Chapter Seven
It was a beautiful day, and Wes hadn’t thought about Delauney’s cock in hours.
He hadn’t thought about it when he woke up that morning, listening to the bells ring to signal the change of the watch on the Manatee.
He hadn’t thought about it during breakfast, when Delauney insisted on eating together with their notes spread out between them, Ned rolling his eyes on the other side of the table.
He hadn’t thought about it when Delauney’s thigh had pressed against his, or when Delauney had touched the back of his neck as he rose from the table.
He hadn’t thought of it as he made the bed, and he certainly hadn’t thought of it as he gathered Delauney’s cast-off clothes.
He was doing fairly well, all things considered. The Manatee had left Hekate’s Eye a few days before, assigned to escort a merchant ship to Madog’s Throne. The merchant ship was a small vessel, hugging the Manatee’s shadow as they slowly wended through the warm currents.
The sea was steady in this stretch of Diabolos.
There were dozens of tiny islands between Hekate’s Eye and Madog’s Throne, and fishing boats hovered nearby like gulls, watching them pass.
Jim even spotted a small pod of whales off the port bow, which excited Ned’s children so much that Duck had to lie down in a dark room afterward.
Even George was smiling, sneaking off into the shadows to write to Fern while ship cats crawled all over his legs.
He’d given Wes a strict lecture about meddling in the affairs of cats, but it was hardly a real dressing-down.
Alain was still moping over their sick colony member, but they seemed to be on the mend, because Alain actually smiled when Wes suggested cough remedies.
And none of that, not one single moment, had involved Wes asking Delauney to spear him with his enormous cock.
It would be foolish to ask. Delauney was his captain, after all, even if he didn’t seem particularly interested in the job. He was a noble, not to mention a member of the military council. The last thing Wes needed was to get physically or emotionally entangled with Delauney de Mazet.
“Wes!” Delauney cried, striding across the ship toward the tubs of laundry Wes and Alain were working on. He was holding a sheet of paper tightly in both hands. “I found one!”
“You isolated an element?” Wes asked. “I thought I told you not to set any of those vials on fire without me.”
“Oh, no, I boiled this one,” Delauney said, as though that was any better. Their last experiment had scorched the roof before they started taking the spectroscope onto the deck. “Well, then I set it on fire, but it doesn’t matter, because look! The signature matches!”
Wes took the paper from Delauney’s shaking hands. “Really?” He glanced warily at Alain.
“We’ll finish up here,” Alain said. “Go on.”
“I’ll pay you back by doing yours next time,” Wes promised. He turned back to Delauney. “What’s the element called?”
“I don’t know,” Delauney said, practically bouncing as they walked back along the deck. “I was just told that the components are practically explosive.”
“Delauney!”
“Oh, everything’s explosive if you try hard enough,” Delauney said. “And if the sun is made of gas, well, most gases explode by nature.”
“That crate is in our bedroom,” Wes said.
“Yes, and this element is in the sun. Do you think there is a name for it in that book of yours? I know the individual components, at least.”
“There must be something,” Wes said, setting aside his reservations in the light of Delauney’s relentless optimism.
They pored over the book until dinner. Delauney managed best if Wes read the book aloud while he followed along or worked on something else.
So Delauney worked on Wes’ tasks while Wes sat with his legs propped up on the desk and the book in one hand.
It was slow going. Delauney kept getting distracted with questions, and Wes realized that he had questions as well, drawn by Delauney’s enthusiasm and a hunger for everything his parents never taught him.
“How do you know that the earth is turning?” Wes asked. “Vee says it’s something to do with how you can see some stars all year round while others move, but no one ever explained it to me.”
“Really?” Delauney said. “Then I’ll have to show you. We’ll do it tonight, after Ned and Peter have gone to bed.”
Wes felt a sudden rush of warmth, followed by a crushing wave of guilt as he thought of Delauney splayed out on the deck in the moonlight, shaking under his touch.
That would be an entanglement. Entanglements were messy.
They involved late-night assignations and sore knees, not late-night stargazing.
Even if Wes did have to stop himself from palming his cock at the memory of Delauney’s mouth on him, it was still only a memory. It wasn’t as though they were involved.
That night, they crept out through the dining room together, lugging an ordinary telescope between them. Delauney snickered as they banged a leg of it into the door frame, and Wes had to hurry them both out before Alain materialized from the aether to catch them.
“You can usually track the movement of the earth with a sextant,” Delauney said, setting up the telescope with a firm, confident air. “But I wanted to show you my favorite planet, first, and this is the only way we can do it.”
“And there are... eleven planets, right?” Wes asked, trying to remember the endless notes he’d been taking over the last week.
“So far,” Delauney said. “Maybe we’ll discover more one day. Here, look, before the ship jostles it out of position.”
Wes peered into the scope. A small, pale dot wavered in his vision, almost indistinguishable from the stars around it save for a slight shift of the light.
Delauney lay an arm around Wes’ shoulders. “Beautiful, isn’t she? They call her Arwyn. She was discovered by a pirate who insisted on naming her after himself.”
“Sounds like a pirate,” Wes said. He could feel the heat of Delauney’s nearness, and the tingle of his skin as Delauney’s hair fell over his cheek. “Why is she your favorite?”
“I don’t know.” Wes turned to find Delauney smiling dreamily at the stars. “You don’t always need a reason to love something.”
If Wes wanted to make his life more complicated than it needed to be, he would draw away from the telescope.
He would look at Delauney—cheerful, clever, sometimes maddening Delauney—and turn his cheek to face him.
He’d see the light of the stars in his eyes and wonder if it had always been there.
If that was what drove him to save Wes from the military council and care about the fate of rabbits in a ritual hundreds of years ago.
And he’d kiss him, softly, gently, trying to taste that inner light on his tongue.
Delauney would make a faint sound of surprise, perhaps, before kissing him back, and Wes’ chest would fill with a warmth that he’d never felt before.
His early years had been spent trying to run from the life his parents had wanted for him, and his time in the Starian navy had been stagnant and dull.
He’d never had the space for soft touches and starlight.
Delauney drew back, his lips parted slightly, and Wes realized that he hadn’t just been dreaming of kissing him. His lips were warm, and a dark blush stained Delauney’s cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” Wes said, taking a step back. “I shouldn’t have... that was wrong of me.”
“No.” Delauney drew Wes closer to the side of the ship, where a few crates were lashed to the deck. Their shadow fell over Wes as he backed into them. “It’s all right. It was... nice. It was different.” Delauney looked down, then up again, almost sheepish. “Would you like to try again?”
“I shouldn’t,” Wes said. “You’re my captain.” Delauney stepped back, nodding somberly, and a sudden, desperate impulse took hold of Wes’ tongue. “And we’ve done this before. There was an alley in Hekate’s Eye—”
“You knew?” Delauney asked. Wes froze, staring numbly up at him.
“You knew?” Wes repeated. “When?”
“Right before we left,” Delauney said. “When you were with those... people... the ones who called themselves sirens.”
“You saw that?” Wes had to lower his voice, which was already carrying dangerously. “You saw that?” he whispered.
“Through the window,” Delauney said. Wes sank to the deck. Delauney knelt next to him, a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Wes. I know that it was horribly inappropriate of me to, to investigate, but the alley was just a misunderstanding, wasn’t it?”
“Was tonight a misunderstanding?” Wes asked.
Delauney searched his face, his brows pinched together. “Does it have to be? Can’t we just be... friends, Wesley? Friends who might, well, occasionally... well, I’ve had plenty of friends who wanted to slip away for a little fun now and again. Haven’t you?”
Wes wanted to say that none of his brief encounters had ever felt like this, but he didn’t want to break whatever frail, thin illusion Delauney was building. “Right,” he said. “We’re... friends.”
“I’d very much like to be,” Delauney said. “You’re the only person who knows what it’s like. When you look at the stars, it almost seems like... the way I feel when I look at them. I’d like to know you, Wesley. I’d like—”
Wes kissed him again before he could say more. “We’re simply having a moment,” he said, clutching Delauney’s shirt with both hands.
“Yes,” Delauney said. “Yes, yes.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Wes said. He kissed Delauney one more time, just to prove it.
“There’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun,” Delauney said, sliding his hand down the front of Wes’ trousers. They kissed hungrily, frantically, as though by silencing themselves with their tongues, they could pretend that anything they’d said was true.
“Fuck,” Wes said, as Delauney’s fingers closed around his cock. He licked his own hand and reached down to take Delauney’s cock, which was already half hard. He stroked it as frantically as he’d kissed Delauney, gasping for breath as Delauney set an equally punishing pace.