Page 31 of Throwing Fire

I did. Mouse didn’t give me anything like the peace Kez does, but I always felt more than relaxed afterwards. And Mouse fell asleep in record time, so she must have, too. I slide my arm under Kez and work her into a position where I can cuddle her without my arm falling asleep. “You’re not sore?”

She wiggles. “No. A little tingly, but not sore.”

“Good.” Means I was slow and gentle enough. Maybe somewhere, Mouse’s ghost is smiling at me.

“So we can do it again,” Kez says.

“Yeah, sometime.” I’m happy to do it again, but not too often. Mouse got serious hemorrhoids after a couple of weeks and then we were back to oral, which I didn’t mind, either, but there’s nothing as good as humping in my book.

“Or now.”

“Or not.” I tickle her neck, wait until she finishes protesting, then tuck her up against me again.

“I’m not tired,” Kez says, still giggling.

Yeah, not the first time I’ve heard that. “You’re never tired. Funny how easy you fall asleep on me when you’re not tired.”

She yawns hugely and stretches. “I love falling asleep on you.”

“Nothin’ better.” I kiss her forehead. “Night-night, kitten.”

She wriggles closer, rubs those long, silky legs against mine, nuzzles into my shoulder. “Shouldn’t we talk? You said we’d compare notes later.”

“We will. Later.”

“Now’s later.”

“Later’s later, too. Go to sleep.” We need to talk, but we’re both tired. We’ll think better when we’ve rested. And I know what Kez’s ‘I’m not tired’ means from experience. It means she’ll be snoring on my shoulder in five minutes.

Four minutes and twenty seconds later, by the chrono in my eye, she is.

Oh-three-hundred. Three a.m. Soul’s midnight, I’ve heard it called. Whatever else it is, it’s the time Kez usually wakes up. Sometimes she just wakes with a full bladder. Sometimes she wakes shivering and shaking. And sometimes the nightmares are bad enough to wake her screaming. I haven’t had any nightmares since I started sleeping with her. I sleep like a baby now. Kez has fewer nightmares than she used to, or so she says. I’m hopeful we’ll get to the point where she doesn’t have any. But I think that point’s still a way off.

Tonight, it’s a shivering-shaking nightmare. To say I’m pleased sounds all wrong, even in my head. But with the stresses on her today, particularly the reminders of the attack that left her so scarred, I’m surprised it’s not a screaming nightmare. Surprised and pleased. The screaming nightmares can take her a while to recover from, which makes for a bad night’s sleep. The shivering-shaking variety can usually be pacified with a cuddle. Or gentle sex.

She reaches for my groin pretty much as soon as I tuck her against me. Looks like the gentle sex route tonight. I’m glad I washed up earlier. I can transition smoothly from cuddling to caressing. Andfor all that rough play turns me on like a heavy-water reactor, I like gentle sex just as much. Variety is the spice of life.

I keep it simple. The anal sex earlier was a leap for both of us. I’m a little sore and I don’t know how her backside will be feeling now. I pull her leg over my thigh and take her like that, lying side-by-side, moving slow once I’m inside her. She feels unusually tight, and I don’t know if that’s from the position or the earlier sex, but it reminds me to keep it gentle, and I do. Slow stroking, inside and out. Soft, deep kisses that become panting as I guide us up and up towards release. For all that I keep it gentle, her orgasm’s intense, and her gasps break into sobs after she comes. This isn’t the first time she’s cried after an intense orgasm, or even serious play, and I know how to handle it now. I let myself go, cradle her tight as I come, and talk us both down through the aftermath. It doesn’t matter what I say. She won’t remember it anyway. What she’ll remember is that I was there for her when she fell apart, and that I held her while she pulled herself back together.

When her breathing quiets, I tuck her in again, settle her on my other shoulder so I don’t wake up with dead-arm, and cuddle her until she falls asleep. Listening to her soft, even breathing, I stare up at the gilded ceiling for a while, tracing the ornate design with my eyes. Needs a mirror. I’d have liked to look up and see us entwined while we were fucking. Figures that this fancy place lacks the one amenity I’d really like.

Chuckling at that thought, I let myself drift.

CHAPTER 13

Morning breaks soft on the Clouds: a gentle glow through the mist that stretches from shore to horizon.

I’m lying on the deeply-carpeted floor of our suite, working through the first of the modifiedtaijiforms that I’ll practice for the next hour, when I see a shimmer out of the windows to the west. I rise slowly, being careful as I move, both to avoid pulling a muscle as I come out of atian'éstretch and to avoid waking Kez.

I wave my hand in front of the window until a control panel pops up. Dial the polarization to dark. I don’t need light to see what I’m doing, and I don’t want it to disturb Kez. She’s had a pretty good night, despite the nightmare, but it’s still early for her. She was in R.E.M. sleep when I got up, which means she might get one more deep sleep cycle in if she’s not disturbed. While Kez and I haven’t been short of sleep lately, I’m concerned that the stress is beginning to wear on her. That might have been the source of the tears in the night, even more than the intensity of our fucking. She’ll handle everything better if she’s well-rested.

I return to my forms, working steadily through each one. Some do-gooder whitecoat on K-G warned me that I’d have a lot of pain asI got older, given the number of times I’ve been injured. I haven’t seen much sign of it so far, although the hole a tegli chewed in my shoulder two weeks ago has taken longer to heal than I would have liked and still twinges now and then. Maybe the whitecoat reckoned without my modifications. Still, practicing thetaijiforms I was taught as a grunt in SAWL to restore circulation and flexibility after Deep deploys can’t hurt.

Just as Kez is beginning to stir, making those soft, sexy noises she makes as she wakes, there’s a discreet blip from the door. Perfect timing. Gotta hand it to this place, they’ve followed my instructions to the letter. I said we weren’t to be disturbed for anything. We weren’t disturbed. I said I wanted breakfast delivered at eight. It’s four seconds after, according to my chrono.

I roll up off the floor and answer the door. A hover-table, richly set with warm and cold dishes, a steaming silver pot of kaffe, and a tea pot exhaling the floral fragrance of the chrysanthemum tea Kez likes, sits outside the door. Left, as per my instructions. Perfect.

I guide the hover table in, lock the door behind me. There’s a table for two near the panoramic window, but when I tap the window to depolarize it, I realize there’s a balcony outside with an even better view. I flick the window open and step out into the cool sea breeze. Despite missing sunrise, the view is breathtaking. A golden arc of sand defines the now-sleeping Night Market. The city’s warehouses and silvery high-rises look like children’s building blocks in the red morning light. A model city. The ocean stretches to the horizon to my left. Swathes of purple reveal the reefs lurking below the white-capped surface. A huge black bowship cuts a wide, white path through the water towards Tiv’s port, while smaller skimmers whirr over the whitecaps, barely leaving a ripple to mark their passage.

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