Delivery (Star Line Express Romance Book 3) Read online

  “Nik told me there’s talk of rebellion and that we have to accelerate our schedule here. That’s the real reason you were called back early.”

  Aeryen runs back toward us, ending the conversation.

  “Let’s go!” he says. “I’m hungry!”

  Chapter 11

  Niya

  I’m in the mess with Chlo and Nik Arca. It’s odd meeting someone I’ve heard about but never seen. Nik’s just as Chlo described him—golden eyes, longish blond hair, big, muscular body. The typical Big World Terran. An extremely good-looking male.

  But not half so good-looking as the reckless Chorynean pilot, I think as I see Joston come into the room with Aeryen and a very pregnant female.

  “Aymee?” I say to Chlo, who nods. Aymee also looks very much as Chlo’s described her, with a head of lustrous black hair I’m instantly envious of, and there’s something about her that reminds me a bit of Joston. Maybe it’s the cheekbones. They are both Chorynean.

  I watch as Aeryen, Aymee, and Joston get their food. It takes them a moment to spot us, but when they do, they come over to our table and sit down.

  Joston sits right next to me and I’m half afraid he’s going to kiss me right here in front of everyone. I’m also half afraid that he’s not going to kiss me.

  He doesn’t.

  Then a new fear arises. That he’s never going to kiss me again. Although that would probably be best.

  But he’s sitting dangerously close to me and every once in a while I feel his hand on my arm. Innocent contact, yet it sends shivers through me. My body’s been awakened and I suspect it’ll take a long time to put it back to sleep, where it belongs.

  If I have to spend two months on the Marinax with him, I don’t know if it’ll ever go back to sleep.

  “Chengdry food is the most delicious in the universe!” Aeryen says after he’s finished eating. I’ve never seen him eat with such enthusiasm. I do agree, though. These Chengdry dishes are among the best food I’ve ever had.

  Aymee tilts her head at me and I shake mine in response. No. He doesn’t know. I didn’t know until Joston told me.

  “Ensign Nightbird,” Nik says in a very casual way, “I’d like to speak with you.”

  Chlo stands up. “Yes, sir,” she says.

  That was our cue.

  Chlo and Nik have to discuss the arrangements for tonight—arrangements I haven’t given my agreement to, yet they seem to have become a foregone conclusion—but now Joston has gotten involved. He’s following us down the corridor back to Chlo’s quarters. It’s as though everyone but me has just assumed that Joston will be part of tonight’s getaway.

  I couldn’t figure out how to stop him without calling attention to all of us. We’ve passed several crew members on our walk.

  We get to Chlo’s quarters and enter when no one else is nearby.

  “I think we should go during the vid,” Nik says after he’s brought Aymee and Joston up to speed on our, that is, Chlo’s, plans. “No one will notice we’re gone.”

  “I can’t leave in the middle!” Aeryen says. “It’s my favorite!” He hasn’t asked about why we’re going to Engra, what’s happening, why this is a secret. Nothing. It’s not like him.

  “You won’t be leaving,” I say. “You’ll be staying here.”

  “On the Marinax?” Aeryen says.

  You’d think I’d just told him that he could play in the backyard until midnight and never have to wash his hands again—his idea of heaven. At least it was his idea of heaven until Joston Lynar showed up and skewed that idea more toward piloting and reckless aviation maneuvers.

  “Niya’s staying right with you,” Joston says, taking charge of something he’s got no stake in. That he’s got no business taking charge of.

  “I’m not even sure we should be doing this,” I say.

  “But this is so exciting!” says Aeryen, who doesn’t even really know exactly what it is we’re planning.

  “That’s just it,” I say. “It’s too exciting.”

  “There’s no such thing,” Joston says. He probably means that. Aeryen’s nodding in hearty agreement.

  “Some of us had better get some sleep right now,” says Aymee.

  “You’re not going either,” says Nik.

  “Of course I am,” Aymee says. “How could I miss this? It’s the most excitement we’ve had since the Centreale.”

  Nik sits back and sighs. “Then you’ll have to come with me. I’m not going to let you out of my sight.”

  “I don’t think Aymee should go,” Chlo says.

  “Is that your medical opinion?” Aymee says.

  “It is,” Chlo says. “You should stay here. This close to your due date is not an ideal time to be sneaking about on covert missions.”

  Aeryen looks at Joston, who says, “It means the same thing as secret,” and Aeryen nods.

  The two of them have already developed a silent method of communication. It’s going to rip Aeryen’s heart to shreds when we settle in the Triangulum and Joston goes on his merry way with the Marinax.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,” I say.

  “Decide now,” Nik says. He seems to be in charge of this so-called mission.

  I look at my son, so enamored of his new friends and circumstances, so unaware of what awaits him in the future on Engra, and oblivious to what it is we’re really planning.

  “I have to talk with Aeryen,” I say. “Can you give us a few moments alone?”

  “Go into the bedchamber and shut the door,” Chlo says. “It’s soundproofed.” She looks a little embarrassed as she says this, and when I go into the room with Aeryen, I realize why. There’s a gigantic bed in here, which I imagine is another of Lasson’s purchases. He’s outfitted this suite like it’s a luxury hotel room. A soundproofed luxury hotel room.

  “Mom,” says Aeryen after I shut the door. It’s dead quiet in here. We can’t even hear the conversation in the adjacent room.

  “Yes, Aeryen,” I say.

  “What’s really happening?”

  “That’s what I want to talk with you about.”

  “Are we going to stay here? On the Marinax?” But he gives me no chance to answer him. “We are! I knew it! This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me!”

  “Aeryen, we have to discuss this, because once we decide, there’s no turning back.”

  Aeryen jumps up and down on the bed.

  “Sit,” I say, and I’m startled when he listens to me.

  “You wouldn’t ever be able to go back to Engra,” I say.

  “Okay,” he says, kicking his legs into the side of the bed.

  “Or see your friends again.”

  “I already have a lot of new friends,” he says.

  “But, Aeryen, you have to understand something.”

  I have to tell him now. I can’t dare keep it from him. He’ll never forgive me.

  “What is it, Mom?” I guess he’s sensed the mood, because he’s sitting still, no longer kicking his legs. He’s gotten off the bed and he’s standing in front of me, daring me to tell him something dreadful.

  “We’re not going to stay on the Marinax forever,” I say.

  “Well, I know that,” he says.

  “We’ll be here for a couple of months, then we’re going to find a new home in the Triangulum.”

  Aeryen is unaffected by this news, which I thought would devastate him.

  “With Joston,” he says, undevastated and so sure of himself that I can’t bear it. But I have to tell him the truth. Now.

  “No,” I say. “Just us.”

  Chapter 12

  Joston

  The door to Chlo’s bedchamber opens, a streak of tearful kid rushes into me, and I hold on to him even though he’s fighting me.

  “You are a liar,” Aeryen says to me, punching me in the chest.

  “He isn’t,” Niya says, defending me against some lie I didn’t know I told. There are probably scores of them.

  “What
the hell?” I say.

  “Let go of me,” Aeryen says. “I don’t ever want to see you ever again ever.”

  Niya reaches out for him and he says, “I don’t want to see you again either. Ever. Ever.”

  Chlo taps me on the shoulder and mouths I’ll take care of him.

  “Get some sleep,” Nik says to me and Niya. “You’re going to need it.”

  “Come with me,” Chlo says to Aeryen. “I think I might be able to find a uniform shirt that would fit you.”

  “Really?” Aeryen says between sobs.

  “Absolutely,” Chlo says. “And don’t you want to see the rest of the ship?”

  “Yes,” Aeryen says, sobbing somewhat less now. Whatever’s devastated him isn’t so devastating that it’s also killed his excited energy. Maybe nothing could be that devastating.

  A moment later, Nik, Aymee, Chlo, and Aeryen are gone. It’s just me and Niya.

  “What the hell was that about?” I say.

  “It’s not about you,” Niya says.

  “It’s not?”

  “It’s not completely about you. It’s just that Aeryen thinks that . . .”

  She can’t look at me.

  “He thinks that you’re going to come with us. To the Triangulum. That we’re leaving Engra to go settle somewhere. Together. With you.”

  “I hope you told him we’re not,” I say. I wouldn’t settle in the Triangulum if it were the last habitable place in the Seven Galaxies. I’d rather spend the rest of my life as the Majnian overlord’s private pilot.

  “Of course I told him we’re not,” she says. “Of course I did!”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Not okay,” she says. “Of course I told him we’re not all settling down together. Anywhere. I don’t even know you!”

  “Okay,” I say. “You don’t.”

  “I don’t even know if I want to leave Engra,” she says.

  “You don’t?”

  “I was going to leave Aeryen here with Chlo,” she says. “That was my plan. That she would find a better home for him.”

  “What better home could he have than with you?”

  “Joston, I’m sure you’ve realized this. I’m not even Aeryen’s real mother.”

  “You are his real mother,” I say, because she is.

  “Not his biological mother,” she says. “And it’s not just because he’s probably Chengdry—if you’re right about that. Or his vestigial tail. Or the hairs on his wrists.”

  “He’ll be fine,” I say.

  “Not on Engra,” she says. “And especially not now. I think there’s going to be a war. Soon.”

  “Then you can’t stay there either,” I say. “Use this opportunity to get away. Both of you.”

  “That’s what Chlo said.”

  “She’s right.”

  I’m suddenly exhausted, and we do have to get some sleep if we’re going to pull off tonight with a minimum of fuck-ups.

  “You take the bed,” I say to Niya. “I’ll sleep out here.”

  “Like you did last night?” she says.

  Despite everything in my mind that’s telling me this is the worst thing I could possibly do—further encouraging Niya Redmor in her son’s dreams of our having a sort of a family together—my body is telling me something else altogether.

  “Exactly like last night,” I say. Even arguing with Niya seems to arouse me. How is that possible?

  “Why?” she says, asking the most unlikely of questions.

  “Because I want to. And because you want to. Is there any other reason?”

  She puts one hand on my collar and holds on to it. I start walking toward the bedchamber and she lets go of my collar and follows me.

  “We’re going to be on this ship together for a couple of months, at least,” she says. “So this is going to have to be the last time. Because—”

  “I’ve never seen such a huge bed,” I say, interrupting Niya. I’ve been in Chlo and Lasson’s quarters before, but only in the outer room.

  “Joston, you have to listen to me,” Niya says.

  I pull apart the snaps on my uniform shirt. Niya hoists her sweater off over her head. I stare at her while she kicks off her shoes and steps out of her pants. I sit on the edge of this humongous bed and work on my boots.

  “I’m listening,” I say.

  “Liar,” she says.

  “This is the last time,” I say. “I did hear you.”

  Niya’s naked, her curves spurring me on to get out of my pants faster, her stiff nipples making my mouth water, and this gigantic bed underneath us urging me to get going already.

  I tug off my pants, and Niya gasps a little as my cock springs out. Maybe she didn’t see it so well last night. I forget that Engra don’t have the same acute night vision as Choryneans.

  “You’re . . .” she says, searching for an appropriate word. “It’s . . .”

  Niya is just out-and-out staring at my cock now.

  “It’s huge,” she says, and I start laughing, which makes her laugh.

  Then she leans back onto the bed and opens her legs. I immediately forget every single foreplay technique that’s taken me years to perfect—and they are perfect—and simply plunge into her.

  “Joston!” If this is a protest, there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. I pound into her wildly, like I’ve never had sex before and am never going to have it again. Like this is my first and last chance. Ever.

  But her yelling out my name is no protest. She hooks her legs over my shoulders while she pushes herself onto me. She’s gasping and I realize that I am too.

  “Niya,” I say, but I can’t say anything else. We’ve been at it for only a few minutes and I’m losing control already.

  Between thrusts and grunts, I look down into her eyes, which are dark, dark violet now. Then her body starts shimmering. Her trembling hands are in my hair. Her sex is clenched around mine, making me part of her.

  I have never felt like this. The world around us is wiped out. She moves her legs so now they’re around my waist. Her hands are clutching my ass, helping me get deeper and deeper into her.

  Leaning down, I lick her left nipple, then the right one. Then I put the left one in my mouth and run my tongue over it, then kiss it, then nip at it.

  “Joston,” she says from the back of her throat while I keep up the small bites. “Joston.”

  The tempo increases. I can’t stop myself. I forget everything I’ve ever known, immersed in this moment only.

  “No, no, no. Not yet, not yet,” Niya says just as her shimmering body explodes in a meteoric burst.

  “Niya,” I say as if it’s the true name of the universe, as if it’s the only name for all of creation.

  My hips cannot move any faster. I close my eyes against the clash of need and satisfaction as I pour myself into her while she crests once again.

  Then, still lying on top of her exquisite, pulsing body, still untethered from my usual self, I succumb to something less like sleep and more like unconsciousness.

  Chapter 13

  Niya

  I’ve never seen any location in the Triangulum, even in a vid. It’s just never interested me before. But here in this fantastic dream, I see that it’s really the ideal place.

  We live in a small but sparkling home, as though it’s constructed of an amalgam of gemstones and bright beads. We’re in the backyard, where Aeryen and Joston are playing together. I’m preparing lunch. I’ve become an expert at Chengdry cuisine.

  “Mom! Look at this!” says Aeryen. It’s what he’s always saying. And I always look.

  Joston’s holding Aeryen by his ankles and dangling him in the air, upside down.

  “Is that part of your pilot training?” I say. I marvel at how calm I am, unworried that Aeryen will fall. Equally unworried that Joston will drop him.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Joston says. “This is the pilot training.”

  Then he starts turning around, and Aeryen swings up almost 90 degrees f
rom the ground and he holds out his arms, like he’s a bird.

  Joston turns Aeryen faster and faster until the two of them are just a blur and then I do get scared.

  “Stop!” I say. “You can’t do this!”

  “It’s okay, Niya,” Joston says.

  “No!” I say. “This has to stop.”

  “Go, go, go!” says Aeryen.

  The two of them are laughing, gleeful. Ignoring me. Uncaring. I can’t stop them.

  Joston lets go of Aeryen’s ankles and I scream. With the speed they’ve been turning around, Aeryen is sure to be hurt—or killed.

  But Aeryen shocks me. He’s airborne now, flying, high above us both.

  “He can go anywhere he wants,” Joston says. “He doesn’t need us anymore.”

  To prove Joston’s point, Aeryen circles around the yard, swoops down and taps me on the shoulder, then soars up and over the fantasylike vegetation that’s growing all around our yard.

  “But, Joston,” I say. “What we will do now?”

  “We’ll help Wilm do the same,” he says.

  “Who is that?”

  Joston strokes my belly and smiles. “Aeryen’s little brother.”

  “No,” I say. “No!”

  “Niya, wake up,” says a faraway voice.

  “No!” I say. Aeryen can absolutely not fly away. And I won’t have a child. Not with Joston. Not with anyone. I can’t.

  “Niya, you’re dreaming,” says Joston. “And we do have to get up. It’s almost time for that dreadful bloody vid to start.”

  “No,” I say.

  “We have to be there,” he says. “Come on.”

  I wake up. Disoriented. Where are we?

  Oh yes. On the Marinax.

  In Chlo and Lasson’s ultra swanky suite.

  In bed.

  Together.

  “Joston,” I say. “I had a terrible dream.”

  “So did I,” he says.

  “I have to take a shower,” I say.

  “In there,” he says, pointing to a door. “I just took mine.”

  He’s getting dressed, covering himself up. I stare, even though I’ve already stared enough, but I want to look. This one last time. His cock is large even when it’s not engorged, and I enjoy it until it’s tucked back into his pants.