by Lynn Rae
“I’ve been thinking about you too,” Del replied, arching her hips up to encourage him to get her trousers down, but he started to touch her bare arms instead, making her shiver and really hate that he wasn’t wanting her to touch him.
“Tell me what you were thinking,” Lazlo said, smiling at her as he ran his fingertips across her palms and along her wrists as he leaned over her, his body tantalizing and close.
“I’m thinking I want you so much I can’t remember to breathe. Your chest is beautiful and you smell better than anything. I want my legs around you. I missed you so much, you’re wonderful to be with and I…” Del stopped, her voice cracking as he leaned down and nuzzled her neck, his newly grown short beard prickling her skin and making her shake.
“And you what?” he buzzed against her throat.
“I need you. I need you to touch me and have me. Please,” Del begged, all sense of control and decorum lost to his mouth on her.
“I need you too. Stars above, I do.” Lazlo groaned and pulled at her trousers, moving faster and letting Del help him. He pushed Del’s legs apart as quickly as she could move them.
Exhaling and watching her intently, Lazlo reached down to ease his way and pushed in as Del curled up, her heels pressing in to his buttocks. She buried her face in his neck as her body contracted around him, crying out as he did at the contact.
Breathing out encouraging words, Del shifted against him, wanting to increase the pressure and tension that was shuddering through her. Lazlo thrust deep and she pulled him tight.
It was just movement then, both of them working to help the other find that moment to fall. His breathing was rough as Del dug her fingers into his tight shoulder muscles. His body was shaking with each thrust and knowing how close he was made her flare with physical joy.
Del shook and cried out, everything in her pulsing hot and cold. Lazlo tensed and moaned, pressing his cheek to hers, his beard rasping at her skin as she took his earlobe in her mouth and sucked, wanting to keep him close.
*
After washing Del off while taking his time and enjoying her little shivers and the glimpses of pink between her shifting legs, Lazlo pulled her tank off, wanting her breasts to be out where he could monitor them. Warning her not to cover up, he went to the bathroom to attend to himself and then returned from the suite’s bathroom with a glass of water for her, which she drank quickly as he rolled in next to her and started to touch her again.
“Why are you growing a beard?” The bright, clear light of morning filled the hotel room—no shadows, no concealment. And the radiant woman he missed for longer than he could remember was right there beside him, reaching up to brush her fingertips against his stubbled chin. Lazlo couldn’t imagine how his day could be better.
“I just wanted some way to mark the time. Don’t you like it?”
“It’s different. It tickles.” Del reached out to run her fingertips up his cheek, stroked his temple with her thumb. Lazlo watched her as she looked him over.
“I’m glad to see you.” Her pretty breasts, her slender legs, but most of all he was happy to see that she was glad to see him. All of his worries and insecurities about how this meeting would transpire had disappeared as soon as he’d entered her body as she’d urged him on.
“I’m glad to see you too.” Del stroked along his muscles and he wanted to purr like a cat as she moved against him. “Do you have any marks?”
“A couple, from when I was younger and more impulsive.”
“Where are they?” Del asked, frowning with concentration as she inspected him more closely.
“You didn’t notice them before?”
“No I didn’t. The first time was too dark. And today was too fast for looking.”
That was true. They hadn’t really spent much time together in bed outside of actual intercourse and exhausted sleep. That would change today. Lazlo had nothing planned other than to be with her.
“You’re going to have to find them,” Lazlo teased her, rolling onto his back and stretching out his arms as she crouched over him, looking lovely in the light streaming in the windows, soft hair swirling around her, pleasure relaxing her body into pliant curves.
Del grinned at him and surveyed him, moving his hands and fingers and arms. “Are they big or small or ultra or holo?”
“I’m not giving you any hints. You’re the one who goes out and looks for tiny little rocks in the Outlands. You can certainly locate a few marks on me.”
“Why did you get them? I don’t have any,” Del offered as she ran her fingertips along his torso, as if he were a rock she was deciding whether to keep or toss. Despite their agreement that this was all for fun, Lazlo wanted her to keep him. At least want to keep him for a little while. Del could put him on a shelf in her little house and look at him whenever she wanted.
“I noticed you’re bare. But there aren’t any body shops on Sayre, so I’m not surprised.”
“Sometimes entertainment ships have shops on board. It’s just something I never contemplated. I didn’t think you looked that closely.” She stopped staring at his forearm to peer in his eyes, brow crinkling up with skepticism.
“I’m very observant even when I’m engrossed in something else.” Lazlo laughed when she poked his side with a finger.
“There isn’t much of anything on Sayre. I think there was more to see and do in the arrivals terminal here on Weave than there is on my whole planet.” Del slid down his body in a most wonderful way as she went to inspect his feet, ankles and calves. She tickled his instep quickly and then bounced away with a laugh when he jumped.
“Roll over.” Despite her order, Lazlo gestured to his upper thighs and groin, which remained unexplored. Shaking her head, Del laughed and pulled at his arm.
“No. I’m saving that for last. Roll.” So he rolled and she took a seat on the small of his back, little curls tickling, warm thighs tight on his hips as she started to investigate his back. Her cool hands pressed on his skin.
Lazlo groaned with pleasure as she stroked his muscles, sliding along them with strong hands, lightly scratching with her fingernails. She stilled and tapped one of his marks with her finger. It was the holo he’d gotten after graduation while he was out with friends, celebrating. Not too embarrassing—a translucent golden eagle perched on his shoulder, most visible in the dark.
“Why did you get this one? What is it, a lizard?”
“No, it’s an eagle. It was my class mascot at the Academy.” Lazlo pretended to be insulted, but Del’s naked body on his was so delightful he was sure he sounded giddy.
“Now I can see it, almost. Did it hurt?”
“Not much,” Lazlo replied and Del leaned over and kissed his mark. Stars, he wondered if she was going to do that with every one she found. She shifted again and he relaxed even more, liking the feeling of the weight of her body moving lower, hearing her chuckle when she discovered the mark on his lower back, over his hip, which she kissed more slowly, tonguing his skin and making him shift a bit.
“So what is this one? A box or bag or what?”
“It’s the pip for my first promotion—a corporal’s bar.”
“A nice achievement, but hard to interpret as a bodymark.” Del stroked her fingertips across his ass and he sucked in a breath, more aroused now. He needed to shift his thigh to relieve the pressure as blood began to rush again. “Do I need to look closely at these muscles, or are you clear there?” Del asked quietly as she placed her palms against his rear.
“Clear there, but you can look if you don’t trust me.”
“I trust you, but there’s no reason not to verify.” Then she was exploring him with her fingertips and he pressed his face into the bed and exhaled hard, aroused and shaking as she pressed on him, allowed her fingertips to dip in between his cheeks and trailed her fingernails along his more sensitive areas. Lazlo moved his thighs farther apart, wanting her touch, begging without words. And she did, pressing her thumbs into the curve of his ass and thigh,
lightly pinching his skin and muscles.
“Del, I can’t—” Lazlo groaned and she moved away. He was relieved and disappointed. Curving her hands around his thighs, she stroked down, tickling the backs of his knees, squeezing his calf muscles, stopping at the outside of his right calf.
“Is this a flower?”
“No, it’s a Trainer bloom. Very deadly.”
“Exobiology isn’t really my specialty, but even I know blooms are flowers.”
“Trainer blooms have poisonous darts.”
“Intimidating. So why do you have this plant part on your leg?”
“Got it when I completed survival training there, my platoon and I.” That had been a wild few months. He’d never seen such dense vegetation before and most of it seemed to want to kill them. Vines with suction cups, leaves that released a viscous epoxy on contact, even a tree that dropped sharpened spikes from above—all of it part of their survival training. They were lucky Trainer had no native animal species or he knew they wouldn’t have survived for ten minutes.
“You like to get these with friends. Do you get drunk first?”
Lazlo shifted as Del leaned back over him, rubbing his shoulders, pressing her breasts against his back.
“I was only drunk for the first one.” She licked his neck and slid back down his body, continuing her inspection of his legs, stopping just above his ankle, rubbing her fingers on his last bodymark, a small ultra embedded in his skin.
“What’s this? A scar?”
“One I’m having removed. It takes time. It was a spiral, but most of it’s gone.” Lazlo shifted his leg from her, uncomfortable that Del had noticed it. He should have known she would. She sifted through sand for little bits of gems—she would certainly spot the nearly invisible mark he’d gotten to impress Serra.
Not that Serra had been impressed. She’d laughed at him when he had showed her a year and a half ago. That laugh had been one of the reasons he’d realized he had to end things with her. That and the third infidelity she’d thrown in his face while they were out to dinner and the snooping she’d tried to do in his datpad and her unfocused threats to tell his captain “something”. And her rages that had ended once too often in her striking him.
The spiral mark was supposed to represent their lives twining together, but it more accurately showed how life with Serra had spun further and further out of control. He didn’t turn his head to look at Del, but he was very aware she was sitting close to him, quiet and waiting.
“Did you get it because of the girlfriend you told me about?”
“Yes, but she isn’t my girlfriend. She hasn’t been for a year. Not since before I came to Sayre.”
“What was her name?”
“Serra. Serra Triton.”
“Did you love her?”
“Yes. But I don’t now. She killed that feeling.” Lazlo felt Del shift again to press close to his side, burrowing in under his arm and pressing her face to his chest as he rolled and gathered her up. Her touch made him feel better, like a cool drink of water after a dusty walk. “She was an addict. Completely untrustworthy, stole from me, hit me and in the end, she threatened to lie about me so I would lose my job. I was transferred to Sayre to get me away from her. Or maybe it was punishment. I didn’t ask for details at that point.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. None of it. And I’m free of her, except for the regrets.” Lazlo tried not to look wary as Del rose to look at his face. She nodded and leaned down to give him a sweet kiss. He knew they were with each other for simple pleasure and enjoyment of each other’s company, but somehow her acceptance of what he’d shared soothed him. He’d been afraid of confessing his past to the next person he became intimate with, afraid of pity or lessened interest. But Del had listened, not said any sort of therapeutic phrases, and he felt better. Of course her kisses eased the way tremendously.
“Are you regretting this?” Del was very still as she lay against him. Her gray eyes peered at him as if to search for any sort of indecision on his part. He’d told her the truth before and he wasn’t going to stop now.
“No. Are you?”
Shaking her head, Del held his gaze. “I’m glad you’re taking off the mark you did for her. She made you feel bad about it, didn’t she?”
Her perceptive question rattled through him and Lazlo bit back his initial feeling of embarrassment and attempt to deny how he felt. Del wasn’t ashamed of him. Why should he be? “She did. About that and so many other things.”
“She was stupid,” Del judged with a simplicity that cut to the heart of the matter. “Enough about her. I think you’re great.”
Lazlo couldn’t help but grin at her assessment. She grinned back, her eyes sparkling and a loose lock of soft brown hair sliding down her narrow shoulder. “I think you’re great too.”
Del narrowed her eyes at his compliment. “Not yet.”
“What do you mean not yet?”
“How can I be great if I haven’t finished my inspection?”
Lazlo tried to think of something witty to say as Del slid down his body. She crouched between his thighs as her little hands began to caress his abdomen and lower. Rational thought began to fizz out of his brain as Del reached for him and gave a gentle squeeze.
“Stars, Del, you don’t—” One touch of her warm, wet mouth rendered him speechless. He looked down to see Del glance up at him, a wicked gleam in her eye as she took a deep breath.
“One last area to check, Lazlo. And I think it’s going to require my close attention.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Let’s go swimming,” Lazlo suggested in a rumbly voice. Del had been coasting along in a blissful half-doze as she reviewed how delicious he’d tasted. Having the muscular Lazlo Casta at her mercy and begging her not to stop sucking was a heady experience she hoped to repeat as soon as possible. Before she left.
“What?” Del was confused, worry about her upcoming departure distracting her from the substance of what he’d just said. His big arms circled around her and he traced a few random shapes on her back with his fingertips. That felt marvelous. There was no need to leave the bed. “I like it here.”
“Let’s swim. The pool here is great.” Lazlo’s voice reeked with enthusiasm and he shifted so that he could look at her. His hair was sticking out in tousled tufts and his eyes were bright. It seemed oral sex energized him. Something to keep in mind.
Del shook her head. She hadn’t told him because she was embarrassed, but she couldn’t swim. Lazlo’s messages about the pool had intimidated her rather than enticed her.
“I don’t, I can’t…” she stammered, uncomfortable as he looked at her.
“You can’t swim?”
Del shook her head. “Where would I have learned on Sayre? In an irrigation overflow tank? The Long Lake? It’s full of crustaceans with terrible pincers and the water can make your skin peel if there’s been recent geothermal activity.”
“There’s a pool at the center. I use it all the time.” Lazlo sat up, frowning.
“The pool is for porties. When you live outside the gate, it costs.” And there it was again, her family’s poverty demonstrating how little Del had experienced of the luxuries he took for granted. Lazlo stopped talking and looked at her appraisingly.
“Then I’ll teach you. Starting today. There’s a waterfall, river, tidal shore and a hydraulic dive.” Lazlo’s eyes lit up at the thought as he recited the attractions and Del fought back dread. She really did not want to venture into the hotel pool. It sounded like a very hazardous place.
“Let’s stay here. It’s nice and clean and bright and the bed is already messed up.” Del rubbed her hands along the sheets and tried to look very enticing, which was difficult with a large man kneeling over her and tugging her to the edge of the bed as he laughed.
“Swimming now,” Lazlo announced, launching himself out of the bed. “I want to play in the water with you, Del.”
*
“Take
it off and get in here.”
“No. I’m embarrassed.”
“Of what? You’re beautiful. Come in here, it’s great,” Lazlo tried to coax her.
Del was stubbornly standing at the edge of a secluded cove of the hotel pool—no one was near enough to see or hear anything. She was wrapped up in a robe from the room, looking terribly awkward in her bare feet. He’d never paid much attention to her feet, which was a shame, since they were lovely little things. Round toes and little nails gleaming with black lacquer. Who would have guessed practical Del shined her toenails?
Lazlo stood in the perfectly warm and tranquil waist-deep water, the bottom slightly gritty under his bare feet. He’d swum a few warm-up laps as he waited for Del to join him.
Del hadn’t brought a suit, which meant he’d taken her to the hotel boutique before heading to the pool. She’d been miserable while shopping, clearly uncomfortable with the tiny colorful bits of translucent material that passed for female swimwear.
She’d drifted to the more concealing men’s section, but he’d reeled her back, finally convincing her to try on a few of the most conservative cuts he could gather up. He’d tried to follow her into the dressing room, but she’d managed to evade him, closing the curtain behind her with a frown.
Del was gone for a few minutes, handing over the majority of the suits after declaring them too small to wear. Lazlo threatened to strip her naked and throw her in the water if she didn’t pick something. Del gave him a heated look from the curtains of the dressing room and he collapsed with laughter at her antagonistic expression. As if he’d ever be brave enough to try such a procedure with her.
Del eventually purchased a plain red suit designed for divers and she shook off his efforts to buy it for her. She scowled and looked resigned to her fate.
“I’m not beautiful, especially with all of my limbs sticking out. And I’ll drown. Two great reasons to stay here. You go on and have fun.” Del scuttled back from the edge and headed toward a chaise parked under a golden-netted shade.