“Come on,” he murmured and turned to get onto the bed. He held out his hand and grasped Noah’s as the young man joined him. Their lips met again, softly, silkily. Their arms and legs came together, meshing, wrapping around one another. Ronan moaned again at the incredible feel of Noah’s lithe body straining against his own and Noah answered back the same.
Their breathing constricted and though Ronan was in heaven, he wanted more. He craved more. So he broke the kiss and turned his body until he was staring at Noah’s hard cock. The blood-engorged member stood proudly from a dusting of fair curls. It was shorter than his own, not quite as thick, but it curved beautifully toward his stomach. It twitched as if knowing that it was being admired, bobbing slightly above a full sack. Ronan couldn’t help himself, he licked the sack, feeling each individual ball, weighing and playing with them as he palmed Noah’s dick. He ran a finger over the top, catching the moisture leaking from the tip and using it to coat the head. He rubbed it over and over, back and forth as his mouth kissed the hot skin at the base of the shaft then moved up, taking his sweet time to enjoy it.
The skin on the head was smooth but swollen as pre-cum leaked steadily from the tip. Ronan sucked it into his mouth, using the flat top of his tongue to massage up and down. He held onto Noah’s hips as he started his momentum, in and out with mouth and tongue.
But Noah wasn’t just taking without giving. His mouth had settled over Ronan’s cock in a hot vise. Teeth tenderly and teasingly bit the crown while his tongue soothed any pain inflicted. It just about drove Ronan crazy.
Together they worked their own magic on each other, sucking and licking, tugging and jerking, until they were both worked up. Ronan pulled back reluctantly from Noah’s delicious taste because, as much as he would love to finish here and now, he needed to be inside Noah when he came.
Noah let out a groan of loss and tried to grab his hips, but Ronan turned around and faced him. He looked into luminous blue eyes, awash in passion, and felt his heart stutter with love. The nagging feeling he’d been having off and on disappeared as he stared at Noah’s beautiful face flushed with want and need. All he wanted to do was make his partner happy.
He leaned down and captured Noah’s lips, kissing him almost ferociously. He tasted himself on the man’s lips, a mixture of musk and salt, and wondered if Noah was thinking the same, tasting himself as well. He loomed over the smaller man and Noah fell back. His hands roamed over Noah’s chest, rolling his nipples between his fingers. Noah arched his back, pushing into Ronan’s hardness.
“Please,” Noah begged between gasps of air, “fuck me. Please fuck me!”
Ronan could no longer stand it either. He reached toward the side table where he’d laid the bottle of lube, and Noah took it from him to lather up Ronan’s cock. Ronan hissed in pleasure and pain to feel Noah’s hands on him, simply because he needed to be buried inside him so badly.
“Fuck!” he moaned, closing his eyes. “That feels good.”
He took the lube from Noah and squirted his fingers, easing down to start stretching his partner.
“I don’t know how much longer I can stand it,” Noah whispered.
Ronan knew what he was feeling but was beyond speech as he concentrated on widening Noah’s hole. When he inserted another finger he felt the muscled ring relax completely and knew it was time. He withdrew his fingers and used more lube on his covered cock before angling his hips. Ronan leaned down, kissed Noah and entered him. There was no resistance as he slid into deep heat.
It was Noah who moaned this time, his hips wiggling as if silently asking for more. Ronan took a moment to steady his breathing and control his shaking limbs. His body flushed in mind-tingling pleasure all over and he was on the verge of losing control. He couldn’t, not yet. Not until he made Noah come so hard he passed out.
So he began to move slowly, withdrawing only to plunge back in, taking a moment between each thrust to let them both really feel the bliss of being joined. Little by little, Ronan increased the tempo until he had a smooth motion going. Noah’s fingers plunged into his hair, gripping tight with each surge, urging him on with little rapturous mewls.
Their bodies were tight against each other, but Ronan wiggled one hand between them to grasp Noah’s cock, using the steadily leaking fluid to lubricate him, allowing his hand to pump up and down, in time with his hips.
And then all thought, rhyme, and reason left as control fled. Ronan could feel himself letting go, swelling.
“I’m going to come,” he gasped in Noah’s ear. “Oh shit! Oh fuck!”
“Yes!” Noah moaned back, his hips undulating wildly under him. Ronan pumped him faster and faster until he erupted with a splash of hot juice, coating his hand. And with the feel of Noah climaxing, Ronan finally let his own go.
With a shout he surged once, twice, and exploded. Boneless, he collapsed upon Noah’s sweaty body, breathing heavily as his heart pounded in his chest. Noah’s arms snuck around him, holding him tightly.
“I love you,” Noah whispered into his ear.
Ronan opened his mouth to say it back but no words came forth. They never did. How the fuck could those words get stuck in his mouth every damn time? Noah squeezed his hand, as if telling him he understood, and it made Ronan’s heart hurt even more.
Chapter Four
The next morning they headed out by first light. Valin drove, Ronan sat in the passenger seat and Noah piled in back of the terrain vehicle with the rest of the gear. Since Outpost Four was on the other side of the Cold Lands, it wasn’t heavily patrolled, making it an excellent place for trade. Especially illegal trade. Valin was counting on this because the last thing they all wanted was to draw attention to themselves. Not many people went shopping for supplies to bring someone out of cryogenic stasis.
They drove until the sun started to set and then Valin found a clearing to pitch the tent. He only had one so they had to cram into it. Ronan would have volunteered to sleep outside, but Valin cautioned about the insects that came out at night. Since he didn’t like bugs, Ronan made do with Noah lying half on him.
The next morning they headed out again at first light. Conversation was hard because of the uneven terrain. They spent most of the time bouncing up and down, holding onto something so they wouldn’t fall out the side.
By the end of the day, the forest gave way to a settlement. Ronan read the sign posted on the road noting only two rules. Firearms must be checked. Theft would not be tolerated. Punishment would be death.
Fairly straightforward.
Valin drove to a large area where many terrain vehicles were parked. Some small space jets were also nearby. He turned off the machine and then pointed to the back.
“Let’s get the tarps up,” he said. “The tarps will prevent people getting the old five-finger discount.”
As Ronan helped secure the lines, he glanced over at the mass of people meandering through the front gate. Unease swept through him and for some reason he felt the urge to leave. Being a salvager, there were many instances where he’d had to rely on intuition, so he decided to follow the gut feeling he had now.
“Listen,” he said to Noah. “Let’s use our aliases.”
“Got a bad feeling?”
Ronan nodded.
“Okay, John.” Noah shot him a quick grin.
A few minutes later, they were walking through the gates.
All trading posts were basically the same. The same people, the same junk being sold, even the same smell. Unwashed bodies, animal shit, and the stench of the nearby saloons hit Ronan like a ton of bricks. It brought back memories best left buried. He spent a few minutes breathing through his mouth until his senses adjusted and the smell surrounding him faded to a sickening whiff.
“You okay?” Noah asked him quietly.
He flashed a humorless smile. “Just dandy.”
Valin led them farther. Ronan didn’t look around but did notice Noah’s curiosity. He would need to keep an eye on him. The trading posts were n
otorious for stealing people for the slavers.
Finally, Valin came to a large caravan-style tent. An old man haggled with a customer over some material that looked like silk. The place looked more like a harem showroom than a place to obtain medical supplies.
The customer gestured rudely to the old man and then stormed off. The man shrugged, his eyes lighting up as they landed on Valin.
“Ah! Valin, my boy!”
“Hey, Pops,” Valin greeted, bending a little to hug the old man. “These are some friends of mine—”
“John and Jim,” Ronan interrupted smoothly.
The old man’s faded, tired eyes turned toward them. Ronan held out his hand and Pops shook it.
“We need some supplies,” Valin told him, pitching his voice low. “Hush-hush supplies.”
Pops’s bushy eyebrows went up. Valin handed him a list and Pops silently read over it.
“You boys bringing someone back to life?”
“Shh,” Valin cautioned, glancing around. “Can you help us out?”
Pop nodded. “But give me a few hours, will ya? You gonna mind the store while I’m out?”
“Of course,” Valin told him. Ronan handed over their money and Pops walked away, leaning heavily on his cane.
Being in the salvaging business gave Ronan and Noah experience haggling with people. By the time Pops came back with everything on the list, they’d managed to sell half of Pops’s cloth merchandise.
“Holy hell, boys!” Pops exclaimed in delight. “Perhaps you should come by more often and help me out.”
Noah grinned. “We’ve had lots of practice in the trade business.”
Pops handed over the antigrav shipper that contained the covered merchandise. “If you don’t want to keep it all, just bring it all back. I can resell and get you your money back.”
Ronan nodded. “Appreciate it.”
“Thanks, Pops,” Valin murmured, hugging the old man.
They made their way through the throng of people, guiding the antigrav shipper so it didn’t bump into anyone. A few minutes later they had secured the shipper to the vehicle and they were off through the jungle, bouncing along.
* * * *
They made it to Valin’s home by the end of the next day and set about cleaning up the doctor’s laboratory to move in all the equipment needed to bring the frozen girl back to life. As they maneuvered the large cryo chamber into the place, Ronan could see Noah practically hopping with excitement. Something akin to jealousy roared to life inside him, although he would never admit feeling any such thing. It was stupid to feel ill will toward a woman locked thirty-one years in deep freeze.
Valin pulled out a code scrambler and set it on the chamber’s lock. Thirty seconds later, the hatch opened. As soon as the warm air hit the icy depths, sublimation started and billows of steam poured over the side. The platform holding the woman rose up.
Ronan stared at her blue-tinted skin. She was naked but most of her body was obscured by the tubing. She shimmered in the light, like an opal polished to a high shine, while her flame-red hair burst like a halo around her head.
“How can someone survive like this?” he asked.
“The process is quite genius,” Valin murmured as he worked on the various machines. “Now, if I do this correctly, this medicine will counteract the tynilium in her bloodstream, pulling it off each individual cell and flushing it out the extractor tube. At the same time I’ll introduce the new blood to help that flushing process along.”
“If you do it correctly?” Ronan questioned.
Valin shrugged. “This is my first time doing this.”
“What?” Noah cried.
Valin waved off Noah’s concern. “I’ve got the logistics down. It’s not that hard to do.”
Ronan and Noah shared a look but decided there wasn’t anything they could do at this point except hope and pray. Valin was studying the med box readout. At the doctor’s command they laid the warming blankets on her legs and arms. Valin hooked her up to the heart-lung machine, which was a combination of blood pump and blood oxygenator. A whirl of different sounds filled the room and after a few minutes her body lost the blue tint as new blood circulated through her system.
Valin grabbed the automated external defibrillator and placed the patches on her chest, one on her upper right and the other on her lower left.
“Clear,” he yelled out and hit the machine.
Her body arched but then settled back down. A flat-line buzz sounded through the room.
“Clear!” he yelled and did it again.
He did it two more times before her heart began a rhythm on the med box monitor.
“Got her,” he said, relief evident in his voice.
He took the patches off and then stood back and watched, glancing from his watch to the med box every few seconds. A beep sounded and he rushed to her belly and began pulling tubes out of her abdomen. He used skin sealer once they were extracted and then rushed back to her head. He waited some more, keeping time, until another beep sounded.
Immediately, her body began to convulse and her hands began to twitch.
“Hold her down!” Valin shouted. “I need to remove the intubation tubes! She’s choking!”
Ronan and Noah ran over to help. She was thrashing upon the table, struggling against them. Gurgling noises bubbled up from her throat. Ronan felt helpless as he watched her die before his eyes, so he leaned over and began to whisper in her ear, although who knew if she heard him.
“We’re trying to help you,” he told her. “We’re trying to save you. Please, honey, stop fighting us.”
The words must have penetrated past the fear because she began to settle down. A second later, Valin pulled the tube out of her throat, and her body took its first breath in thirty years. Noah quickly cleared the tubing away and covered her body with a heating blanket. She shivered under it.
Valin turned off the overhead lighting and she opened her eyes. She blinked several times and each time blue liquid rolled down her cheek. Valin quickly flushed them out with some basic saline solution, pulling a layer of blue slime off her eyeballs. When he was done she reached out to rub them. As Valin stepped away, her gaze roamed around the room and landed on Ronan. She had the brightest green eyes he’d ever seen and they stared at him with a mixture of fear and relief. Something welled inside him and all he wanted to do was cradle and comfort her.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, stroking her hair. As they stared at each other, the world seemed to melt away. “You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Her mouth moved but no sound came out. She raised a shaking hand and felt her throat. He could see the question shining in her eyes.
“Why isn’t her voice working?” he asked Valin.
“She’d been intubated for awhile,” Valin said. “Her throat probably feels like shredded meat right now. I can give her some medicine for that, but she’s going to need to let the swelling go down. Everything should be normal again in the next couple of days.”
She had looked at him as he explained, but her eyes returned to Ronan. When Noah came up to his side, her gaze flickered to him. Noah gave her a bright smile and it seemed to put her at ease. She closed her eyes and her body relaxed.
“We should probably make her comfortable,” Noah murmured. “I don’t imagine it’s relaxing being naked around three strange men.”
“Can she be moved?” Ronan asked Valin.
The doctor nodded. “Her body temperature is still rising but it needs to be gradual. Her system can’t handle too many more shocks.”
Valin pulled all the other wires, tubes and hook-ups off her and then Ronan bent down to scoop her up in his arms, being careful to keep the blankets on her. Noah led him from the laboratory to their bedroom. As he carried her, he studied her face, noting the delicate bone structure and the elegant curve of her chin and nose. She was absolutely beautiful and he felt protective of her. He didn’t know who it was that put
her in that coffin and then abandoned her in the Cold Lands, but if he ever found the fucker he was going to pound the ever-loving shit out of him.
Tenderly, he laid her down on the bed. Noah dressed her in some of his clothes, but Ronan made sure to keep his eyes on her face. He’d seen some of her, of course, as Valin had pulled the tubes off her, but now it wasn’t medicinal and he wanted to respect her privacy. Once Noah was done, he readjusted the warming blankets before tucking the comforter around her. Then he came to stand next to Ronan.
“She looks like an angel,” Noah said.
“Yeah,” Ronan replied.
“What are we going to do with her?”
“I don’t know. First things first, though. We need to find out who she is.”
“And we’ll protect her, right? We brought her back to life. She’s our responsibility now.”
“Yeah,” Ronan agreed. “I really believe she has a heap load of trouble following after her, but yeah, she’s ours now.”
Did I really just say ours?
Chapter Five
Alivia cracked her eyelids, letting her pupils adjust to dilating again. It had been awhile since they’d had to work against any type of light source. Once everything had come into focus, she set about looking at the room she was in. She lay on her side, cocooned in a thick blanket, with a hard wall pressed against her backside. Her throat hurt and she had to go to the bathroom.
Slowly, she came to the realization that this place wasn’t the laboratory on Jurdin Prime, as she first thought. That place had been white from head to toe, and this place…well, it was anything but sterile. Her gaze roamed around, taking in the raggedy, unkempt room as if the owner had carelessly placed this and that about without regard to organization. Tools hung on the walls, clothes were strewn about, even the floor had thick pelts of carpet layered one on top of the other. Unease slithered into her.
Sleeping Beauty (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 3