Hooking my leg around his hip, I drew him closer. “We’re not allowed . . .” I panted, remembering the deal I had made with Ricread and the condition of no intercourse he had added. Alarm rose in my brain through the hazy fog of desire.
“No one needs to know,” Tairan growled low, lifting my skirt.
“What if they do the tests?” I hated this—having to worry about them when all I wanted was to lose myself in Tairan completely. “They will take you away from me again.”
I hugged him tighter, as if someone was already ripping him out of my arms.
He halted the frantic movement of his hands on my body, and I felt the intensity of his gaze on me despite the goggles he wore.
“We won’t let that happen, my ila flower.” He slid his hand up my naked thigh under my dress “There’ll be no evidence.”
Slowly, I rocked my hips against him, rubbing myself against his erection through the smooth material of his pants. My body responded immediately, starved for his touch, a hot flush of arousal rolled through me.
“I love your resilience,” he murmured against my lips, before kissing me again. His chest rose with a deep inhale as he pressed close to me again. “Your fierce loyalty . . .”
I realized he was adding to the list of the things he liked about me again, and I added to mine about him, too.
“I love the way you make me feel, Tairan. When I’m with you, no one else exists.” I slid my hands up to his back. Still leaner than he was when I first met him, he had been gaining his former strength back, hard muscles pushing against the material of his suit.
He eased his hand between us, slipping a finger inside me, and I shifted my hips to the side to take more of it in. My hand at his waist, I traced the line of his suit connecting the top and the bottom parts together, feeling it open under my fingers.
“It worked?” I whispered in surprise.
“I’ve changed the code for my clothing and added your fingerprints.”
“You did?” I smiled, slipping my hand through the gap.
“I liked you undressing me that night and hoped for more of this.” With a small groan, he rocked his hips into my palm as I wrapped my fingers around his erection, his hand moving faster between my thighs.
No one needed to know.
This was between Tairan and me, only. At this moment no one else seemed to exist.
Clinging to his shoulders with one hand, I kept sliding the other one up and down his hard length, as he pumped his fingers in and out of me, our breath mingling together in another frantic kiss.
I exhaled a sharp moan into his mouth when the orgasm hit me, hard and strong, and felt him pulse in my hand a moment after.
“Tairan . . .” I trembled in his arms as the last waves of our climax rocked through my body and his. “God, I’ve missed you.” I pressed myself tighter to him, wishing we could just stay like this, outside of the station and everything that was in it.
Chapter 17
DUE TO THE SHARP SPIKE in the numbers on my vital signs chart and whatever else the research team had been tracking during our walk, the time I was allowed to spend outdoors was cut in half. Not that it made me regret our brief intimacy. Besides, now that we both were free to walk anywhere inside the station, Tairan helped me explore the amenities this place had to offer.
In addition to the expansive indoor gardens, the station also had a huge pool area. Here the Kealan plant life had been made to coexist with some of the Earth plants that did not require sunlight to thrive, creating a truly unique piece of landscape, complete with colourful rock formations around the space and along the walls.
The water from the lagoon-style swimming pool placidly flowed into the tunnel-shaped canals that connected the garden waterfalls and a few other water features at the station.
“Tairan, would you teach me to speak Kealan?” I asked one day when we were getting ready to go to the exercise hall also located inside the facility.
“Are there problems with your translator?”
“No. But I want to be able to read and write in your language. Also, I don’t want to depend on the translator forever.” Ricread could order it taken away any minute, just like he had Gran taken away shortly after Tairan had moved in. I actually missed seeing the blue smiley face. Although, having the robot nearby often made me feel like I was being watched.
Without the translator, it would be like being mute and deaf for me here.
Tairan nodded, unclipping his belt to get ready for his workout. I could see how excited he was about being active again. The energy seemed to radiate from him with his every move.
“Alright, we’ll start after lunch today,” he agreed. “Just don’t mention to anyone what we’re doing.”
“Do you think they’ll object to my learning the language?”
“By gaining a skill that Ricread has obviously not intended you to have, you get potentially more power. If he finds you’re doing something like that behind his back, I wouldn’t put it past him to forbid it, if only to remind you who is in charge here.”
His features hardened, something cold and sharp flashed through his eyes.
Knowing Tairan as well as I did now, I realized how painful it must have been for him to submit to someone like Ricread and to remain in that man’s power for years, shackled by his love for his son.
I also understood now why it had been so hard for Tairan to let me in. From the moment we met, he was placed in a situation where he had to act against his own instincts and obey orders against his better judgment. All because Ricread held his son’s freedom as collateral. By beginning to care about me, Tairan must have felt he was giving Ricread another weapon to use against him. No wonder, he viewed the affection between us as a weakness.
“Is there any chance for you to ever renegotiate your agreement with Ricread?” I asked quietly. “At least to allow you to speak with Erix regularly?”
“He would never admit there is no chance for a re-negotiation, because he needs to dangle that morsel of hope in front of me every time I rebel.” He raked his fingers through his braids, on the way to the exit. “The only way to stop this is to kill Ricread,” he muttered under his breath unexpectedly, and I froze in shock at his words. “I swear, I’ll do it one day.”
“Tairan.”
He turned to face me, his expression grim.
“Is there capital punishment for murder on Keala?” I was surprised at myself. Apparently, I did not question the potential murder, just the punishment for it.
“Yes, there is. And that is the only thing that has been holding me back at times.” Something raw and painful flashed across his features. “The thought that if I’m gone, Erix would have no family left.”
“Oh, Tairan, honey . . .” I wrapped my arms around his middle and pressed my head to his chest.
I could never forget that my current deal with Ricread had an end, and what lay after that was scary in its uncertainty.
THE EXERCISE HALL TURNED out to be a gigantic cavern, with the walls and dome-shaped ceiling made of a material resembling roughly hewn rock. Instead of any known-to-me exercise machines or equipment, various-size cylinders had been placed along the walls, all the way to the ceiling in some places. The rubber-like cylinders seemed to rotate at different speeds.
Without having any exercise clothes and mindful of my condition, I only ventured to use the lowest cylinder, which rotated at a low speed and had handle bars for me to hold on to.
Using it as a sort of a treadmill, I walked slowly in my long dress, holding on to the handles and watching the Kealans climb the walls.
Despite a relatively large number of personnel at the facility, I rarely ran into many of them during my daily routine. Right now, though, there must have been close to a hundred of them in here.
Dressed in their sleek uniforms, some grey for the maintenance people and research team, some black for security personnel, all of them seemed incredibly fit. They climbed the walls of the cavern by using even the sl
ightest protrusion in the rock or hopping from one rotating cylinder to another. I imagined it required a certain degree of skill and coordination not to fall from the constantly rotating cylinders.
Tairan had explained that despite different modes of transportation available on Keala, many excursions outside of homes or city centres still required a hike through caves and tunnels, not all of which would be perfectly horizontal or smooth.
I wondered if this was what gave the Kealans their athletic build. Even Ricread seemed to be in excellent shape—his straight posture and broad-shouldered figure were definitely not how I would envision an aging scientist.
Sweeping the open space with my gaze, I searched for Tairan and spotted his lithe form as he climbed high under the ceiling of the dome. Hanging by his fingers and toes, he went from vertical to being almost horizontal as he progressed higher.
As if sensing my watching him, he glanced my way then let go of the rock to wave at me with his right hand, making my heart skip a beat with worry that he’d plummet to the ground.
The expression on his face, though, was joyous, his smile as wide as could be. And I grinned back, waving at him in return as he started his descent.
As soon as he moved back to the wall, though, Tairan leaped off the rock onto one of the rotating cylinders, positioned high, then quickly hopped to another. Jumping from one cylinder to the next, he descended to the floor and jogged to me.
His body radiated power and energy. Kealan skin never got any colour. Even after exercise, Tairan’s remained snow-white, with only tiny beads of sweat glistening on his brow along the hairline.
“How was it?” I let go of the handrail and nearly tripped, skipping a step.
“Come here.” He swept me off my cylinder and into his arms. “We don’t want Zavis rushing in here with her screen to chastise us about your elevated numbers again.”
“You have to be more careful, too. My numbers must have gone through the roof, when I thought you’d fall from under there.” I gestured up at the ceiling before hugging his waist.
“I am severely out of shape.” He sighed. “But don’t worry, I wouldn’t fall, this hall is not that difficult in terms of equipment.” He drew me in closer. “We need to keep your spikes for other occasions.” He kissed my hair.
Leaning into his large body, warm from the exercise, I felt as if his strength and vitality seeped into me, flooding me with joy.
All my numbers must have jumped whenever Tairan hugged me like this, but I wished Zavis’s equipment were sensitive enough to capture this feeling of peace and security that filled me when in his arms—the happiness I felt with him. Maybe then I’d have strong enough evidence to convince them all once and for all that we were better together than apart.
Chapter 18
ANOTHER AMENITY THE Kealan station on Earth had to offer was a movie theater. Zavis took me there one day and introduced me to two of her friends—Yaee, who seemed to be in her early thirties like Zavis, and Ires, who was older, possibly well into her forties.
Both greeted me in a friendly way and made an obvious effort not to stare at my belly, which had become fairly noticeable by now, even the loose dresses I wore were no longer hiding it.
“Do you have popcorn here, too?” I asked, taking in the large room with circular rows of seating, like in an amphitheater. “To snack on while you watch the movie?”
“Come.” Zavis waved me to a glass screen door on the wall, similar to the food compartment in my rooms. “Show me how it looks, the food that you’re talking about.”
I scrolled through the list of Earth foods, surprised to actually find a picture of a bowl of popcorn on it. Although the description below was in Kealan, by now I had learned the written language enough to understand that there was no salt or butter on the popcorn.
“Here.” I pointed at the picture to Zavis, and she quickly made the selection.
“I ordered double,” she said to me. “It looks interesting, I want to try some too.”
“It won’t taste the best without the salt or butter,” I warned her. “You guys don’t let me have any flavour on my food.”
“Most if not all food additives you use on Earth have been found damaging to your health. This is actually mind-boggling.” She spread her arms apart in a gesture of confusion. “Why do you deliberately add harmful substances to wholesome foods and ingest them?”
“’Cause it tastes good.” I shrugged, not feeling like getting into an argument about human nutrition at the moment.
Since part of my current agreement with Ricread was me eating whatever foods I wanted, the restrictions on salt, coffee, and sugar for me had been lifted. Remembering my part of the deal, though—my promise to take care of my body and health—I had those in moderation. I was keeping an eye on my numbers now, too, not wanting to give Ricread any excuse to break our agreement early.
“What movie are we watching today?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s a little old but one of my favourites.” Zavis took two small bowls of popcorn and handed one to me as we walked back to our seats next to Yaee and Ires. “I find newer movies depressing, to be honest. This one is funny, and it still has live child actors in it, not the computer-generated characters.”
“What is this?” Yaee asked, pointing at the bowls in our hands.
“Try some,” Zavis offered her bowl to her, after taking one popped kernel into her mouth, too.
“It’s popcorn,” I explained, stretching over Zavis’s seat with my bowl for Ires to try. “People in many places on Earth like to eat it while watching movies.”
“Interesting,” Ires muttered, sniffing the kernel first.
“The texture reminds me of the ziboo, the woodsy mushrooms we have growing in some of the drier caves,” Yaee said, taking some more popcorn from Zavis’s bowl.
“A little dry,” Ires declared.
“Well, it’s better with butter,” I muttered. “But you’d need a drink either way. I’ll get us some.” I started to get up, but Yaee stopped me quickly.
“You sit, I’ll go,” she said firmly, basically jumping out of her seat.
“Is she worrying about my vitals, too?” I asked, watching Yaee rush to the food compartment, her long braids whipping behind her.
“Everyone is,” Ires said matter-of-factly. “I check your status first thing every morning, before I even get out of bed.”
“It is so exciting to watch her grow.” Zavis nodded with a huge smile on her face.
“Here you go.” Yaee returned, with four narrow containers of water in her hands. She handed them to us and took her seat.
The theater had filled with Kealans fairly quickly. I knew that everyone had a chance to watch the very same movie on their personal devices in their rooms. Their purpose to be here was the same I had—socializing, even as we all were about to sit quietly for an hour or two.
A tall figure walked past us and crossed the aisle to take a seat in one of the top rows to the right. I recognized the man.
“Valran comes to the movies, too?” For some reason, he seemed out of place here.
“Pretty often.” Zavis nodded, staring in his direction.
“Maybe because he works with Ricread,” I said quietly, “but he doesn’t seem like the kind of man who’d enjoy watching a funny movie. Honestly, he appears to be more of a robot than a man at times.”
“Oh, Valran is very much a man.” Zavis giggled, stuffing her face with popcorn.
“Yes,” Yaee agreed. “I can attest to that, too.”
“What do you mean?” I moved my gaze from one to the other, in bewilderment. “Are you saying you . . . um, dated Valran? Both of you?”
“I believe all of us dated him at some point. Right, Ires?”
“I can’t be sure,” the older woman said casually. “I know I didn’t have sex with him here on the station, but Valran and I worked together on Keala for a long time before this expedition. I believe we did sleep together once or twice then, but I can’t recall i
t. It must have not been memorable.”
“There is no marriage in your culture.” I remembered what Tairan told me about Kealan customs.
“No, not anymore.” Yaee shook her head. “Personally, I find the concept of marriage fascinating and scary. It seems so very romantic to be with one man all your life. But this is exactly what scares me out of my mind.” She laughed. “Having the same person in your space, every day. Why would anyone do it nowadays?”
“Marriage is an archaic concept,” Ires agreed. “It only works in primitive cultures where the economic factors force two people to stay together and raise their offspring jointly.”
Zavis glanced in the direction of Valran’s seat again, with a wistful glimmer in her eyes.
“I’ve never tried to see anyone on a regular basis,” she said quietly. “Never felt the need, before . . . Lately, I’ve been wondering, though, what it would be like.”
Ires followed her gaze then leaned in so that only the four of us could hear. “Valran’s pride has been bruised badly. Professor Ricread demoted him in rank and greatly reduced his access level.”
“Demoted?” Zavis gasped.
“Who has been promoted to his place then?” Yaee whispered quickly.
“No one.” Ires shrugged. “The truth is there simply isn’t anyone more qualified to be The First Assistant Professor than Valran on this station. So he is still performing all the duties, but with lower rank and at reduced pay.”
“Knowing Valran, you’re right, that must have been bruising to his pride.” Yaee nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Why did he get demoted?” I asked, and all three turned to me, staring.
“Um . . . this is way above what you’re allowed to know.” Yaee frowned.
“Well, I know now,” I replied.
“For allowing the administration of anesthetics to the commander, post-surgery, among a number of other violations that have recently come to light,” Ires said, her voice firm, her eyes on mine. The way she stared at me made me wonder just how ‘unintentional’ her revealing this information in my presence was. “He’s done a few things without the professor’s permission.”
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