by S. M. Lynch
“Your father might have thought it would feel like your mother didn’t love you enough.”
“But I know that’s not true.”
“And Arthur?” he asked.
“He would never accept it, whether it was true or not; Arthur would’ve certainly always needed someone to blame. If it wasn’t Roche, it’d be my father, for not protecting our mother. He ultimately wouldn’t handle the truth; that Mom did it to protect us; to save herself from a fate worse than death. Arthur wouldn’t cope with the complexity of that.”
“So… he’s just angry… and lashing out.”
“He’s doing more than that,” I said, looking up at the ceiling, then shutting my eyes. “He’s been selling illegal weapons. He takes the guns that are designed to kill clones and reconditions them for general use. My father banned domestic ownership of automatic weapons and knives when he was World President, to great effect, with crime sinking to all-time lows. But he was also stimulating growth all over the world. Helping countries become self-sufficient again. Yet Roche has reneged on all of that. How my father can stand by… but I’m sure, no, I’m absolutely certain… there are other factors in play. It’s not just Arthur with his little band of cretins… it’s more than that. His and Camille’s whispered conversations, little arguments… something is at play, I know it. They would both rather die than tell me and bring me into their confidence.”
Kyle went quiet after that and stared into space, processing his thoughts without telling me what he might have deduced—being an outsider and all. Maybe he didn’t think anything, and I was being paranoid, wondering if he knew something about my family I didn’t. I felt exposed as he kept his musings to himself and before I even knew what I was doing, I stood up in the bath, brushed the soap off myself with my hands and stepped out. I’d reached for the towel and hadn’t even wrapped it around me, when I realized what I’d done, having entirely forgotten I was naked. For a good five or six seconds there, I was full frontal.
“Shi—” I turned around, but then he could see the back of me, and I said, “Shit,” under my breath this time.
I turned at the same time as wrapping the towel around me and saw he was blinking fast and had his mouth open, his jaw slack, eyes like saucers. He looked arrested. His cheeks had turned ruddy and I felt my own temperature rising, even more so, which was strange because I’d just stepped out of the bath.
I left the room quickly and went into the bedroom, finding a t-shirt to pull on after I’d scrubbed myself bone dry with the towel. I climbed into bed and pulled the duvet up around my shoulders, trying to calm myself down. My heart was thundering and I realized I no longer was worrying about my family. I was thinking only about him… about that look in his eyes.
He eventually appeared in the doorway, his body warm and pink from the bath, arms folded. He’d pulled on his boxer shorts but was otherwise naked and I gazed at the sight of his shoulders, pecs and abs. His hands. Eyes. Hair.
“I just saw you naked,” he mumbled, but he wasn’t looking at me as he said it.
The Venetian blinds were half-closed and he was staring out at the bit of sky we could see through them.
“I didn’t mean to… I mean… I didn’t… I’d forgotten I was naked.”
His jaw was clenched and he still couldn’t look at me. He was hugging his own arms like he’d just been wounded or something.
Then, some impulse overtook me.
“I want you to kiss me, Kyle.”
He didn’t respond, and his face twitched with tension, and I started to worry he didn’t love me, after all.
“Down there,” I added. “Under the covers. Down below, down there,” I said, my words weak and feeble, but then when he turned and gazed at me, I knew he understood.
“You want me to go down on you?”
I pressed my lips together, nearly lost for words. “Mmhm.”
“What if I can’t stop myself?” he said, the look in his eyes making me crazy hot for him.
“I won’t want you to.”
“But what if… one day…?”
“…you have to leave me?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“I want you, Kyle. I want this. I want you.”
He strode across the room until he reached the bed. I opened the covers a bit and he slid in next to me. I put my arms around him as he pressed his lips tenderly to mine and sighed.
Searching my eyes, he asked, “Is this because you’re sad?”
“No. It’s because I want you.”
I ran my fingers down his back and brought him closer, sliding my foot along his leg. His body was muscular and lean, his skin soft and smooth and warm.
“What about if I make you pregnant? Nothing is entirely preventative.”
I kissed his mouth hungrily, bringing him closer, and closer, until his hand slid down my back and he touched my bare ass, hissing when his fingertips met skin. He shuddered and shut his eyes, shaking.
“Ariadne,” he murmured.
“Kiss me, between my legs,” I asked. “And the rest we’ll worry about later. Please.”
I pushed on his shoulders and he bit his lip, resisting me, a grin threatening to break out across his face. He needed some persuading, so I took his hand and gently let his fingers rest between my thighs, so he could feel what he did to me.
“I want you. I want your kiss. I want you to make me have an orgasm using your tongue. And then I want to feel you inside me, bare and naked. I want you, Kyle,” I moaned. “I want you to be inside me. I’ve been and had a shot in my arm. I won’t get pregnant, I promise. I want you, right now. I want you.”
He growled and then he suddenly pressed the weight of his upper body on top of me, kissing me deeply until I saw stars and was shaking from head to toe. I’d never felt what I was feeling with anyone else and it was breath-taking, amazing and emotional. I moaned as he grabbed my bottom and began to make his way beneath the covers, kissing my body over my t-shirt until he got to my navel and lifted the shirt so he could lick me there. I arched off the bed at the feel of his rough stubble against my belly, moaning his name. He kissed my skin until I was on fire, feeling like his stubble had been everywhere, when in reality it was just that his touch left me prickly and hot all over.
“Ugh, Ari… ugh,” he groaned beneath the covers, before he seized my hips in his hands and slid his tongue through my delicate folds, greedy but careful.
I grabbed fistfuls of his hair and wrapped my legs around his head. He lifted me up to him with his hands beneath my buttocks and I rocked against his talented tongue.
It was everything I’d hoped it would be and more. When he broke off momentarily and bit the inside of my thigh, I thought I was going to fly right up off the bed, it evoked so many sensations inside me.
I knew he was enjoying himself from the sounds he was making and our hands locked together as my hips rocked from side to side, my body spread wide open to him, as he turned his head one way, then another, truly getting to know my needs and desires, his tongue devouring my taste but also discovering the landscape. And then when he found the spot I needed him to touch most of all, I let out a shriek because everything I’d been holding in came bubbling to the surface. I held him to me, rocking with wild abandon into his touch, holding him securely, my fingers dug into his hair and my upper body nearly all the way off the bed as my desire fanned out like the petals of a flower opening, spreading to every corner of my being. I fell back on the bed and he chuckled, his head still beneath the covers, hands around my hips, his tongue licking gently against my swollen nubbin.
“Kyle,” I groaned, wanting him closer.
“There’s time,” he said softly, his voice soothing, calming.
I lifted my arms above my head and lay back, relaxing, as he kissed my cleft gently before coming slowly towards me, his kisses against my stomach making me giggle and cover my face. He chuckled and smoothed his hands along the backs of my legs while his chest rested between my thighs and he kissed my stomach.
“I love you,” I groaned.
“I love you, too,” he said, and my cheeks got even hotter.
He was kissing my ribcage when his hands found mine and he trapped them above my head so I couldn’t move them towards him. He was still mostly beneath the covers apart from his forearms. My t-shirt had ridden up but only to expose my stomach, not yet my breasts. He took his time kissing every bone of my ribcage, and he licked the dip in the center of my torso repeatedly, making me wriggle beneath him.
“Oh, Kyle,” I moaned.
“I know, pretty girl, I know,” he whispered, suddenly sucking a patch of skin and making me cry out.
He kissed just beneath my boobs and only nudged his tongue fractionally into the valley between them. The cotton of my t-shirt was clinging to me and I desperately wanted rid of it.
Then he pushed his chin against the material to uncover my left breast for his tongue, and I screamed his name and thrashed against the bed, even as he held me still. Then it was my right breast and my chest was heaving up and down, my nerve endings were on fire, and I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything before in my life.
He kept hold of my hands with one of his and I laughed a filthy laugh, eliciting the same sort of dirty chuckle from him. With his spare hand, he lifted my shirt until it was covering my eyes and I was sort of blindfolded.
“Oh, Ariadne,” he groaned, “you’re so incredibly divine.”
He suckled my nipples and held my breasts until I was writhing, nearly kicking out, and then when his lips touched my throat, I felt an orgasm begin to build inside me.
“Touch me,” I begged, “touch me, inside, NOW!” I gasped, delirious.
He slid to the side of me, keeping my arms above my head, and he panted against my mouth and must’ve been looking down the length of my body because by this point, I knew the blankets had mysteriously disappeared. He slid his fingers inside me and I lifted my hips off the bed, screaming as I came.
Hair was plastered to my forehead and I was breathless and on fire when he moved on top of me, finally getting rid of the dumb shirt from my body. I helped him remove his boxers and touched his silky length, groaning, desperate for him. He kissed my mouth wildly and I kissed him back, just as desperate. The feel of his skin under my fingertips and his body pressed to mine was incredible. I spread my legs wide and he gradually nudged himself into my body, the sensation of it so overwhelming, I wanted to cry. He sensed this and took things slowly, holding and kissing me, never breaking eye contact.
“Ari,” he whispered, his eyes staring down into mine.
I wrapped my legs and arms around him and smiled because I was so happy.
It was slow and it was gentle but it was incredibly sensual. His stubble grazed my throat and breasts as I arched off the bed and he lifted my bottom, bringing me towards him.
He rolled over onto his back and I went with him, taking the reins. I laced my fingers through his at the sides of his head and stared down into his big brown eyes while I rocked over him, watching his face twitch with emotion and need. I kissed his hard chest and licked the hollow of his throat, grinning when he hardened inside me even more. I dragged my teeth along the inside of his bicep and kissed his bruised mouth softly, until he was gazing at me like he couldn’t believe this was happening.
I nipped his lip and that’s when he threw me over onto my back again and moved much faster, pinning me down. I squeezed my eyes shut and groaned, “Yes, yes… yes!” Everything in me tightened and it was so much more than I’d ever known or would ever know, ever again.
It sounded like he was howling when he finished inside me just after I had clutched him several times, the urge to bear down having overtaken me. There I was covered in sweat, red as a beet and messed up, while he’d nothing but red cheeks and a dirty grin on his face.
He slowly lowered himself to my chest and rested his cheek against my breastbone. I wrapped my legs and arms around him, played with his hair gently and sighed as we recovered.
“You weren’t a virgin,” he said.
“No. Did you think I was?”
“I wasn’t sure actually.”
“Do you care?”
“No, I just… did you…?”
“Love anyone else?”
“Um, I was going to say, did you ever… did you… uh, do it before just for pleasure?”
“It was curiosity… stupidity. I’ve never felt like this about anyone.”
“Me neither,” he said.
I gulped and felt massively blindsided by his admission.
“You’ve been remembering a lot more, haven’t you?”
“I have,” he said eventually.
“That’s why you’re so good at it.”
“No,” he said strongly, and lifted his face to mine. “No, Ari. That’s not it. Nothing, nobody, compares to you. I love you. I know I never loved before. If I know nothing else, that I do know.”
I held his cheek as he moved in and kissed me. Just a chaste kiss, but so powerful.
“I love you,” I said, holding his gaze.
“I know,” he whispered, sliding his hand beneath me, down my back, over my ass, along the back of my thigh and then my calf.
He spread my thighs open again and nudged his way back inside me. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face and he bit my bottom lip. Him being whatever he was… a superhuman or something… was going to have its benefits, certainly.
“I love you, Ari,” he groaned, as he plunged into me again, until we were one.
Chapter Twenty-Three
HE THOUGHT THAT ONCE HE’D been inside her, it would be his new favorite thing, but it wasn’t. His favorite thing was still to hold her through the night as she slept, whether she rested peacefully or fitfully and he had to hold her closer.
They barely left the bed that first day they were properly together. He was entirely exhausted, and yet, he made himself stay awake just so he could listen to her breathe and watch her dream.
Ari wasn’t just beautiful, she was otherworldly. He saw fragments of her father in her, but he knew, she was exceptional because of her mother… because of her breeding. Did that also make her genetically modified? He didn’t know.
She jolted in sleep and wriggled around, mumbling words. Not only did he get to sleep with her entwined, like this, but now they would do it naked, he hoped, forever.
“Hush, my beauty, hush,” he whispered, caressed his fingertips across her forehead and kissed her cheek.
She reached back for him, and he wrapped her tighter inside his embrace. She kissed his arm and sighed, their naked bodies perfectly curled into one another, the comfort lulling her back to sleep.
Kyle shut his eyes and recalled the conversation he’d had with her father the day before.
The man had sacrificed his queen from the off and Kyle knew Ryken didn’t really want to play with him, rather to scupper the game overall and force him into making some similarly rash moves. However, Kyle already knew which moves Hardy would make. He’d been secretly watching him play against Camille, who also recognized Hardy to be a psychological bully, and had made it easy for him to win, making it appear as though she was playing to his tune.
Kyle figured why not do the same. Let the broken fool have his wins.
However, something strange happened. Hardy made it appear like he was going to take his king, then he didn’t. And within two moves, Kyle had him. The game was over. Kyle had won.
“You remember more than you admit,” Ryken said, the veins beneath his tortured eyes twitching.
Now Camille and Ari were having their girl talk in the kitchen, they were alone in the living room and Kyle knew Hardy was going to put his cards on the table.
“I remember more every day,” Kyle admitted.
“What do you remember?” the older man demanded, looming across the small table between them.
Ryken set up the board for a new game and they began to play absentmindedly, not really playing at all, or so Kyle thought.
“Yes, go on,” Ryken said, as he maliciously sought to overthrow all of Kyle’s defensive strategies, aiming for the queen.
“I was an Ivy Leaguer. 4.0 GPA. Only kid of two devoted, together parents. Captain of the football team. Prom king. Sports scholarship. Lawyer parents. Arranged marriage, to the daughter of my father’s partner. Seemed like the dream, you know?”
“And what happened?”
“They found out I had some sort of brain tumor. And there was no cure.”
Hardy nodded his head; he’d decided this scenario fit, Kyle could tell. The man was a walking intelligence machine. He took no prisoners. He knew all.
“Except there was, wasn’t there?” asked Ryken.
“Couple shady guys followed me into a coffee shop one day. One put a card in my hand. All it said was ‘Do you want to live?’ and I strolled right over, joined them… and they told me this story… about an island.”
“Panacea,” Ryken muttered.
“Yeah. Said I’d have to appear to have disappeared. I’d have to sign my life away. It was experimental, I was told, but there was every chance I’d live a full life afterwards.”
“And you just did it? You didn’t think twice?”
Kyle swallowed hard, saw the judgement in Ryken’s eyes, but went on… “One of them showed me pictures of supposedly dead celebrities that were still living, somewhere else. Some had obviously aged a bit. But not much. I was promised a cure, like these other people. After being told there wasn’t one by my own doctors, even that I was inoperable and had six months to live, you bet I snatched up that chance.”
“What was the catch?” Ryken said, in a gravelly tone of voice.
“I never asked, perhaps I should have.”
“Do you remember the island?” Hardy asked him.
“Vaguely. But I seem to remember the cold more. They preserved me, I think. I’m 99% certain of it.”
Ryken leaned forward. “You think they may have frozen you, until such time as you could be cured?”