Chapter 13 #3
I pin his wrists. He lets me. Claws retract. Eyes wide. A male twice my size letting a human woman pin his wrists because she asked.
I lower my mouth to his ridges. One long stroke from wrist to elbow and a groan tears through him, vibrating the deck plate under my knees.
“Lorri —”
“My turn.” The other arm. Tongue on the ridge. His body arches under me and his hips buck and the claiming shaft is still inside me and the buck hits deep.
I ride him. On the deck plate. Hands on his wrists. Setting the pace. Slow. Then not slow. His jaw locked and his eyes on me, and the claiming shaft responding to every movement — the ridges pulsing in counterpoint to my rhythm.
“Say my name,” I tell him.
“Lorri.”
“Again.”
“Lorri.”
“Again.”
“Lorri — Lorri — Lorri —”
I come. He follows. The hum-sense sings through both of us. The bond settling. Deeper. Steadier. The frequency finding its groove.
The shower.
Three feet from where we are on the corridor floor. Three feet that we could not wait for and did not wait for. The head is closer than the bed and the shower wins.
He carries me. Legs unsteady — my private achievement. The shower activates and the water hits us both.
The temperature difference. Hot water on me. Cool water on him. Where his chest presses against my back — warm and cool mingling on over-sensitized, post-bond skin. Every droplet is a different temperature. Every point of contact is a conversation.
He presses me against the shower wall. Cool tile on my chest. Hot water on my back. His mouth at my neck.
“One more,” he says against my ear. “You can give me one more.”
“I can give you one more.”
His fingers find me from behind. Curling.
His thumb at the base of my spine doing something that makes my forehead drop against the tile.
The claiming shaft pressing against the back of my thigh — hard again, because Skiveth recovery time is a thing the manual mentioned, and I filed under optimistic, and the manual was not being optimistic.
He enters me from behind. Slow. The water making everything slick.
The angle deeper — different ridges hitting new places.
I brace my hands on the tile, and he sets a rhythm that is unhurried and devastating, and I do not have words left.
I have used all of my words. What I have is sounds and his name and the tile under my hands and the water and his mouth on the back of my neck.
The other one finds my hand. I reach back. Grip. He groans into my neck and the vibration travels through the water and through my spine.
He brings me over with his fingers and the shaft simultaneously.
The pressure from inside and outside, and the hot-cold water, and his mouth on my neck, and the hum-sense singing — the orgasm rolls through me in long, slow waves.
The venom has eased. The sensitivity has settled from cataclysmic to profound.
This one is the gentlest. The deepest. The one that feels like coming home.
He follows. Against my back. Forehead between my shoulder blades. Arms around my waist. Still inside me. Both of us under the water.
“Three,” I say. Against the tile.
His laugh vibrates against my spine.
“HORATIO canceled your shift,” he says. “Medical exemption. Post-bond physiological adjustment requiring twenty-four hours of supervised rest.”
“HORATIO can’t cancel my shift.”
“Mother approved it in nine seconds.”
He carries me to the cabin. Staggering. His legs are not working at full capacity, and mine are not working at any capacity. The corridor is strewn with my green dress and two halves of lace and his overalls and wet footprints from the head to the cabin door.
The bunk. The blanket. Clean sheets.
He puts me down and lies down behind me, and his arm goes around my waist, and his chest presses against my back, and the hum-sense hums through both of us like one sound.
I am crying. Quietly. The kind that comes when the body has too much joy and no other way to express it.
He pulls me closer. “Did I —”
“No.” Through the tears. “No. Jazil. You didn’t hurt me. I have never felt anything like — I feel alive. Like I’ve been hearing the world through a wall and you just took it down.”
His relief is physical. His whole body sags against me.
“Don’t scare me.”
“I’m going to cry sometimes. It’s a me thing.”
“I know. I just need you to be okay.”
“I am so okay.”
Quiet. His breath in my hair. The hum-sense between us. On my thigh, the mark. His fingertip tracing the edge.
“What does it look like?”
“Pearlescent. Like the inside of a shell. It shifts when the light changes.” He traces again. “Nobody can see it the way I can. In my spectrum, it glows.”
He presses his mouth to the mark. A kiss. The gentlest thing he has done all night.
Quiet. The ship hums. The lights are low.
“Jazil.”
“Mm.”
“I was hiding my whole life. From the colony kids. From the drill officers. From everyone who made me feel like being found was dangerous.” My voice is steady.
The steadiest it has ever been. “You found me. Not just tonight. Not just the duct. You found the version of me I had been hiding since I was nine years old. The version that takes up space. The version that is loud and clumsy and spills things and talks to scared things in her mother’s voice and is not sorry for any of it.
” I press my hand against his chest. The hum under my palm.
“You found her and you wanted her. The actual her. Not the small version. Not the quiet version. The real one.”
His arm tightens around me. His face is in my hair and his breath is unsteady.
“You saved me too,” he says. Rough. Into my hair.
“You know that. I was fine. I was fourteen years of fine. Completely functioning, operational fine. And you walked up my ramp in a top that didn’t fit and set off my quarantine and held a Vrennak’s gaze with a cat trick and told me I wasn’t broken and I —” His voice cracks.
Just at the edge. “I wasn’t fine, Lorri.
I was never fine. I was alone, and I didn’t know it because I’d forgotten what not-alone felt like. You reminded me.”
My tears are falling again. His are not happening because Skiveth males don’t cry, but his voice is doing the cracking thing and his arms are holding me too tight, and the too-tight says everything the tears would say.
“I love you,” I say. Simple. Clear. The way you say something that is true and has always been true and you are only now finding the words for.
“I love you.” Against my hair. No hesitation. “I have loved you since the ramp. I have loved you since you apologized to my cargo bay for triggering the quarantine, and I knew — I knew right then — I just didn’t have the word for it yet.”
The hum-sense. Between us. Through us. The frequency of two people who have found each other and will never stop.
“Stay,” he says. The word. The first word. The word that started everything.
“Always,” I say. “Always, always, always.”
Morning.
HORATIO has been waiting for this.
“Captain.” Full volume. Full theater. “Good morning! I trust you slept well. I trust both of you slept well. I have prepared breakfast. Two places. Also a third, for myself, metaphorical, but the occasion warrants it.”
A groan from Jazil.
“The occasion being the successful completion of a pair-bond that I have been monitoring since approximately forty-five seconds after Ms. Vance walked up the ramp. I would like this noted. I would also like it noted that I provided the schematics, the ventilation adjustments, the hatch malfunction, and the medical exemption that Mother Morrison approved in nine seconds.”
“HORATIO.”
“The pair-bond biosignature has registered on all systems. Both parties. Stable. Locked. Permanent.” The theater drops.
Genuine. Quiet. “Captain. I have been with you for nine years. Single servings. Single places. The only voice on this ship.” A pause.
“I am no longer the only voice. This is the happiest day of my operational life. Please note.”
Jazil’s arm tightens around my waist. Shaking. Laughing into my hair.
“Noted, HORATIO.”
“The wine reserve is available. And Captain, I have begun composing a commemorative piece. E-flat major. The Ventilation Junction Variations. Debut within the week.”
“HORATIO.”
“I am being spectacularly good. Please note for the annual review.”
I am laughing into the pillow. The hum-sense humming. His arms around me. The mark warm on my thigh. The dress on the corridor floor. The lace in two pieces. Wet footprints from the shower. The breakfast waiting. HORATIO composing a symphony he will play without warning for the rest of our lives.
The ship hums. Home hums.
We are home.