Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles) (15 page)

“Hey. Hey, Captain.” Arms enfolded her, pulled her into an embrace, small, womanly arms. The sound of her sobs echoed in her ears. Her palms, where she held them flat to her face, were dry. “It’s okay. Emily’s got you.”

She shook her head wildly. “’M sorry, Emily.” Choking back more sobs, she refused to give in and let Emily see her weakness. How could this be? The shield she’d kept between her and the agony had slipped away. She felt the pain from that day, tearing her up inside and making her bleed like gut-ripped prey.

Then Emily’s arms left her, and others slid about her waist and across her back. Hard, strong arms that could only belong to Sten. When his grip shifted and he made to pull her onto his lap, she resisted.

“Stop.” The sternness in his voice froze her instantly. Only superior officers talked to her like that. “Struggling won’t work. I can and will overpower you.” He hauled her close to his chest, one arm like a metal bar under her breasts.

“This isn’t…” She gulped. “Necessary. I’m just—”

“Upset. For sure.” He stroked his hand up the side of her neck, then drew lines across her skin as if following the trace of strands of unbound hair. “Tell me why.”

Now? Just because she’d stupidly let grief overwhelm her didn’t mean she’d tell him. “It’s nothing.” She wriggled, pushed at his arm, and hurt her wrist.
Was he made of steel?
“Let me up. There’s far worse things to worry about.”

“You were crying.” He trailed a knuckle below her eye. “Dry? It sure sounded bad. When do you let loose with real tears?”

“Never. Like I said, it was nothing.” Already the memory receded. This was a blip in the universe. She was alive. Others were dead. Nothing. She squirmed. “I—”

Sten sighed. “Right. If you won’t tell, you’ll sit here until I’m happy. Sit!”

Until
he’s
happy?
But she subsided, stiff at first until the monotonous tempo of his patting settled into her flesh. Her eyelids drooped. She turned in his lap and sneaked her arm around him, letting the delicious heat of his body work through her. The man was so big he could stop anything—a truck, an avalanche, a mountain of bad things.

“How many other men have done this for you? Held you when you were sad?”

“Hmm.” She shrugged, resisted sucking on her lip—a childish habit.
Do I want to answer?
“None.” Least, not for many long years. Her father had been the last to do so. A line of moisture seeped onto her eyelashes.

“None? Like me, then. I’ve never had a woman want me to do this. To hold them.”

Never?
A glow of satisfaction washed through her.

“You know.” His voice lowered, and with his chin on her head, the words reverberated into her ears through her skin. “This is twice in a row, but I like it. I like holding you. You’re soft in my arms and smell like a woman should.”

Being reduced to merely a woman irked her. Her forehead wrinkled as she rummaged for a smart reply. She pulled away.
I don’t need his comfort
. “I—” His hand covered her mouth, muffling her words.

“Don’t say what you don’t mean,” he said in a gravelly voice that made her very bones tremble. Slowly he took away his hand. “Well?”

And suddenly she was glad he’d stopped her. She stared into his intent eyes and couldn’t figure what he was thinking at all. Goose bumps rose, tingling on her arms. “I was going to say…something that was a lie.”

“Uh-huh.”

He wasn’t interrogating her? While he curved his hand lightly about her neck, then stroked her and played with her hair, she contemplated the grass. His touch soothed her and made her nightmare past slip away. She laid her head back on his chest, frowned. “I thought I was just sex, that you were just”—his own word seemed to fit—“fucking me.” As soon as that left her mouth, she regretted it. Might as well have slapped him.

“Huh. Somehow that word doesn’t suit you, little butterfly.”

She stiffened. “Butterfl—” Again his hand covered her mouth. She nipped his finger, but he stayed put and his other hand pinched her nipple hard. Blinking, slowly coming down from her little spike of anger, she released his finger. Then he prodded at her mouth, levered her teeth apart, and slipped the thick digit between them to rest between her teeth and the inside of her cheek.

“Lick me,” he said, rumbling at her ear. Then he flicked her earlobe with his tongue and pressed a kiss onto her ear, pinning her head between hard biceps and mouth, controlling—all ferocious and male. Liquid heat flashed into her.

“Mmm.” Unquestioning, she opened wider, slid her tongue over his finger, tasting him, running her soft flesh over the bumps of his calluses. The pain at her nipple throbbed and awakened her lower down. His forcefulness spun her into sheer want, and a molten tide spread.

“Good. Keep licking while I talk, or I’ll put my fingers somewhere else, up inside you.”

He wouldn’t dare, would he? Emily would see.

Her pussy clenched, and moisture gathered. She sucked at him. A little groan teased out of her.

“You like that idea?” He chuckled. “I should’ve known.” He settled her body against him more comfortably but kept playing with her breasts and nipples and teasing her ear with his tongue. “To answer your question, I don’t think it ever was just fucking. When I first saw you commanding your airship, I dreamed of holding you.”

Eyes half closed from the pleasure, she let out a tiny sound of agreement past his hand. She loved his fingers in her mouth.

“I dreamed of having you up against me, with my arm beneath these.” He caressed the underside of her breasts, then fondled them some more, following all her heavy curves until she squirmed, then heaved in a slow, long breath.

“And I dreamed of whispering in your ear like I do now.”

She shuddered, half-convinced she too could remember this.

“And I dreamed that you shivered and I heard a sound.” He slipped his hand down over her mound, then through the leaves of her skirt to brush past her clit and onto the lips of her soaking wet pussy.

Oh. Too much
. She moaned breathily and pushed herself up into his hand.

“Yes,” he murmured. “Like that. And so I knew that though you swore you hated frankenstructs, I’d aroused you. You were scared, yet I turned you on.” He pulled his fingers from her mouth and from below.

Then he tilted her head back with his hand cupping her chin. He growled. “I like it when you’re like this, butterfly. With your eyes all lost and big.”

She looked at him a while until she thought of the right words. She did feel lost, even if it was a nice sort of lost. There would be wrinkles on her forehead, she knew, right then, because recalling what he’d said was difficult to do. At last she summoned her reply.

“If you get to call me butterfly, can I call you something with four letters?”

He laughed, grinned widely. “No.” Then he bent down and kissed her softly. “That would be bad. You don’t want to know what I do with bad women.”

No?
With his hard lips being so soft on hers, so gentle, maybe she did want to know. Her body hummed, ready to explode at the first brush of his hand in the right place. But just when she wanted him to touch her
anywhere
, he didn’t. She tried to grind her pelvis at his hand, and he moved it away. Tried to pull his mouth down on hers to crush her lips, and he caught her hand and stopped her.

After that soft kiss, he just moved away and watched her with those searing yet compassionate eyes. Arms around her yet stilled.

“I guess now might be a good time to say this.” For once Sten sounded uncertain. “I’ve never been a romantic type, not sure you are either, but I can see I need to say stuff. I want us to be more than just a few days of sex. You’re someone I could stand having around to talk to and…hell, not sure that came out right.” He trailed his finger along her lower lip, then frowned. “I know you find it hard to see past what I am and your military career notions, but I want you to try.”

Wow. How to answer? The very idea of romance made her ill. Flowers and love letters, ugh. But the way he held her, the slightly silly look on his face, and the thought that he wanted her to be with him, it did something odd to her insides.

A whole school of happy fish arrived in her stomach and did somersaults. But then she thought again and…a future together? How? It made her want to squirm. As if she were pinned under a big boulder and couldn’t move.

“That’s um…” She frowned, peeked at him. “I’m lost, Sten. I don’t know what to say.”

Yet something inside her pined for exactly what he proposed. Just plain being with him. Mouth scoured by the kissing, skin stinging, she looked at him and couldn’t do it. Couldn’t find it in her to offer herself up.

Besides, I’d lose myself in his world. He’s too much. I wouldn’t be me anymore. I’d be his. And I’m not his.

But strangely, it hurt so much not to be.

“I understand. Just think about it. Can you do that?”

Even saying yes to this was acceding something. Like the first step on a journey.

She fidgeted, dug a fingernail into her palm. “Sure. So long as you don't start writing me love letters.”

He grinned. “I can't write. Though I guess I could draw some hearts with arrows in them, or swords?”

“Ugh.” She screwed up her nose. “No, thank you.”

Nearly simultaneously, Cadrach burst into a growl that swelled into a roar, and Emily yelled. “Hey, you two! Company!”

By the time she scrambled apart from Sten and stood, Emily was confronting a zombie from on one knee beside where the gear was piled. She swung up the shotgun and zeroed it in on the thing’s head. Cadrach had another creature down on its back and writhing while he ripped at its throat.

The shotgun blast tore off the first one’s head and sent pieces scattering into the whirled-apart foliage of some shrubs. In two strides, Emily reached the other zombie and shot it at close range. Black blood splattered onto her legs and the wolf’s fur.

The clearing rang with the boom of the shots; then the water noises returned. Nothing else stirred. While Sten scanned one part of the perimeter, Kaysana did the reverse. She’d let her emotions overrule logic, and they’d almost paid for it with their deaths.

“You have one tough little librarian there, Captain. But…where the fuck did they come from?”

She shrugged. “Let’s get going. The world’s waiting.”

“Sure. Sure.” Sten gave her one last appraising stare, then strode toward Emily. “Rinse off, little lady, and Cadrach too. Faster than fast. We’ll watch. Then we leave!”

The little interlude of violence had changed everything. Sten’s proposal dropped away into the place she kept for lost things and silly notions. Zombies were her mission, not love or romance.
Yes. Keep the priorities right. Onward—leave the mushy stuff behind.

They drove for six hours with very few stops, slowly winding up into the mountains. Mostly Kaysana slept. A few times, the ripples that signaled the effects of the plague hit them, but nothing unusual happened.

Am I cured, she wondered. The loss of the sexual compulsion that drew her to Sten left her empty.

Sex had always been a negotiated event for her. The right man picked, the right situation, no promises of love afterward. Clean, curt, and organized. With Sten sex was like being in the midst of a tropical storm—out of her control, wet, and damn he made her feel
alive.

He winked at her.

Ack. Why did I stare at him?

When Kaysana next awoke, only the merest tinge of arousal reminded her of the bond she shared with Sten.

“There’s been a lot of people through here!” Emily yelled back. The chug of the engine overwhelmed her words. Though they’d taken turns driving, Emily seemed to find it therapeutic to take the wheel and watch the road.

Kaysana perched up and leaned between the seats with a hand on the back of each of them. Through the filthy windshield the dirt road was visible—meandering along a cliff edge that fell away to the right. Abandoned cars, clothing, and other human paraphernalia littered what should have been an isolated mountain.

At high altitude the chill crispness of the air and the bright clarity to colors always made her sink back in awe, no matter how many times she’d landed at such places. The purple of the blossoms in a bank of flowers almost seared her eyes, and the green swathes of grass seemed painted on.

A herd of yaks scattered to the left, climbing the grassed slope. Up ahead a building complex perched at the end of the road and the edge of the cliff. Their destination—the secondary base. On the mountain face beyond, a slender waterfall twined and plunged down the rock.

Above a rust-colored wall, the bottom stories of the building were square and painted white with a red-brown stripe running across the window section. Higher up the levels became circular, with timber screens decorating wide terraces. Floating in the winds and anchored to a golden spire on the very highest level was a gold and red airship.

“Barely a tenth the size of the
Art of War
,” she muttered.

“Looks like a monastery?” Sten scratched his chin.

“Yes. It does.”

At the front gate was a sign.

TRESPASSERS SHOT, FROZEN, AND DISASSEMBLED FOR PARTS.

“Ewww!” Emily braked, and their vehicle shuddered and squeaked to a halt. “Disgusting, but I havta say, we’ve not got more than a half hour of fuel left.”

On their few stops, they’d topped up the coal feeder on the roof from the bunker slung at the back of the half-track. The bunker was empty. Kaysana glanced at the sign again. “Not a monastery then. But this is where my instructions point us. And to get to Perihelion, we’re going to need that airship. We need to talk to whoever’s in there.”

“What’s it say?” Sten murmured.

She told him.

“Ah. Nasty.”

When Sten heaved open the side door and jumped down with the wolf, Kaysana put her hand on Emily’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Emily blinked, pulled a strand of her blonde hair across her eyes like a miniature veil.

“Good.” She smiled wanly. “Make sure you close the door. We don’t want any zombies hiding inside here.”