Brother Blues_Stepbrother MC Biker Romance

by Terri Lane

  “What can I do?” she asked, feeling powerless in the face of grief.

  He stared at her, lovely features frozen in a calm mask as his golden marking danced around his eyes. “Hold me,” he said simply.

  She did.

  Polina wrapped her small arms around him and pressed her face into his chest, surprised at the hot tears that poured down her face. She supposed that she would need to do the crying for both of them in this situation.

  “Do you want to leave?” she asked, tracing her fingertips along his broad back.

  Arryn shook his head. “We can’t leave, the storm is worse now.”

  Polina listened. She could barely hear anything inside the snug bunker. “Are you sure?”

  Arryn nodded, his chin rustling against the top of her head. “I can hear it. The wind is screaming right now, Polina.”

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “We wait.”

  There was a sudden click and the bunker went dark.

  “I thought we might want to conserve power on the flashbeam,” Arryn said. “In case the storm lasts until nightfall.”

  Polina shuddered. “Do you really think it could last that long?”

  Arryn’s arms tightened around her. “It could,” he replied. “It could.”

  The stood there like that—holding one another, the tip of Arryn’s chin resting on Polina’s head—for what seemed like an eternity.

  “Arryn?” Polina asked, interrupting the distant howling of the wind. “Why were you staring at me when we met yesterday?”

  Arryn paused, his body tensing. “Why were you staring at me?”

  “That’s not fair, I asked you first,” Polina grumbled.

  “Galen always says that the best way of getting out of a question you don’t wish to answer is by simply asking another questions,” Arryn said.

  “You don’t want to answer my question?”

  “No.”

  Polina was puzzled. “Why not?”

  “Because it might be uncomfortable, Polina,” Arryn said.

  “I can handle a little discomfort,” she replied. “But I can’t handle not knowing. You’re confusing, Arryn. You’re confusing and I just want to understand you better. Why were you staring?”

  This time, Arryn did not hesitate. “Because you were beautiful.”

  Polina pulled back in shock and regretted it instantly, as she lost Arryn in the darkness. “Shit,” she muttered, stretching her hands out to find him again. “Where did you go?”

  “I’m here,” Arryn said, his voice coming from behind her now. His arms wrapped around her from behind, anchoring her in space once again. “I’m here,” he repeated.

  “Did you really think I was beautiful?” Polina asked, dropping her head back against the solid wall of Arryn’s broad chest.

  “No,” he said softly, his breath ghosting over the top of her head.

  “No?” Polina was shocked. Arryn didn’t seem like the type to tell a lie, especially one as cruel as this.

  “No,” he repeated. “You just phrased your statement in the past tense. It’s not true that I thought you were beautiful, Polina, I still think you’re beautiful.”

  Polina wheeled around, without thinking, and searched for Arryn’s face in the blackness of the underground room. She found it and let her hands gently rest on the curve of his strong jaw. “Arryn, you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” she gushed, emboldened by the intimate anonymity of the pitch-black room.

  Standing on her tiptoes, Polina pressed her lips against Arryn’s soft mouth. At first, she encountered only coldness, resistance. But she remembered everything she’d learned about Arryn, about Dardassyians in general, in the last day or so. They weren’t great at expressing feelings.

  “Do you like that?” she ventured cautiously.

  Arryn’s response was immediate. “Yes,” he said, his voice strangely tight. “Please do that again.”

  Polina did. And this time she did not stop, pressing into Arryn’s mouth with her eager tongue. It took him several moments to warm to her, then he greeted her enthusiastically, sliding his own tongue against hers, encouraging her, urging her on.

  She pressed the frontline of her body against his, trying to gain as much contact with him as she could, convince herself that this was real. Arryn was firm against her, solid and strong. Polina ran one hand down the length of his jaw, then let her hand trace downward over his chest, over the taut line of his stomach, pausing just at his hip.

  Polina hesitated, unsure how to proceed with the reserved Dardassyian. Arryn solved her dilemma for her, grabbing her wrist and sliding it down between his legs, without ever breaking their fervent kiss.

  “Oh,” Polina gasped, as her hand settled over the enormous bulge in the crotch of Arryn’s flight suit.

  He pulled back and, although Polina could not see him, she could feel him gazing down toward her. “Is my anatomy problematic?” he asked, his golden voice thick with concern.

  “Is your—?” Polina did not understand the question.

  “I was under the impression that Dardassyians and Earthlings shared the same reproductive organs—”

  “We do!” Polina practically shouted. “We definitely do.”

  “Then why did you gasp?” Arryn asked.

  Polina sighed. “It’s just that you—you’re big.”

  “I’m big?” Arryn wondered.

  “In comparison to human males,” Polina said. “Well, any human male that I’ve been with, anyway.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Arryn, if it’s a problem, then it’s a really good problem to have.”

  Polina heard an inhale, as if he were about to ask another question, but she stopped him with another kiss, this one deeper, slower, less frantic. Arryn’s body relaxed into her, matching her pace.

  There was the sound of a zip, and Polina felt Arryn begin to slide his own flightsuit off his shoulders. She unzipped her own suit and pushed it down off her shoulders and past her hips until it pooled around her ankles. Based on touch, Arryn had done the same thing.

  “What are you wearing?” she asked as her fingertips explored the naked terrain of Arryn’s lithe body.

  “Undergarments,” he whispered back.

  Her fingers found the end of his garments and she slid one finger under the waistband experimentally. Arryn’s breath quickened almost imperceptibly. Polina pressed one last kiss on his chest, then yanked his undergarments down past his hips, until they too joined the flight suit around his ankles.

  “Stay still,” she ordered, as she kissed a trail down his chest, over his abdomen, down along the slender v-shape inside his hipbone, until her mouth met a small thatch of smooth curls. Polina briefly wondered what color they were, then smiled as she decided that she’d find out another time, when they were doing this again in a more brightly lit area.

  “What are you—?” Arryn’s words disappeared into a strangled cry as Polina took the thick head of his cock between her lips and swallowed him down. Polina worked her way down the thickness of him, enjoying the cries and whimpers that he made as she flicked her tongue along the underside of his shaft.

  Arryn’s hands rested lightly on her hair, gently reassuring her without taking control. “Polina,” he muttered, his voice hazy with lust. “Please don’t stop doing that, don’t ever stop doing that.”

  Polina didn’t intend to stop. Not now, at least. Instead she picked up the pace, adding her hand to the base of the shaft for extra stimulation. Her mouth and hand matched each other, picking up speed with each frenzied moan from Arryn’s throat.

  “Polina!” he cried, his voice tight. He was close, she could tell. “Polina! Polina! Pol—” Arryn came, spilling his release down her throat as her name danced on his lips. He called to her for ages, never giving up his praise until he was completely spent.

  Polina pulled herself off of him, gentle in her release. He staggered anyway, weak in the knees from the waves
of pleasure that assaulted him, and Polina balanced him with one hand on his strong thigh.

  “Are you okay?” she whispered.

  “Uh-huh,” he grunted in affirmation, words lost to him.

  She quickly zipped her suit up and then assisted Arryn with his.

  “Wait,” he said, as Polina eased his flight suit over his shoulders. “What about you? Polina, that’s not fair.”

  She smiled, even though she knew it would be lost in the darkness. “Don’t worry about me, Arryn. I’m going to let you owe me one.”

  ***

  They were nearly out of the bunker when the light from Arryn’s flashbeam caught a glimpse of something in a corner.

  “What is that?” Polina asked as Arryn made his way over to what appeared to be a small, metal cabinet. Arryn just shook his head and tugged at the door.

  “Locked,” he muttered. Polina was about to suggest going back to the storage area to look for a key, when Arryn gave the doors a hard yank, ripping them open with his bare hand.

  “Whoa,” Polina gasped. “I wasn’t aware that Dardassyians have super strength.”

  Arryn glanced up at her, face grave. “We don’t,” he informed her. “It was just a very poorly-made cabinet.”

  Inside the cabinets were stacks of vid records, disc after disc, piled on each shelf, dust thick on each one.

  “These are old,” Arryn said, pulling one out and blowing the layer of dust away. “Is there anything here that plays these?”

  Polina shook her head. “I don’t know. And even if there was, we don’t have any power.”

  Arryn frowned for a moment, then dashed back to the storage area, returning shortly with a canvas bag. “Let’s bring them back and see if Galen can make them play on the shuttle’s vid system.”

  Galen.

  Polina was pierced with a pang of regret. It had been barely twenty-four hours since she’d been in this very bunker with him, under shockingly similar circumstances, and she’d barely thought of the Artarian pilot at all. She’d been so preoccupied with the novelty of Arryn’s beauty, that she’d completely forgotten his friend.

  Polina felt terrible.

  Arryn stuffed the vid discs into the bag and began to climb the ladder, when he glanced back down at her. “Is everything all right?” he asked. “You have an expression of either sadness or nausea on your face. Are you sick?”

  Polina forced a smile, hoping it was enough to fool Arryn, and joined him on the ladder. “No, I’m fine. I just felt a little funny for a second, that’s all.”

  “All right,” Arryn said, disappearing out of the top of the hatch.

  She scampered up after him, shaking her head. Dardassyians were impossible to understand.

  They were halfway back to the crash site when they saw a flashbeam coming from the direction of the downed ship.

  “Hello?” Galen’s voice called from the darkness. “Arryn? Polina?”

  Arryn flashed his beam in the direction of Galen’s voice and they picked up their pace to meet him.

  The pilot was disheveled and out of breath when they finally caught up to him. “I thought you guys died out here,” Galen exclaimed, pulling them both into a massive hug. “The storm whipped up and it was so much worse than yesterday—”

  As they trudged home across the dark surface of the moon, Galen continued his tale of woe and worry. “—and I’d hoped that you made it to the hatch, but I wasn’t sure. Luckily, you did. Hey! Wanna hear some great news?”

  “Of course,” Polina replied, hoping to keep Galen cheerful for as long as possible.

  “Shuttle’s fixed!” Galen crowed. “Power’s back up and running, systems are all online and we can launch tomorrow morning as soon as we have sunlight.”

  Polina collapsed with relief, pulling Galen toward her into a warm side-hug. “That is fantastic news,” she sighed. Maybe her career could be salvaged after all. She’d just need to get really creative with an excuse for being off-planet without leave for two nights. Polina was clever, she knew she could come up with something.

  Arryn, however, had completely different thoughts. “Did you say the power was back online?” he asked Galen, cocking one golden eyebrow.

  The taxi shuttle’s vid system was capable of playing the vid discs from the bunker but, only a few minutes into the first vid, Polina desperately wished it wasn’t. The images captured on those discs solved the mystery of why there were Dardassyian glyphs in the bunker, but the story that accompanied it was full of pain, anguish and betrayal.

  When they’d finished all the vids, Arryn stared at the screen, silent and glassy eyed.

  “Arryn?” Galen started, but Arryn just shook his head.

  “They had a settlement,” Arryn whispered. “My people, they had a settlement, they were a colony for the Intergalactic Alliance.” His voice shook.

  “The IA always told us Dardassyians wanted independence,” Polina muttered, almost to herself. “They said you were an arrogant race that wanted nothing to do with us.”

  Arryn picked up the thread. “We wanted nothing more than to be part of the IA, part of you,” he said, turning to Polina. “And when we tried to join you—”

  “We killed your people,” Polina finished. She didn’t know what to do. Her government—her employer—had set up a Dardassyian settlement on this moon and simply left the colonists here to die. The vids that they found, each one chronicled the lives of the settlers, from their optimism when they landed and built their settlement, to their despair when they realized the moon was uninhabitable and the IA didn’t care.

  “We didn’t even send a ship to pick them up,” Polina said, her eyes locked on the grimy floor of the taxi shuttle. “We didn’t—”

  “Stop saying that,” Galen snapped. Polina and Arryn both turned to him, eyes wide in surprise. Galen had barely spoken a word since they’d started the vids. “Stop saying ‘we,’ Polina.”

  “But I’m part of the IA, Galen, you know I am.”

  Galen shook his head. “No. You’re part of the IA now, but you weren’t when this happened. You, Junior Ambassador Polina Marsh, were not part of the administration that sent these people out to die.”

  “But I’m part of the cover-up, Galen,” she insisted. “The IA keeps telling this lie about the Dardassyians, keeps pushing them further and further away from the Alliance. They’re trying to snuff them out, Galen, I know they are. And I’m IA, I’m a part of that.”

  “Not if you don’t want to be,” Arryn said softly.

  Polina didn’t realize she was even crying until she felt the hot spill of tears down her cheeks. “I have nothing else,” she admitted. “If I’m not a Junior Ambassador for the IA, I’m nothing. I have no friends, no family. I have nothing without the Intergalactic Alliance.”

  Her chin trembled and Polina had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from sobbing. She bowed her head and waited for the next shoe to drop.

  “What if you do?” Galen asked, his voice soft and coming from nearby. Polina glanced up. He was right next to her, practically at her elbow. Strangely enough, Arryn was by his side, wearing an inscrutable Dardassyian expression. He was hard to read, but it didn’t appear to be anger.

  “What if I do what?” Polina sniffled.

  “What if you have something other than the IA?” Galen continued, Arryn nodding at his side. “What if you have us?”

  Polina’s heart froze. Two males—two wonderful, unselfish, beautifully unique males—stood in front of her and were offering her forgiveness, a home, an escape. And neither knew that she had betrayed one with the other.

  Galen and Arryn looked down at her, green eyes and blue eyes full of questions and hope.

  “Well?” Arryn asked, cutting right to the point. “What do you say to that?”

  Polina swallowed and gazed up at both of them. “I say,” she began, then succumbed to fear and guilt. “I say, I have to go.”

  With that, Polina dashed out of the shuttle and disappeared into the blackne
ss of the night.

  ***

  She had no idea how she found her way back to the hatch in the blackness of the moon’s night, but some sort of primal instinct led her there. Polina pulled the hatch open and scrambled inside, blindly groping her way into the dormitory. She found a mattress, curled up on it and, for the first time in years, allowed herself to cry.

  Tears flowed from her, tears of pain, tears of guilt, tears of shame. She’d betrayed her two companions, her two lovers. She’d dedicated her life, wasted her life, serving a duplicitous government. Polina shuddered. She had nowhere to go and no one to go to. Everything was over.

  “Polina?”

  A beam of light swept across the dormitory and Polina curled herself more tightly into a ball, hoping desperately that she wouldn’t be spotted.

  “Polina, we know you’re there,” Galen shouted.

  The beam of light rested on her and she finally gave up, uncurling herself from her ball and sitting up to face her fate.

  “How did you know I was here?” she muttered.

  Galen and Arryn stood in the doorway of the bunker’s dormitory, staring at her with various degrees of relief and frustration.

  “How did we know?” Galen was incredulous. “Well, to begin: where else would you go? We’re on a deserted, inhospitable moon. Of course you’d come here. Also, I have heightened senses, remember? I could smell your track all the way here.”

  Polina’s shoulders slumped. “You shouldn’t have followed me here.”

  Arryn spoke this time. “We weren’t about to let you run off into the dark night on a strange moon, Polina, and leave you to die there.”

  “Why not?” she snapped. “That’s exactly what we did to your people, isn’t it?”

  “Stop saying ‘we,’ dammit!” Galen was seething with anger. “You’re not them, they’re not you, Polina.”

  “Come with us,” Arryn implored. “You can stay with us, with Dardassyians—”

  “Or Artarians,” Galen added.

  “Or Artarians, for as long as you like. We’d be happy to—”

  “I was with both of you,” Polina admitted, the words falling out of her mouth before she even had time to think. “On this moon, in this bunker. I was, you know, with both of you and I didn’t tell either of you the truth.” She swallowed hard and willed her tears to stop flowing. It didn’t work. “I’m—I’m sorry.”