Amorous Overnight (26 page)

“In what way?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. It almost feels like the air is…caressing my skin, you know? The perfect temperature, warm but not oppressive, and just enough humidity in the breeze to make me aware of it. And it smells good too. Every now and then I get just a teeny hint of rotting vegetation, kind of like what I smelled on summer evenings in the Deep South, but it just adds richness to the green scents and flowers and spices…” She shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wax poetic. It’s just…different.”

The intense way he was looking at her kicked the jumpy feeling up a notch to something resembling panic. Was he
trying
to keep her off balance or did he just have a gift for it?

Sliding down from her seat with a conspicuous lack of grace, she said, “I should probably go try to sleep. As early as the kids went to bed, they’ll be up at the crack of dawn.”

He stood as well. “It was a pleasure dining with you.”

She hesitated. “I hope you don’t feel like you have to keep me entertained. I know you’re a very busy man and I didn’t expect to be your guest.”

“Ms. Bonham, the last time I was here, I dined alone most evenings and it didn’t bother me. However, in the last few months, I’ve grown accustomed to dining with family and I find it eminently more pleasant than dining alone.”

“Oh. Okay, well, just so you know I won’t be offended if you have to be gone, or want me to eat in my room for some formal function or…something,” she finished lamely.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” he said with a slight bow. “Good night, Ms. Bonham.”

As she turned to leave, it occurred to her to invite him to call her Shelley, but if she did, he might reciprocate, and that would be awkward. She couldn’t imagine calling him by his first name. Or was Cecine even his first name?

Suddenly feeling distinctly ignorant, she went to her room and got ready for bed, then lay down with her tablet. Maybe it was time she started learning some of this stuff on her own.

“I’ve never seen him weep,” Hastion told Tiber and Shauss as they sat on the deck, giving Jasmine and her father some private time as they walked along the shoreline. “Not even after Lonia and all the other females of our House perished in the attack. He seemed to be made of stone.”

“I’m afraid that is all too common a reaction among our males.” Tiber looked at him intently. “Did he expect you to display the same stoicism?”

“I have no idea what he expected. My every thought was devoted to saving our females.”

“Understandable,” Tiber said. And of course, as a physician, he would understand. During the biowar attack, females had died so quickly, and in such unspeakable numbers, there weren’t nearly enough physicians to tend to them all. Compounding the problem was the fact that females were cared for exclusively by female physicians, most of whom succumbed to the virus themselves. “You obviously have a great capacity for the care of others. You should become a physician yourself.”

“I had actually thought I would, but…”

“But…?” Tiber prompted.

Hastion looked back and forth between him and Shauss. If there was anyone he could ever confess this to, it would be them, and suddenly it seemed impossible not to. “I had difficulty coping in the aftermath of the virus. Sleep was virtually impossible for me, and when I did nod off, I suffered from nightmares.”

Tiber nodded. “I experienced similar issues for months afterward.”

“I have never told this to another being, but in light of my arrangement with the minister, it seems foolish to keep it a secret any longer.” He looked down at the water’s edge, where his father and Jasmine talked as they wandered along. His father kept his hands behind his back. “Even now, he holds himself apart from her.”

“They’ve just met. It will take time for them to establish intimacy.”

“No, he will remain that way. He was always thus with me, even before the biowar attack—never touching, physically or emotionally.”

“Was that difficult for you?”

Hastion smiled wryly at Tiber. “Your vocation is showing.”

“I’m not asking as the ship’s psychiatric officer—I’m asking as your friend, because I want to know.”

A hard lump rose in Hastion’s throat and he had to look out over the ocean before he could reply. “It was more than difficult. I thought sometimes I would go mad in my isolation. The pain of loss devoured me from the inside out.”

“I’m sorry you had to suffer that.”

Those words, the simple acknowledgment that he’d suffered, lifted the lingering burden of it considerably. Peserin, why hadn’t he talked about this years ago?

“Thank you.” Taking a deep breath, he continued, “Anyway, when it had been months since I slept for more than a few moments at a time, a member of my father’s staff, a houseman named Joga, tried to help me. He talked to me, helped me get myself out of bed when all I would do was lie there staring.”

Before the biowar disaster, he’d found the young male both fascinating and unsettling, especially when Joga was out on the deck doing morning kacha raan exercises with a couple of other staff members. The sight of his strong, healthy body stretching and kicking and whirling in the sun had always taken Hastion’s breath away—not to mention caused him more erections than any young female he’d ever daydreamed about, a reaction that could have brought shame on his family’s House for generations to come if it were ever discovered.

“Finally one day I broke, raging and crying about Lonia, and Joga held me while I purged it all, gentling me, rocking me. When I wound down, all I knew was the strength of his hold, and how lovely he smelled. I was so starved for contact, I started nuzzling and licking the skin of his neck before I even realized what I was about.”

Joga had drawn back with narrowed eyes. Seared by embarrassment and horrified by his own lack of control, Hastion stammered out an apology, trying to disengage from the embrace, but Joga didn’t let him go. Instead, his intense gaze dropped to Hastion’s mouth, and then he leaned forward and caught Hastion’s lower lip between his teeth.

Even now, all these years later, the memory of that moment had the power to make Hastion’s heart beat more thickly.

Shauss stared at him. “And here I thought Tiber and I had broken heretofore unexplored ground.”

“Trust me, you did,” Hastion assured him. “Our explorations did not progress to the point of…”

“Sodomy?” Shauss offered at the same instant Tiber said, “Satisfaction?”

“Either,” Hastion said dryly, “though I believe if we’d had more time, Joga would eventually have done that to me. I wish he had.”

Shauss snorted. “As do I. You’d have saved us all ten years of blue balls.”

Nodding his agreement, Hastion continued, “Although Joga was a houseman, he did exactly as he wished with me. He treated me as though I were his female, and it was frustrating and terrifying and humiliating and…unbelievably exciting. The sheer thrill of our encounters shocked me out of my grief, and I lived for the nights he would seek me out and lead me to his quarters for more…exploration.”

His respirations quickened at the memory. “I don’t know which I was more addicted to—our growing intimacy or my fear of being discovered. But it didn’t matter after my father walked in unannounced and caught me on my knees, performing the enjoyable but seemingly futile task of sucking Joga’s cock.”

Tiber winced. “Oh no.”

Hastion nodded. “As Monica would say, he went ballistic—he dismissed Joga without reference and ordered me to the military academy. I was of an age to have defied him, and had I known then what I know now…”

“You would still have obeyed,” Shauss said.

Hastion flushed angrily. “Ensign Mikal made the mistake of thinking me spineless too. I understand he is still unable to breathe properly through his nose.”

“At ease, Ensign. Spineless is the last appellation I would apply to you.”

“Nor am I a martyr.”

“I don’t recall using that word either,” Shauss returned, pinning him with that opaque gaze. “Did you say it, Tiber?”

“I did not.”

“You seem to be the only one spouting offensive descriptors about yourself, Hastion. Why is that?”

His heart jerking uncomfortably, Hastion looked away.

“Mikal and those of his ilk view you through the distorting lenses of fear and willful ignorance,” Shauss said flatly. “Do not make the same mistake. You would have obeyed your sire because you have the strength of will to deny your own needs forever rather than cause him more pain. That is a trait to be admired and emulated.”

Hastion remained silent.

“Even now, he doubts himself,” Shauss murmured.

Tiber nodded. “I see that.”

“Hastion, I’m beginning to believe your little nurse had the right of it after all. Abuse need not be physical. If the minister is—”

“No!” Hastion shot out of his seat, breathing harshly. Striding to the deck railing, he seized it with both hands. “The minister has been nothing but kind and is, in fact, a model of restraint. Your concern is appreciated but misplaced. Please do not broach the subject again.”

After a long silence, Shauss said, “My apologies, Hastion. I appear to have misunderstood the problem.”

Hastion dipped his head in acknowledgment, but his attention was arrested by the vision of his father and Jasmine, walking hand in hand toward the deck. For once, Brothan looked…at peace.

They stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Hastion could not make out his father’s low words, but he saw clearly the way he took Jasmine’s face in his hands and kissed her forehead. Jasmine wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him briefly.

Stunned, Hastion tightened his grip on the rail. Shauss would not think him so noble if he could feel the petty emotions coursing through him now.

He deliberately turned his thoughts to Shelley and the twins and felt his tension ease almost at once. The only time he felt any semblance of the peace he saw on his sire’s face was when he was with them.

It was time for him to return to Shelley’s side, where he belonged.

Chapter Fourteen

The sun had long since set, Amalan was not far behind, and Crunus was but a sliver high in the starry sky when Hastion arrived at Minister Cecine’s home. Perhaps the great male’s convenience would arise this very night—it had been weeks since their last encounter, and while the respite from such impersonal relations had been a welcome relief, it also made resuming them that much more nerve-wracking.

He quickly changed into an exercise brief and made his way to the beach. Little relaxed him faster than an evening swim. Normally he would go nude, but this evening the idea of being exposed held no appeal.

As he descended the steps to the beach, hovering lanterns activated, casting a warm, diffuse light down the smooth stone steps and onto the sandy path below. Hastion plunged headfirst into the ocean’s warm, welcoming arms and nearly wept with the joy of it.

At last he was home. It had been far too long.

He swam as far as one breath would carry him before surfacing and then flipped to his back, observing the shadowed residence as he kicked farther away from the shore. In one dim window, he could see Shelley swaying with a babe in her arms—he was too far away to be able to discern which one, and he certainly couldn’t hear anything, but he knew Shelley was singing softly. Hastion smiled, his heart quickening in his chest. He loved to hear her sing.

He loved
her
. And miraculously, she returned at least some measure of his tender feelings, as well as a gratifying portion of his lust.

But what really slew him was that she was so protective of him. The idea should have been laughable, and Peserin knew his initial reaction after she accused the minister of abusing him had been mortal offense that such a tiny, helpless female would consider herself better able to defend him than he was. But once the stinging haze of embarrassment dissipated, he’d realized how clearly she saw him, how accepting she was of that aspect of his nature, and how very much she would risk in the name of his wellbeing. The realization had humbled him profoundly.

And when he went to beg her pardon… Powers, but she’d taken control of his pleasure with an assurance worthy of the most dominant of males. Though she’d seemed shy and almost embarrassed by her boldness afterward,
she
had claimed
him
, not the other way around. And the claiming had made him as bold as she—he hadn’t hesitated to comfort her by pouring his gratitude into a kiss.

There hadn’t been another such incident between them since, but he had every reason to hope for more. Sometimes when their eyes met, awareness sizzled between them and her hunger for him called forth ravenous hungers of his own. He’d been enchanted by her power when she claimed him, but he was still a warrior with a warrior’s needs and someday soon he would have to claim her as fiercely as she’d claimed him.

Until then, he would resign himself to accepting whatever physical intimacy the minister offered, even if he felt like a whore afterward. Having Shelley’s love would be worth the emotional pain and indignity.

Whore
.

His kicks slowed as a thought struck him. Prostitutes on Earth provided services far beyond what Cecine had demanded—perhaps it was time to turn the tables on him. Talking with Shauss and Tiber this evening had unearthed longings Hastion had buried almost ten years ago. He hadn’t forgotten anything about Joga—the smooth feel and salty taste of his cock. The warm, musky scent of his skin. The terrifying thrill of kneeling before him. The sense of joy and harmony that pleasing him instilled.