Amidst a Crowd of Stars Page 2

He gave her what she wanted. Hard, solid thrusts deep inside her. Hard enough to lift her from the water. Marrin didn’t care. She arched to create a better angle. Keane’s lips found her temple. Her hand came around to run her fingers through his hair.

  They both spoke but what words came out, Marrin could not have said. Words of pleasure, senseless. Lovetalk, Keane called it. An outpouring of emotion echoing the outpouring of sensation in their bodies.

  Keane no longer rubbed her clitoris. He put his palm over it. His thrusts moved her against his hand, the stimulation more subtle, but no less perfect.

  Marrin’s orgasm rippled through her. Her fingers tightened in his hair. She cried out. Her tunnel clenched his cock, earning her a cry of pleasure from his lips.

  It sent another wave of climax over her. She tensed, relaxed, tensed again when he thrust once more and held her hips hard enough to hurt if she hadn’t been so filled with ecstasy.

  “Marrin,” he whispered.

  The water ceased its sloshing and rippled gently. The scent of gillyflowers covered them. Marrin floated in her husband’s arms, replete.

  Forty-two rotations ago

  “You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”

  Keane’s calm bemusement was usually enough to defuse her, but not this time. Marrin looked up at him but had to blink hard, twice, to get her eyes to focus on his familiar beauty. He reached out a hand, and she took it.

  “She’ll be fine,” he told her. “She has the best medica. The best care. And she’s stronger than you think, Marrin.”

  Marrin linked her fingers in his. “She’s been in labor for more than a day. If she doesn’t have the baby soon—”

  “They will take care of her,” he soothed. “And Sarn is with her. He will let us know when something happens.”

  Marrin nodded, knowing Keane was right. She gave him a grateful smile. “Now is the time when you remind me it’s time for me to let go. Again.”

  He pulled her into his embrace with a gentle laugh and nuzzled her neck. “Aliya is with her husband, doing what mothers have done for hundreds of rotations. What you did, without benefit of such fine facilities, I might add. And you survived it.”

  Marrin looked around at the pale blue walls, the soothing art, the soft and comfortable furniture meant to cradle those waiting for news of their loved ones. “I gave birth to Hadassah in my own bed with the vadid howling in my ears and Raluti telling me the wind meant good fortune for births. What she really meant was it was fortunate for those outside the hut because they wouldn’t have to listen to me screaming.”

  “But you did it,” he reminded. “In a place you didn’t know, with people who weren’t yours.”

  She squeezed his hand. “So much has changed since then. There were no medicas. No town, really. No paved roads.”

  He nodded and smiled and hugged her closer against him. “Aliya will be fine. She’ll have this baby in a few more hours, and you’ll be a grandmother.”

  Marrin made a small groan. “I don’t know if I’m ready to be a grandmother.”

  “Well, I’m ready to be a grandfather.” Keane ran his hands down her back. “I look forward to cradling a small one.”

  Marrin tightened her arms around him. “Are you sorry you never had any of your own?”

  “I have three of my own. Just because they didn’t spring from my seed makes them no less mine.”

  She tilted her head to look at him. How lucky she had been the day he walked off the freighter with her letter in his hand.

  “I love you.”

  He kissed her forehead. “I love you too.”

  The hours passed. The baby was brought forth. The mother and father were congratulated and the infant admired, the family expanded by one.

  Marrin held her tiny newborn grandson in her arms and sought signs of Aliya’s father Seth in the tiny boy’s face. She found it in the crinkle of his forehead as he frowned, and she wept, kissing the spot and wetting his little face with her tears.

  At home, when they had left the new parents to rest, Marrin stayed quiet. Thinking. Lujawed had rotated past its sun a multitude of times since she’d arrived, a young woman with two small daughters and an idealistic, unrealistic husband set on changing their lives.

  Their lives had changed all right. Seth had found the plot of land granted them by the Interstellar Homestead Act didn’t quite live up to the photos in the brochure he’d shown her. If they wanted green grass and a tidy little cottage, they’d have to work on it. Work hard.

  Lujawed in those days was habitable only by sweat and effort. By hauling water up from wells dug so deep they needed to be lined with lliwrock to keep them from collapsing. By erecting buildings that could stand up to the vadid, the ever-present desert wind that howled and bit and ground away at the surface of everything, leaving it pitted and scarred.

  They’d had help from the natives, grateful to trade their labor for the luxuries brought in on the Homestead Freighters. Nomads, the Lujawedi had no use for permanent dwellings. They didn’t understand the need for roads, for sanitation facilities, for hospitals. Goggles that kept the sand from their eyes and water pouches that kept their beverages cold were welcomed and coveted. So long as the Homesteaders kept to their own sections of the planet, the Lujawedi didn’t care what the newcomers did with it.

  And amazingly, Lujawed remained amicably split between its nomadic natives and the newcomers who’d come seeking a better life. Unlike many of the other homesteaded planets, Lujawed had been settled without war. Marrin could take pride in being one of the original colonists. Every rotation they honored her at a city council dinner—but it had been several rotations since she’d been asked to sit upon the council.

  That was the way it went, she supposed, turning from the window where she’d been staring. Out with the old and in with the new. Only she didn’t feel old, damn it. On a planet that rotated twice as fast around its central sun, her years were doubled, but not her lifespan. She was a grandmother who felt like she ought to still be that young mother digging in the sand.

  It was largely due to Keane, who aged so slowly he seemed not to. Now Marrin watched him at his meditation in front of the small burning candle. The scent of the powder he burned tickled her nose, and she sneezed. He opened his eyes with a smile, unfolded himself from the floor and came toward her with long strides.

  “Time for bed,” he said.

  She turned to lean back against him, and his arms came around to hold her close. He put his cheek to hers as they both looked out the window to the land that seemed only yesterday to have been barren and brown and now shone with soft green grass and vibrant desert flowers.

  “So much has changed.” Marrin sighed. “Keane, where has the time gone?”

  He turned her in the circle of his arms and kissed her forehead. “Time goes. It’s what happens to it. What’s wrong?”

  She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Nothing’s wrong. We have a grandson.”

  “We do.” Keane smiled and brushed the hair from her forehead with his thumb, then let his hand come down to caress her cheek. “And look at all you’ve accomplished.”

  “All we’ve accomplished,” she corrected. “I’d never have made this estate what it is today if not for your help. I’d never have been able to manage the irrigation systems that let us grow that first crop of udeji melons. And now look at us. Landowners. Largest supplier of fresh udeji melon in the entire colony.”

  He smiled again and kissed her, letting his lips linger on hers. “You should think about retiring, Marrin. You’ve worked hard. Take some time to enjoy your new grandson.”

  She laughed and squeezed his bum. “You just want me to sit around here with you, getting fat and lazy.”

  “I beg your pardon.” Keane made a show of sounding affronted. “Lazy I’ll give you, but am I fat?”

  She ran her hands over his hips, then up his taut belly and firm chest to link her fingers behind his neck. “Most definitely not.”

&nbs
p; Keane reached down and swept her up into his arms. He walked her to the bed and laid her down, stretching out along her body. “Not too heavy for you?”

  She laughed and pulled him down on top of her. “No. Never.”

  Then he began kissing her, and she didn’t think about melons or the desert or anything else but his hands on her. He lifted the hem of her gown to her thighs, then higher to expose her belly. Keane kissed the scars there. Her badges of honor, he’d called them, the signs of her pregnancies. They’d always made her feel self-conscious before him, but to Keane they represented something so miraculous and glorious he never failed to make her find them as beautiful as he did.

  Seveerans didn’t reproduce with their own bodies any longer. Science had replaced childbirth. Seveerans procreated solely via artificially inseminated and cultivated embryos in a crèche system. To Keane, the fact Marrin had carried her own children inside her body and given birth to them seemed like something out of a fairy tale.

  He gave only a moment to her marks, though, instead moving lower across her belly to the area between her thighs. She sighed when his breath fluttered across her clitoris. She gasped when he used his tongue to stroke it. Marrin closed her eyes and leaned back into the pillows, giving herself up to him.

  Keane slid his hands beneath her buttocks to hold her closer to him. His lips and tongue began a familiar pattern. He knew so well how to please her. He knew just where and how to touch her. How hard or soft, fast or slow, how she needed him.

  It wasn’t instinctive, but rather years of experience that had given him such talent. Experience and enthusiasm. But most of all, love. Love allowed him to find the right spots to send her soaring, let him discover new places to make her gasp his name and arch her back under his caress.

  Keane slid a finger inside her, pressing upward while he pressed down on her clit with his tongue. The dual sensation was exquisite. She shivered. Bright sparks of pleasure radiated outward from her pussy, up her belly, spiking her nipples and parting her lips in a breathy sigh.

  “I love when you make that noise.” He paused in licking her to look up. “It makes me so hard.”

  She smiled down at him. “And I love it when you get hard.”

  His answering grin made her heart pound. He bent back to her clit, nuzzling it lightly before beginning to lick again. He had her on the edge in another minute, earning a moan of regret when he pulled away to tease her. Keane loved to tease her to the brink and hold her off, bringing her close and refusing her release until she exploded under a breath or a whisper.

  Tonight, Marrin had no patience for that. Her body craved him. She twined her fingers in his hair and pulled upward. Keane followed willingly, kissing her. The taste of her arousal made another low moan leak out of her. He thrust his tongue inside her mouth, mimicking the way she wanted him to push his cock inside her.

  “Make love to me,” she whispered against his mouth, her fingers moving again and again through the dark, silken length of his hair.

  She didn’t have to ask him twice. Keane slid inside her slickness without effort, all the way to the hilt. He filled her completely. He moved in slow, smooth strokes, angling his body in such a way that he rubbed her clit with his every thrust. It drove her half-crazy, the way he did it, the stimulation not direct enough to send her over the edge, but tantalizing enough to keep her hovering on the verge of orgasm.

  He buried his face in the curve of her shoulder. His teeth stung her. The small pain was enough to jolt her entire body upward. He thrust harder. She wrapped her legs around the back of his thighs, pulling him closer while her hands made furrows in the smooth skin of his back.

  His low cry sent another wave of ecstasy through her. Sweat slicked their bodies as they moved. Keane moved harder inside her, hard enough to move the bed against the wall, which made her smile and laugh a bit, breathless, even as she moaned in pre-orgasmic splendor.

  If her sudden vocal appreciation of his skills surprised him, Keane didn’t show it. He responded by moving faster. Harder. Marrin’s orgasm began in a thunder of beating heart and shouts.

  A second one followed on the edge of the first with no more than a heartbeat between them. Keane kissed her as his body shuddered in its own release. He collapsed against her, though even in his pleasure he remembered to hold himself up on his arms so he didn’t crush her.

  They breathed together. In. Out. Completely in time with each other. Then he propped himself up and looked into her face. He kissed her. “Will you at least think about staying home with me?”

  The seriousness of his question surprised her into sitting up. “You mean it?”

  Keane rolled onto his back, one lean arm behind his head to support it. “I do.”

  “Keane, my work—”

  “Your daughters and their spouses have taken over the company. You have shareholders and a board and secretaries and volunteers.” He looked up at her, his dark eyes shifting color as they did when emotion moved him. “You’ve worked hard to get where you are. But now, can’t you consider taking a rest?”

  “I’ve worked hard and you’ve been behind me every step of the way. You’ve worked as hard as I have. And you’ve always refused any sort of official position in the company.”

  He smiled. “Those who matter know my place at your side. Those who don’t will always assume I’m just your Seveeran houseboy. Pretty to look at.”

  She reached to caress his face. “It’s been a long time since anyone accused you of being that.”

  “What I’m saying is, Marrin, why not let it be true? Retire. Stay home with me every day. I’ll be your houseboy and make it worth your while.”

  She laughed and leaned down to kiss him. “You’re wooing me.”

  His grin remained as charming as it had always been. “I am.”

  “Stop working?” Marrin leaned back against the headboard, thinking. “I’m not sure I’d know what to do with myself all day.”

  “Lounge in the garden, breakfast on the terrace, make love in the afternoon.”

  “Be lazy is what you’re asking me to do, Keane.”

  “Take your reward,” he corrected gently. “And let go so your children can also have a chance to prove their value with hard work.”

  She sighed. “You want me to let go of something I’ve spent half my life working to build.”

  “And I want you to spend the other half enjoying the fruits of it.” Keane linked his fingers through hers. “I want you to spend the time with me.”

  And that, she decided as she looked down upon him, was reason enough to do as he asked, for Keane had never asked her for anything before.

  Fifty-two rotations ago

  The door opened and Marrin looked up, her mouth full of pins. “Sarai, good, you’re here.”

  Her middle daughter, the fairest one, closed the door behind her and set down the bouquet of udeji melon flowers Hadassah had insisted on carrying for her wedding.

  “You look gorgeous, Dassah.” Sarai gave her younger sister an admiring look. “Jaron will faint when he sees you.”

  “I hope not.” Marrin slid another pin into Hadassah’s trailing hem. “We don’t need any fainting going on.”

  Hadassah took a deep, shaky breath. “Ma, do I look all right?”

  Marrin stood and looked into her daughter’s face. Her baby, the child she’d borne in the desert, the one of her daughters who’d known no other world than Lujawed.

  “Gorgeous.” She smoothed Hadassah’s dark curls over her shoulder. Of the three girls, Hadassah looked the most like Seth, who had never even had the chance to see her. Marrin hugged Hadassah tight, not caring that she crumpled the gown of fine Lujawedi flaxene. “Absolutely beautiful.”

  The door opened again, this time for Aliya. “Are you ready?”

  Hadassah lifted her chin and took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

  Marrin looked at her children—the three bright, shining lights she had produced—and her throat closed with emotion. “Your fathe
r would be so proud.”

  Her girls hugged her then, and the four of them clung to each other in the circle they’d always made.

  The door opened a third time, this time to Keane, who held back for a moment upon seeing the clustered femininity that had left him flustered and left out on occasion in the past. “We’re ready whenever you are, Dassah.”

  Hadassah, who had never known another father, had nonetheless been the one who’d clashed most fiercely with Keane over the years. Marrin would walk Hadassah to the wedding canopy alone. Now Keane looked discomfited, and Marrin knew her husband well enough to know he didn’t want to be accused of interfering.

  “Keane…” Hadassah stepped free of her sisters’ and mother’s embrace. She reached for his hand and he took it with a look of surprise. Her voice clear and unclogged by tears she said, “I know I’ve been an awful brat to you in the past. And I know you’ve always been patient with me, even when I didn’t deserve it. I appreciate more than you can ever know how you agreed to my wishes about this wedding…but I’ve been stupid and stubborn, and I’ve changed my mind. I’d be honored if you’d walk with me to the canopy.”

  Marrin watched as his eyes changed from black to blue to green, expressing his shifting emotions.

  He nodded and squeezed Hadassah’s hand. “I’d be so honored to walk with you. If that’s what you really want.”

  “You’re the only father I’ve ever had.” Hadassah’s voice broke at last. “And I know I haven’t often shown it, but I love you.”

  Then they all cried except for Keane, whose eyes didn’t shed tears, and they hugged and kissed, and then it was time for Hadassah Levy to become Hadassah Levy Curani.

  No bride had ever looked lovelier, no mother had beamed brighter with pride, and no father had ever given away a daughter so tenderly. It had been a perfect day, with food and family and friends. At the end of it, exhaustion claimed Marrin, and she tumbled onto her bed face down before rolling onto her back with a sigh. Keane laughed gently from the doorway.

  “The last to go,” he said, shedding his formal jacket. “And now, we’re alone. The whole house to ourselves. We’ve never had that.”