Blue Light of Home (10 page)

And sure enough, Vala inched his chair forward again, although he tried to get his knee against her and push her off as he did it. Skye let him think he’d won. She waited for him to start talking, and then reached up and closed her hand around his shaft.

No reaction, apart from another warning kick. The calm, concise quality of his voice never so much as hitched, not when she stroked him, not when she squeezed…

Not until she pried his thighs apart, pressed between them, and took him into her mouth.

BANG went his knees on the underside of the console, and whatever Vala was saying became a very short, very loud yelp. What she could see of his expression when she looked up past the console’s lip was hilariously composed.

There followed a long pause during which Skye silently licked every inch of him with the very tip of her tongue.

A question. (“What the hell is wrong with you, boy?”)

Vala’s curt reply. (“Leg cramp. Please continue.”)

After another stretch of seconds, the other alien said something else, and Vala continued whatever report he was making. He also reached down almost at once and smacked blindly beneath the console, catching her once in the ear and twice in the shoulder. She didn’t let it stop her from sucking lightly at the head of him, and then, as the report droned on overhead to its rousing conclusion, opening to take him deep into her throat. She began to move, not as smoothly as she would have liked owing to the cramped quarters, but she must have been effective because whatever Vala was saying just…sort of…drifted…to a stop.

He sat there, raggedly breathing, thighs now opened wide with Skye between them. Imagining his likeliest expression kept her entertained as the quiet stretched out.

At last, a puzzled sort of query from the other alien.

Vala’s only answer was a terse grunt.

Another pause. Skye moved a bit faster.

The other alien started talking again. Skye took advantage of the covering sound to hum very softly as she worked. Vala twitched hard, started to reach for her again, changed his mind and gripped the console instead. She could hear his claws scraping at the metal, and so could his friend apparently, who began to wrap it up with the rambling, rapid tone of someone who all at once realizes they are talking to a crazy person. Skye drew back to alternately suck and lap at him, and he, with a sudden, draconian snarl (the other alien shut right up), came in a musky flood across her tongue.

She swallowed, licking at him some more to get every drop as his member retracted—it was the least she could do, really—and the other alien babbled out some sort of goodbye. There was another dry click across all the speakers, and immediately afterwards, Vala kicked his chair back halfway across the room. “
Woman
!”

She climbed out laughing at him and he hauled back and gave her a cannon-loud wallop across both buttocks that made her run in place for a second or two, but couldn’t make her stop laughing.

“I ought to slap your snout!” he snapped, yanking his pants up and fastening them.

“I’m sorry,” she giggled, fumbling for her own clothes and shaking them out. “That was bad. Who was that?”

“I knew something like that would happen…right on the bridge and I just
knew
—” he muttered crossly, and noticed only then the sorry state of his harness. Groaning something in his own language, he fought it open and started over. “He knew! He had to know! You’ve ruined my career with your sexual snares, woman!”

“I know I should feel bad, but if that were actually true, I’d be pretty proud of myself.”

He tossed her a wry smile and dropped back into his chair. “That was my shadow,” he said. “He’s in a shielded ship elsewhere in orbit, monitoring human reaction to my presence here.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk to him before.”

“We’re supposed to maintain minimal contact, in case the humans have a way of intercepting our transmissions. They don’t, but protocols are protocols.”

“Poor guy. He’s all alone?”

“He has a Vaaji woman,” Vala said dismissively. “What he wanted me to know is that fourteen of Earth’s leaders have just concluded a secret conference in which they have decided to dismantle their orbital weapons arrays before we find out about them.”

“We have weapons in orbit? For real?” Skye looked out the only window in the room, just like she knew what she was looking for in the loose halo of floating junk that ringed Earth. “I thought that was just in the movies.”

“We already knew about them, but it is a very good sign of humanity’s willingness to submit to the Empire. Sorn can be excited about its portent if it pleases him, but I—” He caught her arm and pulled her into his lap, where he could slip his hand under her sweats and give her a scaly squeeze. “I would be far more satisfied with only one human’s submission.”

“But you have work to do,” she reminded him.

“Do not presume to dictate my actions.” He stood up and tossed her easily across his shoulder, giving her a swat to stop her startled kicking as he headed for the hall. “And I really think that I must punish you until you learn it. And Skye?”

She stopped squealing and pushed herself off his back, craning around to try and see him. “Yes?”

“Afterwards—” He met her eyes with a toothy grin and a startling wink. “—you have my permission to move.”

CHAPTER FIVE

She dreamed of being back on Earth, of walking on an island just at sunset, when the sky and sea and everything had become a stained glass masterpiece in reds, golds, and playful pinks. She’d been climbing over the rocky beach for hours, but not with any distress because the view was so amazing. She bruised her feet a little, but there was lots of soft sand in the distance, and she’d be there soon enough. In the meantime, it was still nice just to struggle along under the radiant sky, enjoying the fresh breeze and the pulse of the surf and the warmth of the setting sun, until suddenly the whole world washed out in a flash of brilliant blue and she had to wake up.

Skye rolled over, away from the piercing light now shining down above her bed, and looked out her window at the stars. Earthrise wasn’t for hours yet. Her room was a black and white photograph with shocking blue sun set in the middle of one wall. Vala wanted her.

She got up yawning and fished around in the cupboard until she found her slinky silver nightgown. She pulled it on, felt an itch of lace at her back, and realized she’d put it on backwards. And inside-out. Her head was all full of fog; when she checked the time, she realized she’d been asleep less than three hours. That was damned inconsiderate of him, but being in a mature relationship meant putting up with your man’s selfish crap, and being in a mature relationship out in space meant doing it with a smile. She’d overlook it this once.

It had actually been a long time since he’d used the light at all, come to think of it. Over the past few weeks, they’d fallen into the habit of going together to his room after he decided he was done for the day. They’d talk a little, have sex a lot, and afterwards, she’d go back to her own bed and he’d go to the exercise room (she had to have a sense of humor about the fact that he didn’t feel she was giving him enough of a work-out, or it would really annoy her). If she went to bed while he was still working, he usually just let her sleep, although he might try a run on the incline for a few hours first to try and wake her up. If he managed, she always went. Passive-aggressive though it might be, it was still better than blasting a light on her.

But the light was on now and she’d go gracefully. She’d sleep better afterwards anyway. Clichés were clichés for a reason.

Skye finished straightening her nightie, finger-combed her hair, stole an extra M&M from her diminishing supply (somewhat more rapidly-diminishing than it should be; she wondered if Vala was raiding the jar), and padded down the hall to her alien’s room. Her smile of greeting went crooked almost at once.

She should have known. He was sound asleep.

They never had worked out a protocol for this one. Skye shut the door so she’d have something to prop herself up on and stood there, thinking back to the other time she’d answered his sleeping summons. It was a weird thing to get nostalgic about, and the memory would never be entirely free of that twinge of guilt that came with remembering the fight the next day (and her ugly slap), but she thought about it anyway and she smiled while she thought. He was sprawled out exactly the same way, breathing the same heavy grumbling breaths, with his strange, flat, stubby tail loosely tucked over his exposed butt. She didn’t even really see an alien anymore, that was the funniest thing. She just saw Vala, in a rare moment of complete indignity, but only Vala.

He muttered in his sleep and scratched at the back of his long head, then rolled over, started to grope for his single thin blanket, and swiftly sat up. As before, he stared at her, then at the small panel on the wall which he must have hit, and then, re-igniting her faint sense of
deja vu
, swung his legs over the side of the bed and beckoned to her.

“Because you totally meant to do it, right?” she teased, crossing the small room.

“Vaaji warriors do not make mistakes.” He pulled her down and unexpectedly rolled over, taking her with him in a disorienting whoosh, and ending up both on their sides as he spooned comfortably up against her back.

“Wow,” said Skye, a trifle breathlessly. She touched the scaly arm he slung around her waist and giggled. “This is new.”

“I’m feeling particularly deviant tonight,” he mumbled. “Go to sleep.”

“Do Vaaji warriors ever just sleep with their women?”

“Never.”

“Pervert.”

“Mm.”

It felt good though, just lying there with his breath in her hair and his body against hers. Even knowing that as soon as he dropped off again, he’d be shoving her off the pad in his inevitable bachelor’s domination of the bed couldn’t steal away the warmth of this moment. Silly as it may be, she felt safe in his arms. Protected. Just like the boring little ship were swarming with vicious space-blobs or asteroid-men that she needed sheltering from.

“See, now I want to make love with you,” she said. “Damn, that was insidious. How did you do that?”

“Behold the power of the Vaaji Empire.”

“No wonder planets just fall on their knees when they see you coming.”

“So to speak,” he agreed, with just a hint of salacious humor. He moved his hand to her hip and pulled her tight against him, hiking the hemline of her nightie up around her waist in the process, quite deliberately, she was sure.

She wiggled against him invitingly, but he only growled and gave her a good-natured nip on the shoulder.

“Do not presume to command my actions, woman. Will you never learn?”

“I need more positive reinforcement.”

“What you need is more time bent over with my hand putting the pink to you.”

“Six of one,” she said with a careless shrug. “We always end up the same way.”

He snorted, then suddenly let go of her and sat up. “As you are determined to keep the both of us awake, I wish to speak to you.”

“Oh?”

And maybe it was true, but he didn’t seem to know quite how to begin. He drew one knee up and propped his arm over it, flexing his claws in the air as he gazed out the window. “Are you keeping a calendar?” he asked at last.

It was a strange question. She sat up too, scooting back where she could see him better, and said, “Yes. I’m keeping two, sort of.” If rationing out one M&M a day counted. “We’re at six months and some change. I could go look it up if you want.”

“That isn’t necessary.” He studied the stars some more, thinking. Then: “I believe I’m coming to the end of it, Skye. There are yet twelve nations and certain miscellaneous details to research, but I expect to see completion well in advance of even the best estimates.”

“Oh,” she said after a moment. She honestly didn’t know what else to say. Wondering if he’d been looking for praise, she managed a wane, “Congratulations. It was a lot of work.”

He grunted, and said, “Collecting the information is the very least of it, of course, but it’s not my job to make sense of it all.” He bared his teeth in the dark room; she wasn’t sure if he were grinning or just offering a grimace of sympathy to the distant tacticians whose job it was.

Skye didn’t say anything.

After a few seconds, Vala said, “My shadow will be pleased.”

“I’m sure,” she said faintly.

“I think I’ll wait to tell him, however. I knew Sorn in the legion and he doesn’t handle anticipation well.”

More silence. This time, she made the effort to break it.

“So I guess you’ll be going home soon. Relatively.” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, the thought of being out of this floating tin can by the end of the year thrilled her. But on the other hand…

“I? Not for many years yet. The Emissary’s duty is to maintain a Vaaji presence until the official contact begins. We want the humans to keep thinking about us.” He lay back against the wall, and, as an afterthought, pulled her against his side, his arm around her shoulders. “But Sorn will leave to take the report. They’re almost certain to send him back once he does, but he might get one night in the barracks and some decent food.” One second, maybe two. “I imagine you’re looking forward to that yourself.”

“Yeah…” But oddly, she couldn’t get excited about it right now. After all this time drinking slime, not even the thought of a cheeseburger and a tub of cookie-dough ice cream could give her an honest smile. “So you’ll be, what? Here? Alone?”

He only shrugged. “It will be months yet. I haven’t made plans.” He sat for a bit, then ducked in and nipped her on the jaw. “Will you miss me?” he asked, with the growling inflection that meant he was teasing.

“Well, yeah! I know it’s hard for you to understand it, but humans form attachments to other people. They feel affection now and then.” She forced a laugh, trying to show him that she was teasing too, but the words stung no matter how hard she tried to lighten them. She wasn’t trying to pick a fight, but what was there to say? Would she
miss
him? “I suppose if I was a Vaaji woman, I’d just go home to the first guy who turned on a blue light and forget all about you, huh?”