“So many times. There wasn’t much else to do, lying in that bed. You were my escape. Even when you weren’t actually there with me.”
“Well, I’m here now.” I kiss him again, and this time his mouth opens beneath mine. He nibbles my lower lip and I open for him. Inviting him in.
I moan as his tongue plunges into my mouth, dancing with mine in a rhythm that makes me want much more.
“So much better than dreaming,” he murmurs when I finally pull away to stare down at his beautiful green eyes.
“I wish you weren’t still recovering,” I whisper, leaning down to drop a trail of kisses along his jaw, heading for his ear. I’m hungry for this. For him.
“Why? What if I were the picture of health?” His hand trails softly down my arm, and the strength in his fingers gives me hope. “What would you do?”
“Something that probably isn’t appropriate for a hospital bed.”
“Luckily for both of us, I’m feeling pretty damn good right now.” His eyes practically sparkle up at me, despite the dim level of light in the room.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. I just…I just want to look at you. To touch you. You make me feel so alive, after weeks of living like a corpse.”
Somehow, even though I haven’t spent the past few weeks in bed, I feel the same way. So I sit up next to him, perched on one knee, and I pull my shirt over my head. “You are so beautiful,” he says as I let the material fall to the floor. “Come here.” He tries to lift me onto him, but I pull back, afraid he’ll hurt himself.
“How’s your abdomen?”
“It’s fine. I mean, I probably won’t be doing inverse crunches today, but you won’t hurt me as long as you don’t sit directly on the incision.”
“That’s not where I was thinking of sitting,” I admit softly, and a lump grows in his pants, swelling to an impressive size.
“You won’t hurt me,” he repeats, and I laugh as I run my hand over his chest, beneath his prison-issue tee.
“I’m not sure I can trust anything you say now, knowing that most of your blood has abandoned your brain.”
Beau chuckles, and the sound resonates deep inside me, triggering an intimate ache, low and hot. “I didn’t expect to survive this place. I’m still not sure I will. We could be caught any second, and if that’s what’s in the cards for us, I can’t imagine a more wonderful way to spend my last moments than here with you. Even if that hurts my stomach a little.”
I can’t breathe. He’s so beautiful, he’s stolen my breath. I want him so badly. But I don’t agree; a few moments together won’t be nearly enough. But it’s a start.
“You’re sure?” I whisper.
He stretches his arms over his head, then folds them beneath his scalp. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”
“Okay.” I smile down at him. “But you have to lie back and let me do all the work.” He starts to object, but I speak over him. “That’s my condition. Because of your condition.”
“Fine,” he relents. “But if we do get out of here, the first thing I’m going to do is make that up to you.”
“Deal.” I lean down for another kiss, and his hands roam up my sides, over the elastic of my horrible prison-issue bra. When I don’t object, his fingers trail around my ribcage. The material pulls tight for a second, then it gapes loose. I pluck the article free and toss it over the side of the bed.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs, pulling me down so that his mouth can close over my nipple as his erection throbs between us, through both layers of our clothing. “I want to see the rest of you.”
Carefully, I climb off of him and shove my pants down, with my underwear still inside them. A sense of urgency makes my heart race in a combination of fear and excitement. The only thing worse than getting caught would be getting caught right now. Before we have a chance to truly experience each other.
“Katerina…” Beau shoves at his waist band, flinching as his abs flex with the effort.
“Let me.” I reach for his waist, and he lifts his hips enough for me to pull the material down, freeing an impressive erection. I try not to stare. “Well. Yup, that’ll definitely get the job done.”
Beau laughs. “Glad you approve.”
I climb back on the bed and straddle him, and as I lean down for another kiss, I can’t resist stroking him. I want to touch him all over, but we have no time, and he’s no-doubt still in pain, and—
His groan rolls over me, and I freeze. “Is that a good sound or a bad sound?” I whisper against his mouth. “I never realized how much pleasure can sound like pain. And vice versa.”
“Good. It’s so good,” he moans. “Do that again.”
I stroke him again, tightening my hand around his length, and he pulls me down for another kiss as he thrusts gently into my hand. “God, I want you.” His hand slides between us, past the point where I’m stroking him, and I suck in a breath when I feel his fingertip glide over my clit. He stays there for a moment, rubbing gently, then his finger dips inside me, pumping slowly, gathering moisture, which he drags back to lubricate my clit for a few more strokes.
“Oh my god.” I grind against his hand, my own free hand braced on his shoulder, to keep from putting any weight on his stomach. “Normally I’d be thrilled to spend serious time on the warm up, but I’m afraid we might not have much time, so—”
“Ride me, Kat,” Beau growls, and a thrill races up my spine. “Now. Please,” he adds on the end of another groan, as his hand abandons me to grip my hip. “I need—”
I lift myself and position his cock at my entrance, then I lower myself onto him in one smooth motion.
“Fuck,” he groans, his entire body tensing as I clench around him.
“You good?” I make myself hold still, despite the urge to rock forward.
“Yes. Please, Kat. Ride me.”
That’s all I needed to hear.
I lean forward, lifting my hips with the motion, clutching at his cock with my inner muscles as I slowly rise until only his head remains inside me. Then I lower myself again and grind against his pubic bone.
“Oh god.” His hands clench around my hips, and the tension in his arms—the muscles standing out beneath his skin—hint at a strength that’s been wasted, with him lying helpless in bed. Strength that he obviously wants to reclaim. “You feel so good.” He clutches my hips, guiding my motions while he stares up into my eyes, and in seconds, we’ve found the right rhythm.
I ride him gently, at first, worried that I’m going to hurt him.
“Kat. Faster,” he groans. “Please.” So, I speed up a little, reveling in every brush of my clit against his pubic bone. Every stroke of his length against that sensitive spot inside me.
“I don’t want to—”
Beau slides one arm behind my neck and pulls me down until his mouth captures mine. His free hand caresses my breast, teasing my nipple as his tongue plunges into my mouth.
I gasp, and he arches up beneath me, slamming into me until I’m as desperate for release as he is. “Fuck,” I whisper as I finally break off our kiss. Then I sit up and ride him hard.
Sweat gathers on his chest and glistens on my breasts. “Oh!” I cry, as that spiral of pleasure tightens inside me. “Oh my god!”
“Wait for me,” he groans, arching into me over and over, heedless of his own pain.
“I can’t. I—”
“Wait,” he orders as he grabs my hips and thrust into me, hard. Once. Twice. “Now, Kat! Come for me now!”
I bite my lip as I let it go, holding back a scream of pleasure that reverberates in my head instead. Beau grunts as I feel him release inside me, over and over, still gripping my hips, keeping our bodies locked together as wave after wave of pleasure crests inside me.
“Holy shit,” he whispers as I collapse on top of him, my cheek pressed to his chest, careful of his still-healing incision. “Hey.” He brushes hair back from my face. “That was amazing.”
&nb
sp; “Uh huh. If we get out of here, we are definitely doing that again. But slower.”
“Guys.” Jack knocks on the door, and I sit up, suddenly humiliated to realize he could probably hear the whole thing. “There’s activity in the hall.”
“Just a sec,” I call in a loud whisper as I climb off of Beau and pull my clothes back on. He pulls his pants up on his own, flinching with the movement, and I hope I haven’t hurt him.
“I’m fine,” he says with one glance at my face. “And even if I’m not, that was totally worth it.”
I give him a smile. Then I pull the door open and let Jack in as Beau sits up. “What’s going on?”
“Footsteps,” Jack says. “And hushed voices. They’re not searching this floor yet, but the staff definitely knows that something’s up.”
We sit in tense silence for several minutes, waiting for someone to burst through the door. When that doesn’t happen, I pull a couple of disposable cups from a dispenser on the wall and fill them at the sink. “You need to stay hydrated,” I say as I hand one to Beau.
He gives me a heated smile as he accepts the cup, then drains it.
“Okay, it looks like we’re in the clear, at least for the moment. And since we have a few minutes…” Jack turns to me and pulls something from his pocket. It’s a small cylinder, just like the one Borden drew my blood with, a few days ago. “This will take a drop of blood and analyze it for any abnormalities,” he says. “I took it for Beau, but I think we should use it on you.”
“What? Why?”
There’s something strange in his eyes when he answers. Something…sad. “Because I’m worried about something, and I just want to… Kat, will you give me your finger please?”
“Why? I—”
Beau and Jack exchange a look that raises chill bumps all over my skin. “Fuck,” Beau breathes, and I realize he’s caught onto whatever it is that Jack isn’t telling me. “Kat, please give him your finger.”
Finally, I hold my hand out to Jack, and he presses the cylinder against my index finger. He pushes the button on the end, and I flinch as a needle shoots out to puncture my skin. “What exactly are we testing for?” I demand as I suck on the wound.
“Just a sec.” Jack stares at the little screen running the length of the device. A second later, the cylinder beeps, and he reads the results silently. Then he presses a button to scroll through more text on the tiny screen. “Shit.” He hands me the device, but I don’t understand the text I’m reading. It has to do with the levels of some hormone in my blood.
I hand it back to him with a shrug. “What does this mean?”
Jack exhales slowly. “It means you’re pregnant.”
“What?” For a second, I can only stare at him. “That’s not possible. We just…” I stare at Beau, who’s sitting up on the bed now, then I turn back to Jack. “That literally just happened. It’s way too early to… And besides, I’m sterile. All the female prisoners are. There was this procedure right before they put me on the transport—”
But not all of the female prisoners are sterile. If that were the case, Penny and those other two women wouldn’t be locked up in those fucking glass cages, obviously expecting.
“Your condition pre-dates…that.” Jack throws a glance at Beau and the hospital bed. “By several weeks, according to the hormone levels. Which means that what they did to you before they shipped you here couldn’t have been a sterilization procedure. I think they artificially inseminated you, Kat. You were pregnant before you ever arrived on Devil’s Eye. And that’s why you were sent to zone twelve, rather than dropped in the general population.”
11
BEAU
“What?” Kat’s forehead furrows, and I watch, helpless, as understanding washes over her. As she puts together the pieces and comes to the same horrific conclusion Jack and I just arrived at.
She probably would have beaten us both to that, if she weren’t in total denial of—
“No,” Katerina whispers fiercely. “No, that can’t be true. You’re saying…” She stumbles, overwhelmed by the shock, and I’m off the bed in an instant, tugging her back onto her feet in spite of the echo of pain in my abdomen. “You’re saying I’m a donor too?” She twists in my grip to stare at Jack in utter shock. “Only what they’re taking from me is a baby?”
He nods. “I think that’s what they did to Penny and those other women. And what they’ve done to you.”
“I was matched,” Kat mumbles, and I’m not sure I heard her right until she says it again.
“Here. Sit down.” I guide her back toward the bed and sit next to her, on the edge.
“Dr. Borden said prisoners are flagged when they match a donor in urgent need of a transplant, but she never mentioned anything about this!” Kat’s eyes are wide, but they appear unfocused, as if she’s seeing something other than this room. “Then that’s why—”
“That’s why what?” Jack asks, while I run my hand up and down her back, trying to comfort her the only way I know how.
“That’s why I got a life sentence for fucking petty theft! Right? I mean, why else would the judge have sent me here for stealing a lipstick? He must be getting a kickback from Universal Authority. I matched someone’s requirements, and he got paid to send me here, instead of giving me a six-month stint in the local jail.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that,” Jack says, while my blood boils, both for Kat and for myself. Was the judge in my case paid to send me here?
“That’s why they took me to Borden’s office, when I had that dizzy spell,” Kat continues. “That’s why the nurse and intern fell for it so easily, when I pretended to feel faint on the main floor. They all know I’m pregnant! They know I’m just another donor, and they let me walk around here for more than a month, going about my day with no clue, because… Why would they do that?” she demands in another fierce whisper. “Why would they lie to me?” But before either Jack or I can hazard a guess, she answers her own question. “Because it’s better for the baby. They do whatever’s best for the recipient, no matter what that means for the donor, only in this case it isn’t a recipient. It’s a baby. It’s better for the baby if I’m not locked up in a one-room display case until I absolutely have to be. Until I figure out what they’ve done to me.”
“That must be what happened to Penny,” Jack says. “She figured it out, so they locked her up and told the rest of us she’d been sent to gen pop.”
“Those bastards!” Kat’s hand settles over her stomach, as if she can actually feel the little intruder already. “Who’s is it?” she demands, turning to both of us as a new wave of panic washes over her features. “Whose baby is this?” Tears fill her eyes. “Is it mine? I mean, did they use my egg, or am I just an incubator for someone else’s bun?”
Jack looks at me, and I can see what he’s thinking. What he doesn’t want to tell her.
I exhale slowly, still rubbing her back. “I think it’s yours, Kat. If they just wanted a surrogate, they could have found one anywhere. I think they picked you for the same reason they picked me. We were each a genetic fit for someone. A nearly perfect match, evidently. My guess is that you look a lot like a woman on some planet half a galaxy away from here, whose own eggs weren’t viable. I’m guessing she has beautiful blue eyes and bright red hair, just like yours. And that the baby you’re carrying is her husband’s—conceived with a woman who looks as much like his wife as is humanly possible, without a true genetic connection.”
“Oh my god,” she moans. “They knocked me up with some stranger’s sperm, then they were going to steal my baby?” Her arms close protectively over her flat stomach, and I can see a storm of conflicting emotions rolling over her. “I don’t even… I mean, I didn’t ask for this baby. But I’m not just going to let them take it. It’s mine! It’s part of me! Right?”
“Kat.” I take her by the chin and turn her to face me. “We will never let that happen. We’re getting out of here, remember? That’s still the plan. We are all going to
get out of here. Right Jack?”
“Yeah.” He nods, and I pretend I can’t see the doubt swimming in his eyes.
Universal Authority will do everything it can to keep Kat from getting off this planet, because unlike the organs they were hoping to cut out of me, that baby isn’t just hers. It also belongs to some man with enough money and influence to pay what must be an astronomically expensive fee for this service.
And suddenly I am convinced that whoever and wherever he is, his wife has a closet full of fake pregnancy bellies just waiting to be flaunted, while Kat carries the real child out here on the edge of the damn galaxy, locked up in a room under constant surveillance.
“We have to go.” Kat bolts up from the bed, her eyes wide with panic. “Beau, we have to—” She frowns, and her gaze drops to my stomach. “Are you in pain? Are you okay to run, if we have to?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Whatever Jack gave me earlier really did the trick.” Which isn’t entirely a lie. I’ve healed much faster than would ever have been possible, without that accelerant. But there’s no need for them to know that it still hurts for me to tense my stomach.
If I could fight through that to make love to Katerina, I can damn well fight through it to get her off this fucked up planet.
“So…what’s the plan?” I ask, while Kat stares at the floor, obviously still mired in shock. “How do we get to this medical ship?”
“According to Logan, who works there, the ships are parked in a lot next to the recipient’s wing,” Jack says. “Which means we need to get out of this building and over to that one, without being caught.”
“What about Nan and the others?” Kat says. “We can’t leave them.”
“Nan knows the plan,” I tell her. “If she and the others make it, we’ll take them with us. If not, I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“We can’t leave them,” she repeats, frowning at me, and I’m relieved to see that her gaze is focused again. She’s pushing through shock.
“I’m not going to risk your safety to—”
“Kat,” Jack interrupts me, stepping into her field of vision to catch her gaze. “We’re going to do our best to bring them with us. But if they don’t make it in time, they wouldn’t want you to stay here and get caught. Not knowing what will happen to you and Beau, if you get stuck here. Okay?”
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