Kitabı oku: «The Cold Between», sayfa 2

CHAPTER 2

It was foolishness, of course. Trey was clear on that. Even as he followed her out of the bar, distracted by the easy sway of her hips, he knew he should walk her back to the spaceport and send her home.

He also knew he wouldn’t.

He had watched her since she arrived at the pub, trailing behind her boisterous friend like a silent and elegant shadow, uncomfortable and out of place and simply breathtakingly lovely. It was her beauty he had dwelled on, at first: her tall, slim figure, elegant and regal in her telltale gray and black uniform; the curve of her jaw; the dark hair tumbling in curls into her wide, expressive brown eyes. It took him longer to recognize the depth of her discomfort, and longer still to detect the intensity of her desire to escape. She was laughing and joking with the others, but she was not drinking liquor, and he realized she was deflecting more than making conversation. When she had come up to the bar he had admired her walk, but he had noticed how careful she was not to touch anyone as she worked her way through the crowd.

He had not planned on talking to her—during his years with PSI he had learned not to socialize with Central Corps soldiers—but watching her, he had become curious. Listening to her gentle dismissal of the flirtatious young man, intrigued. And upon speaking to her … She was so refreshingly direct, and, much to his astonishment, interested. He tended to dismiss romantic attention as a by-product of his past, but she had said nothing of his former profession, and had not even reacted when that jackass Luvidovich had brought it up.

Damn the man. Trey would have to kill him someday, he was certain. He could not bring himself to view that eventuality with much regret.

The evening was cool, and felt cooler lit only by the faint glow of the bricks edging the sidewalk. “Are you cold?” he asked, looking down at her. In the dim light she looked exotic and alien, a strange creature from another world.

She shook her head and smiled, glancing at him with that odd mix of shyness and desire he had noticed in the pub. “I grew up outside of Juneau,” she explained. He must have looked confused, because she laughed. “It’s in Alaska. On Earth. Very far north. This would be a warm summer night.”

“I have never been to Earth,” he told her. “Is it all so cold?”

“No. In fact, most of it isn’t. A lot of it’s hot, even uninhabitable. But I lived in a nice place.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Never.”

He stopped, and turned to her, and watched the wind tug at her hair. “May I kiss you?” he asked.

Even in the dark he could see her blushing, the color warming her cheeks and her jaw and her throat, and he wondered how much of her that blush was covering. Her eyes were still shy, but she nodded anyway.

He took a step toward her. A lock of hair blew across her cheek; before she could brush it aside he caught it, rubbing the silky curl between his fingers, then tucking it carefully behind her ear. He looked into her eyes, letting his fingers trail across her jaw. Her skin was cool and smooth, and he traced the line of her cheekbone, then reached up to smooth her hair from her forehead. She moved toward him, first a small step, then leaning into his touch, almost imperceptibly. Her lips parted slightly, and he heard her breath quicken.

He lifted his other hand, placing his palms on either side of her face, tangling his fingers in her soft, dark hair. Her eyes drifted closed, and he studied her long lashes, shadowing her moonlit skin. He took a breath, inhaling the scent of her: clean, feminine skin, something floral in her hair. His own eyes closed as he brushed her lips with his own.

Her mouth was warm and soft, and she made a small sound, kissing him back. Their exploration was gentle at first; but when she pulled his lower lip between her own, tasting him with a feather-light touch, the electricity within him flared bright and sharp. His hands tightened in her hair and he kissed her harder, parting her lips with his, tangling his tongue with hers. She leaned into him, pulling his tongue deeper into her mouth, passionate and hungry. He felt her hands running over his shoulders, felt her palms on the nape of his neck, running up over his hair, pulling his head closer. Unable to resist any longer, he reached around her waist and pulled her against him, and he felt the warmth of her all along his body. She pressed herself closer, wrapping her arms around his neck, and he knew she could feel how much he wanted her.

What seemed remarkable was how much she wanted him in return.

It was so easy, kissing her here on the street, with the moonlight and the luminous sidewalk and the cool breeze, lost in the heat of her. It would be easy, as well, to pull her into the shadows, to shove their clothes aside and take her, fast and hard, in the alley just meters away. As she kissed him and touched him and pulled at him, he even thought she would be willing.

But he knew it would not be enough.

He pulled away from her, keeping his arms around her, and they swayed together, disoriented. He opened his eyes to look at her, and found all of the shyness gone.

“My flat is a block away,” he told her, surprised at the unsteadiness of his voice. “Will you come home with me?”

“Yes,” she said, breathless, and she let her fingers wander over his eyebrows and across his temples. He closed his eyes, savoring her touch, and after a moment he reached up to take her hands in his.

“If you do not stop that,” he told her, smiling, “we will not make it that far.”

She laughed, delighted. She was so open, and so lovely, and he wanted his hands on her more than he had wanted anything in a long time. He kept her right hand in his left and turned, and they walked down the sidewalk together. They did not speak again, but somehow he felt lighter and more comfortable than he had with anyone in the six months since he had returned to Volhynia.

When they reached his building he led her up the front stairs. She looked around, curious, eyes darting from the steps to the window to the fingerprint lock on the door.

“Old technology,” he said, following her eyes.

“Still harder to hack than a voice lock,” she remarked, “and a lot cheaper.”

She was right, but it was not a fact he would have expected her to have at her fingertips. He realized, then, that he did not know what she did on this ship of hers.

He did not even know her name.

He opened the door, finding the entryway lit by the moon shining through the skylight. The stairs did not bother her at all; she was not even winded when they reached the top. Instead she was looking up through the window in the ceiling. The moon lit her face in the dark, and she smiled. “It’s so beautiful,” she said softly. “I never miss the sun. But moonlight …”

“This does not surprise me,” he said to her. “It suits you, the moonlight.”

He stood aside for her and she moved into the flat, leaning against the wall by the alcove. The light of the moon turned the room blue-gray, casting cool shadows against the planes of her face. The door closed behind him and he stood opposite her, the kitchen at his back. He felt strangely formal, like he was missing part of a ritual. Like it would have been so much easier if they had stayed outside.

“Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No,” she said, and it crossed his mind that now she, having made up her mind, was more at ease than he was. “But you could come here. If you like.”

She held out her hands, and he took them. “What is that scent in your hair?” he asked, longing to bury his hands in it again.

“Lilac,” she told him. She let his hands go and laid her fingers at his waist, and he felt suddenly how thin his shirt was, how much he wanted to feel her fingers against his skin. “It’s Jessica’s,” she admitted, and looked briefly embarrassed.

“It is lovely,” he told her. He pressed his lips to her forehead, then nuzzled her hair, inhaling the scent. “But what you are doing to me has nothing to do with flowers.” He moved his lips down her cheek, along her jaw, to the pulse on her neck. He heard her inhale sharply, and her head fell back, baring her throat to him. He kissed her smooth skin, then nipped at her; she moaned, just a little, at the touch of his teeth, and that was enough.

He moved to kiss her lips, but this time there was no preamble of gentleness, no feeling each other out. The kiss was fierce, devouring, and he leaned against her, pushing her hard against the wall. Her arms reached around him, and her hands went to his head; she pulled the leather tie from his braid and let his heavy hair fall around her fingers. One of her hands trailed down, and he felt her pulling the tail of his shirt from his trousers. When her fingers touched the skin of his back, all reason disappeared. He unzipped her shirt, and she managed to let go of him long enough to shrug it off and toss it to the ground; he dispensed quickly with her undershirt, and then he had her breasts in his hands, and he kissed her over and over, pressing his hips against her, so hard his clothes were hopelessly uncomfortable.

She moaned as he touched her, his thumbs brushing over her stiff nipples as she arched against him. On impulse he released her mouth long enough to drop his head and pull one nipple between his lips, tugging on it with his teeth. She held on to his head and pressed her breast to his mouth, and whispered harder, and he sucked as hard as he dared, biting down enough he would have thought it was painful. But she did not object. She said God, yes and please and anything you want and he could not wait any longer.

Somehow they rid themselves of the rest of their clothes, and he took a breath, feeling the heat of her skin against his, painfully aware of his raging erection brushing against the cleft in her skin. She was wet and slick, and, he noticed, just the right height.

“Here?” he asked her, and she beamed at him, a gorgeous, bright-eyed smile.

“Oh, yes,” she said.

He slid one hand over her ass and down one toned thigh, and pulled her knee up alongside his hip. She wrapped her leg around him, pulling him closer; and with little maneuvering, he pushed himself inside of her.

She cried out, an unmistakable sound of pleasure, and he felt her muscles tighten around him. He found himself groaning as well. She was tight and warm and so lovely, so soft, and he drove into her again and again, grateful for the wall holding her up, riding the wave of pleasure higher and higher, and every moment he thought it was going to break, she pulled him in deeper, devoured his mouth, ran her hands over his back, into his hair … Good God, I would drown in her if I could, and that was his last coherent thought. When she finally gasped and called out, over and over, her body convulsing, clutching at him, inside and out, surrendered completely to pleasure, he went over the edge with her, pounding again and again, oblivious to everything else, letting the waves wash over him as she moved with him, hanging on for dear life, until all was spent into stillness.

They stood, unmoving, wrapped around each other, for several minutes. Trey was not entirely sure he could do anything else. As he came back to himself he found her stroking his hair and nuzzling the inside of his neck. He glanced down at her and she smiled, her eyes light and contented.

“I may fall down,” she confessed.

He laughed. “Let us see what we can do about that.” He pushed away from her a little, testing his legs; they seemed to be willing, for the moment, to hold him up. He reached for her again, and she put her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her; she wrapped her legs around him, linking her ankles behind his knees. It seemed as practical a way as any to travel.

He carried her past the bathroom door into the bedroom, enjoying the weight of her in his arms, her limbs so unself-consciously embracing him. Gently he deposited her on the blanket-covered bed, and managed to lie down next to her without letting her go.

He closed his eyes, pleasure still warming his blood. It was not as if his recent life had been without women, he reflected. It had just been so long since he had been with one who had given herself over so completely. Since Valeria, perhaps. More than a year.

He had no inclination to linger on the past.

He pulled her closer, and she draped a long leg over him, tucking her head under his chin. “If I had known you were coming,” he told her, one hand skimming her waist to come to rest on her hip, “I would have ordered a skylight in here as well.”

She laughed, and he felt the vibration of it against his chest. “You should have one anyway,” she said. “It’s easier to sleep if you can see the stars.”

“I will tell you,” he admitted, wondering at his newfound gregariousness, “I have never had trouble sleeping. Out there, I was well-known for it. I could sleep on my feet if there was a need. But I did know a few, like you, who needed windows.”

She shifted against him, and he was surprised to feel a twinge of desire returning. “I used to fall asleep in the engine room,” she told him. “There’s this catwalk there, with these big floor-to-ceiling windows. They take them out for maintenance sometimes, when she’s docked, but the rest of the time, it’s the best view on the ship. A few months in, the captain heard about me sleeping there, and he found this little unused storeroom with one windowed wall and had it converted for my quarters.”

“He is thoughtful, then? Your captain.”

She was quiet a moment. “In some ways,” she said. He was not surprised she found it a complicated question. Command required separation, and often callousness, and even those who understood were not always comfortable with being on the receiving end. “Mostly … he is observant, and he is good at knowing what keeps us efficient.” She looked up at him. “I used to think, sometimes … There are these moments, in life, when you just stop and realize that everything is just as it should be. Everything. I had that, a little. For a while. But even now—I try to remember that life doesn’t have to be perfect to be valuable.”

He brought his hand to her face again, brushing his knuckles against her cheekbone. “Are you always so kind?” he asked her.

“Only to people I’m in bed with.”

Her hand was resting on his rib cage, and he felt the heat of her fingertips and wanted to pull her on top of him. Somehow this woman was turning him back into a teenager. “It seems to me,” he observed, lacing his fingers in hers, “that you are not the sort of woman who should be finding herself in bed alone.”

“Now you sound like Jessica,” she said.

“She is right on the cure,” he told her, “but not the problem. You are a beautiful woman. Regardless of your ship’s shortsighted population, you should be worshipped, not sent out to try your luck at a spaceport bar.”

“My luck worked out well this time,” she pointed out.

“I am serious.” Actually, he was outraged, but that seemed presumptuous. “This fool, that you were in love with. What happened?”

A shadow crossed her face. He had seen it before, in the bar, when she had dismissed the possibility of true love surviving on a starship; but either he had missed the depth of her pain, or he simply read her better now. “The usual,” she said, and he thought her lightness was feigned. “He lied, and I found out. I tried to forgive him. I failed.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Two and a half months.”

He winced. “Damn. I am sorry, my dear. I did not mean to remind you of fresh grief. Especially here.”

She shook her head. “But it doesn’t hurt to remember it here.”

“I am your first lover since then.”

“Yes.” She smiled, and some of the wickedness was back. “You do not remind me of him at all. And that is a compliment.”

Just then he heard a sound, and realized it was her stomach rumbling. “Good Lord, is that you? Are you hungry?”

“Starved, actually,” she admitted, looking embarrassed. “I was too nervous earlier to eat much supper.”

“This,” he declared, “I can fix.” He sat up, and her hand slid over his arm to rest on his back. “On your feet, woman,” he commanded. “I must give you fuel. I have every intention of your needing it.”

She followed him out to the kitchen. He leaned down to retrieve his clothes, pulling on his shorts and handing her his shirt. She shrugged it on, not bothering to button it, and he took a moment to take her in. He was never going to be able to look at that shirt the same way again.

Shaking himself, he turned and opened the refrigerator, a cool draft escaping into the darkened room. “You have a sweet tooth,” he assumed.

“God, yes,” she said, moving in behind him to look over his shoulder. “What do you have?”

He retrieved his latest experiment from the top shelf. He was only on the second stage—he was still deciding whether to wrap it in pastry, or to thicken it and coat it in some expensive, off-world chocolate—but he thought, so far, that it was rather wonderful on its own. He pulled open a drawer to retrieve a spoon, and scooped a little out of the bowl.

“Here,” he said, holding the spoon out to her. “Tell me what you think.”

She took it, glancing at him, then gamely took a taste. In an instant her expression changed to something not unlike what he had seen a few minutes ago by the alcove.

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “What is that? Cream, and lemon, and … hazelnut?”

“You have a discerning palate,” he told her, pleased. “I’ve also added a splash of rum, just to deepen the fruit flavor. I was worried it was a bit too much.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s perfect. Lovely. Is there more?”

So he handed her the bowl, and they wandered into the living room, and he sat next to her on the couch while she consumed his experiment. “You made this,” she said, as she ate it all, bite by bite.

He nodded. “It is my profession. I am a dessert chef.”

“My goodness, yes you are,” she said. She scraped the bottom of the bowl and looked into it sadly. “I suppose that was all,” she sighed, and he laughed.

“There are a few others at earlier stages,” he told her. “Incomplete. I experiment, a bit, on my own.”

“Have you done this long?”

“Off and on, for about thirty years,” he told her.

“Was that your profession with PSI? Did you cook for them?”

He shook his head. “I was an officer,” he told her, deciding not to elaborate. “But Fyodor—he was our captain, and for most of my life there my mentor—loved to make desserts, and on the longer journeys he would always try something he had never made before. He would have me help him. After he retired, I kept on doing it.” It had been a comfort, one thing he had been able to keep constant after everything around him had changed.

“Is that why you came here?” she asked. “To be a chef?”

He paused. “In a way,” he told her at last. “I was born here. My sister has never left. Her husband died last year, and she asked me to come back and help her run her business. She has a café, so cooking for her made sense.” He felt a strange sense of relief, and of exposure; he had not spoken of Katya to anyone since he had come back.

He waited for her to ask why he had left, why he had stayed away for so long; but it was Katya that had caught her imagination. “Are you close to her?” she asked, with something like wistfulness.

He shook his head. “She was very young when I left. I wrote to her … but I was a stranger. Now she asks that I tell no one how we are related.” It was not the whole truth, but it was enough.

“Why?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “We are not always thought of with charity,” he told her, although he was certain she knew it. “Katya believes PSI is full of evil, selfish thieves, running from their responsibilities.” He regarded her, suddenly curious. “I’m rather surprised you do not.” He had always assumed Central Corps collaborated with PSI only grudgingly, when left with no other options. It had not occurred to him that Central, mistrust notwithstanding, might recognize the value in an alternate approach.

The woman’s eyes narrowed a little as she considered her next words. “I know what people say,” she admitted. “But I know what they say of us as well. There is truth and lie in all of it. I may be loyal to Central, but I know enough to understand why some would want nothing to do with them. And given my own choices, people choosing to live their lives and raise their families on a starship instead of a dusty bit of rock makes a lot of sense to me. Out here … you may think I’m naive, but I have seen things. I have seen people starving. I’ve seen the remains of colonies that turned to civil war when they ran out of food. And I have seen people who have survived this fate, or dodged it entirely, only because PSI intervened when we couldn’t. You are called thieves, and perhaps strictly speaking that is sometimes true,” she concluded. “But I don’t believe thievery is always wrong.”

It surprised him, her vision of his family, and he felt vaguely ashamed of his own assumptions. “I would not have expected a Central soldier to have such a subtle perception of reality,” he admitted. “I would not think you were allowed.”

She grinned, and her eyes danced. “We are not all bored idiots with guns,” she told him. “The truth is, out here we see everything. And on a ship as small as ours … we must all agree, at least on some level, about right and wrong, no matter what the regulations say. The captain follows the rules when he can, but he’s also pragmatic. If it saves lives, he orders us to do the sorts of things PSI does every day, damn Central Gov, and he doesn’t lose a moment’s sleep over it.”

“I think I like this captain of yours.”

“You might, but for one thing: he has no sweet tooth.”

“I am outraged,” Trey declared. “Or perhaps I should feel sympathy.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” she told him. “When they ship us chocolate, he lets us have his share.”

He laughed. “I must admit, you soldiers appear to be less different from us than I have thought.”

“Because of chocolate?”

“Because the pleasures of being human,” he said, “seem to appeal to us all.”

She drew up her legs and knelt on the sofa, moving closer to him. “When you said, earlier, that I would need the fuel,” she asked, “what exactly did you mean?”

He took the bowl from her hand and leaned forward to place it on the table. “I should have thought that was obvious.”

“Tell me anyway,” she whispered.

He leaned back on the couch and reached his arm around her waist. Wearing his shirt, one oversized sleeve slipping off her shoulder, her breasts peeking out from behind the buttons, she looked somehow more enticing than she had completely nude. “I should like to make love to you,” he told her, drawing her closer, his free hand finding her breast and hefting it gently. “Here, on the sofa. Or the floor, if you prefer, although my preference would be first one, and then the other.” She had crawled into his lap, and he kissed her once, gently, tasting cream and hazelnut on her lips. “I would like to continue this until the sun rises and the day reclaims us both.” He moved to kiss her neck, nuzzling the hairline behind her ear. “Do you find this suggestion agreeable?”

She responded by moving closer until they were hip to hip, and she kissed him, deep and long and satisfied, and he thought the pleasures of being human would be a fine way to pass the night.