Gabriel's Ghost (20 page)

Ren sighed and looked distinctly troubled.

Sully’s grin widened.

Ren lay out his cards. All high-nebulas. Ten, Angel, Empress, Emperor, Galaxy. “Four million. You owe me four million, my friend.”

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Sully leaned forward. He stared at the cards in front of Ren, then back at his own. “This is a beautiful hand. One of the best I’ve had. Then you pull...” He switched his gaze back to Ren again. “You cheated. There can be no other explanation.”

“You say that every time, Sully.”

“Yes, I know. Ante up?”

“Ante up. Who’s dealing?”

“I am. You’re obviously not trustworthy.”

I laughed. “Make it a quick game, gentlemen. I need you at your stations in fifteen minutes.” I pulled my armrest controls around, rechecked our coordinates. A longer jump this time than the one off Moabar. Six hours jumptime.

We could all use the time off. It was tense, doing nothing, waiting for something to happen, and worrying. While jukors were born and Takas died.

Two thousand, five hundred twenty five credits later Sully was at engineering and Ren sat at comm, monitoring internal systems through voice commands.

Sublights disengaged at forty-eight percent, hypers were on full. The gate grabbed us, drew us in, no twists, no shimmies. The
Meritorious
glided into the neverwhen flawlessly. Just like old times.

I stayed an extra half hour on the bridge, watching the read-outs on the hypers, making sure guidance wasn’t picking up a skew from the remnant of an old ion trail. I leaned over Sully’s shoulder. He pulled me around and into his lap. “You’re supposed to be off duty.”

“I will. I just like to take my ship through jump.”

“And out again, I suppose?”

“Yes, and out again.”

“That leaves about five hours with nothing for you to do. Tea sounds good. Can you defend the universe without us for awhile, Ren?”

“Most certainly.”

“We won’t be far.” Sully stood, grabbing my elbow. In the common room he coaxed two mugs of hot tea from the panels. I pulled the chairs out from the table but he shook his head. “Our cabin. Decor’s better.”

Yes. It had a bed.

Six days. In the past six days, he’d done nothing more than kiss me, tuck me in, let me sleep. But he’d made sure, every hour I spent with him, a little more of Sully, a little more of Gabriel, came to the surface.

It was as if he were showing me in small ways what I couldn’t ask and what he couldn’t tell. But he watched my rainbows, cautiously, waiting for my fears to subside.

They were subsiding, in equally small ways. That Sully was an empath like Ren was clear. So were a few hundred, or perhaps thousand others in the Empire, from what I’d heard. And I hadn’t heard much, other than those who admitted to the rare mind talents often worked as government sanctioned med-counselors, once testing confirmed those were the only talents they had.

I could understand their usefulness in that field. Though it had been disconcerting at first to feel the warmth flowing through my body from the touch of Ren’s and Sully’s hands, it wasn’t intrusive. I didn’t fear that. It was a giving, comforting thing.

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But I still wondered about the differences between empaths and
Ragkirils
. The Empire, and Fleet, called all Stolorth telepaths
Ragkirils
. Knowing Ren now as I did, I knew that wasn’t true. Ren was an empath. He didn’t have what he called the Higher Link.

But what was Sully? Was the ability to do a
zral
, a cleansing of memory, a part of empathic abilities, not
Ragkiril
? Could it be just a stronger version of a reassuring touch, a blurring of a memory rather than the removal? He never said he could do a
zragkor
. That procedure was a mind suddenly inside another’s mind, violent, harsh.

I sensed no violence, no harshness in him or Ren anytime their warmth flowed into me. None at all. I didn’t even know if they were aware they sent the sensation, or that I could feel it.

Sully’s card trick perplexed me a little more. You can’t alter matter by touch, by thought. Even my Grizni was mechanical, a hybrid fluid metal reactive to heat and pressure applied at certain key points, coded only to my fingerprints.

There were only two logical explanations: either Sully did have second deck—why did I have to assume Ren’s reference to ‘Gabriel’s tricks’ meant something on the extrasensory level? Or he sent the emotional resonance of surprise, and acceptance, into me when he handed me the cards. I saw five heart-stars because that’s what I wanted to see.

He put the tea on the bedside table, drew me into his lap in the middle of the bed. He took a moment to undo my boots and his own, pulled them off. He wrapped his arms around my waist, nuzzled his face in my neck. “Tea’s for later. Though it’ll probably be cold by then.”

Warmth trickled through me, then a flash of heat, flaring, spiraling. Its unexpected intensity made my eyes open in surprise.

His own sharp intake of breath matched mine. The heat simmered. Gentled. “Sorry. I want so badly to make love to you, Chazzy-girl. But only if it’s what you want. Tell me to wait—”

I closed my hands over his. “I don’t want to wait.”

Another flare, flames dancing, but I was ready for it this time.

I draped my legs over his thighs, took his face in my hands. Kissed him with small, teasing, nibbling kisses.

He groaned. Tiny explosions rained inside my body.

He kissed me back, hard.

I opened my mouth, tasted him.

His hands found the edge of my shirt, pulled. I broke from the kiss, stripped my shirt off, then the undershirt. He ran his hands lightly over my breasts, his thumbs circling my nipples. His fingers slid down to my waist, stroking, then up again. The heat came in long, coursing flares.

I reached behind my head, unraveled my braid and shook my hair free. It fell to my waist, tangled and curled.

“Chaz,” he said softly. He ran his fingers through my hair, pushing it back from my face, letting it drift down through his hands.

I pulled the edge of his shirt out of his pants. His hand covered mine, impatient. He yanked the shirt over his head then grabbed me, rolling me onto my back. His hard length covered me. His mouth claimed mine, demanding, insistent. A strong hand cupped my breast. Then his lips burned against my neck, my shoulder, closed around a nipple, sucked with a tenderness that made me ache.

A hot wave rolled over me, soothing the ache, caressing it. Mouth back on mouth now. Breaths shuddered.

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I arched my hips against him, felt him throbbing, felt liquid fire racing through my veins. I ran my hands over the sinews of his shoulders, down to his waist, pushed my fingers into the waistband of his pants. “You going to take these off, or do I have to use my teeth?”

His dark eyes glittered with a dangerous passion. “We’ll save that method for next time. When we have more than five hours.” My pants and underwear came off, too, tossed somewhere over his shoulder. Then there was nothing but heat and hardness, hands stroking, fingers tracing, tongues leaving hot, wet trails. And fire, searing, cresting, spiraling. I knew it was his emotions I felt, overwhelming me, augmenting, and feeding my own. I found his mouth again, wanting to kiss that Sully-smile, that wicked, wicked Sully grin. My hands moved up his chest, through the thick mat of dark hair, and clung to his shoulders.

His hand slide under my backside, kneading me, lifting me, his hardness stroking against me, slick. I wrapped my legs around his waist, stroked back with my body. He trembled, kissed me with a passion that made me gasp.

“Sully, please!”

I didn’t have to ask twice. He plunged into me, sparks surging, cascading, swirling. My body answered with a fervency I didn’t know I had, pleasure streaming through me at hyperspace speeds. Everything collided, arcing. He rasped my name, stroking deeper.

And then I swear three suns went nova, half a galaxy was blown away and the universe shifted at least a hundred feet from where it had been before. But it was just Sully, his body hot and damp and heavy against mine, breathing long, ragged breaths against my neck. Sending warm, pulsing waves through me. I unwrapped my legs, let my feet drift down the back of his thighs in a slow caress. I stroked

his hair and when he moved slightly, bit his shoulder. He chuckled. “You’re a wicked woman, Chazzy-girl.” “You’re a wicked man, Sully.” And it was Sully. Because I was Chaz, not Chasidah. I dozed, curled against him, listening to the rise and fall of his breath. Warmth fluttered

through my hand and up my arm when I touched him, traced the line of his jaw. His eyes slitted open. He grabbed my hand, nibbled kisses on my fingers. “No regrets?” “None. Well, maybe.” A small flash of concern touched his eyes. His mouth turned into a slight frown. Wicked woman, Chazzy-girl. “I like my tea hot.” Something between a groan and a grumble rumbled in his throat. He pushed me back, slid on

top of me, slid inside me, hard, throbbing. “Let’s talk about heat.”

I couldn’t. Talk. Passion, hot, molten passion streamed through me. Then a second wave, but different, almost intoxicating. Then heat again, melting me, melting into me. Then another, floating, rising.

The heat returned, more intense, probing, wrapped around me. Parted, pleasure surged, building, cresting— “Oh, God, Chaz!” Shuddering, soaring, taking me with him, clinging to each other.

Desperate, frenzied kisses. Then warmth, soft as the breath on my face, enveloping me. I opened my eyes to find Sully watching me. Reading rainbows?

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“You can do that, control what you send? What you make me feel.” Like sensations of intense passion alternating with ones of languid pleasure. Like a sensation of acceptance. Five heart-stars in my hand.

A long wait was filled with the sound of his ragged breathing, finally slowing. He watched me the whole time.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I’m not supposed to ask—”

“No. It’s okay.” His was an equally as soft reply. Then Sully’s face was next to mine on the pillow, his arm across my chest, hand on my shoulder, pulling me closer against him.

“Yeah,” he said in my ear, just a breath of a whisper. A near silent confession. “Yeah, I can.”

* * *

Fifty minutes to exit-gate. The numbers glowing on my bedside clock focused and unfocused in my sleepy vision. Sully’s arm was heavy across my chest, his breathing deep, steady. I studied his face. Thick brows, dark lashes, straight nose. No Sully-grin on those slightly parted lips. Shame, that. When I’d heard he’d been killed on Garno, it was one of the first things I’d thought of. One of the things I knew I’d miss.

That, and the verbal sparring. Over six years of it. I’d pick up an ID on the border, somewhere in the bad lands. Somewhere a ship with that ID shouldn’t be. Send out a hail. Get an answer, a flash on the vidscreen. A dark-haired pirate with a wicked smile. His pilot, bridge crew, always moved in the shadows behind him.

“Slumming, Captain Bergren?”

“Weeding my garden, Sullivan. You wouldn’t happen to be waiting for the Osborn Mining long-hauler, now would you?”

“I’ve no use for synth-emeralds.”

“Never said they were hauling synth-emeralds.”

A languid shrug, almost aristocratic. “Lucky guess on my part, then.”

“You’re in a restricted area. You know the rules. Move it, or we’re boarding. You know how the Empire feels about forged ownership files.”

“I’m in free space, captain. Well,” and there’d be that glance down at the armpad controls on his left, on the empty pilot’s chair, “most of me is.”

My own downward glance always mirrored his own. Bastard. Sitting right on the border of the restricted zone, only his bridge and a small portion of the forward section of the ship in violation. “You’re playing a dangerous game here.”

“It’s the only kind worth playing.” Then a hand would be offered across the small starfield between us. And a look, dark and suggestive. “Come play with me, Chazzy-girl. I’ll let you win.”

* * *

The memory dissolved as a long intake of breath feathered against my face. A heavy arm moved slightly, and a hand stirred against the side of my neck. His face tilted. Our lips touched.

“Forty minutes to exit-gate, Sully.”

“Umm.” Another long sigh brushed my mouth. “You’re off duty.”

“I’m the captain.”

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His eyes opened slowly. His thumb rubbed across my mouth where his lips had just been. “And I suppose the captain wants her tea hot this time.”

I nipped his thumb then rolled quickly, avoiding his grasp. “Quick shower. And yes, hot tea. Not coffee. I’ll never get back to sleep.”

A raised eyebrow and a Sully-grin challenged my last statement. There were always Gabriel’s bedtime stories.

When I came out of the shower, tea was waiting, hot. Sully was gone. But a playing card fluttered out of my pants pocket when I picked my clothes off the floor.

Angel of heart-stars.

Thirty minutes to exit-gate. “Captain’s heading for the bridge.”

“Hell’s ass. There goes our card game.”

* * *

We flowed through the gate like honeylace from a crystalline cup. Sweet, sweet little ship, my P40. I thought about that, thought about how good it felt to be at a stellar helm again. And pushed aside those sullen whispers in my mind, those questions I didn’t want to face. Those fears...

Chapter Fifteen

We hit the C-D border at Calth early on the fourth day after jump. Ahead of schedule, praise the stars! Sublights were back to specs; better than specs because I didn’t have Fleet safety regs to worry about anymore. That Sully knew ways to coax more power out of the engines came as no surprise to me. I’d figured out long ago that rules existed to a great extent so that Sully could break them.

And that’s when he was just Sully. Not pirate, lover, ghost, friend, poet and mercenary, sitting at my engineering station, weapons silent but active. All ship’s sensors on serious watch for Imperial bogies.