“You’re,” I say as I push farther into her. “You’re . . .”
I shift my position a little and she says, “Don’t stop doing that.”
But I have no idea what I’m doing anymore. I’m operating on instinct. The part of me that knows how to think has forgotten. The rest has taken over and is leading the way.
My breaths get harder and I hear myself almost grunting. Beneath me, Niya is moaning—a deep, needy sound.
Her pussy clenches around my cock, her legs wind themselves tighter to me, I thrust in and out as she meets my every movement.
I’m no longer in charge of anything. I’ve become part of some galactic movement, as though Niya and I are two supernovas and our union has created a new universe, a universe with its own planets and stars, with its own rhythms and tempos, with a creative force that can’t be stopped.
The light from Engra’s smallest moon sends a streak across Niya’s face just as her trembling erupts below me. She grabs onto my shoulders, puts her lips against my chest, and yells into me, my flesh muting her words.
“Joston! Yes!”
As much as I want to shout out her name, I know I can’t, since I have nothing to muffle my voice.
I hear a deep grunting as it builds, rising up from my solar plexus and into my chest and throat.
My body isn’t my own. It’s Niya’s now, or it belongs to the universe we’ve created together. As she spasms below me, around me, through me, I feel myself come as I release myself into Niya’s depths.
I push harder into her, wanting to come forever, and it’s almost as though I do.
Niya holds on to me like she feels the same way.
Even so, I finish.
Even so, she finishes.
Trembling, we roll onto our sides, facing each other.
“Niya,” I say.
“Joston,” she says.
We’re whispering.
As I fall into a dark sleep, I have a terrible understanding of what I’ve just done.
I’ve created yet another problem for both Niya and Aeryen.
And one for myself as well.
Niya
It’s too bright in here.
I pull the sheet between my legs and squeeze my eyes shut. But the sun won’t quit.
Probably because it’s morning.
I’ve forgotten. Because of last night I’ve forgotten everything—myself, my work, my son.
I open my eyes. Joston isn’t here.
Relief. I can just carry on as usual, not having to think about him, although I am thinking about him. About how he felt inside me. About how he made me feel. About—
“Mom!” Aeryen barges into my bedroom. He’s up, dressed, and looks ready for the day. “Get up already, lazy!”
The long sleeves of his shirt are fastened tightly around his wrists, something he’d never do himself. He still doesn’t understand, and I hope he never does. But—
“Don’t you remember what today is?” he says. If he seemed enthusiastic last night, this morning he’s a dynamo.
“It’s the day after yesterday,” I say. I look down and am surprised to see that my nightshirt is covering me. Did I imagine last night?
“No!” Aeryen says. “Joston’s taking us to the Marinax today!”
“Right now, as a matter of fact,” says Joston, who leans into the doorway and pokes his head into the room.
“But—your school,” I say, sitting up.
“Commed them,” Joston says. “The control room too, Niya. All taken care of. I couldn’t manage breakfast though. Don’t know where to find anything.”
“Get out, both of you,” I say, shooing them away. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“Hurry up!” says Aeryen while Joston shakes his head.
“Is she always this bossy?” he says to Aeryen.
“Worse!” says Aeryen, who I fear has already learned about a hundred new things since I brought Joston home with me last night. A hundred new things I’d rather Aeryen didn’t know. That I’d rather he never knew.
As I take a fast shower, washing myself almost as though I were washing someone else, since I hardly recognize my own body, I hope that Joston hasn’t said anything to Aeryen about his wrists. About his vestigial tail. Please, Joston, don’t say anything.
My nipples are sore and my thighs ache.
I’ve never felt this way, and I hope it lasts for a long time.
Do I now have one more thing to talk with Chlo about? But I’d better not say anything. She works with Joston, and I don’t want to create an uncomfortable situation.
I get dressed in a pair of pants and a long-sleeved sweater. I brush my hair out and look at my reflection. To me, I look exactly like someone who’s just had incredible sex. But maybe I don’t look that way to anyone else.
Yet when I get to the kitchen and Joston sees me, I fear that I do look that way to at least one other else. His yellowish eyes are sparkling with the memories of last night and he’s smiling much too much.
While I get breakfast together, Aeryen peppers Joston with questions. How long does it take to get to the Marinax? Can he have a tour of the entire ship? What are they delivering to Engra? What’s life like on Choryn? And when can we visit Choryn?
“Whoa, slow down,” Joston says to Aeryen. “You’re a bigger speed demon than I am!”
“Can I pilot the raft?” says Aeryen to his fellow speed demon.
“Absolutely not,” I say while Joston says, “Of course you can.”
“Mom!” Aeryen says. “I’m going to be a pilot!”
“That’s great,” I say, wishing Aeryen and Joston had never met each other. Although it’s much harder to wish that I’d never met Joston.
The mood’s high. Aeryen and Joston are having a great time. I’m still basking in last night’s thrills.
But during breakfast, after Aeryen’s had about two bites of his food, he says something that kills every bit of thrill in the atmosphere.
“Joston,” Aeryen says, “can you come live here with us?”
“Well,” Joston says, no longer smiling or sparkling. “You see.”
“No, wait!” Aeryen says, jumping up from his chair and hurling himself at Joston, who grabs Aeryen to slow him down.
Aeryen puts his hands on Joston’s shoulders, looks straight at him, and says, “Joston. I have a much better idea.” My little kid seems so serious, so grown-up. It’s like he’s matured overnight.
Maybe he has.
“You do?” Joston says. I can see his chest rising and falling with his breaths. And, unlike Aeryen, who can’t see past his own brilliant idea, I can see just how uneasy Joston’s become.
“Yes! Joston,” says Aeryen, “Mom and I will come live with you!”
Chapter 7
Joston
Let me go back over yesterday and see where I went wrong.
Everywhere?
No, cancel that. Not my style. My style is to charge forward, do whatever I feel is right at the moment, and the rest be damned.
Yet up until yesterday, I’d never damned anyone else along with myself. Now I’ve done it to not just one, but to two others. There’s no way to make it right, so I just have to forge ahead and have confidence that Niya and Aeryen will always be fine and that what’s happened will be nothing more than a fast-fading memory for both of them.
Just because I’m a good liar doesn’t mean I enjoy lying to myself. I prefer to tell myself the truth, so while Aeryen gets his gear together, and there’s quite a bit of it, and Niya goes back to the bedroom—and I struggle not to follow her and pick up where we left off before we fell asleep late, late last night—I tell myself the facts.
I’m here on Engra to deliver the shipments we’ve transported on the Marinax, whose purpose is intergalactic cargo shipment.
I’m a pilot and, starting yesterday, I get to be a pilot at least for a few days.
My cock, after months of disuse, has finally gotten some satisfaction, although, as I also hav
e to be honest with myself about this, it’s now begging for more.
Last night wasn’t enough.
Well, it’s never enough, is it? Of course it isn’t. Even though it has been in the past. Even though one night is often far more than enough, especially toward the end. Especially the part in the morning, which is always annoying and sometimes awkward. Yet this very morning feels fine, comfortable, relaxed.
Until Aeryen made his fatal request.
I thought Niya was going to lose it when Aeryen suggested they come live with me, but she kept calm. Her eyes did turn dark violet and stayed that way, though, showing me just how horrified she really was.
When I signed on with the Marinax I gave up my apartment on Choryn, so they can’t come live with me. That’s the ludicrous thought I’m having, a thought that ignores the fact that no one not from Choryn can live there. And that Aeryen’s got additional impediments to his possible residency there, since he’s Chengdry.
And, more to the point, that I have no desire to live with anyone else, and that if I did have a desire to live with someone else, which I would never have, it wouldn’t be a someone else who had a kid.
Hell, I’ve never even thought about having kids of my own. What the fuck would I want with someone else’s kid? And a kid with a thousand life problems awaiting him in his immediate future. No matter how smart and fun and enthusiastic he is.
“Ready!” says that very enthusiastic, smart, fun kid as he bounds back into the living room, where I’m sitting on the selfsame couch I was supposed to have slept on last night. My forearms are resting on my knees and I’m looking down at the floor.
“Joston!” says Aeryen, still enthusiastic but also quite serious. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
I look up. The kid has hazel eyes and the same pale lashes I have, making me wonder for the first time ever if perhaps there’s not some Chengdry in me as well.
“Why would you ask me something like that?” I say even though I know the answer.
“Well,” Aeryen says.
“Spit it out,” I say.
“I think Joston is a great name,” he says, “but it’s also the name of Joston Parst, and he’s a great big liar.”
“He’s a character in a vid,” I say. “And I’m sure the actor playing him is a very nice guy who would never lie to anyone.”
“But he’s Chorynean,” Aeryen says, saying the same thing that even Choryneans say to each other.
“We’re not all liars,” I say, probably lying, although no doubt there’s someone on Choryn who doesn’t lie, even if I’ve never met them. Even if the usually straightforward Aymee Desryx can tell a lie like the best of us.
“Prove it,” says my sure-of-himself inquisitor.
“Can’t be done,” I say. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“That’s not scientific,” he says.
“Actually, it is scientific,” says Niya as she comes into the room. “You set up the experiment—in this case determining the truth of what Joston’s saying—and then you record the results as the experiment progresses.”
“I want to know now,” says Aeryen, and I can’t blame him. I want to know everything right now as well.
“It doesn’t work that way,” I say. “It can’t work that way.”
“If I say that’s my hand”—Aeryen points with his right hand to his left hand—“I can prove it. Right now.”
“You’ve got a good point there,” I say, giving up. And also noticing the fast-growing hairs on his wrists, which have worked themselves free of the long sleeves I fastened so tightly earlier.
It’s only a matter of time before someone else notices.
“Well, we’re going to the Marinax,” I say. “You have my word on that. Can you start your experiment there?”
“And you’re going to let me pilot?”
“No!” says Niya. “Absolutely not.”
“I promised and you’re going to pilot,” I say. “Not the whole way, of course. You wouldn’t want to deprive me of the fun, would you?”
Aeryen looks a bit disappointed, but I never told him he could fly the raft the whole way back.
“You wouldn’t know how to do the takeoff anyway, would you?” I say.
“You’re going to show me,” says Aeryen.
“I am,” I say. “And then next time you can try it.”
“There might not be a next time,” he says, finally catching on to the mood his mother’s generating. Her entire body is an ever-increasing stony mass of resistance to everything Aeryen and I are discussing.
I say nothing, not wanting to lie. Can’t kill Aeryen’s experiment before it’s even started. I look away from both Aeryen and Niya.
There probably won’t be a next time.
I check myself to see just how relieved I am about that particular truth, and I’m sorry to tell myself that I’m disappointed as all hell.
Chapter 8
Niya
There’s absolutely no room at all in this transport raft. Not for passengers, that is. There’s plenty of room for cargo, but even though the cargo was unloaded yesterday and Aeryen wants to explore every inch of the ship, he has to stop now, since we have to be secured in our seats for the flight.
Aeryen is sitting right next to Joston. I have to remind myself to breathe, since the sight of the two of them together is heartbreaking. Aeryen’s real father rejected him and he’s never going to have a substitute. This is the closest he’ll ever come. I want him to enjoy the experience.
And to enjoy his time with Joston.
Joston taps on Aeryen’s helmet and leans over toward him. He’s turned off the open channel and I hear Aeryen turn off his as well. A moment later, the channels are open again. My heart’s racing.
“Marinax transport three, requesting permission for takeoff,” Aeryen says in his best grown-up voice.
Joston isn’t really going to let Aeryen handle the departure, is he?
Then I see Joston nodding as the controller gives the all clear—and I watch as Joston’s hands move with deft swiftness over the controls. It’s obvious that he doesn’t just know what he’s doing, he loves it.
As we get set for the liftoff, he shows Aeryen something, and Aeryen says, “Really?”
“Really,” Joston says, taking his hands from the controls.
I take a very deep breath and before I have a chance to protest or build up my trepidation into out-and-out terror, we’re in the air and doing a wobbly off-center loop, courtesy of Aeryen, who’s laughing so hard I can’t help but laugh too, even if my laughter is tinged with horror.
But everything is okay.
“Good work,” Joston says. “You’ll be able to do that yourself next time.”
“Yes!” says Aeryen, raising his fists in the air.
Joston takes over the controls, my horror level recedes a few degrees, and I enjoy the ride, which, as I suspected it would be, is twice as fast as it might be.
I think about how Joston said we were going to go slow last night. But last night is over. It’s today and he’s back to his speed-addicted self.
And jollying along his new ally in all things fast: my son, Aeryen.
I wonder what Chlo will say when I tell her what I have in mind. But I stop myself from wondering more. Because so far, Aeryen hasn’t suspected a thing.
It’s beautiful here in Engra’s upper atmosphere, and as we break through to the other side, the starlight dazzles me. Even though I’m a flight controller, I’ve never been off Engra.
“Wow!” says Aeryen. Then he says it again about a hundred times, echoing what I’m thinking and feeling. Wow. My spirit soars with the transport raft and I stop myself from the tears I feel forming in the back of my eyes.
This is just today, I tell myself. A moment. Nothing more. Like everything, it will end.
Luckily, Aeryen is so mesmerized by the panorama of the cosmos and the stunning form of the Marinax, a magnificent Orquen-class stator, that he forgets that he
wanted to dock the raft.
As we approach the ship, all formalities are dropped.
“Joston Lynar, reporting for duty, you bastards,” he says to whoever’s on duty at the Marinax docking bay.
“Nightbird here,” says my friend Chlo. “No need to mention duty, Joston. No one here thinks you know anything about that subject.”
“The hell I do,” says Joston, who swerves away from the landing bay just as it comes into our line of sight, flips the raft over, and makes two terrifying turns around the Marinax. Whether he’s showing off or if this is his usual modus operandi, I’m not sure, but these antics are giving Aeryen the best day he’s ever had, even if I myself feel like puking.
A moment later we glide just a little too quickly into the landing bay and stop just a little too abruptly.
“Wow!” says Aeryen for the zillionth time. “Can we do that again?”
“No!” I say before Joston has a chance to say anything else.
“You’re wanted in the engine room, you fool,” says Chlo. “Now.”
“But we were going to see the ship!” says Aeryen.
We climb out of the transport raft, pull off our helmets, and I can’t stop myself. I do cry. Because right here in front of me is my friend Chlo Nightbird, her mop of orange hair its usual mess, and she’s looking even more wonderful than she did the last time I saw her, the day she was exiled all those years ago.
“Chlo!” I say, and she’s crying too.
“Females,” Joston says, nodding to Aeryen.
“They’re impossible!” Aeryen says, and Chlo and I both start laughing.
“This can’t be Aeryen,” Chlo says.
“You’re Chlo?” Aeryen says, his eyes open way hugely wide. He’s heard a lot about Chlo, but he was a newborn the last time he saw her. “The Chlo who delivered me?”
Joston
“I’m that very Chlo,” says Nightbird to Aeryen, who’s staring at everything around him like he’s just found the Lost City of Zarmas and has made not just his place in intergalactic history, but his fortune as well.
“But you can’t be,” says Aeryen. “She’s been exiled,” he says in a whisper. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
“Well, we’re here on the Marinax,” says Chlo, “so we’re not officially on Engra. I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to orbit.”
Delivery (Star Line Express Romance Book 3) Page 4
