This chapter is very explicit. Heads-up, then, if you would rather bypass overt details of sexual content.
Oily whispers against the back of her skull, darkest tendrils reaching for her … Khy's eyes, big in his face as he reached out for her and called to her, "Lou!" Blood that flashed past her eyes and her mother's screaming, the madness ripping, "I hate you! I hate you! Just go away!"
"Lou!"
The scream ripped through the ship, this wild and piercing thing that terrified with a purest edge. It was sharp and pointed - scared. Quinn plunged from the bridge, rushing into the lounge and quickly counting each one of the crew there. Toovee was warbling, "Oh my," while Vette and Jaesa looked over at him from the doorways of their quarters. But Lusiel was conspicuously absent.
Quinn rushed towards the door to Lusiel's quarters, the ones set closest to the bridge. He always derived such comfort from knowing she was so near to him whenever he worked, actually. That she was only steps away from the bridge, sleeping nearby. Now he only resented it, that close as he was he couldn't reach her any faster.
He refused to call the feeling ripping through him fear. It was worry. Concern, maybe. Concern was the best word, Quinn told himself. But he didn't really believe that. All of his mental doors were blasting open and all he could really think, logically, was that he'd never before heard Lusiel scream. That was what happened to turn his concern into something harder, heavier. He just didn't name it.
Jaesa was talking, "Oh, yea. I totally forgot. She was pretty upset earlier, I sensed it."
Quinn banged his fist against the door, not looking at Jaesa as he confronted her so sharply, "Why didn't you say something?"
"Who would I have said something to?"
Vette laid a hand against Jaesa's elbow. She figured Quinn looked ready enough to shoot Lusiel's apprentice with more than some pointed criticisms right then. "Always talk to Quinn about things like that. He's the resident doctor, here."
Jaesa looked at Quinn, her brow upraised, "Is there anything you don't do around here? Engines, droids, tidying .."
"Right, because he isn't arrogant enough already, sheesh," Vette rolled her eyes.
Quinn blocked them from his attention entirely, then. He stopped banging on Lusiel's door and started working the lock himself, rather. He idly noted how simple it was, to manipulate the security on the door and thought it imperative he redress the weakness at some point. But later, later. The door swung open after only a moment and the light shined into the room in one wide swath, immediately illuminating the bed. Quinn stepped inside, speaking quickly over his shoulder, "I'll assist her."
He heard Vette, "Okay, Jaesa. Back to bed, g'night." Then the door closed. Quinn could still see her there on the bed, the pale red glow of the nighttime illumination ringing the room showing her to him in brilliant, soft glory. He breathed in slowly as he regarded her, gathering himself. He spoke to her softly, softly, "Lusiel?"
Lusiel was huddled into a shaking ball, practically hugging herself as she curled tightly in the very center of the bed. She was naked, her pale skin gleaming with sweat. Her face was buried in her arms where they wrapped around her knees. She was making small gasping sounds. Quinn wanted to scream himself just watching her. Then she whispered his own name, "Malavai." Like he was a blasted gift of some kind.
Quinn closed his eyes. He toed off his boots and tugged his coat off his shoulders, climbing up onto the bed once he was down to just his shirt and trousers. He carefully maneuvered himself until his legs laid along either side of Lusiel's form. And then he pulled her into his arms, holding her back against his front with his head tucked aside her own so their jaws could brush gently together. "What's wrong?" He whispered to her.
Lusiel sighed, "A bad dream. How silly is that? A Sith who has a bad dream, like an absurd child afraid of a bogeyman."
Quinn shrugged, and Lusiel felt the pull and twist of his chest against her back, the rhythm of his breathing along the very top of her spine. Tingles of sensation left her shivering lightly with pleasure. He blew gently against the back of her ear, "Tell me about your dream. Let me battle your monsters with you. I might even help."
She puffed the smallest laugh, then hiccupped. Then she told him, almost breathlessly quiet, "My mother. She wanted me to kill my brother, whispered and cajoled. She promised me rewards, if only I would push him or drown him or … something, anything. She wanted me to hurt him, though." Lusiel fingered the fringes of the blanket that covered her bed in grey and black stripes, "I knew that she hated him for so long, but I always believed my father would keep us both safe. Then she killed my father, and I realized I was the only one strong enough, powerful enough."
Quinn frowned, "I thought she killed herself, rather."
Lusiel inhaled roughly, "Mother was completely mad, insane right then. I'm not sure she even realized what she'd done, not until it was over. She saw me standing there. She just screamed and screamed, so loud. There was blood all over her face, her chest and gown. She turned around and ran at the window, burst through it. She fell hundreds of stories, screaming the whole way down … just forever." Lusiel sighed, "I wanted to kill her. I would have. She stole even that from me."
He was quiet for a moment, thinking over what she'd said, how much it conveyed of the way that she considered all of them, the people she gathered around her. Then he murmured, "And I brought a madman here today."
"This has nothing to do with Broysc, Quinn. Nothing."
"But to see and hear madness like that all over again … Lusiel." Quinn felt the offense of the thing, the way the day's events struck at her very core. It ached in him, the thrilling desire to ease her, comfort her.
Lusiel shrugged. She smiled into the shadowed dark of the room, snuggled closer against him, "It's brought you inside my quarters at last. I quite like that much, at least. Perhaps I should have more bad dreams, just to keep you here."
Quinn rubbed his jaw in gentle strokes against Lusiel's, shook his head, "No more bad dreams. Not tonight." It tickled her, feeling the soft stubble of his masculine cheek along her own. She quivered, chuckling softly into the darkness. She leaned her head back, letting it rest against his shoulder so she could hear his heart beating into a rapid tattoo under her ear. Then she whispered to him, "You're wearing more clothes than I am."
He smiled at her teasing, "I wasn't certain how you'd feel if I took them all off before I held you."
Lusiel turned, coming to her knees in front of Quinn. "Perhaps I should show you, then. How I feel, I mean." She sat there for several seconds, just staring at him. He looked at her, sliding his gaze down. Her sweetly perfect breasts were trembling with desire above the soft, muscled lines of her belly. He could just make out the shadowed curve of her sex, the dark curls there barely visible.
Lusiel watched his eyes as he looked at her, watched them darken to almost blue-black, fiery with thrilling passion. To be wanted like that, so badly it almost hurt … she smiled at him, arching her back slightly so her breasts thrust out towards him. Inviting him to touch her bareness, to hold her. His gaze shot back up to hers as he groaned. She chuckled again and then reached for the hem of his white shirt.
Quinn raised his arms, felt her hands slide along his sides as she pushed the shirt up, up and over his head. Then she was looking at him, running her dark gaze down his chest, taking in his muscled frame. The lines of his firm torso, the lean fitness he kept so much shaped with careful calisthenics routines in the hold down below. The utterly masculine form she'd wanted for so long, desired and fantasized over; letting the anticipation build, build.
Now her hands followed the trek of her eyes, running through the brief springy hair on his chest and down over his stomach, until she reached the fastening of his pants. He came to his knees, even as she pulled and yanked at the opening, tugging the fabric loose and down to bare his groin and buttocks. He pulled his legs free, as Lusiel reached around him to clutch at the globes of his rear. She pulled him, hugged him against herself so that his erection nestled in the hollowed curves of her own breasts and rubbed there.
He let his head fall back as he moved against her breasts in gentle rocking motions, felt himself grow even harder if it was possible. He reached for her with both hands, held her head within the span of his fingers as he bent towards her mouth, seized her lips with his own and thrust his tongue inside her. Back and forth, penetrating her. And she welcomed him, ran her fingers along the curve of his spine. Her touch sparked against the muscles of his back, tingled through him. Sith, he thought, remembered she was Sith. And he groaned harshly into her mouth.
He pushed her back until she was completely prone, her head facing the foot of the bed. He knelt between her knees, lifting her legs to balance her thighs on his before he leaned over to take one of her nipples into his mouth. He rolled the bud against his tongue, softly nipping at it, even as he palmed and plucked against its twin. He played with her breasts for long, endless moments, running his mouth back and forth between them, and sweeping his tongue along the sensitive skin under both the small, plump mounds.
Lusiel moaned, clutching at the back of Quinn's head and running her fingers through his hair as he feasted on her body. She ran her feet up to clasp him around his buttocks, pulling him closer to her. He settled himself into the hollow of her hips, rubbed the very head of his cock just against her opening so gently, listened to her as she began chanting, "Yes. Yes. Malavai."
He groaned again. He leaned down to whisper into her ear, "I love it when you say my name." Love. Such a forbidden word, that trembled there against the dark. Slowly shook them, the world around them.
She opened her eyes to look up at him suspended there above her, his arms stretched out and balanced on the bed along either side of her shoulders. He was watching her as he began pushing inside of her, felt her inner warmth clasp him, clutch him, and draw him in. His eyes blazed blue down at her, and she moaned at the stroking feel of him coming inside her.
Both of them groaned loudly when he finally settled himself all the way inside, enough he could feel the soft opening of her cervix clutching at the head of his cock in little kissing sensations. She reared up to hold him around the neck, to clasp him in her arms. He felt the brush of her lips across his jaw, her tongue skittering over the lobe of his ear as she whispered, "Malavai … now, Malavai. Malavai." It made him moan loudly, his name whispered like that. Like she claimed him. Like he was hers.
He raised himself above her once again, bracing himself with his arms on the bed beneath her. And he began to move; thrusting his hips back and forth so that his cock ran in and out of her channel in steady, smooth glides of pure sensation. He pushed his knees forward, thrusting her hips up higher. So he could reach deeper inside of her, and Lusiel cried out a wild keening cry of delight. He gradually sped up his thrusts, felt his hips pounding against her buttocks, cradling her.
He reached out with one arm to clutch at her torso, pulling her up and against his chest so that he could feel her breasts rubbing back and forth against him. Their bodies became damp, glistening with sweat. They slid slickly against each other, both of them panting. He could feel her tightening around him, her inner muscles clenching at him, and he cried out, "Yes, Lusiel! Now! Let me feel it! Come on me, right now!" And Lusiel exploded, sobbing her satisfaction against his shoulder as she rippled with the pleasure.
He growled, felt his scrotum tightening as his orgasm approached. He settled her back against the bed again, thrust himself into her. Once, again, again. And then again, just before the satisfaction washed over him. He pushed into her one last time, held himself still and deep, and poured his passion into her. Quinn moaned her name, listened to it echo in the dark as he finally collapsed alongside her onto the bed. He lay there, breathing roughly and then he pulled her up against him so he could feel her, hear her breathing as he panted into calm again. They lay there, holding each other, quietly drifting.
She whispered to him, drowsy and sated, "You helped. My own Quinn. Mine." He tightened his arms as she slowly fell back to sleep, felt the drag of weariness against his own form. He just held onto her. He just loved her, and he fell asleep.
