"When will you return to us?" asked Akaavi.
"Another month at least," answered Ky. "We were planning three trips to the planet, but it won't survive for much longer. If the disturbances from this latest landing are any indication, it's about to shake itself apart."
"It will be a relief to have you back," said Akaavi. The Zabrak lowered her head indicating she was about to ask an uncomfortable question. "And what of Corso? This is not a good place for him."
"He'll move on when he's ready," said Ky.
"I think he is stuck without you," said Akaavi. "Do you not still love him?"
"Now and forever, but it changes nothing. I can't bring him back into my world. I won't. Subject closed."
"As you wish. Ret'urcye mhi." Akaavi ended the call abruptly, her way of showing displeasure at the outcome.
It had been five days since her return trip through the Eidolon from the doomed planet she'd never visit again. Cracks and newly opened steam vents in the plateau made landing difficult, and the ground quakes had rattled them to their bones. The constant death throes of that world threatened to bring the vault ceiling down on their heads, and the rumbling crash of falling stalactites in the cavern served to remind them that they walked on the dagger's edge of time.
The air had been a soup of dust and ash, and they scurried to retrieve as much as they could before the underground vault collapsed. They'd barely escaped a large outbuilding before the walls tumbled in making a mausoleum of crumbling steel and stone. Their imminent departure was announced and hastened when the peak of a distant mountain disappeared in a plume of ash and flame. They hadn't waited for the boulders to start raining down or fringes of the pyroclastic cloud to reach them.
Foregoing preflight checks, Ky launched the freighter through the atmospheric layers. She hovered in space to observe the spreading plague of dust that enveloped ice cap and land mass interspersed with blossoming gouts of crimson like drops of blood on linen. A dying world for a dead people, almost poetic in its symmetry. She'd turned the ship for the final trip through the Eidolon and thought of her crew and home.
They'd come away with less than they'd anticipated, more crystals, gems and bright baubles hardly worth the price of their lives, except for one small crate of data crystals. Star charts of planets and moons in the unknown regions and a smattering of distant worlds far beyond the outer rim of the Tingle Arm. Hidden places lost to myth and memory long before the Great Hyperspace War. Grids and calculations holding the promise of treasure and adventure for those with intrepid souls.
Ky leaned against the wall and heaved a sigh of relief that it was done. Corso would be set for life, the Hutts would back off and she could run far on the funds she'd collected. The GenoHaradan would never stop, but she was good at running.
She remained distant from Beryl and especially Skavak. Cursory greetings and averted interactions with the man seemed the best course considering their brief interlude was coming to a close. Best to wind down to its inevitable end. He wasn't pleased with the changes, but that wasn't her problem.
Most of the time she spent alone trying to reconcile to life without Corso. The melancholy of the first days of his absence revisited in painful wisps of memory, and she was beset with a mounting dread of returning to the Soledad and her empty cabin. She strode the hallway of the ship for hours, moving forward in the vain hope that the momentum would outpace the grim outlook she saw in a future without him. Whiskey offered no solutions and gazing into the endlessly looping vortex of hyperspace only served as a reminder of her reawakened grief.
Ten days out from Tolus Salini and then home, whatever that meant. A durasteel and cortosis can that ran on nerve and skill. Always on the move, or on the run; it was all she knew or would ever know. Stars, she was tired.
Ky sat on the bed, idly brushing her hair, and singing a lullaby. One of the few pleasant and treasured remembrances of those early times and her mother.
She didn't turn when the door slid open. "Put the towels on the bed, Rook."
"I didn't know you could sing. It's pretty," Skavak's voice floated from behind her.
Her arm stopped mid-stroke, head snapping around as if spring loaded. "You're not welcome in this room. What are you doing here?"
"I brought this to see if maybe it'd cheer you up." He strode forward to lay a binder on the foot of her bed. "It's the plans for that energy machine. I held it back. Figured I'd leave it up to you whether to sell it or not."
"Thanks," she said.
He hesitated for a moment as if expecting something else, but when she remained silent, he turned to leave, then stopped and turned around.
"I can be gentle." His voice came flat with a tinge of something lingering at the edge.
Her response was bland and emotionless. "I've had gentle, and it didn't work out so well. Besides, with us, it would be a lie."
He rounded the foot of the bed and reached for the brush.
Ky bolted from the bed as if he'd thrown scalding water in her lap. "This you don't get to do."
"So, you give me your body, but I can't drag a brush through your hair?"
"My body holds nothing of importance, but this," she waved the brush under his nose, "is not yours to have and not mine to give. Not tonight Skavak, and never here."
He crossed his arms and leaned against the desk.
"Yes, tonight, and, yes here. You've hidden in this shrine and lived with this ghost long enough. You need to let it go."
She fought the urge to slap him. "How would you know what I need, let alone care? We both know what we are to each other; quick release systems, and nothing more. Just get out!"
His lip twisted upward, his jaw muscles rippled under the tattoo. "Missing the farm boy? Drowning in regrets? You can turn off all the lights and pretend it's him. I won't mind...much."
Pain swept across her features, bitterness dripped from her lips. "You smug bastard! I know the difference, even in the dark. The hair, the build, hell, the scent is not the same. You're detonite at the edge of war, sharp, raw, acidic, he's cool forests, spring water, clean linen. He smells like love, you smell like ruin."
"Ouch! That was harsh." He changed tactics unsure of why he even bothered. "This job will be over in a few days, and you won't see me again. It's just..." His words faltered, not like him at all. "I thought we could take it slow tonight, without the battle. Just this one time without slinging you into a wall, or bending you over a railing, or having a gunnery control poking into my balls. What are you afraid of? Just once, then I'll go back to being the asshole you hate."
"I don't have to wait. I hate you now."
"You won't give a meter, will you?"
"Damn you! Whatever we were is done. It's over. What game are you playing? What do you hope to gain?"
"Maybe to enjoy something novel." He shrugged, and contrary to his nature told the truth. "I don't make love, Ky. I haven't in a long time. I fast fuck or slow screw and do whatever it takes to finish the deal. And yes, I get off, but it's still just part of a con or a scheme. With you, there is no plan, and that's unique in my life."
She lay the brush on the nightstand, her face a mask of sorrow. "Please, Tam, just leave. This place holds pieces of him I can't share."
Warm embrace, body heat diffusing the scent of laundry soap up through the fabric of his shirt where she hid her face, unwilling to see him or the tiny universe of this room where memories flared like dying stars.
Words rumbled in his chest before they escaped his lips in whispered jets that ruffled her hair. "Let it go, Ky. Not for me, not for him. Just be."
Hands bracketed her face; a calloused thumb swept the single tear from her cheek she hadn't known she'd shed. Azure eyes so close they became her sky, lips light as a thief's fingers, covered hers, begging them to open. She sank into what he offered and fell from final grace in a liar's arms.
Each of their previous encounters teetered on the edge of violence. A bludgeoning distrust slammed their bodies together and punched the air out of any misconceptions before they had a chance to breathe. This was détente in its purest form, naked compromise with nowhere to hide the truth, and fleeting denials exchanged like icicles in the sun.
His fingers took point, clearing the way for his lips to follow. Hair whisked from her neck, sucking mouth, nipping teeth. That's gonna leave a mark. She didn't care. Shirt buttons undone, slowly, methodically, one at a time. Hand at her back, bra hooks disengaged, fluid motion sweeping her shoulders clear of cover, fabric floating to the floor.
"Don't," he'd said when her hands sought something to do rather than hang at the ends of her arms. The click of her belt buckle, the hiss of the zipper, his splayed hands worked under the waistband, girding her hips. Cloth caught on his wrists, sliding down until the momentum of weight shimmied them over her thighs and calves to lie like loose shackles around her ankles. A well-placed boot held the pants in place while she worked her feet free and he kicked the pants aside; practiced, efficient, never breaking the stare that locked his eyes to hers.
Nipple taut against his palm, flesh soft and pliant to the pressure of his fingers, his free hand cupped her ass, pulling her hips flush against his tightening trousers. "Moan for me," a command or plea, it didn't matter. She curled her fists in his hair, he claimed her lips again, she filled his mouth with sound.
Metered two-step to the bed, lowering her to sit on the edge of the mattress, that sexy, awkward moment of separation and stripping off his clothes. She leaned back on her elbows and scanned his body noting every minute detail, an indulgence she'd denied herself during their flash fucks in many different rooms. Nudity suited him from the breadth of his shoulders to the long muscles of his thighs, the shape of his nipples, the thickness of his cock and that strange birthmark on his hip she'd never noticed before.
He glanced down at her and licked the corner of his mouth, his smile a naughty thing. He went to his knees between her thighs, pulled her hips forward, skimmed off her panties and lifted her legs to his shoulders, forcing her flat on her back. Fingers spread and teased, his face a moving force, his tongue a hot surprise, she whimpered, he pressed the advantage.
"Mmm," he purred, tasting and licking the tender heat between her legs.
"Ooh Fuck," she cried out and latched her heels into his back, unable to stop the rigid tightening of every muscle as he teased her through tremoring waves that spread from her core to her toes.
His hands gripped her thighs. He buried his tongue deep while his eyes followed every movement, every expression from her spine arching off the bed to the perfect O her lips formed when her breath caught in her throat. He'd never wanted her more.
He slipped from under her knees, rising slow and placing wet, deliberate kisses in a line from navel to breast, neck to mouth. Arm hooked under the small of her back, he eased her inch by inch to the middle of the bed.
His hair fell forward around his face, teeth flashed like pearls, the tattoo the only darkness between them. "Damn, I love to watch you unravel." He settled his hips between her thighs, stranger at the door, knocking ever so politely.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs across his back. "Then don't stop," she pleaded, tilted her hips and brought him home.
No opposing forces this time, no polar opposites crashing together for instant release. They moved in tandem, dray animals locked in step, yoked together as though they'd always been. Subtle, he paced himself, hilting, withdrawing, meeting the middle of each swell, ebbing down and surging up, rocking her to a rhythm all their own.
His fingers wove through her hair, his mouth exchanged her whimpers for his groans, tangling his tongue around each noise she made. His breath teased hot across her ear. "I want to feel you come with me inside."
Her words smiled against his cheek. "You know what to do."
"Mhm. And so do you." He grasped her wrist and pushed her hand between them, down to that spot that had, earlier, taken his full attention. "You need help getting started?"
"I've got this." She bucked upward against her fingers, gorging herself with his length.
"Take us there." The force of his command second only to the ravaging hunger that consumed them both.
Point, counterpoint, timing to his thrusts, circling with increased frenzy, building, building until...Oh, Stars!
A purging fire spread through her veins, pulsing outward with each spasm. Colors burst in kaleidoscopic array behind her eyes, and nothing mattered but the throbbing between her legs.
He growled a string of profanities at the ceiling, punctuated by her name, then buried his face in her neck with a last shuddering sigh.
Neither could move nor did they want to leave this space of contentment that already shrank around them. Movement would break the spell and bring finality to something neither wanted to lose. A quicksilver moment carved out of desire to forget what they were and where they were going. It slipped through their fingers, and the weight of reality filled their hands.
He knew the unwritten rules of their encounters, that he had to leave but delayed as long as he could and forced himself to open his eyes and gaze into her face. "I guess I'd better go." He kissed the tip of her nose and rolled to his back to finish catching his breath before sitting up and dropping his legs over the side of the bed.
Not a word from her, but what did he expect? He pulled his trousers on and gathered his things to leave. "See, I told you, you needed this," he said over his shoulder.
"Actually, I think you did."
"I'll settle for both." He reached for the door panel.
"Tam?" Her voice stopped him in his tracks.
"Yeah?" He turned around.
"Stay. I'd like you to stay." She righted her position and scooched over to make room. Her smile was shameless. "But you get to sleep in the wet spot."
He quirked an eyebrow, dropped his trousers, again, and crawled between the sheets, lying face to face. "So, you trust me now?"
"Oh, hell no. You're far too devious to be trusted. But, I figure if you slit my throat in my sleep it would almost be a mercy. I'd be out of all this forever; no pain, no worry or regrets."
"I take it I'm one of those regrets?"
"Oddly enough, yes. We might have been something in a different time and place. In another ten days, we'll be nothing at all."
She turned over and inched back to stretch along the lines of his chest, hips, and thighs.
"Knew you were a spooner." He leaned across her neck and traced the curve of her ear with his lips. "I love your demons, woman. But, I'll never love you."
"I know." She pulled his arm across her ribs, settling under the weight and twining her fingers with his. "Aren't we a pair? The spacer who can't stop loving one man and the scoundrel who can't love at all."
"It doesn't have to end. We could partner up after all this is over. Those star charts hold a lot of possibilities."
"Sure, until you did something so nefarious I'd have to shoot you just for being associated." Her sigh was a declaration. "It wouldn't last, it never does for people like us."
"Ten days then," he breathed across her neck.
"Ten days."