by Lyn Gala
Chapter 15
STANDING in the bathroom, Temar watched as Shan rolled to his other side and pulled viciously at the pillow. Hannal had taken the leftovers from their dinner, and Temar was uncomfortably full. Shan seemed uncomfortable as well, turning again.
“I promise to stop rolling around if you’ll just come to bed, Temar,” Shan called. Sitting up, he scooted toward the top of the bed and wrapped his arms around his knees. He had such strong shoulders, but Temar didn’t normally notice. Most of the time, he preferred to watch Shan’s hands.
“I’m really not tired,” Temar said as he came into the room. He hid a small vial in his hands. He didn’t know if Shan had left it for him in the bathroom or if one of their well-intentioned guests had, but it had juice from a gakka plant. They were a relative of the wisp grass that grew in the deepest valleys of the dunes, only a thick, succulent trunklike stalk that rose out of the center and deep roots that could tap into the only source of native water on Livre, an unconfined aquifer that shifted as often as the sands, making wells pointless. Gatherers would sometimes go out and split open a stalk and take some of the thick, saplike juice before carefully tying the stalk back together so the plant could heal; however, doing that meant risking your ankles, if not your life. Sandrats and sandcats always congregated around the gakka.
“You’re not going to go back to that computer, are you?” Shan asked. Temar shook his head. “Good, because I think you’re as exhausted as I am.” With a sigh, Shan threw himself down on his side and pulled at his pillow. “And despite the fact I’m exhausted, I’m never going to get to sleep. I should have taken Hannal up on her offer of a sedative tea.” Shan turned over to face the wall.
The light was low, the red of the setting sun leaking in around the sole window’s covering. It created soft shadows all over the room as Temar sat on his side of the bed. His side. A week they’d both slept here, but other than claiming sides of the bed, nothing had happened. Other than the one night when Shan had rolled over in his sleep, an arm draping over Temar’s chest possessively so that Temar had woken in a cold sweat. But Shan hadn’t tried to push. Then again, Shan hadn’t been sleeping for more than three hours a night, and he’d been too distracted with broken computers and machines to notice Temar.
Temar slipped under the light sheet and inched closer, lust and need and fear all wrapped around his spine so tight that he felt like he might break. He was scared of this, but he wanted it. He needed to stop thinking too much and start acting—start taking back his life. Temar leaned forward and kissed Shan’s shoulder.
Shan started to turn, and Temar caught a glimpse of a smile, but he pushed against Shan’s shoulder, pressing him down onto his stomach before Temar straddled his waist. “Is this an ambush?” Shan asked as he yielded.
“Yes,” Temar said, his voice sounding more firm than he really felt, but watching Shan’s strong back lying under him, Temar’s cock definitely wanted this. “I found this in the bathroom.” Temar put the vial next to Shan, on the pillow, as he rested his hands against Shan’s shoulders, giving him the illusion that he’d pinned Shan to the bed. Shan certainly didn’t protest as Temar started rubbing small circles against his neck.
“Someone likes us,” Shan said with a low chuckle. “Maybe Wistia’s ballads aren’t completely worthless.”
There really was only one activity that people used raw gakka juice for. Leaning close, Temar whispered in Shan’s ear, “Do you want to?”
“Oh yes. I want it, but it’s been a long time, Temar. You probably need to move slow.”
“So, a slow ambush? I can do that.” Smiling, Temar reached down for the bottle and pulled the glass stopper. The unmistakable spice of gakka drifted through the room.
“Do you want—”
“Shhh,” Temar said. “Just let me ambush you here.”
Shan chuckled again and tucked his hands under his pillow. “Feel free.”
Temar let his weight rest on Shan’s back as he pushed the sheet away, revealing Shan’s well-curved ass, barely hidden by thin sleep pants. Temar took a moment to run his hand over the warm flesh, enjoying the feel of Shan shivering below him. Leaning down, he kissed Shan’s shoulder, nipping at the skin before he peppered a line of kisses down Shan’s body, feeling the back muscles twitch as Temar finally reached the small of Shan’s back, just above the waistband. Sucking on the skin, he could taste the salt.
Arching his back, Shan let out a long, hissing breath as Temar sucked at the warm skin for a moment before scooting down the bed and sliding his hand under the fabric of the sleep pants, exploring the curve of Shan’s butt and brushing teasingly over his hole. Making a sound that fell between a gasp and a grunt, Shan spread his legs in invitation, but Temar pulled away and considered the body laid out in front of him, waiting for him. Taking the bottle in hand, Temar let a small amount of thick, white juice run out onto his fingers, the gakka warming his fingers slightly.
Temar slipped his hand back under the waistband and ran his slicked fingers down the crevice to the entrance of Shan’s hole, stroking his finger over the sensitive skin and then farther up to the perineum and to the bulge where the scrotum started. Letting his slicked fingers glide back and forth, Temar gave the gakka time to warm the skin. His finger started to tingle about the same time Shan started squirming, his hips thrusting down into the bed as he made hungry little noises.
Retrieving the glass stopper and pressing it firmly into place, Temar set the vial to one side and started pulling Shan’s sleep pants down over the round of his ass and then down to his thighs. That allowed him to blow over the gakka-stained skin. Shan arched up off the bed, gasping loudly. “God, yes.” Shan’s voice was a raspy cry.
Temar pressed himself against Shan’s back, his hands reaching around to tweak Shan’s nipples while the man was bracing himself on his arms. Bearing down on Shan’s back, Temar could feel Shan’s arms tremble from the effort of trying to hold both their weight, but Temar continued to rest on Shan’s back as he pulled at Shan’s nipples.
“Temar,” Shan gasped out, and Temar pulled his hands out of the way just as Shan collapsed onto the bed, panting heavily. The vial bounced and started to roll for the edge before Temar grabbed for it, saving it at the last second. “Oh God,” Shan gasped, thrusting down into the mattress again. His back was fever-hot now, sweat gathering along his spine.
Licking his lips, Temar considered his next move. Shan writhed on the bed, the gakka doing its work. Moving to the foot of the bed, Temar pushed Shan’s sleep pants off, and immediately Shan threw his legs open wide, his hips slowing, although he still made little thrusts down into the mattress. Temar ran his teeth over Shan’s backside, his right hand over the small of Shan’s back before trailing fingers down the crack to his entrance. Shan started moaning softly, pressing his face into the pillow.
Temar ghosted his finger over Shan’s entrance before slowly pressing one finger against the ring. The muscle yielded easily, and Temar slipped his finger inside that warmth. Shan allowed him in, opened to him, and Temar pressed his finger deep into that heat as he pressed kisses against Shan’s back.
“Please, Temar,” Shan moaned. “Please. Please.” Every breath turned into a plea, a mantra that Shan murmured continuously as Temar pressed deep inside, letting the gakka warm the skin, relaxing it so Shan would open easily. Temar had felt the rushed pain of a hurried coupling and the incredible pleasure of a slow one, and he knew what he wanted for Shan. The moment he nudged the prostate, Shan’s pleas grew in volume, and he arched his back, his shoulders coming up off the mattress again. The hairs at the back of his neck curled and stuck to the skin as the sweat soaked into them.
“Ready?” Temar asked.
Shan groaned louder. “I want you in me.”
Retrieving the vial, Temar poured another dollop out onto his fingers and then put the rest on the side table, knocking a datapad off in the process. Temar figured Shan was truly lost in his own need when he didn’t even react to
the sound of the datapad clattering against the tile floor.
Gently pushing two fingers back into the hot hole, Temar probed deeper, twisting as the heat made the gakka start tingling faster. Shan’s cry muted into little mewls that matched each thrust of Temar’s fingers deeper into his body. Carefully scissoring his fingers, Temar used his free hand to stroke Shan’s side and ass, to feel the muscles straining. Once again, Temar found the prostate, and this time Shan rounded his back, his face pressed to the mattress and a bead of sweat rolling over his dark skin. Reaching down, Temar ran two fingers from the back of Shan’s scrotum to his hole, one on either side of the center tendon. Shan’s whole body started to shake, and Temar pulled his fingers out, rubbing the remaining slick over his own cock.
He had been ignoring his own body, but now that he stroked his hand up the hard shaft, Temar could feel his balls tighten, and he leaned forward, struggling against his own need to come. He wanted this. He needed to feel Shan around him, but his body almost slipped out of his control. It took some panting and some time before he could move without being in danger of coming all over the back of Shan’s thighs, and by that time, Shan had sunk back down to the bed, panting so heavily that his shoulders heaved with each breath. Spreading Shan’s legs more, Temar pressed in slowly, the tingling and the heat and the tight passage forcing him to control every movement as he fought his own body for control. He wanted to wildly thrust, to claim, to come. However, he pushed deliberately and steadily, his cock vanishing into Shan’s body.
Temar watched as their bodies joined, Shan stretching to take him in. Shan started making an atonal hum that replaced the cries and moans and pleas. His hands clung to the edge of the mattress, and his forehead was still pressed against his pillow. Temar pressed forward until his thighs pressed up against Shan’s backside, and then he stopped, panting, as need threatened to overwhelm him. Shan’s movements, like his cries, were almost muted now, a twitch of his shoulder, a tightening of his fingers into the edge of the bed, a fast rise and fall of his back as he gasped for breath. It was as if the desire had reached a point where he couldn’t cry out anymore, and Temar rested his hands against Shan’s hips as he squirmed. The sheets were too slick and he didn’t have a good angle for thrusting, but he pulled out a little, pushing back in immediately. Shan shivered, the motion traveling down his back, and his legs spreading more. Temar grunted as he realized he might have to pull out to reposition himself, and he didn’t want to.
“Please,” Shan whispered, his voice rough.
Temar bent forward until most of his weight rested on Shan’s back, his cock still deep inside his lover. “I need you on your knees,” Temar whispered. He placed a kiss on the back of Shan’s neck, smelling the sweat-musk that had gathered. When Temar started to sit up so he could pull out to reposition, he found himself lifted into the air as Shan shoved with his arm, pushing them both backward and lifting himself to his knees. Then he allowed his shoulders to collapse back to the bed, so his ass was thrust neatly up into the air.
The angle was right, and Temar pulled out before thrusting back in, slowly at first and then faster, their skin slapping as he sunk himself into Shan’s body. The gakka and their own heat gathered, the tingling growing until Temar could feel himself teeter on the brink of orgasm. Reaching around, he fisted Shan’s cock, and Shan gave one good thrust before he came, his muscles tightening around Temar’s cock as he cried out. Temar gave his own strangled cry as he finally came, his pleasure rushing through him until he could feel himself get light-headed.
Collapsing forward, Temar was vaguely aware that they were falling, Shan not able to hold them up as they collapsed back to the bed, Temar still inside Shan. His softening cock slipped free as they landed. However, Temar only had the energy to lie against Shan’s back, his breath coming in hungry gulps as he tried to recover. He’d had sex. He’d actually had more sex than he cared to think about some days. But he’d never had sex like that.
Below him, Shan moaned softly, the sort of sound someone makes when eating a truly good piece of chocolate.
“I should move,” Temar said blearily, aware that he was heavy enough to make an uncomfortable blanket.
“Don’t. You’re fine where you are,” Shan answered. Temar kissed the shoulder under his cheek and then let his eyes drift closed. Shan wasn’t as comfortable to lie on as the bed, but still… Temar didn’t want to move.
Chapter 16
WAKING in a tangle of sheets, Temar cracked open one eye and grunted when he realized the light was spilling in from the bathroom and not the window. Dawn hadn’t come, but the bed was empty. Pushing himself onto his side, Temar reached down and scratched his crotch, the dried gakka making his skin feel tight. Curious where Shan had gone to, Temar swung his legs off the side and sat up, for a moment lacking the energy to get any farther. He sat squinting at the clock, but the light wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the long hands.
Pushing himself up, Temar shuffled to the bathroom door and pushed it open. Shan was in the sealed slosh stall and the bubbled glass showed his silhouette as he brushed the water off his body toward the drain. “Shan?” Temar called. He’d tried to be careful last night, but he was painfully aware that it had been years, possibly over a decade, since Shan had let anyone top him, and when muscles hadn’t been stretched in that long, accidents could happen.
“Temar?” Shan’s silhouette paused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” He went back to brushing the water off his skin.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Shan paused again. “I’m better than fine. I’m wondering how much privacy we’re going to have up there, because I really don’t want to wait long to do that again.”
“So, you aren’t hurt?”
Again, Shan paused, his silhouette frozen. “No. I’m fine, Temar.”
Letting out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, Temar sank down onto the closed toilet. “Happy stars,” he muttered to himself.
“Are you okay?” Shan called out.
Temar opened his mouth, ready to say that he was fine, but he wouldn’t get an honest answer out of Shan without offering up a little honesty himself. “I woke up and found you gone, and I was afraid I’d gone too fast and hurt you,” he admitted.
“If you’d gone any slower, I would have a permanent crick in my cock,” Shan said with some amusement.
Temar smiled, but then something else occurred to him. “So, why are you up?”
Shan pulled a forced air nozzle from the side of the wall and moved it down his body. Apparently, the first settlers to find themselves cut off from terraforming water had considered installing the air system on all slosh stalls to minimize the water loss, but they’d run out of supplies. The longer Temar was here at relay, the more keenly he was aware of just how short they were on so many supplies. The air machine whirred as Shan finished, and he let the hose retract before he opened the sealed door and stepped out. “I kept hearing motors. A lot of motors.”
“Really?” Temar turned and headed out into the bedroom to look out the window, but it was still pitch-black, the stars bright points against the night sky. Both moons were down and a man could break his neck in a pipe trap before he ever saw it. However, when he listened, he could hear the distant whine of motors.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but I’m suspecting Lilian,” Shan said as he came out of the bathroom with a shirt and socks on but no pants. Temar cleared his throat to keep from chuckling at the odd sight. He was fairly sure that laughing at a half-naked lover broke some unwritten rule.
“Lilian’s running a machine?”
Shan shook his head as he pulled clean workpants off a shelf. “There are too many engine noises, too many different kinds of engine noises. Sun will be up in a few minutes, and I plan to be at the top of the tower where I can see whatever she has set up.” Shan stopped with one leg in his pants and one lifted into the air as he looked at Temar. “You weren�
��t keeping me busy for her, were you?”
“Me? No. God, Shan, the woman makes me uncomfortable when I’m in the same room with her. I’m not going to conspire against my lover for her.”
Shan smiled when Temar said “lover” and slipped his second leg into his pants; however, the smile quickly vanished. “She makes you uncomfortable?” Shan sounded surprised.
That was a topic Temar hadn’t wanted to get into, but he’d stepped in it now. “I don’t know how to act around her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s the one person on the council who really decided to sell me into slavery. Naite would have followed her lead, and I know you argued against slavery, and Dee’eta isn’t really one to poke sandrat nests, so I’m pretty sure it was mostly Lilian.”
Shan stopped. Right in the middle of taking a step, he simply stopped every motion. After a space of a dozen heartbeats, he turned toward Temar. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re the one who argued against slavery.” Temar made a face. “Actually, I was in favor of slavery too, since I thought the other option was exile. That makes it seem a little hypocritical to be uncomfortable around Lilian.”
“Is that why you had trouble working with Dee’eta?” Shan asked gently, apparently forgetting his self-imposed mission. “Because she didn’t argue?”
Temar shrugged. The fact was he didn’t actually know what had happened in that council room, but now that he knew so many of the people, he could take some guesses. He didn’t know how Kevin and Bari had voted, but he suspected Dee’eta hadn’t said one word either way, and he’d bet an entire season’s harvest that she’d voted with Lilian without thinking twice. Was that the only reason he’d been unable to work with her? “I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “Part of it, maybe. Part of it was frustration because every time I tried to work the glass, I made a mistake. I screwed up things I shouldn’t have.”
