In Arcadia (Touchstone Book 5)

by Andrea K Höst

  "If I had an urgent appointment, there are craft that can travel in these conditions. But I have enjoyed the opportunity to talk to you while not on duty."

  Inordinately pleased by this, Laura couldn't help but smile, but then told herself not to overreact. She needed to be sensible.

  "I would enjoy kissing you as well."

  Quiet words. They stole any notion of 'sensible'. Once again she turned her head. His gaze was unwavering, his eyes inky-dark.

  "I'd enjoy that too."

  They weren't standing far apart. She leaned a little forward as he moved, and their mouths found each other without awkwardness. Just a touch, and then an exploratory kiss.

  Laura plummeted. Could such a simple thing really make the world spin? She held on to him for balance, and his arms curled around her waist. Just kissing. It was nothing much, really. Kissing, and hands sliding over a blue uniform. Not nearly reason enough for the stars to slip from their courses, for time to slow down.

  She was leaning into him now. The muscles of his arms tensed, relaxed, tensed again. Did this uniform have any seams, any opening to allow a hand to slip beneath, to find bare flesh? Her own shirt was far more obliging. His gloves stole a large amount of her fractured attention: one fingerless, the other complete, they made a maddening contrast as his hands moved over her back.

  This had become far more than a kiss. Her heart was racing but there was no panic, no sense of being trapped. A kiss, a touch, a coming together. A thing she had no interest in escaping.

  "I think..." Laura hesitated a moment more, but knew she wanted this. "I think we need a different room."

  Chapter Six

  Gidds drew back, but it was only so he could look into her eyes. His expression was utterly serious.

  "I would like that. Very much."

  Men with voices like Gidds Selkie should not use them to say things with such a depth of sincerity. Laura supposed her tiny gasp in response had been audible, and didn't really care if Sight Sight gave away the faint shiver that ran through her as she slid her arms down and found both his hands, extremely aware of the gloves he used to protect himself from touch. She kept hold of the left hand, the one covered only by a fingerless glove.

  A short walk to her bedroom. It was easiest to make it without looking back at him, though she kept imagining what he must be able to sense from her, through the hand she had taken, with the Sights that he had trained to their highest pitch.

  Rain dominated the room, pounding in gusts against the curving window. Laura paused, since she liked watching storms, but she didn't want the distraction and so triggered the polarisation function and shut away the world. In a house where even the roof was made from stone, the storm reached them only as a muffled hiss.

  Though perhaps shutting away all distraction was a tactical error. Looking into the calm face of the man she'd brought to her room made Laura feel very young, rather nervous...and more than a little impatient. She dropped her gaze to the hand she still held, and deliberately peeled off his glove.

  Even over the murmur of rain, Laura heard his intake of breath. She liked that, liked that he sounded a little shaken, that the 'serious soldier' was working on his composure behind an appearance of calm. It took concerted effort to not look up, to resist checking his expression, but rather to simply reach for his other hand.

  He presented it to her, prompting her to glance up after all, in time to catch that fleeting smile. As she drew the second glove off she stayed watching his face, but that wasn't a good idea, just as she had suspected, because the man was simply mesmerising, and Laura really did feel like she was being dragged forward, that the stars were slowing down around her, and quite possibly she would have stood there for an immeasurable amount of time, holding a pair of gloves.

  He took them from her, moved, and this time there was no reason to stop kissing.

  oOo

  Muinan-Taren-Kolaren literature was full of stories about Sights and sex. Sight Sight talents would discover things you never knew you wanted. Place Sight talents... Place Sight was far more than empathy, but that was the facet that came to the fore with a naked Gidds Selkie and a bed. An immensely controlled and measured man who was intuitive and responsive to a degree that kept Laura gasping. He could feel her reaction to his every movement, and whatever she disliked he stopped immediately, and whatever she enjoyed, he improved.

  He stunned her, left her trembling—and would be perfectly aware of the fact. Laura would have felt at a disadvantage, but his shaking breath matched her own, and for several minutes all they did was lie tangled together.

  "I'm finding I'm glad of the weather," she said at last.

  He shifted a fraction, fingers brushing her flank. "Yes. I was not enjoying the prospect of returning to Tare without a reason for another meeting. Although...what is it that changed? Between this week and last week?"

  Sight Sight need to know, Laura guessed. "Sue told me you were attracted to me. I didn't believe her. But I thought about the possibility. A lot."

  "I will have to thank your sister," he said. "And remember that she is observant."

  "Could—could you really see a difference in me, right away?" So disconcerting.

  Instead of answering her directly, he sent her a visual link over the interface. An image of herself, standing by Sue, surrounded by a delicate tracery of light: a shifting forest of semitransparent, curling fern fronds. She would have had no idea what the sudden alterations in the ghostly patterns meant if not for her own memory of nerves, anticipation, and then a sudden flush of awareness.

  The image changed. Her face now, closer, brown hair falling across her forehead, surrounded by transparent curlicues.

  "That really is a very...complicated way to exist in the world," she murmured, not quite able to resist reaching out and touching his cheek, just so she could watch the ghostly tendrils shift about her own face. "Though being able to see through another person's eyes is just as remarkable a thing to me."

  His response was to kiss her once again. After that came a slow exploration, and she watched herself as he saw her, and was fascinated by the sheer complexity.

  "You spend the whole of your life surrounded by this?" she asked, and then sucked in her breath as he trailed fingers across her lower stomach.

  "I can modulate the visual component," he said, pausing to show Laura her face as if through a series of strange filters. Patterns, shadows, and a haze of coloured light. And, finally, just Laura without any added complexity, wearing an expression of pleased wonder. "Sights can never be 'turned off', but there is no effort in maintaining a particular visual mode. The other aspects of Place are not so easily managed."

  All the slow exploration had become too much for Laura's restraint, so she began touching him in turn, and that led to another demonstration of the impact of Place Sight, and then a shower, and a slightly-damp return to bed.

  "When is your flight tomorrow?" she asked, to cover that she found sleeping together in some ways more challenging than the sex.

  "Dawn." He shifted beside her, arranging himself at a comfortable proximity, and curling his fingers through hers, but clearly avoiding touching her otherwise. "I have arranged to be collected a quarter-kasse before. There's no need to get up—I will breakfast on the flight."

  Laura studied his face, feeling grave and unsure and yet pleasantly enervated. And wryly aware that every doubt or flutter of excitement would be clear to him.

  "I like getting up early," she said, and carefully lifted their linked hands to kiss the back of his fingers before dimming the lights and settling down to at least attempt to sleep. Gidds squeezed her hand in response, then let go, and lay still.

  Giving her privacy, she realised. Or, perhaps, simple self-preservation for a busy man who had a dawn flight and, if he maintained contact, would be unable not to follow the emotional rollercoaster that was now boarding for a ride through Laura's head.

  After Mike had walked out on their marriage, it had taken Laura
a few years to give in to her sisters' insistence she try dating. Sometimes that had worked out, but she'd never brought men home, or stayed the whole night at their place. That was down to the complexities of children, and also because her bedroom had been her workroom, and a sanctuary to her.

  Laura glanced across at the door to her new workroom, firmly shut, and wondered if Gidds' Place Sight had plastered the sliding panel with large 'keep out' signs.

  She was getting ahead of herself. Occasional dates followed by dinner and sex had been relatively simple things. They should be even simpler on Muina, where contraception and a lack of STDs were a near-certainty. But Laura had to admit she did suffer from what Sue called 'ambivalence in the afterglow'. Or, at least, had not in all of the last decade found a man who had inspired her to more than a few dates, and some strictly limited physical activity.

  She already knew that Gidds Selkie wouldn't fit this pattern. In part because the last hour had left her simply…stunned. And definitely keen for a repeat performance.

  Or fifty.

  But in other circumstances, without the storm, she doubted she would have been quick to spend the whole night with the man. He attracted but outright confused her: so overwhelming, impossibly intense, and yet somehow quiet, comfortable.

  She hadn't quite intended that last gesture. Kissing his fingers. An odd combination of affection and comfort, and she was not sure what she'd intended to convey with it.

  Not sure at all.

  oOo

  Laura woke, surprised at herself. Instead of spending an hour or two turning over the wisdom of leaping into bed with technically-alien military officers, she must have dropped off almost immediately. And now was arranged along said military officer's back, with an arm slung across his ribs.

  Mindful of Cass' comments regarding the sensitivity of sleeping Sight talents, Laura removed the arm, so he wouldn't be woken by a continuation of her internal debate, then slid out of the bed and took herself off to her bathroom.

  Wasted effort. She heard him shift before she shut the door. Although, since it was a little over an hour before dawn, perhaps he was responding to an alarm.

  And, in truth, she'd hopped off her rollercoaster before the first drop. There was mutual attraction, and hopefully would be more sex, and she would get to know him better. It hadn't really bothered her at all to have Gidds spend the night. Of course, the bedroom was quite empty, almost impersonal, for her carefully arranged art supplies and current projects were safely locked away in her workroom.

  When she emerged, after a considerately brief period, she found him partially dressed, standing in the now-open doorway of the bedroom patio. Impossible not to give into the temptation to slip her arms around his waist and kiss his shoulder, and kiss him more when he turned around, but then she was distracted by what he'd been looking at outside: a little sea of mist, ineffectually lit by the spill of light from the doorway.

  "This island certainly has weather," she murmured, before adding: "Is there a way to avoid accidentally waking you?"

  "It's not worth trying. Anyone with strong Combat Sight will react to the movement of living creatures. We grow adept at falling asleep again after establishing there is no threat, but it is one of the reasons Sight talents often have shielding on their rooms."

  He let go of her with a satisfying reluctance, and took himself off into the bathroom. Laura visited her cavernous walk-in wardrobe to pull on something warm, and then went out to the kitchen to make a couple of mugs of an herbal tea that was a popular Muinan breakfast drink. Then she opened the patio doors to interestedly consider the mist. Her house had become a ship on a sea of white.

  "Do you drink this?" she asked as Gidds joined her, and handed him the second mug when he nodded.

  They sipped, and there was a not-quite-awkward pause where they were both very clearly deciding what to say next. But then Gidds, with a hint of amusement leaking into his voice, said: "I would like to see you again, when I return from Tare."

  "I would enjoy that," Laura said, smiling at the echo of their exchange last night, before adding: "Do you have a role in the Thanksgiving Ceremonies? Cass seems to have a long line of commitments."

  "Not the Ceremonies. The week has become a time of review for the Triplanetary Council, and I have multiple reports to go over with Committees. My schedule is very full for the rest of the month."

  "Come to dinner on the first, then."

  "I will do that." Gidds was being extremely serious again, and in that voice. Laura managed to keep her mug upright, but it was a near thing.

  A rising hum gave bare warning that they were out of time. The mist billowed, and a small flying vehicle rose out of the filmy sea to hover above the north patio. A woman in a green uniform, her face almost entirely obscured by goggles, brought the machine to a stop a precise four feet out from the door—and two feet up.

  "Until then," Gidds said, handing Laura his mug. He took three steps, and another onto the landing strut, climbing effortlessly into the seat beside the pilot.

  Holding two near-full mugs, Laura did not wave, but she watched with considerable envy as the flyer zipped away, glowing blue impellers marking the machine's wake.

  "I don't know what I want more," she murmured eventually. "The man or his military har...no, I'm not going to make that pun."

  Retreating indoors to tip away the drinks, she fetched herself a coat, and then went on an earlier-than-usual walk, delighting in the novelty of such a thick mist—and grateful for the interface, which told her where the path was even when she couldn't see it.

  It did not take long at all to reach her favourite seat. She was there in plenty of time to watch the morning flight pass by, not quite overhead and barely visible through white.

  Then she settled down to think.

  oOo

  "You're going to wear an imprint of your ass onto that seat."

  "That would only make it more comfortable," Laura said, miming astonishment at the sight of her sister, not only up before midday, but before breakfast. "So you're a morning person now?"

  "I was photographing the mist," Sue said, tapping the box hanging from a strap over her shoulder with a show of conscious virtue. "These scanners pick it up pretty well—I got a few nice shots."

  Since Sue didn't have the red-eyed and wired look of one of her all-nighters, Laura assumed that she'd succeeded in waking thanks to an early alarm—and not for the weather. Nor was she inclined to beat around the bush.

  "Spill. Did he break out the witty repartee? Bore you witless? Were there push-ups?"

  Laura couldn't keep back a helpless snort, and Sue bent to peer into Laura's face.

  "Wait. Are we talking Tab A, Slot B?" She added a highly direct ASL sign, and Laura's expression in response prompted a crow of delighted approbation. "Fast work, big sis! And?"

  "Oh, he's ruined me for other men, certainly." Laura managed a coolly detached voice, but then shook her head. "I'm not even sure I'm joking."

  "Wicked," Sue said, demonstrating where Julian sourced his vocabulary. "But...is there a reason you're sitting out here wearing the Pensive Face? Please don't tell me this was a one-off."

  "Well, he's gone back to Tare. But he is coming to dinner again, after the celebrations are over next week. And no, he wasn't boring to talk to. Given he was describing the creation of the Setari, it would be an achievement to be dull, and he was simply matter-of-fact and unfussed by Julian's flood of questions. I'm...I'm not altogether sure that witty repartee is his thing, though."

  "No-o," Sue said, judiciously. "Serious Soldier to the core, that one. Intelligent, not entirely without humour or sympathy, but don't expect snappy patter. Most definitely the type whose life revolves around his job. But that would suit you, I think: you like your alone time. So, fantastic sex, not intolerable to talk to, at least willing to put up with Julian. And yet, Pensive Face."

  "Name one thing we have in common."

  Sue's eyebrows shot up, then her eyes narrowed and she
said: "Cass."

  "In that my daughter's part of his job? Very funny. But think about it, Sue. Do you think he's a reader—of any sort of fiction, let alone my sort of fiction? I've never pictured myself with a man who doesn't inhale at least one book a week."

  "He's a psychic space soldier. I'd call it an ideal match myself. You love science fiction and he is..."

  "But that's exactly it. It's not fiction to him. It's not entertainment. His whole life has been..." Laura paused, and then sent Sue an interface link. "Read that."

  Sue's expressive face made it easy to follow her progress through the linked article. First simple interest as she saw that it was a detailed record of the 'Tasken Outbreak'. A grimace as she watched the first short video of the Ena-born monsters that had poured through a tear in the walls between dimensions. A crease between her brows as she read statistics, details. And then stillness, as she reached the description of the aftermath. Of the recovery of a small boy from an apartment with no other survivors.

  "Partially eaten?"

  "If I have a regret about yesterday, it's not researching Gidds a little more before letting Julian loose on him. How he ended up working for KOTIS, why he'd trained himself so intensely, those aren't entertaining things. He side-stepped the details, but there's no way that can be something he likes talking about."

  Sue was frowning, still reading. "So you're saying...what? You like fiction and he's too real?"

  "No. There...there just seems to me a vast disconnect between someone who likes to read about SF-nal universes, and someone for whom those plotlines are anything but entertaining. An inherent mismatch."

  Sue looked at her. Then, apparently struggling to control her expression, she pronounced a single word.

  "Twit."

  "Very helpful."

  "You're not usually so silly. Yes, he really does have a tragic backstory, and I vaguely regret putting it in those terms. But he's not a child, he's pushing forty. He's taken what happened to him, set out to prevent it happening to others, and succeeded. You're not going to traumatise him because you can deconstruct a trope at twenty paces, and Ellen Ripley is how you relax."