“Bea, leave the Maine’s comms open and patch them through to me,” Darren instructed and gestured Aiden to go into the crawlspace first. Trailing behind, he donned one of the earpieces he had on him, then used the scanner inside the shaft to seal the opening. That left the strip of dim red lights along the right-hand side as the only illumination guiding them.
“Aye, aye,”Bea chirped in his ear through the small device.
By the time she made her way to the airlock and welcomed the officers with a sassy remark, Aiden was hauling himself off the edge of the tunnel and into the rectangular-shaped hiding compartment. Plastering his back to the far wall, he occupied as little space as he could. Darren joined him with an equally graceless vault, and when he straightened up, he realized just how tight the space was. They were standing chest to chest and head to head, and the air thinned suddenly, becoming heavy around them as it charged with the pressure of an incoming storm. Little bolts of lightning rode up Darren’s arms and back, prickling and heating his skin and making him feel like he was standing on a precipice before a bottomless lake, ready to plunge into it and dreading it at the same time.
Did Aiden feel it too? Was he too just as conscious of their closeness as Darren was?
It was too dim for Darren to make out the hazel irises or the gold in Aiden’s eyes, but he was sure they were but a thin rim around the likely blown-out pupils looking right into his very soul. The proximity between the two of them brought with it extreme awareness of himself and Aiden, of the heat that seeped from one body into the other, and vice versa. Darren’s heart thrashed wildly in his chest and through the points of contact that they shared, he could feel Aiden’s, too. It was frantic, betraying his agitation just as openly.
Darren trembled. Puffs of air ghosted over his lips from Aiden’s, which were so close yet utterly unreachable, taunting him to claim them, to taste them like he had in the shuttle on their way back from the mansion ruins while Aiden had slept. For a moment, he’d not been able to stop himself, placing a chaste kiss on Aiden’s mouth as he’d brushed his thumb over the wet trail of a tear rolling down Aiden’s cheek.
A tear Aiden had shed while dreaming of him and Sara.
“Aiden,” Darren whispered, splaying his hand over Aiden’s chest to catch that rapid heartbeat. “Turn around.” Aiden’s copper eyebrow rose in question. His lips pursed slightly. “Face the wall,” Darren insisted, nudging with his shoulder.
Aiden tensed a little and Darren half-assumed half-saw the hard look on his frowning face. There was a reason why Darren had brought Aiden here, but he really didn’t want to ruin the surprise.
“Aiden, do you trust me?”
It was after the words had left his mouth that Darren realized the gravity of his own question. He’d not meant to pose it—not like this and not carrying the meaning it inevitably did—but now that he had, he wondered what Aiden’s answer would be.
As he waited for a response, he contemplated how he would’ve reacted had Aiden been the one to ask.
Tracing the curve of Aiden’s shoulder through the fabric of his shirt, Darren arrived at his answer within a couple heartbeats. It seemed Aiden had made his decision at the same time too, because he bobbed his head and spun around. Due to the tight dimensions of the hiding space, his back ended up pressed into Darren’s front, but he didn’t protest. No, he didn’t do that at all. He let their bodies mold better to each other, slot together, as if he could read Darren’s mind, and this was his reply.
As if he too was seeking more contact with Darren, needed it in that same desperate way Darren sought it out.
Darren ran one hand down Aiden’s spine and let it rest at the small of Aiden’s back. He placed his other one over Aiden’s shoulder as he leaned slightly forward and pushed his hips back so his hardening length wouldn’t press against the tempting outline of Aiden’s ass.
Being close to Aiden like this made his entire body sing. Each point of contact sent little zaps of electricity toward his groin, taking him from semi to full hard in the matter of seconds. To feel the firm, solid form of the man in front of him was ecstasy and torture, yet it wasn’t why Darren had asked Aiden to turn around as much as part of him wished it was.
Darren lifted his hand from Aiden’s shoulder to a slightly protruding square section just to the left and pressed it. The click of the mechanism was lost to the chatter between Bea and the GN officers in his earpiece, who were now in the elevator, on their way to the main level of the frigate.
Just as they arrived and headed for engineering, a seam appeared in the middle of the gray wall he and Aiden faced, causing its now two sections to slide slowly to either side. Before they retreated fully, Darren pressed the square again, and this time the floor beneath their feet transformed, losing its black opacity to reveal a thick sheet of transparent glass. Beyond it, the sleek curves of the Maine’s hull and orbital ring gleamed in a sheen of obsidian black, and further behind in the distance, the flickering antenna lights of satellites and comms towers swarmed a ball-sized Earth.
Aiden gasped softly, tensing momentarily. Darren absorbed the sharp inhale with his entire body and smiled, breathing in the scent of spring wildflowers that somehow still lingered on Aiden. Leaning some of his weight onto Aiden, he put the second earpiece in Aiden’s ear. They remained like this, wordlessly staring out at the abyss-like universe while listening to Bea’s obnoxious hospitality until the GN officers had enough of it and promptly left the ship.
