Amidst a Crowd of Stars (2 page)

She didn't bother arguing with his impractical suggestion she never wear clothes again. At that moment, the thought appealed to her so greatly, she was more than willing to believe in it. She kissed his chest and tasted his warmth. Keane's arms closed around her, cradling her.

“I love you,” she said, emotion all at once hitting her harder than she'd expected. “I would never have been what I am today if not for you.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I love you too, Marrin.”

His fingers traced lazy circles on her bare back. She looked to the sunken tub set into the tiled floor and smiled. He'd filled it with steaming water and floated gillyflower petals on top. She breathed their scent and tilted her head back again to look up at him.

“Are you going to join me in there?”

He smiled, revealing bright, white and shining teeth. It was the happy grin that had been the first thing she'd noticed about him all those years ago.

She needed help getting into the steaming water, but Keane held both her elbow and her hip in such a way she was able to slide into the tub in what seemed an effortless motion. He knew how her hips and knees pained her. He was always there to lift and carry for her, to open doors, to help her with stairs. He never made it seem as though she couldn't do it on her own. Always, every assistance came as though it sprang naturally forth from everything else he did to care for her—everything he had done for years.

Marrin settled into the water with a sigh and breathed in the scent of the flowers. He'd added oil to the water too, and it glided along her skin.

“Such luxury,” she teased. “An entire tub full of water, just for me?”

“Maybe I'll have to share it.”

“Maybe you will.”

The water slopped over the sides of the tub when he got in, and they both laughed. She slid into his arms, her back against his front, and he cradled her.

“I can remember when there was no water for bathing like this. When we washed once a week and used the bathwater for irrigation.”

“We still do,” he reminded. “Only now it goes out through a drain and into the earth, instead of being poured by hand from the tub.”

She laughed. Against her back, his cock lengthened and grew hard. Marrin nestled closer. Keane's hands came around to cup her breasts.

Her nipples tightened instantly beneath his skilled fingers. He pinched them lightly between his thumb and forefingers, tugging gently. Pull, release, and again, followed by a circling motion.

Her clit pulsed in time to his treatment of her nipples and she parted her legs. The hot, slick water washed over her pussy like a tongue, licking. Marrin shuddered and let out a small moan.

Keane slid one hand down her side, over her hip, then between her legs. His fingertip unerringly found her swelling bud. He stroked it, dipping low to caress her folds before moving back up to place steady pressure on the bundle of nerves.

The fingers on her nipple pulled and released without ever letting go. In a moment, the fingers on her clit did the same. Pull, release in small, steady movements that nonetheless caused the sensation to build up and up until she became mindless with it.

She writhed, back arching, legs spreading to allow him free access to wherever he wished to touch her. “Keane—”

He murmured words of love in his native language she didn't need to understand to know their meaning. He lifted her in the water, the hand on her clit leaving for a moment to slide beneath her buttocks. His other hand came down to grip his penis and guide it inside her. He seated her on him, her head tilted back to rest upon his shoulder and her breasts pushed upward, out of the water.

He moved her, letting the water aid him. Keane thrust inside her with exquisite slowness. His fingers went back to circling on her clit.

The shallow thrusts rubbed her just behind her pubic bone and made her moan and shift, seeking to thrust herself further down on his shaft. Wanting to fill herself with him. His cry as she succeeded forced an answering one from her throat.

She rocked herself against him, losing herself in the pleasure washing over her. The slap of the water against her only aided the sensation of his hands on her. It rushed over her clit and breasts and belly, caressing her in every place his hands were not and in other places when his fingers found those.

His cock extended and contracted inside her as he neared his climax. Knowing he was so close made her orgasm tumble toward her like rocks rolling down a hill. A flurry and rumble of sensation built inside her, gathering together, gaining speed, centered in her clit, but drawing sensation from all the rest of her body.

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.”

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.