Jewel (10 page)

She turned around to face him, reluctantly deciding she was
going to have to deal with him. Why the older man had to be more immature than
she was, Jewel couldn’t fathom. “Look, Erik, you’re probably a basically good
guy and I think we both know I’m attracted to you, but my life is very
complicated. I hadn’t intended to have an affair on this ship, and I’m frankly
insulted that you didn’t warn me about Ana before we got started. I guess you
should know now that I’m definitely not signing up for another tour with the
Euripides
.
If you want to go back to Ana or Captain Kiara, I’ll understand.”

“Go back to Ana?” Erik repeated. His face scrunched up as if
he actually hadn’t considered that possibility. “Whatever put that crazy idea
into your head?”

“I don’t care one way or the other,” Jewel lied. “I’m just
saying that we’re both adults and I’ll understand.”

Erik tried to cup Jewel’s chin, but she stopped him with a
hand on his wrist. Frustrated, Erik pulled out of her grip and shook his finger
in her face. “Stars, Jewel, what are you running away from?”

In a moment of prescient insight, he had put his finger directly
on the central issue in Jewel’s life and she didn’t know how to evade the
question. “I’m not running,” she lied. “I just want to see the universe. What’s
wrong with that?”

Erik’s eyes widened with surprise and Jewel realized too
late that he had been talking about running from him—not running from her
parents.

Erik took a step back as he pondered the implications of her
statement, then he squared his shoulders and stepped toward her again. “I don’t
know what you’re running from,” he told her, “but you don’t have to do it
alone. I can help you. I’ve been on the Fringe my whole adult life. I know how
to survive here and I know how to disappear.” He took hold of her by both
shoulders. “I love you. Nothing is holding me on this ship. We can run
together…if you want to.”

Jewel couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. It had never,
ever, occurred to her that someone might care enough to go into hiding with
her. “Together?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Erik said, “but I don’t
have a home world anymore. My home is with the people I care about. And right
now, the only one I care about is you.”

“Erik, you don’t understand. You don’t want to run with me.
You don’t want to get caught with me.” Her babbling mortified her, but her
brain couldn’t make her mouth stop moving. “You don’t understand.”

Erik slipped his arms down around Jewel’s waist. The bulky
coat was still a problem but it didn’t bother her as much as the first time
they had hugged.

“I’ve seen trouble before,” Erik assured her. “And I think I
proved twenty years ago that I’m pretty good at running away.”

“Oh, Erik,” Jewel whispered. Her concern shifted from
herself to him. In a heartbeat her fear and panic disappeared, replaced by
compassion and tenderness for the man in front of her. “Is that what you think
you did? You didn’t run away. You survived. You fought with all your heart and
soul and you survived. There’s absolutely no shame in that. You said it
yourself. The Armenites defeated you without ever coming within range of your
weapons. They’re the cowards. Not you. Never you!”

Erik kissed her. For a few beautiful moments, his lips
tenderly pressed against hers and she stretched up on her toes to kiss him
back. His tongue gently entered her mouth and sought for hers. She responded by
pressing her body against him, greedily breathing in his air, hungrily pulling
him more tightly against her as she desperately thrust her tongue against his.

The gloves on her hands irritated her, so she shucked them
off and dropped them to the floor. Erik’s coat was even more annoying, but she
knew how to take care of that, pulling open the fastenings and pushing it off
his shoulders. His hands on her coat were more tentative so she helped him,
roughly pulling it open and guiding his strong fingers to her breasts where they
belonged.

Unlike in their previous lovemaking, Erik remained slow to
take the initiative, so Jewel continued to lead the way. She opened up his
shirt and ran her fingers over his hard chest. She undid his heavy winter pants
and the uniform trousers underneath, filling her hands with his penis, warming
the cold flesh, trying to make it grow hard as it had been in the shower and
when he took her on the crate. When it didn’t happen fast enough for her, she
sank down onto her knees and prepared to swallow Erik’s dick for the very first
time.

Half flaccid, Erik’s cock was not as intimidating as it had
been fully erect. Jewel curled her fingers around it so that the head peeked
out at her. She licked the top of it with the tip of her tongue then did it
again, caught between a burning curiosity to explore this mysterious piece of
male anatomy and a desperation in her heart that drove her to make it long and
stiff as rapidly as possible. She needed to climb up Erik’s body and impale
herself on it. She wanted to bind Erik to her through the flesh and through the
heart. She wanted to envision the two of them running across the galaxy
together, staying far ahead of her parents and their agents and any Armenites
who might trouble themselves to try to snare them back again. She needed Erik
hard and powerful and in control, guiding her into the new life they were going
to create together. She wanted to spend her life with someone who would share
with her, treasure her, love her—not a man looking to fulfill a commercial contract.

She licked him again, using the flat of her tongue this
time. He had a slightly salty taste and his penis stirred encouragingly in her
grip. It pushed out of the cover of her fingers to stand straighter for her
inspection despite the frigid air surrounding them. He was large enough now for
Jewel to hold him in her hand and still engulf him with her mouth. She embraced
the head of his lengthening dick with her lips and sucked gently while her
tongue tasted every bit of the smooth surface, swirling around the sensitive
tip of his cock so that her lover groaned and hardened further.

She tightened her fingers around him as his girth broadened.
She dripped saliva down his shaft to lubricate her hand and began to bob her
head up and down, simulating the friction his dick would feel when it entered
her vagina.

Erik groaned loudly, the sound echoing hollowly in the cold
chamber. No longer content to passively accept her love, he began to run his
hands tenderly through her hair, pulling the long strands back from her cheeks
while she continued to move up and down on his thick erection with ever-greater
confidence. Her fingers caught the rhythm of her mouth, rubbing against the
veins in his dick where they stood out proudly on the sides of his shaft like
cords of steel wrapped around an iron bar. The head of his cock became so thick
and broad that she had trouble keeping him in her mouth. Puffs of mist preceded
each ragged gasp of breath. His fingers burned against her cheeks. His cock
swelled inside of her.

“Oh, Jewel,” he whispered. “That’s it, that’s it, I’m going
to come.”

Jewel stopped bobbing and pulled off Erik’s cock. She didn’t
want him to come yet. She wanted him to do that inside her—deep in her pussy
where he belonged—not here in her mouth.

She stood up, pulled her shirt off and flung her bra after
it. She thrust her winter pants and trousers down about her calves. No mental
slouch, Erik quickly figured out what she was doing and lay back on the cold
floor, his long cock in his hands pointing up to the ceiling like a flag pole.
She started to clamber on top of him, but the pants around her ankles were such
a hindrance that she had to pause and kick off her shoes so she could finish
removing them. Then she straddled her man, took his cock from him and guided
the head to the hot lips of her pussy. Her cold nipples pointed straight out
ahead of her as she eased herself down and brought her lover’s dick inside of
her.

Erik was big, but she’d taken him before and knew she could
again. She caught her breath and eased him past her lips. Her thighs burned
with the strain of controlling her descent, but she did her best to ignore that
pain and focus on the sensation of Erik filling her.

She gasped for breath when the thick rim of his cock finally
passed inside of her, then closed her eyes and began to move up and down on
him. His hands found her hips and ass, guiding her, encouraging her, even as he
clearly restrained himself from thrusting his cock up deep inside her. Instead
he let Jewel take her time, finding her rhythm as she began to move up and down
on his long, stiff cock.

When the burning in her thighs became too great, Jewel
slipped down onto her knees, backing onto Erik’s thick erection so that his
cock slid all the way inside her. She wiggled her hips a little so that he
stirred around inside her, then eased forward again, stopping just before his
long dick popped out of her body.

She did it again, gasping for breath—the frigid air chilled
her throat before turning inferno hot in her lungs.

Erik began to pump in complement to her rhythm, his strong
fingers encouraging her to slowly increase the pace of their lovemaking. His
mouth nipped at her nipple, making her breast tingle. “I love you, Jewel,” he
whispered.

They were words she’d longed all her life to hear.

She squeezed his dick inside her as she sat back on his cock
and Erik shuddered beneath her.

“I don’t know…how long…I can hold out,” he muttered.

She squeezed him tighter, the pressure transmitting some of
his excitement up through her body so that she began to shake with her own
intense need.

“Want you…to come with me,” Erik panted.

Jewel wanted that too, but she wasn’t quite ready. She knew
she could get there with him if he could just hold on a little longer.

“Can’t…wait,” Erik groaned. “Touch…yourself.”

Tentatively, Jewel did as she was told, reaching between
their sweaty bodies to touch her swollen clitoris. The cold of the spaceship
chilled her knees but the heat of Erik’s dick inside her kept her warm and
excited.

She pressed the swollen nub of flesh and almost collapsed on
top of her lover—the shudder that racked her body was that intense, that
encompassing.

“I felt that,” Eric panted. “Do it…again.” His last word
twisted in the pain of holding in his ejaculation.

Jewel rubbed her fingers so hard on her clit that she could
feel Erik’s cock moving deep inside her through the flesh of her pussy.

He gasped, still struggling to contain his climax. “Oh,
Stars, Jewel. Oh…”

A tremendous groan erupted from deep inside Erik and his
cock spit liquid fire into Jewel’s womb. His mouth found her breast and clamped
down, half sucking and half biting as he shuddered through his orgasm.

Startled by the feel of Erik’s teeth, Jewel lurched back
away from him. Her tit popped out of his mouth but her body couldn’t pull back
any farther. She was impaled on his hard cock and her movement shoved it all
the way up inside of her, her own weight pressing Erik’s erection as deep as it
was possible for it to go. His rigid flesh rubbed against the G-spot beneath
Jewel’s clitoris just as she pressed that swollen nub of flesh again. Suddenly
she was screaming her own crescendo as wave after wave of pleasure exploded
through her body.

Erik continued to thrust into her, bouncing Jewel about on
top of him. Her breasts waved from side to side as she struggled to retain her
balance. He got both hands on her hips to steady her and thrust and thrust
until his cock finally stopped spitting and he began to lose his erection.

He pulled Jewel into his arms and held her close against him
until her own climaxes ebbed and she drifted off to sleep in the comfort of his
arms.

* * * * *

“Mr. Gunnarson, can you hear me?” Everson’s tired voice
reached through the com unit and emerged in the engine room of the
Genesis
.

Erik groaned and rolled away from Jewel’s naked body. He
reached for his pants. The sudden loss of heat set Jewel shivering.

“Where’s the damn com unit?” he muttered as he finally
succeeded in hooking his pants with one finger so he could grasp the instrument
attached to his belt with the other hand.

Jewel reached for her clothes as well. If she’d felt a
little unhygienic before, now she had a lot more to complain about. Strangely
she didn’t feel like grouching now. Weirdly enough she felt disturbingly happy
and warm in her heart despite the overwhelming cold chilling her body.

“Gunnarson here, Everson. What can I do for you?”

The voice at the other end of the com-link changed to that
of Captain Kiara. “I want a status report, Mr. Exec. How much progress have you
made?”

Erik glanced over at Jewel and arched an eyebrow. She almost
burst out laughing.

“Mr. Exec?” the captain repeated when his answer was not
immediately forthcoming.

“We’re in the engine room,” Erik answered without any of the
humor in his face revealing itself in his voice. “There’s equipment here we
might take if we have room and time.” As he spoke, he padded around the room in
his socks, his feet protected from most of the cold embedded in the floor by
the polymers in the fabric. He stopped and tapped a gauge as if surprised by
something he saw, then waved at Jewel to come join him. “But the really
interesting thing is the fuel supply,” he said, tapping the gauge again.

Jewel padded over beside him, trying to untangle her bra. It
was damn cold in the engine room and it was hard to do anything but concentrate
on getting dressed again, but despite the way she’d recently taken leave of her
senses, she was determined to be professional and that gave her the steel
courage needed to brave the icy temperatures.

“I’m waiting!” Captain Kiara reminded him.

“Well it seems that the
Genesis
has essentially full
fuel tanks,” Erik told her, “Ninety-seven percent full, to be exact.”