Amorous Overnight (51 page)

She covered her mouth with her hands and tears welled in her eyes. “Oh my God!”

Grabbing her wrists, Cecine pulled them down. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Unable to speak for the joy clogging her throat, she shook her head and smiled as the tears streamed down her face.
“Thank you, Empran! Oh my God, I love you so much! Thank you!”

“You’re more than welcome, Shelley. Thank you for your help. We’ll arrive at Garathan early tomorrow morning. Communications have been restored, and I’m opening your cerecom to the twins. Just think of one of them and I’ll assist the link.”

“Shelley, who are you communicating with?” Cecine demanded. “What’s happening?”

Trying to pull herself together, Shelley took a deep breath, and then another, and then looked into his eyes. “I was talking to Empran. They’re alive, Cecine. All of them. Monica, the twins… They’re coming home.”

His mouth opened and he blinked at her. “How?”

“Hastion and Empran took the
Heptoral
and went after them. Can you hear them?”

He lost focus, then inhaled sharply. Closing his eyes, he began to tremble just as hard as she was. “I hear them.”

“Empran, can I hear Wyatt and Kallie at the same time?”

“Yes, you can.”

Immediately she heard the twins’ quiet babbling. It was hard to tell them apart at first—one of them was interested in “Hashun’s” zipper tab and the other was trying to figure out where Zannen’s hair had gone.

A tear slipped down her cheek as she giggled and Cecine crushed her against his chest, kissing her temple as he lay back. At some point, his erection had slipped away, and she was kind of glad about it now. It didn’t seem right communicating with the twins while they were actually having sex.

“You knew,” he whispered against her hair. “You knew they were alive.”

“I knew.”

“I’ll never doubt your mother’s intuition again, szisdagya.”

Cheating and not feeling the least bit bad about it, she asked Empran what
szisdagya
meant.

“The closest translation would be little dragon.”

Shelley smiled. She’d take that. It beat the hell out of little animal.

Pushing up, she braced her elbows on his chest. “You know, you owe Empran a lot, Cecine. Everything, in fact. She caught you yesterday, and she saved your children today…because she cares.”

His expression immediately grew apprehensive. “Oh Peserin, Shelley…”

“Don’t worry, she knows she’ll be deactivated. She saved them knowing there was no other possible outcome. If there’s anything you can do for her, I hope you’ll do it.”

Sighing, he pulled her back against him and rubbed her arms without answering.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cecine had lain awake all night holding Shelley, and he suspected she hadn’t slept much more than he had. They rose with the sun and showered together, soaping each other intimately and sharing frequent kisses, but they were both too edgy, too filled with conflicting emotions, to concentrate on an activity as intense as intercourse.

He was just rinsing the soap out of his hair when Shelley said, “You love Hastion, don’t you?”

Suddenly apprehensive, he turned and let the water stream over his face for a moment before saying with forced lightness, “If I didn’t before, I certainly do now.”

She pinned him with a stern gaze. “You loved him before, Cecine. Admit it. And while you’re at it, admit you love me too.”

“That, I can do.” He leaned forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “I love you, Shelley Nicole Emray, and you are mine until the day I die.”

She pressed her lips to his smartly. “I love you too, and actually, you’re mine. Those marks all over your backside say so.”

Peserin, how could he have forgotten? “Armitran, display my full-length dorsal image.”

Instantly a flare image of his back appeared in the shower and he grinned as he examined each ragged purplish mark on his skin.

Shelley gasped and then trailed her fingertip over the image. “Wow, now that’s pretty cool.”

“I do believe you’re right,” he drawled. “Those marks declare me yours. I hope you’ll allow me to declare you mine in the same fashion.”

“Um, no,” she said in a decisive tone. “You’re the sadomasochist here, not me, and you’ve got a gorgeous little masochist in Hastion to express that side of yourself with.” When he scowled, she added, “Besides, you already declared me yours by turning me into one of you, right?”

“You’re not one of us,” he said dryly. “You’re just taller.”

“And I’ve got a nook.”

And how in Peserin’s name had he forgotten that? He immediately slipped his first finger into her wet pubic curls and she spread her legs helpfully.

“It’s a little bigger than I thought it would be,” she told him.

“Hastion’s spur is shaped differently from mine so it needed to be large enough to accommodate either of us.”

She gasped when he rubbed her clitoris, which now hovered on the inside edge of her nook, and her delightful pink nipples hardened before his eyes.

“It’s ideally located,” he commented with a grin, leaning down to lick one of them. “Easily accessible to both my tongue and my spur.”

“Hmm, I never thought of that.”

He insinuated his finger deeper into her nook. “Hadn’t you noticed when you were with Hastion?”

Shaking her head, she kissed his chin. “We haven’t had sex since that first time with you. It just didn’t feel right without you.”

Emotion grabbed him by the throat, but before he could speak, she said against his lips, “Speaking of which, I actually remembered that sometime last week. It was pretty freaking hot.”

“I rather enjoyed it myself,” he murmured before claiming her in a long, sinuous mating of mouths. Peserin, he’d only half lived before discovering this component of intimacy. He now understood Portia’s ban on kissing—it was transcendent. Transforming. With every stroke of Shelley’s sweet tongue over his, he felt more captured, and yet at the same time, more free. More hers, and more himself.

“The
Heptoral
is now entering geosynchronous orbit, Minister,” Armitran reported.

He and Shelley broke apart and stared at each other for a breathless instant.

“The ship has arrived,” he repeated inanely.

Shelley squealed, “Oh my God, they’re here! My babies are here!”

After skidding out of the shower and making a cursory pass over her body with a towel, Shelley pulled on jeans and a sleeveless white top over her undergarments while he managed to jam his damp body into a plain gray civilian wrapsuit and boots.

They’d barely joined Jasmine, Shauss and Tiber on the dining deck when a large flare bubble popped open, depositing nine occupants in the bright morning sun.

“Everybody relax, we’re not dead,” Monica announced, grinning from ear to ear. In her arms was Wyatt, fast asleep and drooling on her shoulder. Beside them, Hastion held Kalinda in a similar boneless pose.

Cecine’s heart contracted so violently at the sight of four beloved faces he’d thought lost to him, he swayed and his ears rang.

“More’s the pity,” a male voice snarled. “I should have slit your throat while I had the chance.”

Blinking, Cecine turned his gaze on the speaker just as Shelley gasped, “Mark?”

By the Powers, it
was
Bonham—shirtless, poorly groomed and sporting a number of vivid bruises on his face and torso. Lieutenant Zannen held him by the scruff of his bony neck.

“Can’t you put a neural gag on that asshole?” Monica said sharply. “He’s driving me crazy.”

Fury finally overcame Cecine’s moment of weakness and he clenched his fists.

“You won’t have to suffer his presence a moment longer,” he growled, taking two steps forward with the intent of taking Bonham apart. Before he could touch the asshole, he was halted by rigid neural restraints.

“My abject apologies, Minister,” Tiber said, “but I can’t allow you to kill him.”

“His death has already been recorded. Killing him would be merely a formality.”

“Unfortunately, too many witnesses can attest to his being alive, so he’s entitled to a hearing in front of the council.”

Cecine growled again. “That’s more than Ensign Beral received.”

“And I’m certain the council will see that Mark Bonham pays for his death.”

“They won’t kill him slowly and painfully.”

“No, but they’ll deposit him on Crunus, where he can spend the rest of his life mining crunite.”

Cecine sighed his annoyance. “Very well. I’ll let the council deal with him.”

When his restraints released, Monica rushed forward and threw her free arm around his neck. He hugged her tightly, tears prickling in his eyes as he kissed her temple, and then Wyatt’s head, with trembling lips.

“I love you, Father.”

“I love you too, my dear Monica,” he whispered in her hair. “So much. I should have said so before, a thousand times.”

He heard a dull thump and looked up in time to see Shelley’s follow-through on a blow to Bonham’s already colorful cheekbone. “That’s for trying to kill my babies, you beatnik bastard!”

Her dead husband glared at her. “Shelley, what the hell!”

“I’m a little scarier now that I can look you in the eye, aren’t I, you prick?” She smiled with bloodthirsty glee as she shook out her hand. God, that hurt so good! She was dying to hold her babies, but they were in good hands at the moment and she had to get her licks in before someone took Mark away.

“I wasn’t trying to kill them,” he said, his brown eyes broadcasting the same contempt he’d shown for her on the
Heptoral
. “I just needed the cover of an explosion to get off the ship. I knew the blast containment systems would keep you all safe.”

“The same way you needed cover to get my kids away from me?”

“Yes! Detonating sillarite with abarain masks a sillar-based flare’s signature.” Then he scowled at Monica. “But I hadn’t planned on Dr. Loudmouth Bitch coming along.”

“I’d have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids,” Monica muttered in a decent impression of a Scooby-Doo villain.

“God, I hate you!” he snarled.

Curling her fingers into a fist again, Shelley punched his bearded jaw, whipping his head to the side and making him stagger in Zannen’s hold. “That’s for calling my friend a bitch, and this—” she clocked him on the side of the head before he could recover, “—is for using me to get to the Garathani, you worthless piece of shit.”

Mark cowered, rubbing his jaw. “Don’t do that again, Shelley.”

“Or what?” she taunted. Her hand screamed with pain and her fingers hung limply, still reverberating from the blow. Dammit, now she’d have to use her other hand. This would have been a great time to be ambidextrous.

When he didn’t answer, she sneered. “That’s what I thought.”

She swung with her left hand and he tried to duck but she managed a glancing blow to his eye. “That’s for causing so much death and destruction on Earth, you sniveling coward.”

“That wasn’t me!” he roared.

“Lieutenant Zannen, if you’ll hold him still, please?” Shelley requested.

Zannen grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

“God dammit, Shelley, if you don’t stop—”

She threw everything into one last punch and Zannen held him in place so she got him right in the kisser.

“Ow, shit,” she hissed, shaking out her hand and stomping her foot to help manage the pain. She’d cut her knuckles on his teeth, probably broken her pinkie, and judging from the amount of blood on his face, split Mark’s lip. “And that’s for stealing my babies and Monica and Tara, you miserable cocksucker.”

“Excuse me for interrupting your awesome show of girl power, Shelley,” Monica said, “but Tara was in on it.”

Shelley turned to stare. “What!”

She’d seen Tara standing beside Mark, but she’d been so focused on putting his lights out, she hadn’t even noticed Holligan had her upper arm in a firm grip.

Holy shit, she’d left her babies in the care of a kidnapper?

Tara sneered at her. “Well I wasn’t going to leave my own niece and nephew with you, especially after I found out you’re Garathani.”

Completely blindsided, Shelley could only gape at her.

“Omigod,” Jasmine gasped. “You’re Mark’s sister, Cara?”

Tara scowled. “I’m Cara, yes, but—”

“I can’t believe I actually lay down with the enemy,” Mark interrupted bitterly.

“Trust me, it was lousy for me too,” Shelley snapped. “And I’m not Garathani, dumbass—if I hadn’t met you, I’d still be five foot two. Not that I’d want that,” she added with a reassuring look at Cecine, who watched her with wide eyes and a wider smile.

“You transitioned,” Tara accused.

Crossing her arms carefully, in deference to her injured fingers, Shelley looked back and forth between Cecine and Hastion. Cecine had taken Wyatt from Monica and kept dropping kisses on the top of his head. Both babies were still sacked out in spite of all the yelling.