His body lowered over hers; his weight braced on his forearms as the kiss grew longer and deeper still. Clara’s eyes closed and she gave in to all the sensation spiraling up and over her. He was invoking something beyond mere lust.
His body pressed against hers. A very masculine hardness pressed between her thighs, rubbing at the material covering her body. Fresh sensation spiraled along her nerve endings as his hands wandered over her body, the heat of his fingers soaking through the dress and sending shivers across the bare patches of her flesh.
The dress parted below those fingers of his. His fingertips stroked her skin, heating it and her passion. Her legs opened as his tongue continued to probe her mouth and drive her crazy. Her tongue responded and her hips arched below his, her body tendering an invitation that was undeniable.
His breath washed over her neck. His teeth closed over the soft skin there and tugged gently just above the heavy beat of her pulse, and her breath caught. Her nipples hardened, and her toes curled. Her fingers dug into his coarse and thick hair, and her mouth hung open in a hard pant as he took her nipples into his mouth, his long fingers cupping each breast as he took turns suckling first one nipple and then the other.
Clara stared down at his dark head against the white flesh of her breast, and long tremors rocketed across her body. He was making love to her in a slow and assured way, and she wanted more, so much more.
His hands moved lower, and so did his mouth. Little trails of fire streaked over her belly. His tongue left wetness in its wake, and an answering wetness erupted from within her core, streaming down her inner thighs. Her legs opened wider. His hands delved into that junction and found the very tip of her desire; his expert manipulation of the tight bud of flesh at the top of her mound left her shaking and gasping, her hips writhing as she sought to get closer to the fingers driving her toward the brink of a climax.
Renall’s hands shucked his clothes off to reveal a wiry and muscled body. His cock was large and long, and she whimpered as it pressed against the wet flesh at the center of her body and then he entered her, moving fast and hard. Clara responded, her body meeting his every thrust. He filled her body in a way she had never known. Her hands went to his shoulders, her nails digging in deeply. His mouth met hers again, and she kissed him back, her body finding the rhythm and keeping it as he began to move his hips faster and harder, pounding into her now.
Climax hit. Clara came hard, her voice lifting in a low, slow, and very loud moan. Renall’s moan was equally noisy, and then he shuddered one time before going rigid and hanging onto her, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her neck before releasing her.
They lay together in a tangle of cooling limbs and slowing breath. Renall spoke softly. “Clara, I have to tell you, to be honest with you.”
“Don’t.”
Her fingers went to his lips. She did not want to hear him say that he could not be with her. She knew that already. What she really did not want to hear was that he was sorry that he had bedded her. She was not sorry about it. She could not be. She had liked it, very much. She wanted more, in fact. She shifted a bit, letting her body rest next to his. His skin was smooth and cool to the touch now that the heat of desire had fled from him.
She looked at him. “So, how did you get from the mines to here?”
He blinked. “You want to know?”
She smiled. “I know you are a wrecker. I also know you had to be. But what I don’t know is what else you did, and you do not have to tell me. I just wonder how you could go from such a place of darkness to this.”
His face registered more surprise. He paused. He said, “We flew for a few days, in the stolen ship. We were low on fuel and scared. We were young then, you see. We had no idea where we were, or what to do next.
“Talon had figured out the controls enough to fly, but none of us could figure out the rest of it. To be honest, that first day, after we were sure we had really gotten away, we basically ate and drank everything on the ship we could find. We were starving, you see.”
Clara felt pity worm into her heart. “I am sure you were.”
Renall sighed. “We found a small, half-ruined planet on the brink of some darkened system. It was mostly dead stars, and abandoned. There have been crater wars there so there were no people and there was little in the way of food, but we managed.”
Her head tilted. “What’s a crater war?”
His eyes met hers. He spoke softly. “I keep forgetting that you humans did not know about other life in the galaxy until just a few hundred years ago. The Crater Wars were…long ago when travel through the wormholes began to collapse due to overuse. Those wormholes were the trade routes and when they started going, the Federation that existed then began to limit how often a craft could fly, and how many journeys each system could make through them. A lot of smaller systems felt it was unfair. It was unfair. Smaller systems were left without a lot of ability to journey and bring in things they needed or to export the things that paid for the things they needed. The Crater Wars began when systems and planets fought each other for the rights to use the remaining wormholes. The traffic through them eventually collapsed them too, but before that happened, many a system and planet died.”
Horror hit. “And the beings in them?”
“They died too. Not just from the war though. When the wormholes collapsed, they sucked systems near them into the gravitational clutch. The whole atmosphere collapsed, and the planets imploded due to pressure. We could see, quite easily, that the one we landed in was from war and not from being trapped. Thankfully. If we had wandered too close to one that had been trapped, we would have died instantly.”
“Remind me not to go near a system like that,” she snuggled deeper against him, relishing the feel of his body against hers.
“There are very few gravitational pulls like that still existing. The ones that do are usually clearly marked. That is one good thing the Federation managed to do.”
His words held a ring of something she understood. Anger. She tilted her head up so she could look into his face. “You don’t like the Federation.”
Renall said, “I think having laws in place is a good thing. But the fact is the Federation interferes too much. It’s like your own government. They know the past, and they are afraid of repeating it. They created laws to make sure that it didn’t get repeated. But when the law disregards the beings it is supposed to serve, it isn’t very just.”
Clara’s heart throbbed painfully. “I have to admit, that about sums it up.”
He asked, “Why did you break the law knowing the consequences?”
The past was hurtful, but she could see that his was as well. He had opened up to her about it too. How could she do any less? “I suppose when I was a child it didn’t occur to me that there might be consequences. I mean, yes, they told me. I knew we lived differently and that things were dangerous. I saw neighbors being taken by the Capos. But as a child, those stories of what happened to the criminals felt like stories, you know?
As I got older, I understood the consequences a lot more. The difference then was clearer, however. Our tables kept us from starving. Old Toronto is built above and below, that was a holdover from the ancient days when they built underground for pleasure I think. Anyway, those who lived under, we didn’t have the things that we needed. We were not able to grow, so we had to buy. Those above who could grow were regulated and watched, but there were many who were able to grow extra foods, fruits, and grain that they could and did say had gone bad from blight or drought or the acidic rainfall. They’d send it under, and only those with coin or credits could buy it.
