LC01 Sweet Starfire

  He used his grip on her wrist to pull her down across his thighs. Before Cidra could analyze the situation further, Severance’s mouth closed over hers.

  SIX

  Cidra’s first instinct was to free herself. It was an automatic reflex reaction to finding herself so completely off-balance.

  She twisted as Severance brought her down into his arms, pressing against his shoulders to try to uncoil herself from the unfamiliar position. But he wasn’t paying any attention to her efforts. He cradled her close, his hands large and strong on her thigh and shoulder. His hold tightened as she tried to push away, and with a shock she felt the heavy strength she had sensed lay beneath his lean frame.

  But it was the dark, warm, startlingly intimate feel of his mouth on hers that succeeded in stilling her small struggle. She had been kissed before but only in the ritual expressions of affection and greeting that were exchanged between family members and friends among the Harmonics. Those kisses were brief, fleeting touches of lips to cheek, the barest of intimate contact.

  This was different, far different, from anything Cidra had ever experienced. She felt her lips urged apart with an aggressive sensuality. She found she couldn’t help but respond. Something deep within her seemed suddenly bursting to get out. With a shock she realized that although she had never experienced this kind of thing before, she knew about it. Something that had always lain dormant within her knew everything about this. And the knowledge had nothing to do with what she had always been told about sex.

  And, of course, Cidra had been told all about sex by her parents and teachers. They had explained it to her, just as the principles of poetic kinetics and programming theory had been explained. What no one had succeeded in conveying was the sense of anticipation and excitement. No one had told her how her body would grow warm and languid or that there would be a small, curling flame in the pit of her stomach. She shivered, and Severance was immediately aware of it.

  “You’re a woman under that Harmonic garb, aren’t you? A real woman.” Severance’s voice was husky and textured against her mouth. “Cidra, I need a woman.”

  Cidra could feel that the tension in Severance was not abating. Rather, she realized that it was being channeled into the physical contact with her. His palm moved on her thigh, exploring the shape of her through the delicate fabric of her gown. She could feel the heat of Severance’s body reaching out to envelop her. His fingers tightened on her shoulder as he began to probe her mouth with his tongue. She tasted the ale he had been drinking.

  Cidra resisted the intrusion, needing time to adjust to the whirl of new sensations. Severance groaned deep within his chest. His hand under her shoulders shifted, moving upward to capture her head and hold her still.

  “Just let me have what I need tonight. I’ve been going out of my mind. Should have known better. Too much thinking. Too damned much thinking. Eats a man’s soul for breakfast.”

  The sense of compassion that made her climb out of the bunk and come to him washed over Cidra again in full force. Severance needed her. She had never really been needed by anyone in her entire life. Harmonics needed each other but not in this primitive, fundamental, physical manner. Human need in Clementia was on a higher plane, a matter of deep understanding, friendship, and intellectual communion. Cidra had never been able to offer the telepathic contact that enabled such need between two Harmonics to exist and be satisfied. But Severance was asking her to fulfill another kind of need. The concept was strange and infinitely compelling.

  Cidra’s hands were still braced against his shoulders. Instead of pushing away from him she began to relax. He felt the change in her and deepened the kiss. Without conscious thought her gilded nails flexed, sinking into the fabric of his shirt and then into the sleekly muscled skin underneath the shirt. When he groaned her name, she shivered again.

  She felt him tasting her, sampling her as if she were a new glass of Rose ale. He was moving inside her, touching her tongue with his own, and as she became accustomed to the odd caress, she found herself compelled to explore him in return. The desire was suddenly fierce, and she lifted her palms to frame his hard face. Cidra felt him suck in his breath, and she felt his body tremble with yet more tension.

  She probed cautiously, wonderingly. The unique intimacy was delicious but also vaguely alarming. His ready response was a lure she hadn’t expected, and it would have been difficult to deny even if she had been thinking of resisting it. She wanted this man to react to her, wanted him to respond with greater and greater need.

  His arm moved again, fingers gliding down along her side. She froze for an instant when he touched her breast.

  “It’s all right, Cidra. You feel so good. So soft and strong and delicate. I like the feel of you.”

  The pad of his thumb moved lazily over her nipple. The gossamer material of her robe offered only a slight barrier. The sensation was tantalizing, and her body reacted to it with a curious tightening. Cidra stirred, suddenly wanting to feel more of him. As if he could read her mind, Severance cupped her breast completely.

  As if he could read her mind. But, of course, he couldn’t. No more than she could read his. The sensation of emotion and mental closeness was an illusion. This wasn’t the physical extension of an intellectual and emotional communion. This wasn’t love the way it existed between Harmonics. This was Wolf sex.

  The stray thought cut through Cidra’s spinning mind, bringing a note of uneasiness into what had been until now a rising, focused crescendo of emotion. “No . . .”

  Severance must have felt the flash of uncertainty. He held her tighter, his hand on her breast becoming possessive instead of tantalizing. He broke the contact with her mouth to mutter urgently against her throat, “Be still, Cidra. Don’t panic, my sweet Harmonic. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I know.” And she did. The sense of certainty came from within herself. His hand moved gently, coaxingly, on her breast, and then his fingers were sliding inside the surplice, seeking a budding nipple. She was suddenly aware of the straining manhood beneath her thighs and inhaled sharply. Slowly he withdrew his hand from under her clothing and slipped his palm down across her stomach. His fingers rested warmly on her robe, just above the gentle mound.

  “I only want to hold you, touch you. It’s been a long night. Too many long nights.”

  Too many long nights spent thinking about his brother? Cidra wondered as tenderness filled her. “I understand,” she whispered, stroking her fingertips through the thickness of his hair. “It’s all right, Severance. I understand. But I don’t think this will buy you the peace of mind you seek,” she added sadly.

  His hand stopped moving on her body, and he went still. Slowly Severance raised his head to look down at her. “I’m willing to give it a try. I could use a little peace of mind.”

  “I know,” she said gently. “I can feel the need in you. But you’re going about it in the wrong way.”

  His eyes were narrowed and gleaming now. “Am I?”

  She nodded, smiling tremulously. A part of her wanted to keep quiet and let him take what he thought he needed from her. But that was selfish and dangerous, and it wouldn’t give her what she had dreamed of all these years, either. Neither of them would obtain any real serenity.

  “You need to talk to a skilled therapist. Someone who has been trained to work with people who have experienced your kind of loss. There are many such doctors, both Harmonic and Wolf, who could help you. You could talk to them, discuss your feelings about your brother. Having sex with me tonight would only buy you a temporary respite.”

  He stared at her and then swore softly. “Sweet Harmony in hell! I don’t believe this. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Dumb as a torla.”

  She stiffened under the insult. “Now I’ve made you angry.”

  “Well, you sure as a renegade’s hell have managed to kill the mood. You thought I needed a little special handling tonight to help me forget Jeude?”

  Cidra swallowed u
nhappily. “Special handling,” the mail pilot’s slang for quick, easy sex, was not the term she wanted to hear applied to what might have been between herself and Severance. The phrase made it sound light, virtually meaningless. And while she knew intellectually that sex for a Wolf was on a different plane than the communion between Harmonics, she didn’t want to think of sex between herself and Severance as being just a little “special handling.” But, apparently, that was exactly how Severance saw it.

  “I assumed you were sitting here brooding. We had talked about your brother earlier, and there was that light-painting you did. And you’ve been drinking so much before you go to bed lately.” She lifted one shoulder helplessly. “I thought perhaps sad memories were still bothering you.”

  He closed his eyes in obvious disgust. “I should have known better than to try to take a fake Harmonic to bed.” His lashes lifted, revealing a hard, glittering gaze only slightly skewed due to the amount of Renaissance Rose ale in his system. “Let’s get one thing understood here, not that it’s going to do me any good to explain it. I have not been sitting here getting spaced every night since you’ve been on board because I’m suffering from deep depression. Jeude was killed a little more than two years ago. I learned to handle that some time back. In fact, I spent one reeting hell of a year as a bonus man on Renaissance, learning to deal with what happened to Jeude. I don’t need some damned therapist. Renaissance was my therapist. I do not spend every night drinking myself into a stupor because of Jeude.”

  “I see.” She wondered what a bonus man was.

  “No, you don’t, but I’m too drunk to explain it to you.” He rose to his feet with her in his arms.

  Cidra’s sense of balance wavered unpleasantly again as Severance staggered a bit, trying to regain his own equilibrium. She clutched at him and tried to wriggle free. “Put me down, please.”

  “I should.” He started toward the tiered bunks. “I should put you down right in the middle of my bed and make love to you until you can’t think. I’ve decided that thinking is part of your problem, Cidra. The Harmonics taught you to think too much. Gave you too much education. Oughta be a law against teaching fake Saints to think. Therapy. Saints in hell! The last thing I needed tonight was therapy”

  “Severance . . . ?” She realized that he wasn’t going to stand her on her feet. Alarm shot through her as they neared the bunks.

  “Sure as first-class postage, I’m going to regret this.” He halted and lifted her high in his arms.

  “Severance!”

  Before she could protest further, he dropped her onto the top bunk. Physically it was something of an accomplishment, Cidra had to admit as she tumbled out of his arms and onto the bed. The act of lifting her that high required extensive use of the muscle tone he had obviously been developing on his exercise machine. Considering the fact that he’d been drinking strong ale for hours, it was an even more amazing performance.

  Fred awakened with a shudder as Cidra bounced on top of him. She gasped as she felt him move under her leg. For a split second she was afraid that the rockrug might react instinctively, taking a chunk out of her ankle. But he simply slithered to one side in what probably passed for a huff among his species.

  Severance glowered at Cidra over the edge of the bunk. “For a while back there you weren’t thinking in therapeutic terms, lady. For a while you weren’t even thinking in Harmonic terms. For just a short time you were thinking and acting like a real female Wolf. Like a woman. Wonder what the noble Mercer would have thought if he’d seen you with your fancy gold nails digging into a Wolf’s neck.”

  Cidra followed Fred’s example and slithered back a few inches. “There’s no need to bring Mercer into this.”

  “You’re right. He wouldn’t have the vaguest idea what was going on, would he? He wouldn’t have known what you were feeling when you were clinging to me like a sexy little snapcat. But I do know, Cidra. I felt what you were feeling.”

  She flushed under the words, remembering from somewhere that the snapcats found in the central plains of Lovelady’s main continent were well known for their almost constant state of being in heat.

  “I understand why you’re trying to insult me, Severance. You’re upset and you’ve had too much ale. If you have any sense, you’ll fall into your bunk and pass out. As for me, I don’t have to discuss this sort of thing with you. If you want to talk about it in the morning when you’ve calmed down and are no longer spaced, I’ll be willing to sit down and talk. Until then I’m going to sleep.”

  He shook his head in mock admiration, hands on his hips. “Understanding, intellectual, and formal to the last. A true inspiration to the rest of us lowly mortals.”

  “Good night, Severance.” She turned her back to him, sliding down into the bedding and pulling it up to her throat. She was trembling, but she knew she had to remain quiet and firm. Giving him anything to react to would be inviting more trouble. Severance was obviously spoiling for a fight. All the pent-up tension that he had been unable to release on her body was being funneled into a different sort of release. He was a Wolf looking for combat.

  Cidra had had her share of classes in Wolf psychology.

  “Cidra!”

  She flinched as she felt his hand on her arm. “Please, Severance. Go to sleep. I don’t think you’re going to want to remember this in the morning.”

  “You’re probably right.” His hand fell away. “With any luck I won’t.”

  A small jolt went through both bunks as Severance’s full weight hit the bottom one. An unnatural quiet filled the cabin. Cidra’s eyes were wide as she gazed at the bulkhead wall. Severance had warned her more than once that the cabin of a mail ship could be a very small place for two people.

  “I hope,” Severance muttered from the lower bunk, “that you have a lot of trouble falling asleep tonight.”

  Cidra was quiet for a moment, remembering the feel of his hands on her. She ought to keep her mouth shut, but the question was out before she could stop it. “Severance? How did you get those scars on your hands?”

  “Don’t you ever stop asking questions?” He paused for a moment, then let out a deep sigh. “I had a run-in with a killweaver once. Their webs leave marks. We can’t all have soft, smooth hands like yours, Cidra.”

  Cidra wanted to ask more questions on the subject, but common sense finally won over to stop her. But she was awake for a very long time trying to analyze the events of the last hour. There was a great deal to assess, but a single, stark fact emerged from all the rest and would not dissolve: She had reacted to Severance’s lovemaking with a dismaying intensity. Somehow she needed to deal with that because the discovery of her own desire was a threat to the future she envisioned.

  Step by step she reran the scene in her mind. She had gone to Severance initially out of compassion. Very well, that was an understandable, even laudable, motivation. When he had initiated the embrace, she had sensed a raw need in him that she assumed was based on his effort to break the brooding mood caused by thoughts of his brother. Her response to his kiss had again been understandable, if not exactly within normal bounds. She had instinctively wanted to comfort him. It was an extension of the compassion she had felt.

  But compassion and the desire to comfort had all too quickly metamorphosed into something else—something dangerous. Ever since she was a child she had learned to keep a tight rein on the emotional reactions that betrayed her Wolf heritage. There was no other way she could hope to fit into Harmonic society.

  Severance had a way of shaking loose the grip she worked so hard to maintain, and tonight he’d succeeded in unleashing a very primitive, very Wolf side of her nature.

  Bravely Cidra faced the implications. She was a Wolf. But if her quest was successful, she would be able to transcend her status. In the meantime there would be times when her actions would not be those of a true Harmonic. She had known that all her life. Nothing had changed tonight. She could deal with the problem. And in one sense her actions tonigh
t were perfectly comprehensible. After all, she was bound to be curious about certain aspects of her nature. Every thinking human being, Harmonic or Wolf, needed to explore and understand his or her own personality. It was a sign of maturity.

  Cidra began to relax as she found the handle she needed to accept her responses in Severance’s arms. Like it or not, part of her was still Wolf. That part had a right to be investigated, analyzed, and understood. Someday, when she found the object of her quest, she would be leaving behind the Wolf components of her nature. It only made sense to learn something about those components while she could. No knowledge was to be disdained. And knowledge, she told herself firmly, was all she had been seeking in Severance’s arms.

  Her response to Severance had been in the nature of an experiment.

  Severance awoke with a headache that must have rivaled the one the Screamer had given Cidra. He opened his eyes with great caution. The smell of hot coffade was wafting through the cabin. Unmoving, he stared up at the bottom of Cidra’s bunk.

  In a just universe any man who’d had as much Renaissance Rose ale as he’d had the night before would have suffered a convenient lapse of memory. But Severance had learned long ago that the universe was short on justice, at least in the tiny corner occupied by the worlds of Stanza Nine.

  ‘Gesics. He needed a fistful of the fizzers. Slowly Severance sat up on the edge of the bunk, realizing that he hadn’t bothered to undress before passing out. A swirl of red materialized at his elbow. Coffade was thrust into his hand. Severance decided he wasn’t too proud to take it. First things first, and the noble apologies could come later.

  “Thanks,” he muttered. “You know where I keep the ‘gesics?’

  “I’ll get you one.” The too-cheerful red morning surplice robe moved toward the small locker where the ship’s medical stores were kept.