Starlight Complete

by Astrid Cooper

  It reminded her of an opera. She sang, too, and for a moment all other voices were stilled as her song was understood and accepted.

  She caught John’s gaze and smiled.

  Love you, wife of mine.

  Husband of mine is loved.

  Time to go.

  Must we?

  You can return any time, Sam, but we’re running short of air.

  Rising to the surface, Sam pulled herself up onto the gangway step and removed her belt and underwear, leaving them in a soggy heap. She lifted her hair, combing it with her fingers. The sun was deliciously warm. John remained in the water, floating on his back. The gentle roll of waves lapped over him. She watched, fascinated, by the way the water highlighted the contours of his body.

  His gaze caught hers and he smiled.

  Sam cleared her tight throat. “I never knew shells could sing.”

  “Every living thing has its own song, kitten.”

  She nodded. “You just have to have the ears to hear.”

  His eyes misted. “Exactly.” Then he smiled. “Sam?”

  “Mm?”

  “In the water.”

  “What in the water?” she asked peering into the depths.

  John treaded water, his gaze direct.

  Sam flushed. How dumb can a gal get? When your man has that come here look, you have to ask what for?

  She settled into the water against John. He held her around the waist and entered her without preliminaries, one deep long thrust, aimed to the left. Devastation. Complete and utter devastation. His finger found the inner thigh meridian point and brought her to peak in moments. Paused. Then found a new center of nerve endings between her shoulders.

  Kuno…

  Mmmm.

  Let me go.

  Instantly he was still beneath her, his distress touching her in one sharp stab to her soul.

  Kuno! No, babe. Just stay there, I want to lie on top of you. Please.

  He laughed and spread his arms. She turned and lay over him and laced her hands with his. Kissed him. They sank beneath the water and came up spluttering.

  “Kitten, you want me to love you under water?”

  “Can we? Is that possible?”

  He eyed her darkly. “You’re talking to a felinus. For us, nothing is impossible. I thought you’d know that by now?”

  Sam laughed to herself. Uh-oh. Offer a challenge to a cat and see how hard they bite. By the look of him, he was going to bite her. Properly.

  John unbuckled his belt and put it around them both. The enviro-suit enfolded them in its shield.

  He lifted her onto him and she wrapped her legs around him, holding him with her heels. He probed into her, retreated, back and forth. Their motion caused the sea around them to ripple, miniature waves sweeping over their bodies. He slid into her all the way, while his fingers, working in tandem with his thrusts, brought her to climax.

  She screamed.

  Around her, she heard clicks and whistles and a sound like a door creaking open. Six dolphins circled them.

  John laughed. They can’t resist a show. You want to give them something to sing about?

  Sam started awake at the sound of someone calling her name. Someone was screaming and weeping. She finally knew who it was—it was her screaming, her weeping.

  In the distance she heard thunder, followed by a hissing laugh. She saw rows of teeth, sharp, snapping at her. Her throat constricted. She knew that sound. Those teeth. With a cry she reared upright, fighting off the arms and legs entwined with her.

  “Kitten?” John’s voice was raw with pain.

  She slapped at the fingers stroking her. Fingers that suddenly resembled talons.

  “He’s here.”

  “Who? Lights!” In answer to his voice, the bedside sensor switched on, mauve light softly illuminating the room. The curtains billowing from the sea breeze cast twisting shadows over the walls. Shadows reaching out to her. Sam screamed. A body lay over her, pinning her down, holding her, trying to stifle her thrashing.

  Felinus words soothed her, mind to mind, interspersed with purring.

  She stared up at John, tears miring her vision.

  “Is that truly you, Kuno? Truly?”

  “Of course. You have to ask?” He swiveled his hips. “You know your husband. Let me soothe you. It was only a dream.”

  “The teeth. Oh god, the teeth.”

  “What teeth? Let me see. Open yourself to me. Mind to mind.”

  “No. Let me get up. Now.”

  “Kitten…”

  “Now!”

  Instantly, he rolled away and knelt on the bed watching her as she flung herself upright, racing to the door. She leaned against the frame, drawing in deep breaths.

  John padded behind her. His fingers on her shoulder were trembling, tentative.

  “This nightmare you have, Sam, share it with me. Let me help you.”

  “You can’t.”

  He sighed. “I can help you, if you let me. Trust me, as you once did.”

  She whirled to face him. “Trust you? I trust you with my life.” It’s me I don’t trust, but how the hell can I tell you that?

  “Let me take you to convergence, Sammi. There can be no more shadows then.”

  “No, I can never let you.”

  “Never?” He regarded her in shocked disbelief. His face paled, his eyes darkened—with horror, with anguish. “Why?” His voice a mere whisper, vibrated with the deepest hurt.

  “Because.”

  “Yes?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get something to eat.”

  She raided the refrigerator and ate half a tub of triple chocolate pecan ice-cream. Someone very wise had once said that there was no problem in the universe that couldn’t be solved with sufficient quantities of chocolate. She spooned more chocolate into her mouth. Another. She gagged, the taste was now tart and unpalatable. She shoved the tub back into the freezer and slowly returned to the bedroom.

  She paused at the landing and watched John as he lay against the bed in all his naked glory, his left arm thrown across his eyes.

  Stars! She loved this man so much. So why couldn’t she just tell him? Because she couldn’t risk seeing the horror in his face, in his mind, and the disgust of his soul when she shared her secret.

  Better to live a half life than have none—because to be without him would be worse than death. She had experienced the loss before, when she had thought John was dead.

  She knelt on the edge of the bed and crawled forward and lay over him. His arms fastened around her, his legs locking at the small of her back. She kissed him and tasted the salt of his tears.

  I love you John-Kuno, you know that, don’t you?

  His smile was slight. Was it her imagination, or did she see disbelief in his eyes? That look gave her pause.

  I love you, Kuno. Trust me.

  When you do not, I… The thought was instantly suppressed.

  Sighing, Sam lay beside John on the bed. Hours before, he had loved her, taking the longest time to bring her to peak, to tentatively probe her body and her mind. He couldn’t get past her mind-lattice, the place behind which the monster lurked. Her psychological id, her monster. The starlord’s creation.

  She glanced at him and saw his eyes afire, not with passion, but with torment. As only a felinus could know it.

  “You want convergence?”

  Kitten-mine, please! John mind-begged and she hardened her heart. She heard him crying, and then deeper, inside, she felt-heard the felinus soul weeping for her, for the soul touch, for the mind touch she denied him.

  Because I love you, John-Kuno. Because I love you, I cannot. Dare not. She stroked his body. “Give me time. Cat-boy. Please give me time.”

  He wept anew and then he morphed to cat, then back to human. Their gazes locked. Hunger, raw and fierce stared back at her. He growled and pulled her to him.

  “I want to be under you, Kuno. I fee
l safer that way.”

  “It’s the way of the daman-san, kitten. I hate it. I want you to be free.”

  “I am free,” she said, reaching for him, palming his engorged phallus. “Because you give me the choice. As the other…in the dream.”

  “Tell me about it,” he whispered, his lips a fraction from hers.

  “You didn’t probe my mind when I was sleeping, to find out what happened?”

  He grimaced. “I’d never intrude where you don’t invite, Sammi. You know that. Or you should.” Just the slightest hint of reprimand.

  “Hari explained to me about the daman-san. It was a dream that was used often, because it pleased the monster.”

  “It was a society of domination, of conqueror and conquered. An existence the starlord understood.”

  “Yes. Oh, stars, John. Oh…if only…”

  He tucked her beneath him, his body splaying her legs wide apart. “If only…are two of the saddest words in the human tongue. They do not exist in felinus. The past is in the past, kitten. Live for the moment. Live for this.” He surged into her and loved her with a silent anguish that brought tears to her eyes.

  Leaving Sam asleep, taking up a mug of coffee from the dispenser, John walked out onto the balcony and stared out across the water, dusk streaking the sea with gold and red. A tendril of hair lifted tickling his cheek; he swatted absently at it. He smelled the salt, the perfume of the distant gardens on the beach, saw the lights of Broome.

  But over-riding all, he smelled her. The honey and the musk and the jasmine—his beloved fe’ha tu. His gut clenched. He had promised he would give her time. And he kept his promises. Time, she would have. But not much more.

  His kitten was intractable, independent. He loved her for those traits, but those strengths were now a weakness, and if he allowed it to continue, a wedge might grow between them, something unheard of in a mutatis couple. Stars damn her stubborn streak!

  His adorable kitten broke all the rules. He smiled and glanced back at her lying curled on the bed. He studied her length, sensing the subtle changes within her, as the felinus child took deeper hold.

  He turned back to face the sea, hardening his resolve.

  Why did she deny him convergence? What secret was she hiding? And why? What could be so terrible she could not share it with him? What had been done to her in that prison to frighten her so, that she would keep her fear and her pain locked behind that mind lattice? Damn Taren for teaching her that assassin’s trick!

  But that tool had probably saved her sanity, if not her life.

  Harimal had died saving Sam, saving others. John’s stomach clenched and the sorrow sliced deep, like a knife. Tears stung his eyes. He took a sip from the mug, grimacing at the bitterness of cold coffee. How long had he been standing on the balcony, lost in thought?

  Hari and Sam had survived, because they had shared both mind and body, perhaps spirit. This he knew. During the flight to Chizan, with her lying unconscious in his arms, he had initiated a telepathic healing. Mind-linked, he had glimpsed memory-fragments of her prison, as well as fleeting moments of the starlord’s dream-enhancements. Not enough to understand because almost immediately she had erected a mental barrier to what had transpired, but he’d seen enough to be horrified beyond words… His own fears and imaginings gave him nightmares. What had been done to her?

  Sex had been part of the prison regime. Starlords used it to bait, to control, to inflict the most diabolical torments. Sam had not said—she hadn’t needed to. As sensualator, he knew the dark side of love, what it could do to clients. He could imagine what might have been done, because what she did not say was more eloquent than any blow-by-blow description.

  Hari loved Sam and would never have hurt her—no matter what the starlord would have demanded. No matter the cost to himself, Hari would have spared Sam any degradation.

  That fucking starlord. John’s hands tightened around the mug. But it wasn’t just one monster, another from her past, her monster-husband had been there with her. Maybe Andy… What had Sinclair done to her? The thought made him sick to his gut, but he had to face the horror—for Sam’s sake.

  John absently sipped the coffee and grimaced, hurling the mug into the closest waste disposal chute.

  Maybe both feegling bastards had raped her and she couldn’t tell him, afraid of his disgust.

  Which was worse? Starlord or former husband? Andy had been one of GTC’s operatives—GTC, the nemesis of Starwatch, of everything John lived for. Andy had thwarted Starwatch on many occasions. Sam could not forgive Andy that, because in so doing he had hurt John and others, had held the galaxy to ransom.

  Was that it, perhaps? Her fear of what Kuno might do, or say if he knew that his enemy had done things to her, out of spite? For revenge.

  Mm. That made sense. But not enough. Not nearly enough to explain her denial of convergence.

  Inside, his own fear re-surfaced, the one he kept nailed down. It always returned to haunt him in his darkest moments. There were many of those of late!

  Even though he and Sam were a mutatis couple, she had shared with Harimal—was part of her never satisfied with Kuno, because she had been loved by the best—by his full-felinus brother, Hari?

  Even as the thought nagged, he quashed it. No, her responses to him were never half-hearted. She gave her all, but refused him the soul-mind touch. What was she hiding? So, back to the beginning, his pondering had turned full circle. And no closer to the truth, or a resolution.

  She’d tell him, sooner or later. Sooner rather than later, he decided.

  Well, John had promised to give her time. But Kuno—hell, Kuno had made no such promise. He was a cat and a cat stalked his prey, teased, cajoled—all was fair in love and where his mate was concerned, he’d break every goddamn rule in the universe.

  He drew in a deep breath, his heart and mind racing with the solution before him. The only one.

  Starlight Seduction. Forbidden by every law because to seduce another against his or her will was the antithesis of the code by which a sensualator lived.

  But he was Kuno, felinus, prince, husband and soon, father—and be damned to any feegling code of practice. Be damned to it all, because he would save Sammi, no matter the cost.

  Yep. Seduction would start tomorrow. Stealth and dexterity, he had both in good measure. Sam would never know. But as to the outcome?

  Nope, she didn’t stand a feegling chance.

  And first, he would activate the security screens to the max. and leave an automatic message—do not disturb. Only someone he knew well could get through, with the right code, if it was a matter of life and death…

  Tomorrow, Starlight Seduction would begin.

  John stood on the balcony looking down. Sam was reclining on the sun deck, in her bikini. Her navel twinkled as the sun glinted off the gold-crystal piercing. She was still damn thin, though the bruises were gone. That morning he had removed the plasti-skin from her arm where the starlord had savaged her.

  As he had laser-removed the dressing, Sam had refused to look at her arm, afraid that it might be scarred. It wasn’t, of course. Over the injury, the King’s personal physician had initiated a deep healing, using crystals, while sealing the bone-deep wound with the pseudo skin.

  Chizan healers were rare, highly sought-after—as were felinus sensualtors—and both were dedicated in their duty. The physician had worked long and hard to treat Sam, to the point of exhaustion. Only Herrall’s direct and personal command had seen the man retire to rest. Sam had been in good hands from the moment of her rescue.

  Was in good hands now, John grimly reminded himself. But he didn’t feel confident. Sam was hurting and she wouldn’t share with him…

  When he had coerced her into looking at her arm, she had burst into tears. Tears born of relief, to be sure, but more.

  Her reaction was only natural, she was carrying a felinus child. The stronger the emotions during pregnancy, the stronger the felinus soul. He hadn’t told Sam that—y
et.

  Bringing his mind to the present, he squared his shoulders and drew in a deep breath. Another. Concentrating, raising the cat pheromones to the fore, he selected one, added two top notes of musk and another of cheyulis, the most potent sex hormone and combining them, breathed out, directing them towards Sam.

  He waited until he saw her shiver and wrap a towel against her sudden chill. Striding forward he skipped down the steps and passed by, trailing his hand over her head, leaving in his wake an invisible, but oh so hot, trail of sex.

  Sam sneezed.

  John smiled, his back turned to her, looking out to sea. Sneezing was a perfectly normal reaction. At first.

  He rested against the balustrade, feeling Sam’s gaze on him. He was naked and leaning over the railing, as if studying the sea, he gave Sam quite a sight. She liked his tight ass and often told him so, as she gripped him in their loving, or when, during the quiet aftermath, they kissed and fondled. His ass received serious attention.

  Like she was doing now. Serious. Attention.

  He sensed Sam’s breathing pick up, along with her heart rate. He turned and sat hitched up on the railing and raised his chin challengingly. He ran a hand over his head, lifting strands of hair, letting them run through his fingers.

  “I know that look, John-Kuno,” Sam whispered.

  “What look is that, kitten-mine?”

  “Come here, at once.”

  “You want me to come to you, at once?” He raised a brow and bit back the smile as he saw her flush. He winked. Her breathing teased up a notch. He smelled her sex.

  “Yes. Now. Please.”

  “Sorry, babe. I’ve got work to do. Gotta go diving. More shells want to give up their pearls.”

  “It can’t wait?”

  “Nope. When the oysters sing to me, I gotta go. I’ll be back in time for lunch.”

  With every ounce of will power, he turned from her and bounded down the steps, picking up his enviro-belt, wrapping it around his waist. He dived in the water and headed down.

  Stars! He was so wired he was going to explode. The trouble with seduction, it was a two-edged sword. He was getting Sam thoroughly seduced, and he was going supernova in the process.