Page 20 of Claim
Maybe because there was nothing else in the hall to distract him, he detected an odd vibration in her words.The thrum set off an answering vibration from his antennae down his spine, all the way to the strange new boots.The sensation seemed to rattle his feet restlessly on the decking, moving him a half step closer to her.
No, he was lying to himself.Hemoved closer to her.
She angled her head back another few degrees to hold eye contact.“Do you want”—the soft skin of her exposed throat rippled with a hard swallow and the race of her pulse—“to come…in?”
Each hesitant word rattled him more, loosening his long-held grip on his intentions, his responsibilities—on himself.
In this moment, he wanted to lose himself, or at least the parts that were hurt or afraid.
“If I come in, I’ll want to stay,” he admitted.
“I think that’s kind of the point?”The curl of her lips spun his insides, the way theDeepWander’s engines swirled intricate vortices through the cosmic dust.The turbulence threatened to knock him entirely out of his new boots.
“But I can’t stay,” he said.When she took a breath, he kept going.“If we don’t get the contracts we need and Illgattoa calls in the debt, I’ll have to go.I can’t—won’t—risk the ship.”
“Mag—”
“But I can’t tell anyone else.”His breath was even more unsteady than his boots.“I am afraid of what happens next.”
The sigh that escaped her at his confession was as terrible as the sound of a catastrophic hull breach.But when she reached out to take his hand, her grip was unwavering.
“Come in,” she whispered.
He followed her.
The door shutting behind them cut out the last of the slymusk glow, but a tiny light flared to life above the cluster of cushions strewn in the corner.It cast a sprinkling of stars across the walls and the two of them.He craned his head to watch one twinkle trace over his chest.
June followed his glance and let out a little laugh.“Isn’t that pretty?Teq made one for Ollie because he’s afraid of the dark—Ollie, I mean, not your crusher, obviously—and I asked for another one because…” The echo of her laughter faded.“I guess I needed a night light too.”
“Maybe we all do.”
She gave a little tug on their hands, still linked, that drew them together.Like gravity, its effects unescapable even in the farther reaches of the void, his mouth descended on hers.
With his boots on the deck and his fingers linked through June’s, the kiss—a third point of contact—steadied him.So soft and warm…
Then as her lips parted beneath his, the universe fell away around him.
And it was good.
All that was left was the kiss and the imaginary stars spinning around them.
Her little breaths were sometimes words, nothing more than his name and whispers of praise that inflamed his ichor.Her other breaths his translator could not identify, but he knew they were sounds of pleasure and need.He knew because the same noises came from him.
When Amma had first suggested contacting the IDA, he had not intended to court any of the Earther females, not even if Illgattoa’s debt was lifted, because he would not take advantage of his place as apex, not if any of his orcs would be left wanting.But it was to him June had held out her hand…
The fierce yearning that swept him would have knocked him off his feet, but he and June were already falling toward the cushions.With eager, fumbling hands—and there seemed to be even more than their slightly mismatched morphology could account for—they stripped each other bare, although he fumbled a moment with the unfamiliar cloak.
“I’m really appreciating the convenience of the standard orc fashion,” she murmured.
“You should try it,” he suggested as he searched for the clasp on the inner layer that bound her breasts.Orcs had sensitive fingertips to find their way through the blackest of caverns, but he could make no sense of these tiny latches.
She wriggled her shoulders, and the fastening finally parted.He let out a triumphant grunt, and she giggled.“Mighty apex.”
“Little meebu.”
With a growl of her own, she pushed back his shoulder, and obligingly he rolled over so she straddled him.“Meebu?”She glared at him.“I’m not a…a moss-mouse.”She hesitated.“Er, what is a moss-mouse?”
He rested his hands on her hips.Ah, she filled all four so lushly.“A moss-mouse is a creature of my homeworld, heroes in more than a few hatchling tales.With so few eggs, we rarely tell those stories anymore, but Teq was asking Amma about them.Moss-mice hid in the openings of caverns, so quiet and clever they seemed more like imaginary things.They would bring flowers and seeds and grasses to their nests and caches, and from the old, forgotten tangles, rich mosses, algae, and fungi would grow—life sprouting on the edge of darkness.”
