Genesis (36 page)

Despite physical exhaustion, Bri was wired by the time they were finally released to rest. After rushing through her bath, she hurried to the shelter she shared with Kole, barely able to contain her excitement. They had to sacrifice the sheet that covered the floor of their shelter for the first experiment. When Bri had folded it as tightly as she could, they waited until the scans had moved away and set the pad outside the shelter so that Bri could watch. Even with the light from the night sky, she had difficulty, but she needed to see it for herself not just listen to Kole describe it to her.

The creature was a squid like thing in that it had long, thin tentacles. When Kole had torn one off, he carefully squeezed the thing so that the fluids inside the thing dripped on the waiting material. Holding her breath, Bri peered at it in focused concentration of every sense, counting in her head until she noticed the first reaction, then counting from there to see how long it took to burn through the layers.

It was so fast it was almost scary to think of touching the thing, and excitement boiled inside her. “It works!” she whispered to Kole, fighting the urge to jump up and down and scream for joy. “It really works!” She frowned. “This is thin layers, though. We need to try it on something more solid--closer to what the bots are made out of. How long do you think it stays active? Does the thing have to be alive, I mean? Or will we be able to store it up?”

Kole shook his head. “These things are like the
choi
on my world--but a nuisance to us. Sometimes they attack and kill young Hirachi. We’ve no use for them, but I do know that if they are found on the beach or floating in the water many days after death they can still burn--the
choi
. This, I couldn’t say for sure.”

Bri nodded, her enthusiasm properly subdued. She glanced back at Cory, who was crawling over her legs instead of sleeping like he was supposed to. “We’ll have to keep this one for testing … someone will have to. I don’t want it around Cory.”

Kole frowned. “The boy could sleep with his father … for a few days only. You should know this yourself, not have to rely on someone to tell you.”

Bri studied Kole doubtfully. “You think Dansk can manage him?”

She sensed more than saw his reaction to that. “He is Cory’s father.”

Which meant nothing as far as she was concerned. She was the one who’d tended to Cory. He was used to her. He wasn’t used to Dansk. On the other hand, Cory had grown used to being around a lot of people since they’d arrived at the camp. It was worth a try. Kole was right. This was something she didn’t want to rely on anyone else to report to her about.

Still feeling uncomfortable with the suggestion, she finally nodded. It was probably just as well anyway since they’d donated their sheet to the cause. Cory would be trying to eat the sand.

She hadn’t expected immediate action, but Kole shifted around and picked the baby up, hesitated for a moment, and then called out to the occupants of the shelter next to theirs. “Dansk,” Kole said when the Hirachi next to them looked out, handing the baby off.

Bri bit her lip as Cory made the trip down the line of shelters, hand to hand, until, five down, Dansk emerged to take the baby. When she finally dragged her gaze back, she saw that Kole was studying her face. Unable to interpret the look, but feeling warm for no reason in particular, Bri returned her attention to the
choi
--or squid thing. “Bury it in the sand?”

Kole nodded. Scooping out a trough with his hands, he put the beast in the bottom and carefully covered it. When he’d finished, he scrubbed sand over his hands, and they ducked back inside the shelter.

Tired as she was, Bri discovered once they’d settled that she couldn’t sleep. Between her acute consciousness of the fact that she and Kole were alone together without a baby that might or might not wake up; her excitement that they’d found one more tool to use--she hoped--to destroy the Sheloni; and the reek of the squid, she couldn’t seem to get comfortable or stay still.

Her wiggling got a rise out of Kole. He shifted away, and then shifted closer again, as if he couldn’t decide whether it was more uncomfortable to be pressed against her, or to try to keep his distance, maintain his balance on his side, and still share his warmth. Keenly aware of his discomfort, Bri went still, but as his hand drifted up to hover near one breast, she found she couldn’t contain herself any more. Something between a snort and giggle escaped her.

Kole lifted his head to look down at her questioningly.

“Oh god, Kole! That thing
really
stinks!”

She heard the amusement in his voice as he agreed. “Bad, very bad!”

She shifted onto her back, grinning up at him. “I think I should have passed you down to Dansk and kept Cory,” she said teasingly. “You have ick all over you.”

Shaking his head, he sat up and tried using more sand to remove the stench. When he settled back, he lifted a hand to her cheek.

“Oh god, no!” she exclaimed with a snicker, twisting her face away and burrowing against his chest. “Not the face. I’ll smell it all night.”

He went perfectly still when she brushed her face along his chest, more at first in search of a smell less repellent, but once she’d caught his scent into her simply for the pleasure it gave her. She lifted her head slowly when she felt him tense all over, heard him swallow. “Would you rather sleep with Dansk?” he asked finally.

She stared at him for a long moment, trying to interpret the emotion behind the question. She couldn’t. She didn’t know if he’d suggested it out of consideration for her comfort, or because he thought she was looking for an excuse to go to Dansk, or if it was for his own comfort since he’d vowed not to touch her. “No,” she said finally, allowing the hand she’d placed along his ribs to steady herself to glide upward along his chest to his neck. Curling her fingers around the back of his neck, she tugged, urging him to meet her. “And I don’t especially want to
sleep
with you at the moment,” she added, lifting upward until she found his face with her own. It felt wonderful, just the touch of his rough cheek against her forehead. She drifted upward, rubbing cheek to cheek and then the tip of her nose along his cheek, dragging in deep breaths of him, relishing the feel of his skin against her own.

He settled one large hand along her waist, clenching and unclenching as if he was of half a mind to pull her closer, and half to push her away. “This is not what I want for you,” he managed to say finally, his voice ragged and harsh, almost a growl.

She could see no more than a dim outline of his face in the darkness and the gleam of his eyes when she tipped her head back to look at him, but she saw him clearly in her mind’s eye. She swallowed with an effort as she felt emotion clog her throat, felt an unfurling of passion inside of her. “It’s what I want for me,” she said huskily. “Doesn’t that count?”

He closed his eyes, fighting a battle, no doubt, she thought affectionately, a losing one, she hoped. Lifting slightly, she found his mouth with her lips, brushed her lips teasingly along his and then plucked at them. His breath hitched in his chest and then sawed through his parted lips in a harsh exhalation. She licked her lips, tasted him on the fragile surfaces, and then ran the tip of her tongue along his lips teasingly.

When he refused to take the bait, she leaned away from him, releasing her hold on him. He let out a shaky breath, then sucked it in and held it as she pulled her shift off over her head and tossed it aside. Turning to face him, she rubbed her body slowly along his. Her nipples hardened at the first contact, grew more and more achingly sensitive as she lightly brushed back and forth.

He caught her wrist almost bruisingly as she settled her hand on his belly and inched beneath the waist of his breeches in search of the hard ridge of flesh she’d felt brushing the cleft of her ass earlier. Balked of her goal, she nuzzled her face along his chest instead until she found one nipple ring. He made a sound deep in his throat as she sucked his nipple, ring and all, into her mouth and teased the bud with her tongue.

His hand slipped from her wrist to catch her arm just above the elbow. She seized the opportunity to delve deeper, brushing her fingers over the head of his cock. It jerked at her touch. Kole jerked all over, uttered a sound between a growl and a groan, and shoved her onto her back, breaking her hold on both nipple and cock.

Stunned at being shoved away, Bri was still gaping up at him in dismay when he swooped down to capture her lips in a kiss that seared her to the bone. Her body reached dew point almost instantaneously as fiery sensation erupted within her.

She’d forgotten how wonderful his mouth felt, how delirious with need his kiss made her. Making a sound that was part want, part undiluted pleasure, she sucked his tongue as he thrust into her mouth with rough possessiveness. Curling her fingers into his flesh, she tugged at him, trying to pull him closer and when that failed she wriggled closer to him instead, lifting a thigh across his hips and arching her mound against his engorged member.

He dragged his mouth from hers, scooped an arm beneath her shoulders, and dipped his head to nuzzle and nibble at her throat and neck, the upper slope of her breasts, and finally captured one turgid nipple in his mouth.

She gasped as if she was dying, felt as if she was falling into a heated pit where fire and darkness and madness swirled together, thoughts were as insubstantial as mist, and her entire body had become a receptor of glorious, breathtaking sensation. For many moments it seemed her entire being was focused on the tug of his mouth on her breast as he teased the almost painfully sensitive nub, and then the focus shifted to a tautening within her belly, and then back again as he switched his attentions to her other nipple.

Something like an electric current jarred through her as she felt his hand cover her mound, his index finger delving between her nether lips and finding her clit with unerring accuracy. She began sucking in harsh breaths like a drowning victim as he strummed her clit. She
felt
as if she was drowning, overwhelmed by the intensity of pleasure that jolted through her so constantly that she couldn’t catch her breath between the electrifying shocks.

She was babbling, she realized after a time, feeling a flicker of surprise when it registered in her mind, “Yes, baby … There … It feels so good,” and kneading his flesh like a contented cat, claws bared. The taste of him was on her tongue as she nipped and sucked and licked at his skin, his neck, his ear, drove her wild with wanting.

She was going to come. She felt it like an unbearable hunger, driving her, felt her body trembling, clenching rhythmically around his finger as he delved inside of her. For a few moments she wallowed in it, gave herself up to the escalating tension and then she began struggling against it, trying to hold off the avalanche she could feel pending as she drew closer and closer to the point of no return.

She reached between their undulating bodies, searching for his cock, gripping it frantically when she managed to separate the closure of his breeches. He uttered a pained grunt as her fingers closed around his engorged flesh, shifted as if to draw away. “No!” she said fiercely. “I want you inside me. Kole, please.”

He murmured soothing sounds against her breasts and then her throat as he lifted his head to suck a love bite along the side of her neck, but he continued to thrust inside of her with his finger, continued to tease her clit with the heel of his hand, driving her toward completion. She released her grip on his cock and began to push at his hand a little frantically, struggling to seize control of her body when she’d already yielded control to him. She pleaded and then demanded, almost weeping with the conflicting needs screaming inside of her.

Abruptly, his control broke. Pushing her onto her back, he shoved his breeches down his hips jerkily as he wedged his hips between her thighs. She caught her breath as she felt the blunt head of his cock bumping along her damp cleft, nudging against that sensitive area in a brief, blind search before his flesh connected with hers. She wrapped her arms tightly around his chest, dug her heels into the soft sand, and arched into his shallow, frantic thrusts to gain entry. Moisture flooded her channel in greedy anticipation, easing his way despite his girth, despite the desperate clinging of her flesh around his. Groaning, muttering his own litany of curses and praise and pleasure, he gripped her tightly in his arms, pumping his hips and driving into her.

She’d held on as long as she could. She let go, though, as his engorged flesh caressed her channel, coming with the first brush of his cock along her g-spot. Unable to hold back the storm, she twisted her head and clamped her mouth along his arm to muffle the cries of ecstasy wrenched from her with each hard convulsion of release. The clenching of muscles around him as she came drove him into a desperate frenzy of lurching, pumping need, a wild, fierce ride that caught her up even as the quakes of release subsided into a mellowing heat.

She clung, absorbing the shocks of each pounding thrust with a sense of completion unlike anything she’d ever felt, relishing the feel of his thick flesh inside of her, the strength of his arms and breadth of his chest, the pounding of his heart against her ear. His harsh breaths and the choked sounds of pleasure he struggled to contain sent a thrill through her, coiled the tension of building release again until she was uttering choked moans in concert with his. And when she felt his body jerk and begin to shudder as he convulsed with pleasure and began to expel his hot seed into her, it touched off a climax that was more intense than the first. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t completely stifle the cries of ecstasy it wrenched from her.

Wilting together in a weak tangle of body parts in the aftermath, they lay panting for breath for some time before Kole finally shifted, pulling his flaccid member from her body and inching downward to rest his cheek against her breasts. She wrapped her arms around his head, holding him to her as she stroked his shoulders lovingly, smoothing his long hair.