Chapter Nine

Orin woke up to the familiar sensation of a warm body in his bed, pressed close against his side.

A thoroughly ruffled crop of bright hair tickled the bottom of his chin as Ari’s head shifted with every breath.

Careful not to wake him, Orin ran his fingers gently down the elegant lines of Ari’s back.

Gorgeous.

His skin felt like silk, running smooth and unblemished under Orin’s hands. Felt like something he ought not to be touching, to tell the truth.

Felt like something he might break with his big, clumsy hands.

Felt like something too good for the likes of him.

No denying that.

Dr. Aristotle Campbell was definitely too good for him.

Lucky for them both that Orin wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Pretty little Core scientist wants to slum it up in Orin’s bed, and he wasn’t going to be the one to kick him out. Man like that should come to his senses soon enough. Best not to get attached, just hold on and enjoy the ride while he could.

Damn, but he was sweet though.

Too bad he didn’t come with the ship at the end of their contract.

Orin swallowed that line of thought down quicker than a shot of whiskey. No point even going there, nothing at the end of that track.

Truth was, Orin had landed himself in a real sweet spot, and he’d be a fool to throw a wrench in it by trying to make this more than it was.

Just a week ago, Orin had been cut adrift and sinking fast, no ship, no pay, no prospects.

Then he picked up on a rumor some Core stiff was hunting for a pilot with the skill and discretion to get him through the deep dark, and here he was.

Sitting pretty with a redhead in his lap and a ship coming his way when his contract was up.

Couldn’t ask for better. Already getting better than he deserved, and that was a fact.

Ari lifted his head, blinking blearily up at him before busting out in a full-body flush.

Orin had never seen anything more precious.

Sweet thing was trying to keep the sheet wrapped around himself while he used his foot on the floor to scoot his trousers close enough to reach.

Orin grazed his hand along Ari’s arm, ending up tangling their fingers.

“Hold up, now, beautiful, where’s the fire?”

Poor thing couldn’t meet his eye, slender fingers twitching before tentatively wrapping around Orin’s hand. Orin’s heart jumped in his chest at the gesture, dumb beast that it was.

Ari peered up at him through those spun-gold lashes as if he didn’t even know the havoc that kind of thing could wreak in a man. As if he didn’t even know the kind of damage he could do with a pair of pretty green eyes. As if he didn’t know Orin was already doing his best not to drown in them.

Ari’s morning voice was soft and sweet with just a hint of raspiness.

“Perhaps… Perhaps it would be best if I were to return to my bunk, to allow you to prepare for the day without. Without my intrusion.”

Orin’s chest gave a painful squeeze, sending him scrambling for something to keep Ari by his side just a little while longer. He arranged his face into a gentle smirk, brushing the hair out of Ari’s face, each strand like satin beneath his fingers.

“Ain’t you gonna tell me good morning, gorgeous? It’s only polite.”

Ari offered a tiny smile, evidently unable to decide between staring up at Orin’s face and down at his bare chest.

“Good morning,” he whispered.

Orin pulled on their entangled hands, drawing him closer.

Because here was the thing about Orin Stone.

He might not know much, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that good things like this didn’t come by real often, and when they did, they went by real fast.

Best to keep hold of a good thing until either your grubby fingers broke or it slipped away again the way all good things did.

He brushed a kiss across Ari’s forehead, keeping their fingers wrapped up in each other.

“Morning, sweetheart. C’mere.”

He lifted Ari’s lean body with ease, laying him on top so that every inch of their skin was touching from neck to knees.

The bright pink of Ari’s skin clashed gloriously with his hair, his lips flushed a few shades darker. Orin couldn’t have turned away if you paid him.

Ari ducked his head, probably to escape Orin’s dumbstruck stare.

Damn. He really needed to play it cool. He’d been tripping over himself from the moment he fell into those pretty eyes, and he needed to pull up on the reins before Ari got spooked.

He needed to back off. In a minute. After Ari stopped pressing tiny little kisses under his jaw and rubbing his perfect body all over Orin like the sweetest little kitten you ever saw.

Aw, hell. He wasn’t made of stone, just named for it. It’d take a better man than him to pull away now.

He could feel Ari’s cock hardening against his stomach, thankful he’d gotten a good glimpse of it last night. Just as pink and pretty as the rest of him, and as sensitive as he’d ever come across.

Made him want to keep the professor in his bed for days and days, just bringing him over the edge until he turned his amazing brain to mush, all that fancy book learning set aside for a little while. Until he could only think of Orin.

They both hissed as Ari shifted, rubbing their cocks together accidentally.

Now, there was an idea.

They’d spent all night taking turns with mouths and hands, Orin’s standard getting-to-know-you routine. But nothing like this. Orin could definitely get behind some full-body mutual writhing.

He took hold of Ari’s hips, lifting and angling him so their cocks slotted together, the tip of Ari’s nudging under Orin’s cockhead with every nudge forward.

Ari pushed up to straddle him, hands braced against his chest and slender thighs forced apart by the bulk of Orin’s body, the sheets falling forgotten around Orin’s knees.

Orin’s mouth opened before his brain could catch up. “Yeah. That’s it, baby. There you go.”

Orin lifted his palm to Ari’s face, gently holding it against his mouth until he caught on and started licking. Holy shit, he was pretty as a picture, pink tongue slipping out to peek between Orin’s fingers, golden lashes trembling.

If he wasn’t careful, his big dumb mouth would run away with him again, babbling every nonsense thought in his head. Mostly just a running commentary on how unbelievably beautiful Ari was, as if a man like that didn’t already know. He was probably sick of hearing it, but Orin couldn’t help himself.

He licked his palm as well for good measure before wrapping his hand around them both, pressing them tightly together.

Ari shivered, staring down at Orin’s hand. Orin had been relieved to discover that, rather than being discouraged by Orin’s size, he seemed to revel in it. Orin had sometimes started up with partners with a lot more experience only to have them back out when they saw what he was packing.

The corner of his mouth kicked up with pride. It’d take more than what Orin had to frighten off Dr. Aristotle Campbell.

Orin wrapped his other hand around one narrow hip, encouraging Ari to resume his rocking motion, moving his hips in tandem so they pushed together and pulled away at just the right rhythm.

The helpless little moans panting out of Ari’s mouth dropped Orin’s own mouth open, words pouring out like a broken dam.

“Beautiful like this. Doing so good, baby. So perfect for me.”

The way Ari’s eyes rolled back whenever Orin called him perfect made Orin want to do nothing but whisper it into the delicate shell of his ear for the rest of his life. Wouldn’t exactly be a hardship, telling the truth all day.

Too bad he couldn’t get attached.

Ari, lips parted, raked his fingers through the hair on Orin’s chest before picking up the pace, watching Orin’s fist avidly.

Orin matched their rhythm with his hand, pleased when Ari clutched at Orin’s arm, squeezing along with the flex of his muscles, blissed-out little face like he was in heaven.

Orin could do better than that.

He rubbed his finger up under Ari’s ridge, causing him to shudder and whine and fall into a million beautiful pieces, spilling onto Orin’s stomach.

Orin swiped his palm through the mess before he flipped them over, hovering on his knees as he used the slick to strip his cock, rough with himself in his rush. Ari lay splayed out under him, hands gently curled and tucked up sweet on the pillow by his head. He caught Orin’s eyes with a flash of green under heavy lids, lips wet and quivering with every shaky breath. Orin fell over the edge like a man riding off a cliff.

Ari barely waited for Orin to clean him off with a corner of the sheet before he was pulling his trousers on, tugging his shirt over his head with his back turned, like Orin hadn’t been the one to leave that kiss stain on his hip. His skin marked up prettier than parchment, and Orin couldn’t wait to leave his signature.

Ari turned with his boots dangling from one hand, the rest of his clothing bundled under his arm. He attempted to smooth his hair as he took a deep breath, Orin grinning at the way it sprang back up defiantly.

“I should. Thank you for. For an exceptionally pleasant interlude. I really should get back to my lab now, stop wasting so much time,” he said haltingly, unable to decide between examining the floor or Orin’s face.

Orin pushed at the hurt that bubbled up at being considered a waste of time. No sense expecting anything more. Not much different than being a meaningless diversion, tell the truth.

He held out his hand, black silk ribbon garter dangling from his fingers.

“Ain’t you forgetting something, sweetheart?”

Ari snatched it with a return of his fiery blush, casting one more shy glance over his shoulder as he rushed from the room.

Orin fell back on the bed with a sigh, beating down the rising tide of feelings that wouldn’t do any good to anybody, resigning himself to spending the rest of the day reviewing his flight calculations for errors.

*

He had been doing just that for hours, hunched over his pad at the little table in the main cabin and stuffing his face, when he was interrupted by a shout from the end of the corridor.

Aristotle burst out of his laboratory like a man possessed, hair sticking up around the brass safety goggles shoved on top of his head.

His shaking hands clutched a roll of parchment which he struggled to spread open as he hurried over to throw himself into the seat across from Orin with no regard for the effect his flailing limbs might have on Orin’s lunch.

“I’ve got it. I have. I really have, this time. I-I-I-I found him! Look at this. Look!”

Orin cautiously lowered his gaze to the parchment, suppressing a wince at the loopy Core script scrawled haphazardly across. The notes had been written by an increasingly unsteady hand, the lines getting shakier toward the bottom of the parchment.

Ari watched him expectantly, the whites of his eyes visible all the way around. He leaned in excitedly.

“You see? The data from the samples gives away his location!”

Orin nodded slowly, trying to subtly push the parchment away from himself and closer to Ari.

“Yeah. Yup, I see that. Sure do. But, just for the sake of clarity, why don’t you break it down for me?”

Ari nodded like his head was on a spring, goggles sliding off the back of his head to land on the floor with a concerning crunch as he pushed to stand.

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll just fetch my pad, shall I?”

The question appeared to be rhetorical as he was already careening back down the hallway to the lab, returning in moments with only the sound of something falling with the echo of breaking glass left behind.

This time, he slid onto the bench beside Orin, the force of his enthusiasm alone enough to shift Orin’s bulk all the way to the edge.

His long, pale fingers trembled as he activated the pad, pulling up layers of projections, some of which, Orin was relieved to see, were written in standard block.

The pad rattled against the table as Ari balanced it against the edge with one hand, his entire body practically vibrating.

“As you can see here, I was able to retrieve samples A, B, and C from the site of the abduction. Sample B turned out to have been soil from Britannia, but I had been unable to properly identify samples A and C. Until today!”

Orin nodded, trying to fold himself smaller to make room for Ari on the bench.

“I was able to identify sample C after our initial foray onto the Verge, standard sediment from simulated iron ore, found on most man-made settlement structures on the Verge. But this”—Ari’s fingers flung projections left and right as he zoomed in on a baffling chemical formula—“sample A. It’s the key. Because I knew. I knew he had gone beyond the Verge. But where? That was the question. Sample A is the answer. Tantalum.”

Orin blinked. Ari took this as encouragement.

“Tantalum! Illegal in the Core, illegal to transport across the Verge. Because where does it originate?”

Understanding crept along the back of Orin’s mind like a thief in the night, bludgeon lifted to knock him off his ass.

Ari’s eyes grew wilder and wilder, green glowing with an unholy light as he continued.

“The Restricted Sector! Of course!”

Orin turned as much as he could in the limited space of the bench, resting his arm over the top, fingertips brushing against Ari’s vibrating shoulders.

He gave a disbelieving frown. “You think your brother was taken to the Restricted Sector?”

It would be generous to say Ari nodded when, really, he did his level best to fling his head from his neck by sheer force of enthusiasm.

“Yes! You see, the reason I could not properly identify sample A was because in my initial haste I had falsely identified it as niobium! I’m not a chemist, you understand; I’m a geologist. I merely minored in chemistry in my undergraduate studies. That’s why it took me so long to determine the minute but crucial differences. Niobium tells me nothing. Tantalum tells me everything!”

Orin tightened his lips against the sinking sensation in his gut. The hope on his little face was so bright, he had to squint against it. Damn, but he didn’t want to be the man to shut that hope down. He tried to speak clearly and quietly.

“I’m real glad you found a clue, sweetheart, but even if you know where he went, you still need to find the right exit point. We gotta listen for a song to lead the way out. Can’t just jump the Verge blind and hope we hit the jackpot.”

Ari gripped Orin’s arm, surprising strength in his delicate hands.

“So that’s what we do. We follow your loop to find the exit point, gather some more information to pinpoint his location. Then we jump the Verge and follow your navigational calculations into the Restricted Sector. This is why I engaged your services—to navigate past the Verge. You said you knew your way around the deep dark; now I just need you to get us through to the other side.”

Orin pulled his arm away, worrying the corner of his lip with his thumb as he frowned, a nervous habit he usually tried to keep better control of. Aristotle Campbell was proving to have a distinctly negative impact on Orin’s control.

“No, see, this is not what we agreed on. This isn’t some little trip past the Verge. This ain’t just dipping our toes in the deep dark and skipping back home. You’re talking about breaking into the Restricted Sector. Real restricted. The kinda restricted that means we’d be banned from the Core and sent away to rot in a Verge prison for the rest of our days. If we’re lucky.”

Ari shrugged, acting more like they were discussing what to have for supper than contemplating the possibility of making life-ruining decisions. “That’s only if we are caught.”

Orin couldn’t help his eyes going round as rivets.

“If we’re caught? Are you listening to yourself? Holy shit, Red. You’d think since I’ve gotten real close and personal with the area that I would’ve noticed those ten-pound balls you’ve been lugging around.”

Ari leveled him with a look Orin could’ve sworn he’d been too innocent to give just the day before, taking a tour of Orin’s body before landing back on his face with a lifted brow.

“Perhaps you simply haven’t been paying attention.”