nearby, then sat down on the bed beside me. “You’re making a mess with all of these chocolate wrappers. It’s unlike you.”

  “Does Monroe have services set up for him yet?”

  Sighing, Corbin nodded. “He does. He’s to be cremated here on Wish and then spread into the lake. He loved the lake.”

  Everyone loved the lake. It was too beautiful and clear not to enjoy being in it. “I failed him.”

  “We all did.”

  Corbin was wrong. It was only me who had.

  ARIN’S FUNERAL was two days later. People spoke, but I didn’t listen. I only caught flashes of it. How nice he’d been. How he was always smiling and happy. I remembered a miserable young man with dark secrets and a heart filled with pain and violence. They had all only known the shell of him, those good parts that were so bright that he gladly shared them with the world. I didn’t correct anyone about how wrong they’d been. I only left it alone.

  When the funeral was over and Arin’s ashes had been spread around the lake, I went in search of Monroe. “I want some time off,” I told him as soon as I was able to get him alone. Or, relatively alone at least. Thierry was there sitting on Monroe’s desk, watching me. “If Em needs me for a mission, I’ll come back, so I won’t be able to go far, but I’d like to be away from Wish for a while.”

  Monroe nodded. “Of course. I completely understand. Where will you go?”

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Somewhere warm that would have reminded him of paradise. I miss him.”

  “We all do,” Monroe assured me. “Take all the time you need.”

  I was back on my ship within an hour. I didn’t have a clear destination in mind, so first I focused on getting out of the system. I wanted to stay close for when Em needed my help next, so I couldn’t jump through that many gates, but one was fine. I couldn’t be in the same system as where Arin had died anymore.

  I found a small jungle planet that had yet to be really developed, and I landed there. I didn’t care what it was called or where it actually was. The only thing that mattered was that it wasn’t Wish and I had no memories of Arin there. I opened my hatch and sat there with my legs dangling out. I’d failed him so badly. I was miserable. I just wanted to go back in time and not touch his neck for the first time. If I hadn’t pushed, then none of this would have happened. We could have been completely normal again. We could have—

  There was a noise from the cargo area, and I went to go investigate it. I found a long black bag and a note attached to it with my name on it.

  Resan,

  No one knows about this but us, and I intend to keep it that way for as long as possible. I’ve picked up a few things in my travels around the universe, this being one of them. The antidote is in the vial beside him. Stick the needle into his outer thigh then cover him with blankets. He’ll need to be kept warm as he comes back up to temperature. Stay safe out there.

  Thierry

  It couldn’t be. There was no way it would be possible. But even as I told myself that, I was unzipping the bag and looking down at Arin’s deeply blue face. I quickly worked to get him out of the bag. He was cold, like he’d been in a cryochamber, but that was impossible. I didn’t have one on board, and Asiq didn’t either as far as I knew. And I’d been flying for hours, and he was still icy to the touch. That shouldn’t have been the case. And yet he twitched against the bag, causing the same rustling sound I’d heard before.

  I stuck the needle into his leg, then rushed to find any and all blankets that I might have had on the ship. By the time I came back, his teeth were chattering. I wrapped them tightly around him, then lay next to him in the cargo area with my arms wrapped around him.

  “I don’t know how this is possible,” I told him, “but I’m grateful that you’re still alive.”

  We lay there for hours just like that, until the color in his face returned to normal and he began breathing regularly again.

  “RESAN?” HE mumbled, nearly ten hours after I’d found him.

  I kissed his cheek. “I’m right here.”

  “My back hurts. What happened?” He opened up his eyes, and I smiled at him.

  “I have no idea.”

  He frowned at me, and I kissed his lips. “Did Thierry help you with this?” I had to know what he’d done, even if he was only able to tell me a little of it.

  “He knows a lot, and he wanted to help. I didn’t think I’d actually die, though. He promised it wouldn’t hurt as much as being dead, but I didn’t exactly enjoy that either. I’m dead now, though, officially I mean. I died. So things should be better for us.”

  Arin was right, they would be. “You should rest now. I’ll be here to watch over you.”

  He closed his eyes and quietly went to sleep.

  IT TOOK Arin a full two hours more to be able to stand on his own again. I never went far from his side, even when he was walking on his own again without any help from me at all. “I’d rather be on a more inhabited planet, if we are going to hide out forever,” Arin said.

  I hadn’t considered that, but I supposed that was our fate now. “You’re officially dead, so we could go back to Asiq if you wanted to and if you stayed out of sight.”

  He smiled at me. “That didn’t work out so well for us last time. I think I’d rather start over new. Somewhere that we could be together, if you wanted to be there with me too.”

  I kissed him on his cheek, and we went back into my ship. I didn’t have a place in mind just yet, but I was sure we could figure one out together. “I have to send a message to Em first.”

  Arin nodded and ducked behind my seat to keep out of sight.

  “That was fast,” Em said. “I thought you’d need a while to find your head again before you’d be up to talking.”

  I couldn’t stop smiling, and I was sure he would know something was up. At least it was only a comcall and not a vidcall, so really Arin hadn’t had to hide at all while I talked to Em. “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I need to stop being on Wish. I’m going to stop being a peacekeeper as well. I also won’t be able to return the credits you helped me raise.”

  He was silent for a long time. “I see.”

  “Please tell Monroe, Corbin, Thierry, and the others good-bye for me,” I continued.

  Em surprised me by laughing. “Thierry will be happy to know it worked. When things settle down here, I expect to see you again. Maybe in a year, maybe less, but you won’t be able to just disappear from me. We’re too close of friends for that.”

  “You knew?” I couldn’t believe he’d kept Arin’s survival from me.

  “Not really. Thierry told Corbin, who told me after you’d already left. Take care of yourself out there in the universe.”

  I shook my head. “You too.” I ended the call, and Arin came to sit close to me. “Are you ready to go find us a new place to live?” I asked him.

  “As long as there’s sun and a nice beach to lie out on, I’m all for it.”

  Which meant not taking him back to my safe house. That was fine. I wasn’t in any hurry to go back there either.

  I lifted my ship into the air, and second
s later we were off, leaving one planet behind to go in search of another that we could call our home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Resan

  IT TOOK us nearly a month of hopping between different planets until we were happy with one. Ysera wasn’t as beachy as I was sure Arin would have liked, but it was still a tropical destination planet, and every single pool of water that I saw was perfectly clear and looked absolutely inviting.

  Arin hadn’t stopped smiling at me since I’d booked our little tropical paradise destination spot. The house I’d rented was ours for the next two weeks, though I could always extend it for longer if I wanted to. It was nice to see Arin so happy, so I thought I might just do that.

  We were situated between dense trees, but the shops were only a few miles away. We could walk it when we needed to. There was a river off the back of the house, and Arin wasted no time going down there, even while I was still settling into the house. It was furnished, and it was more than big enough. It was also safe, which was what I had actually been worried about. He’d just wanted to get some sun.

  After I was sure that the house would suit us for a few weeks, I walked down to the water to see if he needed anything. I found him wet, naked, and stretched out on the bank of the river with his feet in the water.

  “The house seems to be good,” I said as I tried not to look at him.

  “That’s nice. Are you going swimming with me?”

  I hadn’t been planning to. “Are you going to be naked the whole time we’re here?” I glanced over at him and saw him shrug.

  “I don’t actually have any modesty anymore. I told you that. If me being naked bothers you, though, I can wear clothes.”