Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Volatile emotions speared toward him, assaulting his senses. Wynn clutched at her arm, her face twisted like she was in pain, but he did not see an injury, even when he adjusted his eyes to look deeper.
“What the fuck was that?” She repeated her question, softer, but no less distressed.
He stepped forward to help, but paused when she lifted her hand from her arm and held it up flat.
“Don’t,” she gritted between clenched teeth. “I can’t—” She shook her head and dropped her hand, her eyes expressing something he could not name, but tugged at him to move closer, to put his arm around her though he did not know what that would accomplish.
“Please get dressed.” She turned her head away to stare vacantly toward the kitchen.
Iax looked down at himself. A flush covered his skin where Earth’s radiation had affected him. He continued to feel its impact on the cells in his body as his essence repaired the damage.
Turning his head slightly, he focused on the mechanism hidden behind the walls that cleansed his garments of radiation. It whirred and hummed, almost inaudibly, using a similar solution to what had misted over his body.
Iax returned his attention to Wynn who hadn’t moved from her spot, her chest rising and falling in quick breaths. Her distress had not diminished despite his sending the animals away.
He walked toward the control panel beside the transparent door, pressed his hand flat against its surface, and sent his essence inside to accelerate the process. The humming increased in volume until it waned abruptly.
The compartment opened, revealing his garments folded and stacked along with the outerwear Wynn had used earlier, and her weapon lying neatly at the bottom.
He dressed, starting with his pants. His healing skin scraped against the material despite its softness.
Next came his shirt, then boots, but he left his jacket and glasses within the compartment.
When he turned, he found Wynn staring at him, lips parted. A breath shuddered through her body, and she leaned against the opposite wall.
“Did you really talk with them?” The words whispered between haggard breaths.
Iax considered her question and tipped his head toward where the animals had disappeared. They had only left the area after his continued encouragement.
“We communicated.” Their existence was troublesome on many levels, but the one that preoccupied his mind the most was Wynn’s fear of them. He could not force his mind away from the matter.
She leaned heavier on the wall, her knees bending. “What did you communicate about?”
He had promised not to lie, but hesitated to divulge everything he had learned from the animals. He did not want to cause Wynn more distress when she stared at him in a way that constricted his throat.
He spoke around the obstacle. “I learned where they originated, and their directive, then told them not to return here.”
A single tear rolled down her face. Watching it fall cut something inside him, a rip through his chest. He reviewed his experiences since coming here, about the emotions he felt and what Wynn projected to him, searching for a way to help her.
“Their directive,” she repeated. “They were following orders?”
He hesitated, searching for the best words to describe his interaction with the animals. “Not orders. They do not have words, only impressions and impulses. They follow those.”
And there were similarities between him and them he needed to examine, but her next question pulled his thoughts away from the task.
“Where did they originate?”
He refocused on her face, which had gone alarmingly pale. “A lab.”
She sucked in a quick breath, then shook her head in denial. “You’re saying they were engineered?” Before he could answer, she shook her head again, the movement frantic. “The investigators told me they’d mutated naturally. They didn’t say anything about a lab.”
Her breaths accelerated, and her hands opened and closed against her thighs.
“Where is this lab?”
He searched through the conversation, but could not deduce a specific location from the impressions he received from the animals. “I do not know,” he replied a moment later.
Her chest continued to rise and fall. “There were only two of them,” she said, her jaw tight. “There were four last time.” She pressed a hand flat against her stomach.
“These two had not been here before. They searched for those missing of their kind.”
She shook her head again, her lips pressed tight together. Moisture welled in her eyes, threatening to spill.
He had thought conversing with the animals would help her, but her distress rose. I have made it worse. The need to help her impelled him, and he could not stop his feet from moving forward.
“Wynn,” he said, her name soft in his mouth.
She lifted her head, her eyes unfocused as she stared up at him.
“I want to help you.” The need was so great, it burned through his chest and throat. He outstretched his arms, not entirely sure why.
But she seemed to know. After a brief hesitation, she tucked her body against his.
His arms instinctively closed around her, and the hallway, the outpost, the storm, it all faded as he focused on Wynn and held her close.
A ragged breath shook her, the vibrations transferring to him. His arms tightened, and she expelled a longer breath.
“I thought they would kill you.”
Her words were quiet and tortured, ripping through his mind like a weapon.
“I thought I would watch another person die.” Her breath hitched, her shoulders shaking.
An emotion welled inside him and tasted bitter on his tongue. By speaking with the animals, he had caused her harm, but he could not fix it. He could not reverse time and make a different decision.
“I am sorry.” He said the words even though they did not feel like enough, because he was apologetic for more than his conversation with the animals. He was sorry her colleague died, for the trauma she went through, and for all the secrets hidden beneath the systems of this outpost.
She stiffened, then turned slightly within his arms. Her gaze met his, and he saw so much in her eyes. They shimmered with questions and pain, and he felt acute regret because he had caused it.
The longer she stared at him, her eyes searching his, the more her body relaxed into him.
His blood surged. They connected from chest to hip.
He could not remember a time he had ever stood this way with another.
It was both foreign and natural, his muscles sinking into the position like he belonged.
Her fingers flexed against his arm, gripping him tight, fingernails biting through the material. He liked that too, but could not say why.
He lifted his hand and cupped her jaw. “I am sorry,” he said again.
She inhaled sharply, stilling, then leaned into the touch. Her cheeks bloomed with color. The shimmering moisture in her eyes morphed into something else when she blinked. Her lips parted.
Beautiful. The word came from far away. From the past. From a voice he had almost forgotten. The person had been speaking about a flower hanging high in the air in a green space, below a dome of stars.
Wynn was more beautiful than that flower, the expression in her eyes more poignant, her face full of life. He did not want to look away, not for all the flowers in the solar system.
Slowly, she reached toward his face. Fingernails skimmed his jaw, then gripped the back of his neck. He felt every digit, each length of her fingers against his skin. Tingles spread downward, over his shoulder blades and spine, then lower to settle in places that heated and yearned.
His breath stalled in his lungs as new emotions surged within him, ones with elusive names and definitions. The embrace held his body captive just as much as the emotions in Wynn’s eyes, which darted lower for a moment, focusing on his mouth before returning.
Her fingers tightened on the back of his neck, then she tugged his head downward. Closer and closer his face drew to hers. She closed her eyes with a sigh, and their lips met.
His mind blanked.
Then an explosion of feelings spread through him, both hers and his. They wrapped around his essence, his mind, his body, then everything focused on one location—where his lips joined with hers.
Soft. Supple. Perfect. He closed his eyes, basking in the pure pleasure. Though he could not taste her thoughts, he could taste her. He inhaled her flavors, vibrant with life: water, and green, and earth. They settled into his mind, calming and exciting him in equal measure.
Wynn’s fingers flexed on his nape, tugging him closer, but he was as close as he could get with their bodies pressed against each other and their lips connected. Moving. Opening.
When her tongue swept inside his mouth, he realized he was very wrong. They could get so much closer. The stroke of her tongue was paradise. A sound emerged from his chest and throat, something between a growl and a moan.
In echo, she groaned into his mouth. Shivers broke over his scalp, traveling everywhere.
How was he feeling these things? The few times he had observed coupling, the interaction had been impersonal.
Calypsons expressed a need, and both parties took care of that need if they were agreeable.
There wasn’t this heat that now spiraled inside him, mimicking Wynn’s emotions as they bombarded his senses.
Along with his need also rose a new emotion whose name eluded him, but it urged his hands to explore down Wynn’s arms, to her waist, then around her body. His hands shook when he pressed her harder against him, her breasts squishing against his chest.
She groaned again, fingernails digging into his scalp as she continued her mouth explorations.
He had appreciated her slight form earlier, but now he wanted to memorize it. To admire and savor her.
He did not remember moving, but they had shifted their positions until the wall was at her back, his knee between hers. His shoulders crowded her body, casting her face in shadows. His cock strained against the front closure of his pants.
This bodily reaction had never been so painful.
The burning need inside him did not quit, and he had to touch more of her to ease the ache.