By the Sea of Sand Read online

  Calmly, though his grasp hurt, she put her hand over his. “You’re awake.”

  “Where am I?” He didn’t let go. In fact, he yanked her closer, hard enough to make her stumble on the hem of her robe. He sat up, legs swinging over the edge of the bed, and caught her before she could fall.

  Reflexes, not consideration. She reminded herself of that, even as the harsh grip on her wrist loosened and his other hand went automatically to her hip to steady her. It had been many circuits of the suns since a man had held her this close.

  He smelled good. Yes, there was the odor of blood and stale sweat, scents she’d sadly grown accustomed to since the Rav Aluf had started bringing her patients. But below that was a spicy, rich scent. Not of dust and heat but of green and growing things. Of black earth, not scorched sand. Of . . . water. Oh, how he smelled of fresh, clean water, of the air after a rare storm.

  “Where am I?” he demanded, his fingers gripping and bunching her robe. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Teila. I’m a lighthouse keeper, though in recent years I’ve been put into practice as something a little more.” She paused, considering how to answer him. “You’re in the lighthouse at Apheera, on the edge of the Sea of Sand.”

  “Which one?”

  She laughed, because although there were indeed a multitude of sand seas on Sheira, along with only two saltwater seas, both so small as to be barely significant, there was only one Sea of Sand. The others had different names and were broken by islands and inlets and peninsulas and civilization. The great body of evershifting sands outside her windows was vast and mostly uninterrupted, the only body of sand large enough to provide haven to the whales.

  “The big one,” she told him.

  He peered at her through heavy lidded eyes. The starfire that had burned his skin and caused internal radiation damage hadn’t ruined his eyes. She knew they were a pure and vivid gray—or would be so in the light and once the swelling and redness had gone down. Now she could only glimpse a hint of the color. She put a hand on his shoulder, her fingertips brushing the skin of his neck.

  “Are you thirsty? Hungry? We have fresh milka. I could bring you some water or juice. It would be best if you didn’t overindulge yourself too much at once.”

  The hand on her hip gripped yet harder, shifting her closer so that she stood between his legs. Seated, he had to look up at her, but not by much. Jodah was as tall as the Rav Aluf, if not a few inches taller. His mouth parted and his tongue swiped along his lips.

  “Hungry,” he said.

  “I’ll bring you something.” Teila didn’t move. This close to him she could see the pattern of crimson veins and arteries raised against the lighter brown flesh of his forehead. Starfire burned from the inside out. She traced the map of his injuries with a fingertip, not trying to cause him pain.

  He winced anyway. She leaned a little closer, unable to stop herself from looking him over as best she could in the dim light. Her eyes had adjusted, but there were still details she couldn’t make out.

  She drew in a breath when he pulled her still closer, bending her at the waist to get his mouth and nose close to her neck, exposed by the way she’d arranged her hair. At the touch of his lips there, she shivered. At the brief tickle of his tongue against her skin, she shuddered. And when he breathed her in, giving a low moan of need, she let him pull her onto his lap.

  The man called Jodah mouthed her throat while his other hand slipped under the hem of her robe, finding her bare skin above the thigh-high leggings. His fingertips traced her heat there. Then higher.

  “Who are you?” he breathed, his fingers painting pleasure on her skin.

  She whispered, “My name is Teila. I’m the lighthouse keeper. And I’m going to take care of you.”

  His hardness pressed against her. Everything about him was hard—legs, arms, the chest against which she was so firmly nestled. Teila was used to the bodies of soldiers, but Jodah was more than a mere soldier. He wore this skin like a shield, his bones beneath replaced or covered by metal. She could guess that his lungs and kidneys had been replaced by artificial components too.

  “My heart,” he muttered, pressing her hand to it. “It’s beating so fast.”

  His heart was still real.

  She couldn’t keep herself from kissing him, then. She cupped his face and opened his mouth with hers. Their tongues met, stroking. It had been so long. So achingly long.

  He growled when she moved against him, the sound low and chilling. His eyelids fluttered, and for a terrifying moment she thought she’d somehow set off the Wirtheran nanotriggers roaming the channels of his brain. But no, arousal moved him. Not pain.

  He ground her rear onto his cock, his hips pushing upward while the hand between her legs found her clit as easily as if she’d directed his touch. She wore nothing under the robe but the thin slipcloth undergown and her leggings, and at the press of bare flesh on hers, Teila cried out. When he slid one thick finger into her, she had no voice and could only shake.

  A life without pleasure is no life at all. That old Sheirran saying had been one of her father’s favorites and one Teila had taken as her own. But her life had been without pleasure, at least of this sort, since before the birth of her son. Her own hands had never been an adequate substitute for a man’s rough caress, and though she’d had many offers over the years, she’d declined them all.

  Waiting.

  “I want to taste you.” He moved so fast, so smooth, and he’d pushed her onto the bed before she could blink. Then he was between her legs, pushing her robe up, his mouth following the path his fingers had made.

  He kissed between her thighs gently, the heat of his breath like fire. His tongue found the tight knot of her clitoris and stroked along it, then lower to dip inside her labia. Teila’s back arched when he moaned against her. At the press of his tongue inside her, she had to stifle her own cry by biting her fist.

  It felt so good, so good, and her hips lifted, pressing herself to the delights of his lips and tongue. Bright threads of pleasure wove themselves into a tapestry of ecstasy as he licked and sucked at her clit. When he pinched it gently between two fingers, jerking it slowly while he flickered his tongue over it, Teila lost her mind. Her orgasm rose inside her like the surge of sand on the wind, rolling and shifting, and all she could do was ride it.

  There was no biting back her cry this time, not shattering with climax as she was. The pleasure tore through her and left her spent and gasping, shuddering with the aftershocks as Jodah continued to lap at her clit and fuck deep inside her with his fingers. It was no substitute for his cock, but when he curled his fingers just so against the hidden spot inside her, Teila shuddered again with a second climax that came hard on the edge of the first.

  “So sweet,” Jodah said when she’d finally quieted. He pressed a gentle kiss to her cunt and withdrew just long enough to shuck out of his trousers. Again moving so fast and seamlessly she didn’t have time to react, he moved forward and slid inside her, so deep that at first the press of him inside her passage, so long without such attentions, made her squirm.

  But only for a moment, because when he began to move, her body surged along with his. She raked her fingernails down his bare back, not wanting to hurt him but helpless to keep herself from the reaction. Jodah muttered in wordless pleasure, fucking into her harder. He supported himself with one hand while the other moved beneath her knee to lift it, opening her to him further. Deeper. She moved with him, this dance a familiar one and never out of fashion, no matter how long it had been since she’d last made the steps.

  He bit down on the softness between her neck and shoulder when he climaxed, and Teila relished that pain. When he collapsed on top of her, she ran her fingers over and over through his hair, down his back and finally cupped the back of his neck when he went still. She listened to the sound of his slow breathing, felt the weight of him grow heavier as his body went slack in sleep. Then, she carefully pushed him off her, and he rolled onto his side,