‘Want me to hold you?’ asked Nathan softly.
Swallowing hard, I nodded.
Nathan lay down, holding out his arm to me. I lay down, my head on his shoulder, and his arm immediately wrapped around me. We lay in silence for long comfortable moments, surrounded by stars. My heart rate was slowly returning to normal – as normal as it ever got around Nathan. This was seriously nuts! What was I doing kissing a stranger? But that was the trouble, he wasn’t a stranger. Not even close. In such a short space of time, he had me thinking things I’d never contemplated before, acting in ways I didn’t recognize. Quite honestly, it scared the hell out of me.
‘Where is this galaxy?’ Nathan pointed to the vast cluster of stars directly above our heads.
‘All of these are in the Tau quadrant,’ I said. ‘If we travelled at max speed and made use of the seven charted wormhole jumps along the way, it would take around twenty years to get there.’
‘I like the look of it,’ said Nathan.
‘From this angle, all the star systems in the Tau quadrant look good,’ I said. ‘They probably don’t look so compelling once you get up close and personal.’
‘Well, at this moment, we’re at the centre of that quadrant and masters of all we survey,’ smiled Nathan.
‘Maybe that’s what God does, sits in the middle of the universe and watches?’
‘You believe in God?’ Nathan asked.
‘On good days – and bad days,’ I replied.
I reached out a hand, displacing a spiral galaxy when all I really wanted was to hold it closer. I was chasing the stars. Once the galaxy had resumed its original position, I placed my hand beneath it. The illusion of holding a multitude of stars and myriad worlds in the palm of my hand seemed nothing less than miraculous. My hand dropped to my side.
‘It’s a shame it’s not real,’ I sighed.
‘It’s real enough. Every moment is real enough.’
True. This was so lovely, just being with Nathan like this. To have a little corner of the universe which was ours and ours alone. Nathan’s hand stroked up and down my arm. He suddenly chortled.
‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.
‘I was just thinking about how life is strange,’ said Nathan. ‘A while ago on Barros 5, I was sure I was going to die. Now I’m lying here, holding you and watching galaxies full of stars.’
‘A few days ago, I wondered if I’d make it home to Earth or die of loneliness first,’ I admitted out loud for the first time. ‘Then there was that moment in the engine core of the Mazon ship when I nearly lost my balance. I really thought my last moments had come.’
Life was indeed strange.
Nathan kissed my forehead. ‘We were obviously destined to meet and be together like this, as dictated by the universe.’
A moment’s stunned silence, then I burst out laughing. ‘Wow, but you talk some impressive nonsense!’
I expected Nathan to laugh too but after a moment’s silence, he said, ‘The first time I saw you . . . well, it was as if I’d been waiting for you my whole life. Damn, that sounds cheesy but it happens to be true. Didn’t you feel it too?’
It wasn’t the kind of thing I was ready to admit. ‘Nathan, I . . .’
Nathan drew his arm out from beneath me and rolled on his side to directly face me. ‘It’s OK, Vee. I don’t mind that I’m ahead of you in the way I feel. I’ll just wait for you to catch up, that’s all.’
‘I love the way you’re convinced I will,’ I smiled.
‘You wouldn’t be lying here with me otherwise.’
He had a point. One thing I needed to clear up though. ‘All that stuff you said about having dinner with my imaginary sister, you meant me?’
Nathan gave me a pitying look. ‘Of course I meant you. Vee, I really like you. I mean I really like you. My friends have been teasing me about it since we met, it was so blindingly obvious.’
Not to me. ‘Next time just say, “Vee, I like you. Would you like to have dinner alone with me sometime?” Keep it simple!’
‘I’ll remember that,’ said Nathan. ‘So you and me, d’you like the idea?’
My teeth worried at one side of my bottom lip as I tried to find the right words.
‘I’m moving too fast again, aren’t I?’ said Nathan, beginning to draw away from me.
I placed a placating hand on his bare chest. ‘I was at the other end of all that kissing that just went on – remember?’ I reminded him. ‘Of course I like you, more than like you. And it’s not that I don’t want to be with you.’ Uncertainty crept unbidden into my voice. ‘It’s just . . . I’m not sure. I’ve been away from other people for so long, I’m not sure if what I feel for you is genuine or just gratitude and propinquity.’
‘What does that mean – propinquity?’
‘Proximity. Nearness.’
‘Oh,’ Nathan nodded. ‘I understand.’
I knew he would.
‘Scared?’ he asked softly.
‘Terrified actually,’ I confessed.
Then Nathan surprised me by saying, ‘Me too.’
32
Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted to being scared. Did Vee think less of me because of it? A glimpse at her expression calmed my anxieties. Her wide-eyed stare spoke of astonishment but nothing else. She was so cute when she looked at me like that, like she thought I had all the answers, when the truth was I had none. And the moment I asked her what propinquity meant, I regretted it. I’d spent the last few Sol years on Callisto with no access to books, films or music except that deemed ‘appropriate’ by the Authority. I didn’t want Vee to think me ignorant but she’d told me what the word meant without being the least bit condescending.
‘You’re scared too?’ asked Vee. ‘Really?’
I nodded. Vee’s sigh of relief made me smile.
She exhaled softly. ‘It’s just . . . my head is telling me one thing whilst my gut is telling me another.’
‘What’s your head telling you?’
‘That what I’m feeling is just a rush of hormones to my brain, mixed with gratitude and three years of loneliness, shaken and then vigorously stirred. Bit of a lethal combination that.’ Vee admitted sheepishly.
‘And what’s your gut saying?’
‘That this is real. That I should tell my brain to shut up and just trust my feelings,’ said Vee. ‘Though of course the feeling in my gut could just be from the chicken joluf I had for my dinner this evening.’
I smiled. ‘Something tells me you’re a pragmatist.’
‘Not so as you’d notice at the moment,’ Vee said, shaking her head slowly. ‘I still can’t believe I’m lying here like this. This is crazy. In fact—’
Another kiss halted anything else she was about to say. I didn’t want her to have any doubts about us. Even out here in space, there was no room for doubts if we were going to make this work. She was an excellent kisser. Natural talent! When eventually we both came up for air, Vee was giving me a very strange look.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ Vee said at last, laying her head back down on my shoulder.
‘Not true. Tell me. Talk to me, Vee.’
‘Just this,’ said Vee, kissing my cheek. ‘And some of this.’ She kissed my eyebrow. ‘And a lot of this.’ She kissed my mouth, her lips soft against my own. Then she lay back down. We lay in silence for a while, but much as I might like to, I knew we couldn’t stay here for ever. Sooner or later, the real world would come looking for us.
But not yet. Please, not yet.
‘You’re not ahead of me regarding how you feel,’ Vee said softly. ‘I’m right alongside you, or maybe slightly ahead. It’s just . . . it’s not where I expected to be.’
We gazed at each other, nothing hidden. I wanted her so much. But I needed her to want me too. I needed her to trust me, to feel she could open up to me about anything.
‘Olivia,’ I said, ‘tell me something about you that no one else knows.’
33
&n
bsp; I tilted my head to look at Nathan. He wasn’t asking for much, he was asking for everything.
Something no one else knows . . .
‘Sometimes I . . . I cry in my sleep. I wake up with tears streaming down my face,’ I admitted.
Oh God! I lowered my gaze, unable to even look at him now. How pathetic must that sound?
Silence.
‘Here’s something others know but which I’ve never told anyone,’ said Nathan. He spoke so quietly I could only just hear him. ‘Sometimes I wake up screaming.’
My eyelids flew open as I stared at him. His expression immediately told me he was serious.
‘Does that make you think less of me?’ he asked softly.
Choking up and unable to trust myself to speak, I moved closer to him, wrapping my arm tighter around his waist. My heart ached for him. I swallowed hard, then took a deep breath.
‘Nate, nothing you’ve been through or had to do in the past would ever make me think less of you,’ I whispered. ‘There’s nothing you can say or do that would make me change my mind about you. D’you understand?’ A moment, then Nathan nodded.
‘Do you believe me?’
Nathan nodded slowly.
Our faces were mere centimetres apart as I spoke. My gaze didn’t once waver. I wanted Nathan to know that I meant every syllable.
‘Vee, you say that—’
‘I mean that,’ I interrupted.
Nathan’s green eyes were so dark as to be almost black as I looked at him. I willed him not just to see and hear the truth in what I’d said, but to feel it. A smile, slight and sad, twitched on Nathan’s lips. Memories were eating away at him. I moved in closer to nibble on his bottom lip. Something else, hopefully more pleasurable, eating at him. It seemed like the natural thing to do. He looked so . . . lost. I just wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. I was as lost as he was but we could be lost together. I drew back. Could he hear my heart pounding in my chest? It was deafening me. Nathan took my hand and placed it over his heart. My eyes widened. His heart was beating just as fast as mine.
We both moved forward at the same time to kiss again, our mouths open, our lips touching, our tongues dancing together. I closed my eyes as my hands stroked slowly up and down Nathan’s chest and arm. I needed to touch him. Touching was good. I never thought I’d have this, certainly not before I made it home to Earth. Now here I was in the arms of someone who continued to occupy more and more of my thoughts and my time. Nathan pulled me closer until not even a breath of air could’ve got between us. He was holding me so tight, almost too tight, like he was trying to pull me right inside him to make us one and the same. Even I knew it doesn’t work like that. But I wasn’t going to complain.
It was all good.
Better than good.
Delicious. Definitely edible.
I couldn’t get over how glorious it felt when only a year or two ago the thought of someone else’s tongue inside my mouth would’ve made me want to gag. Hard. Now I was lying on my side, my hands moving over Nathan’s back as we kissed. His skin was almost hot to the touch. I traced over his shoulder blades, his spine, his nape. I loved the feel of his skin and muscles beneath my fingertips, so soft yet solid. How had I survived for so long without this physical contact – a handshake, a hug, a kiss?
Was I abnormal to feel like this or did all people feel this way? Was this a basic human need, to be held, to experience basic human contact, or was there something wrong with me because I’d been alone with just my brother for far too long?
Nathan’s hands moved under my T-shirt, one on my stomach, the other arm wrapped around my back, and his hands weren’t still for a second. Slowly but surely his hands stroked and caressed, and each move made me catch my breath and scorched my skin. Nathan’s hand moved up to caress my breasts. His thumb rubbed slowly back and forth across my right nipple through my bra and a bolt of lightning zinged through my body at his touch. Nathan raised me up slightly to pull my T-shirt over my head again. Then it was the turn of my bra. Once it was off, I wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him closer. We were skin against skin from the waist up. I wanted nothing to get in the way of my whole body touching his, no clothes, no more doubts, no inhibitions.
Nathan pulled away from me to unfasten my trousers. His fingers hooked into my trousers at my hips and he slowly pulled them downwards. My breath hitched in my throat as I watched him, not sure at first what he was doing. I raised my hips slightly to make it easier for him. This was so strangely unfamiliar. To literally lay myself bare for this guy. All my senses were suffering an overload. Both of us were breathing so much faster. I was so glad I wasn’t the only one having trouble catching my breath.
Once my trousers were off, it was Nathan’s turn, only he didn’t wait for me to reciprocate. He took them off himself – in about three seconds flat. I watched his eyes, too nervous to glance down, much as I wanted to.
We were naked. Alone. Together.
Nathan’s gaze moved over my body, physical as a touch. Suddenly self-conscious, I drew up my legs and tried to cover my breasts with my hands. Nathan gently took hold of my hands and placed them at my side. Was there something wrong with the environmental controls in this room? The temperature was way too high and the air in the room had all but disappeared.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he whispered, his gaze moving slowly down my body. ‘Flawless.’
Then his hands followed the path of his gaze, flitting lightly over my forehead, my eyelids, my lips, my neck, my breasts, my abdomen, and lower. Every time I raised my hands to do the same to him, he pushed them down at my sides. Frustrated, I finally left them there, especially when his lips followed the path of his hands. When his lips were kissing and licking around my navel, I thought that was as far as he would go.
But I was wrong.
His kisses were moving further down my body. I pushed myself up onto my elbows to watch. He wasn’t seriously going to go where no one had gone before, was he?
Oh. My. God.
He was! I tried to raise a hand to push him away and stop him, but Nathan took a gentle but firm grip on both my wrists. With a groan, ripped from somewhere deep inside, I lay back down, completely supine. Nothing I’d watched or read had prepared me for anything like this. A series of shocks shot through me at every touch of his tongue.
It was so intense. Almost too much. My body writhed under his care until I was sure I was going to pass out from pleasure. When at last Nathan moved up my body, I was totally boneless and couldn’t for the life of me remember how to breathe. And then Nathan was kissing my lips, my forehead, my eyelids, my chin, my cheeks. He raised his head to smile at me as the memory of how to breathe finally came back, making me pant in an effort to fill my starving lungs with air.
‘Nate, let me . . .’ I pushed at Nathan’s chest. He immediately backed away from me, looking anxious. With a smile to reassure him, I pushed him onto his back, kissing and nibbling on his neck as I did so. I rained kisses over his chest. I wanted to taste him all over too. Reciprocity was a good thing.
‘No,’ whispered Nathan, rising up to cup my face with his hands. ‘Next time.’
‘Next time? There’s going to be a next time?’ I grinned.
He didn’t want this to be just a one-time thing. I so liked the sound of that. I hadn’t wanted to assume.
Nathan went very still, his green eyes suddenly cold, hard. ‘Vee, I don’t hit and run. If you’re looking for a one-time one-off to scratch an itch, you’re looking in the wrong place. I had enough of being used like that on Callisto.’
Already Nathan was pulling away from me. Appalled, I realized he’d misunderstood. I sat up, reaching out to cup his face.
‘Nathan, that’s the opposite of what I’m looking for,’ I rushed to reassure him. ‘You’re what I’m looking for.’ Heat swept over my face at my inadvertent admission but I wouldn’t have taken it back even if I could.
‘You’re all I’m looking for,’ Nathan said at last, his gaze
softening.
And then I was on my back with Nathan’s body covering mine, his tongue darting in and out of my mouth as he slowly but surely pushed inside my body. He was so gentle, allowing my body time to awaken to this strange new feeling. Nathan lowered his head to lick and nibble at my throat. Already the discomfort I’d felt at his entry into my body was fading. I ran my hands up and down his back as we finally moved together. It was so slow, so sweet, so tender that with each second that passed I felt like I was melting into him and he was melting into me. Love was a word, an idea, a concept, something to be watched in films and read and sung about before this moment. Now it was something I could touch and feel, something tangible that held me up high till there was no air to breathe and dragged me down low until I was drowning – and I loved every second. Nathan had caught me, heart, body and soul, and the depth of what I felt for him frightened me. Actually frightened me. It would be too easy to completely lose myself in the way I was feeling.
Nathan raised himself up to look at me, his body still joined with mine, his gaze intense. ‘You’re mine,’ he whispered.
I stroked one finger over his lips. ‘Only if you’re mine.’
‘Always.’
As the pace quickened, all doubts, all fears were pushed aside. Here and now was all that existed. Nathan was all that mattered. And for now, for this moment, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Nathan and I both got dressed in sated, smiling silence. As I pulled on my boots, I could only thank God no one had come into the astro lab whilst we’d been . . . busy. Or maybe they had and we’d just been too busy to notice. That thought was mortifying. I could feel my face burning at the prospect.
‘No regrets, I hope,’ asked Nathan.
‘Not a single one,’ I replied honestly.
‘Good. Still scared?’
I considered. ‘Yes, but for completely different reasons now.’ I smiled.
Nathan’s gaze was intense as he looked at me. I could so easily surrender to a look like that and never want to escape again. Listen to me! Like I hadn’t already done so.