But she just matched my gaze. She had a hungry look in her eyes that might have been the whisky hitting her, or it might have been something else. “You mind loosening me up?”
“Not at all.”
She laughed lightly and turned her back to me.
“Although the way you’re killing that bottle, you’re going to be pretty loose on your own.”
“Yeah, that’s the thing, Adventure Boy. I don’t much feel like being loose on my own. That’s all I have been doing.”
“I see.” I started massaging her, but somehow I had the feeling we were not talking about tight shoulder muscles anymore.
“Do you? How about you stop nursing your drink and try to keep up.” I couldn’t see her expression, but the tone of her voice was teasing.
“Oh yeah?”
“I almost forgot.” She reached around and withdrew something else from her bag. “Here you go.” She tossed me another bottle. This was a smaller plastic squeeze tube.
“What’s this?”
“I took the Sark-Lhomas Black from my dad’s cabin and this from my mom’s. It’s from her stash of Cléaido Chalaine.”
I recognized the brand name as a high-end cosmetic company. Lira had a lot of their products.
“My mom’s a freak about skincare products,” Kira said. “But I figured it would make a good massage oil.”
“Kind of expensive massage oil,” I said, as I squirted some on my hands and began working the creme into her back.
“I’m worth it.”
“I guess you are.”
Kira cooed with pleasure. “A little lower on the back, please.”
I took a drink and then continued with the massage.
“That’s nice. Keep it up.”
“I could keep it up all night,” I said with a smile.
“Really? Good to know.”
We continued to flirt and drink and flirt some more. At first I was a little concerned about how hard Kira was hitting it, but as the whisky took effect on me, I became less focused in that, and more focused in Kira’s body.
She obviously picked up on that, urging me to massage her lower and lower.
“Don’t be stingy with the Cléaido,” she said.
“No problem.”
I inched my hands down her spine, working her tight muscles, as she moaned quietly.
Then she wriggled out of her pants and underwear.
“Lower,” she whispered.
“You sure?”
“Yes, please.”
Things progressed from there. We both went a little wild, lost in each other and in a whisky haze. But I felt a real passion through it all. It wasn’t just animalistic coupling. Although there was plenty of that. And unlike sex with Lira, there was no sense of degradation or dominance, even as we pushed it to the edge. Kira just opened herself up fully to me, and I to her.
At some point I fell into a restless slumber and dreamt all kinds of dreams that caused me to wake up at various points during the night, with my heart pounding and my skin hot with sweat. I checked on Kira, but she was sleeping like an angel.
The only dream I could remember was an odd one, obviously influenced by what had happened over the past several days.
Kira and I were at a jungle camp, kind of like the Larks’ camp. But this one was our camp. We were doing some kind of research together.
But in the dream I was relaxing. Stretched out on a lounge chair in the center of the camp where we had set up a patio with a table and a cooking area. I sipped a delicious cup of fresh-brewed moxa and flipped through my datapad, scrolling through the feeds. It was sunny and warm, and I felt great.
Kira came out of the lab and asked me something.
I missed what she said, because I couldn’t stop staring at her face.
She was older. A decade older, at least. But she was still beautiful. Maybe more so. Her features had softened a bit, and her hair was lighter and longer, flowing in soft waves to her shoulders. The morning sun hit her from behind, surrounding her face with a soft glowing aura.
She asked me the question again. And this time I heard it.
“Where’s Sean?”
I was confused. “My dad?”
“Very funny.” She glanced around, then called out, “Sean?”
I sensed motion at the corner of my vision, and when I turned, I saw a little kid running into the patio area. He couldn’t have been more than five years old. He was dressed in a little blue outfit and had a shock of light blond hair.
Kira reached her hand down to him and the little kid took it. “C’mon, you said you’d help mommy with the exembro slides.”
“Yay!” The boy turned to me and said, “We’ll be in the lab if you need us.” The he pulled away from Kira and started skipping away.
Holy shit. The kid looked exactly like me when I was his age.
I wanted to say something, ask who he was, but I was frozen.
Kira broke the spell by leaning down and giving me a quick kiss. “Way to look after him,” she teased quietly.
And then I woke up, breathing hard.
What the hell was that all about?
The next morning, I was the first one up. Kira remained curled up in the sleeping bag with a smile on her face. Her dreams probably weren’t as weird and exhausting as mine. Or maybe they were the same as mine, but she just reacted differently. Who knew?
I grabbed my clothes and crawled out of the tent to dress. I didn’t want to disturb Kira, even though I knew we would have to hit the road soon.
“Good morning to you, Jannigan Beck,” TenSix said. “I trust you had an enjoyable evening.”
“Yeah, it was fine.”
“More than fine, from what I observed. Some of sexual acts you performed with Dr. Lark are actually—”
“Tell me you were not spying on us.”
“Of course not, I was on guard outside of your tent,” TenSix said. “But the walls are thin, and you were rather loud, and—”
“Okay, enough. Let’s not talk about it.”
I stood up and took in the view. Below us, the river cut through a canyon, moving slowly. A layer of mist
