Liam’s attention fixed on the design that indicated his cabal affiliation. With a soft puff of breath, he curved closer still to trace the icon with his tongue in a way that felt almost spiritual. Liam appeared to realize what that icon meant to him, understood how it manifested his identity in a physical form.
Liam understood what it meant to Mike.
He honored that importance.
Mike threaded his fingers through Liam’s hair as he worked his mouth, that agile and talented tongue, across the breath of Mike’s chest, from one pectoral to the other. When Liam’s lips closed around one nipple, a long-unused conduit of pure sensation came to life between his nipple and his cock.
Push Liam away? No. Instead, he pulled Liam closer to encourage Liam’s suckling mouth draw harder on the tiny, tender nub.
“Ah!”
::Dark stars that feels good.::
“Liam…”
::I know, babe. I can feel your pleasure. It makes me hot. So hot.::
Then Liam’s mouth was gone as his attention shifted. One hand, then also the second hand, caught his left forearm. Thought struggled to push sensation aside inside Mike’s mind.
::What’s that?::
Liam’s attention had telescoped down to the markings on his arm. Curiosity overrode sexual exploration like a bucket of water tipped onto his head. The shift tore Mike from the sensual web they’d spun together.
“What’s this say?” Liam traced a finger across the permanent marking.
Galvanized, he jerked his arm free. ::No! Not for you!:: Mike’s power on this light gravity world was such that Liam was spun by the force of his action and he crashed against the tabletop. It tipped on two legs as Liam struggled for balance, but came back to the floor with a thump. Shock slashed into Mike’s awareness, as well as confusion and emotional injury.
Liam tried to push himself off his stomach with trembling arms.
Pain, his and Liam’s, slammed into Mike, like he’d piloted his flight suit into a stone wall. Mike bit his cheek as guilt flooded him.
He’d knocked Liam hard. Too hard. I can’t do this, Arvidnan.
Too much damage has been done to me, and I’m hurting others.
Fuck, all he wanted to do was sleep. Sleep forever Mike stepped backward, putting distance between them before he unwittingly caused more damage to that delicious, accessible and willing body and mind. He cut the connection between them, a sharp severing that sliced through him like a knife to the gut.
Liam’s howl of protest filled the air and blew though his mind like a tornado.
“What are you doing?” Liam sobbed.
The sound was like the grieving at a graveside. Maybe it was.
But one reality remained. ::This has to happen.::
“::Why?::” Liam wailed, both aloud and along the mind-link.
“I can’t do this.”
Liam managed to force himself onto straightened arms and watched him, his eyes filled with tears and betrayal. He pushed up from the tabletop.
“Can’t or won’t?” he challenged.
The question stole his breath. Mike didn’t have an answer for Liam or for himself. So he said nothing and, in truth, bailed like the cowardly fuck he was.
He felt Liam’s pain the entire journey to his barracks. In fact, he felt Liam’s pain, the grief and disappointment of his cabal, and Steve’s rage. The maelstrom of emotions swirled through Mike like a stomach-churning tornado.
The storm raged through him unabated, even as he shoved himself through the door to his quarters. He paced a restless circle from his living area to his kitchen to his bedroom again and again.
The tempest churned.
His stomach churned.
He shouldn’t be alive. He should have died on that mission.
He’d refused the volunteer mission. Arvidnan hadn’t. And, as he’d figured, the mission had been shot to shit-fuck, but if he’d been there, he could have…
He’d anticipated exactly what had happened, death and destruction and explosions. A trap, he’d warned.
Ignored.
Why had Arvidnan volunteered? He’d begged him to retract his decision. Begged. But no. Arvidnan had been determined. His adnama had refused to stay behind. He’d teased Mike and promised him a fiery reunion upon his return. Then the trap had closed.
Mike was first in the ship to rescue and retrieve their cabal mates.
But too late. He’d arrived too late.
Live for me.
He jerked himself free from his memories and discovered he’d found a perch on a kitchen chair with a bottle in his hand. One from his own personal stock aboard the distant ship. Almost empty, too. Now that was giving him a buzz.
Sweet, precious oblivion beckoned.
He finished off the bottle of tart, blue booze with a single, long pull. It should have burned a path down his gut, but it didn’t, at least not now. It probably had early on in the bottle.
He stood, chucked the bottle into the trash and headed for his bedroom. Inside, he flung himself into his bed. Sleep pulled at him, heavy and sweet. He should get undressed.
His boots. Probably not a good idea to sleep with them on. The laces were beyond complex, but he managed and kicked them off his feet anyway. Two soft thumps sounded somewhere around his bed. Where…? It didn’t matter. He’d find them later.
Mike decided he’d undressed enough. Since there was no one to complain about his choice of bed clothing, he decided not to give a shit either. He groped for and seized his bunk controls. After confirming his readiness for duty tomorrow, he dialed in a command for ten hours of hibernation and relaxed into the soft embrace.
The cool sleep of emptiness folded him with its endless blanket of softness Like that blanket around Liam…
* * *
Mike awakened to the sensation of being watched. Annoyance rained down on him like a hailstorm. Something wasn’t right. He’d been in hibernation and should be feeling both perky and refreshed, not like he was on the ass end of someone’s bad day.
He cracked open his eyes and suffered a shock. Above him, beside his bed, stood his cabal’s commander. Frown wrinkles mapped his face. Impatience simmered beneath his
