Dusk (Dusk 1) (13 page)

She began to rock back and forth on hands and knees, lost in animal need as her two worshippers grunted and strained toward their individual releases. Pete’s hands cinched around her hips with bruising force, making her gasp around Merrick’s long, thick cock. She gulped and willed more saliva into her mouth, bathing Merrick with her desire as she swirled her tongue over the heavy head. Behind her, Pete thrust harder and deeper, lightly pressing against the gate of her womb without pushing so hard he caused pain.

Her vision danced with red, white, and blue sparks as Merrick’s familiar scent and taste warred with the unfamiliar thickness of the cock splitting her apart from behind. She came again, the spasms of her inner walls working to draw Pete even deeper into her as she sucked avidly on Merrick’s hardness.

The combination of her motion and sucking must have been too much for Merrick, because he clasped his hands around her breasts and thrust into her mouth urgently. He groaned and howled his pleasure to the sky as she tightened her lips around him, holding on as if she would drown on dry land if his cock came out of her mouth. She swallowed desperately with everything she had, and was rewarded with a hot explosion of come. She gulped and swallowed, breathing heavily through her nose as she took Merrick’s essence for her own, while he roared in exultation at his release.

Behind her, Pete sped up his battering of her pussy. She swallowed one last time to ensure she didn’t miss a drop of her lover’s come and then let his limp cock fall out of her mouth as she pressed her ass against Pete’s hips. He pounded into her frantically as she urged him on with the movement of her hips and the wetness of her pussy.

Finally he cried out and shot into her, his come rushing out in a torrent of erotic force that nearly overwhelmed Olivia’s whirling mind. She came again as his heat washed against her deepest places, grunting and panting out her pleasure as her vision flared white, then rainbow, and then faded to a gentle monotone gray.

She came back to her senses with Pete cradling her head and Merrick her butt. Pete looked concerned. Merrick, as if reading his thoughts, said, “Don’t worry. She just had a really good time, didn’t you, lover?”

“Uh-huh!” she chuckled sleepily. “Wow. Um… how soon can we do that again?”

Merrick laughed. “Kinda greedy, aren’t you?”

Pete nodded his agreement. “Yeah. I don’t think you can handle another one of those before the reception.”

Olivia pouted, but she had to admit the men had a point. Her system had been pushed almost to the point of collapse by their talented ministrations. If she tried to keep up, it was likely she would wind up sleeping right through it.

“Oh, okay.” She leaned over and kissed Merrick deeply, then turned to Pete and did the same to him. To her surprise, neither man revolted at the idea, especially Pete. She had fully expected him to refuse to kiss her, especially after she allowed Merrick to come in her mouth, but he kissed her just as passionately and with no restraint whatsoever.

“So… should we head back?”

Pete grinned. “I think if we stay out here much longer, we’re probably going to wind up pushing you too hard. There’s plenty of time for more after the reception.”

She looked at Merrick. He didn’t quite manage to hide his annoyance at the idea this might become a regular thing with Pete, but she could tell the moment he recognized the plea in her eyes.

“If that’s what you want, then nothing’s too good for my girl,” he averred.

* * *

The assassin sighted down the scope of the plasma rifle, provided by an interested party for exactly such a contingency. The trio on the beach was wholly unaware of outside observation. Given their mutual preoccupation, it was unlikely they would have cared even if an old-style parade, complete with a brass band and majorettes had happened by. So engrossed they’d been in their sexual play that they all would have made easy targets, dead before they even had time to register what was happening.

I should have taken the shot. Then again, if none of them came back, someone would start crawling around looking for a motive. As it is, if I only shoot one of them, it becomes a tragic maybe-accident
.

With that comforting thought, the assassin lined up the shot again.

It was perfect.

There was no way to miss, with the rifle resting on a conveniently flat outcropping of rock and clear weather at less than two hundred meters. The hardest part would be ensuring a clean getaway afterward, but that was a chance that would just have to be taken. After all, what was life without a little risk?

The plasma rifle was an unusually crude weapon, but such an opportunity did not present itself often, and one had to make do with what was available. While killing the Terran envoy in this manner lacked a certain degree of elegance or finesse, it would also deflect suspicion. Who would imagine that someone who could kill without leaving physical traces would take the risk of using a rifle?

Drawing in a breath, the assassin let half of it out and squeezed the firing stud. A flare of red-white light lanced out from the business end of the rifle and reached its target in less than one one-hundredth of a nanosecond.

* * *

Pete screamed as the energy beam caught him high on the left side of his chest, charring through the flesh and cauterizing as it went, leaving a clean, precise hole the diameter of a pencil. He collapsed to the sand, his face growing slack as shock set in.

“Did you see where it came from?” Merrick swept to his feet, looking around wildly.

“No!” Olivia snapped. “And we don’t have time to worry about it. If they wanted to shoot all of us at once, they’d have done exactly that. We’d already be dead. We’ve got to take care of Pete.”

“Shit.” Merrick spat. “I have a first-aid kit in the ’car.”

“Is it a combat pack?”

“Yes.”

Relief swept her. Not everyone bothered to take the militia-issue kit with them unless they were on maneuvers, but Merrick had clearly thought further ahead than some of his more myopic compatriots. If she had access to a medical pack, there was a good chance she could ameliorate the damage the wound had inflicted.

She pressed her hands over the wound, muttering to Pete in a monotone that sounded half-professional, half-crazed in her ears. “Come on, Pete, stay with me, baby, hang on and stay with me oh God, Pete, I’m so sorry just hang tight until Merrick gets back --”

“Merrick
is
back,” Merrick announced, running up with the combat medical kit. He set it down beside her and asked, “What do I do?”

“He’s not bleeding. The bolt cauterized the wound. I need you to hold his hand and keep him conscious. If he passes out right now, things get a lot more dangerous. We have to keep him awake and as coherent as possible. Got it?”

“You’re the medic.” He shrugged.

Olivia tuned Merrick out as he talked to Pete in a comradely tone, trying to keep the other man’s mind alert and focused on his voice and nothing else. She ripped the lid off the pack and dug out bandages, disinfectant…

YES
!

Painkillers and artificial flesh. All she needed to do was apply the nozzle into the wound and depress the spray trigger. The cellular sealant would hurt like three different kinds of hell, but the painkiller would counter that, at least to a degree. She picked up a hypospray of peroximethadryl and applied it just above the wound.

Pete’s breathing almost instantly relaxed and his shoulders went less tense as the ’spray delivered its cargo. Then she looked at Merrick, willing him to understand the importance of what she was saying.

“Hold him still, Merrick. Don’t let him move.”

She turned her attention to Pete. Her heart ached at his sweat-stained, pale face and the obvious strain in it. “I’m going to hit you with an injection of artificial flesh. Have you ever had one of those before?”

Pete winced and nodded half-heartedly.

“Okay. Then you know what it’s all about. I just shot you up with twenty cc’s of peroximethadryl, so that should keep the pain to a minimum. It’s still not going to be exactly comfortable, but it’ll only hurt badly instead of like being cremated while you’re still alive, understand?”

“Yes,” he whispered. He reached up with his left hand and rested it on her elbow. “Do what you have to do. I’ll be fine.”

Tears filled her eyes as she put the nozzle of the container to the hole in his chest. Before she had a chance to change her mind or think about the pain she was about to cause him, she depressed the plunger.

Pete screamed all over again as the nozzle forced the cold cellular matrix into his body. Olivia was faintly aware of Merrick pushing on Pete’s shoulders to hold him down, but she kept the pressure on the plunger until the pinkish gel bubbled up out of the wound. She let up on the container and put it back in the kit, then pulled out a self-adhesive pressure bandage. Ripping the backing off, she slapped it into place.

Pete grunted at the force of the blow.

“Sorry. I need you to turn over, okay?”

Merrick got on his good side. “I’ll help you.”

Together they slowly, painstakingly turned Pete onto his side so Olivia could repeat the process with the back hole. Then they let him down onto the sand again.

“Are you okay?” Olivia asked, hearing tears in her voice. Why was she crying? They’d just had one sexual encounter, but that didn’t warrant tears. Maybe it was the fact Pete was so brave, so strong, and someone had just tried to kill him. Maybe it was the fact they could just as easily have aimed for her, or Merrick, and either one would have been just as helpless.

Maybe it was all of these.

Pete nodded and tried to sit up. He grimaced and collapsed back onto the sand.

“I will be,” he allowed grimly. “Just need a few minutes. There any more of that Scotch?”

Merrick nodded, his expression relieved. “I’ll go get it.”

Olivia cradled his head. He smiled up at her, his face still ashen but the color gradually returning.

“You make a pretty good combat medic,” he joked, wheezing out a laugh.

“I should. That’s what I trained for in the militia. Sniper medic.”

He raised an eyebrow. “No shit. You’re pretty tough.”

Merrick returned with the Scotch. “Want a glass?”

Pete shook his head. “Civil War standard.”

“Eh?”

“Just take the cap off.”

Merrick complied and handed Pete the bottle. He took a generous slug and handed it back. “Help yourself.”

Without a pause, Merrick took a long swallow and then capped the bottle. “How long does that stuff take to work?”

Olivia shook her head. “Could be ten minutes, could be two hours. When Pete feels ready to go, we’ll go.”

Merrick nodded. “Then I need to do some looking around, see if I can find the sniper’s nest. The good news is I think I can narrow down where it came from. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll have dropped an ID or something.”

Olivia said, “It sounds like a waste of time, but if you want to…”

Pete spoke up weakly. “Not a waste. He might be right. I’m sidelined for now anyway, so he might as well see what he can see. There a gun in that kit?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Give it to him, just in case.”

“And I’m supposed to do what?” she snapped, suddenly angry not at him, but at the sonofabitch who had decided today was a great day to take potshots at people having an innocent ménage on the beach.

“Stay with me, keep me from going into shock. You know until the regeneration matrix has time to work, that’s a real risk.”

She blew out a long breath. “All right.” Lowering her face to his mouth, she gave him a long, gentle kiss. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she scolded, knowing it wasn’t his fault he’d been shot but unable to think of anything else to say.

He laughed weakly. “I’ll do my best.”

* * *

Three hours later, they returned to Galacia. City Security was waiting, as Merrick had called ahead to detail the situation. Even better, Ambassador Al-Aziz was present, his expression the human equivalent of a cat lashing its tail.

“What has happened here? This man is a member of my diplomatic entourage. I am lodging a formal complaint against the government of Dusk and the DDC for allowing harm to come to him!” Al-Aziz raged on like that for some minutes, all sound and fury, making damn sure everyone in the city heard the diatribe. No one paid him more than the minimum attention his rank demanded.

Pete, who was feeling much better now that the matrix had taken full effect, raised an eyebrow. “Ambassador, if it wasn’t for their actions, I wouldn’t be alive to bitch about getting shot right now. You want to blame someone, blame the renegade who decided it was a good idea to pop off with a plasma rifle.”

Al-Aziz looked down his nose at Pete. “I assume you were too careless, or preoccupied --” He trailed off and gave Olivia a long, lascivious once-over, obviously noting her state of dishabille. Pete gritted his teeth. With a sneer, Al-Aziz continued. “-- To pay attention to your surroundings. Rest assured, I will also be reporting back to General Neville about your foolishness. The last thing I need to explain right now is a deceased member of my retinue, Colonel. Do you understand?”

Olivia raised her voice, her tone icily furious. “Ambassador, that will be
quite
enough.”

Al-Aziz froze, his eyes bulging as if he’d swallowed a bug. “I beg your pardon, Madame Ambassador?”

“First, you are a guest here and will comport yourself as such, Ambassador. Please do not make the mistake of thinking I or my people will remain passive to threats. Second, Colonel Pedro Silva is a hero, as far as the government of Dusk is concerned. He was wounded in the line of duty while protecting a senior diplomatic representative of Dusk. Therefore, I hereby award Colonel Silva --” She paused and spread her hands wide, speaking loudly and clearly enough to invest the moment with the appropriate drama. “-- With the Dusk Diplomatic Corps Meritorious Service Medal!”

She turned away from Al-Aziz as if he had ceased to exist, which Pete would bet that to her he had, and faced Pete directly.