Queen of Dust, page 8
Calvy woke disoriented when she lowered herself onto the bed’s edge. He propped himself up on his elbows and Mara could feel the hectic rush under his skin when she put a hand on his back, her palm flat between his shoulder blades. Her pulse raced to match it.
“It’s Mara,” she said.
He rolled onto his back and pressed the heels of his palms into unfocused eyes. She hadn’t had a chance to admire his body the last time she’d found pleasure in his embrace, but now, with him lying there, his breathing hitched and uneven, she could see the chiseled form that had been hidden beneath his uniform.
His straight hair was loose, slanting across his forehead, and for a moment he looked so boyish and kind that Mara felt she didn’t know him at all. She combed his hair back, the strands soft and smooth between her fingers, until his face appeared again: the face of a Dern prince who thought her a Balti brat.
Which was absurd. She didn’t need him to look more like Calvy, not when he was meant to be Liam.
Mara skimmed his abdomen with her knuckles, the rippled plane grooved like sand ridges beneath the ocean. She followed the thickening line of dark hair below his navel and pushed the thin sheet out of her way. His cock was already drowsily rising to half-mast and all it took was a quick cupping of his soft scrotum to bring it to full attention. Mara ran her finger from the thick base to the rounded tip, following the seam of his cock’s underside. She watched appreciatively as it swelled just a little larger for her, a drip squeezing out of the tight tip. He was responsive, she’d give him that.
He didn’t ask what she was doing. And she was glad not to have to explain.
Mara climbed over him slowly, straddling his hips, opening herself up to him.
Their eyes connected, her eyebrows raised, and Calvy nodded. His black eyes were alert now, trained on her face, filling with longing. She knew what it was to be wanted, and Calvy was as eager as she was. Still, his hands hovered at her sides, as though he wasn’t sure he could touch her. As though she were a phantom in his dream.
His skin was warm, like laundry fresh from the dryer and smelling as good. She wanted to bend forward and press her nose to his collarbone. But she kept herself upright—maneuvered him into position and felt him slide into place, his cock pushing deep inside of her at last.
Calvy gripped her hips, crushing the navy slip, and Mara’s teeth sank into her bottom lip.
Fuck.
She closed her eyes and pictured Liam beneath her. But she couldn’t fool herself. Her fingers slipped across Calvy’s skin in search of any looser spot to twist into her fist. Liam was muscular and strong, but she could always find a soft place to pull. Calvy was too lean. Too hard all over. She finally found leverage, fitting her palms against the curve of his pecs, her fingertips covering the even numbers of the military identification inked over his heart. Even as she rose to her knees to roll her hips over his, she felt the difference in his narrow waist, felt the increase in her own power because of his shape.
A thin navy strap slipped down her arm, exposing one of her peaked nipples. Calvy leaned up to capture it in his mouth, circling his tongue around the tip and then sucking it flat. Mara’s hands found their way into his hair as she moaned and held him close. He breathed into her. “I’ve wanted to do that since the tram on the ship.”
She pushed him away, down, ignoring the flex of his jaw. She moved her grip to his shoulders, smaller than Liam’s, but dense and stiff with compact muscles. Every detail added to the chant that pounded through her mind: This is not Liam. And the dark shadow of realization that followed it: But I like it.
Mara shifted back, gasping as his cock found the end of her, prodding against the sensitive spot deep inside her. She rubbed forward, the swollen bead of her clit against his hard, flat abdomen. Prod and rub. Prod and rub. Again and again, her eyes shut, her mouth open.
She had no excuses this time: no alcohol, or spicy edibles, or rushing space to explain the dizzy blur of her mind at his touch. She was weightless with lust, spinning above him like a kite, tied down only by their connection.
His hands feathered over her breasts, thumbs swiping under their curves. But he stayed lying flat, beneath her. Mara shivered, her focus on the tightness building from below. Hot palms returned to her sides, fingers splaying around to her butt under the slip. The skin between them was slick with sweat and wetness from her excited cunt. She rocked forward again, and then, as though he’d been waiting for the moment, Calvy lifted his hips, prodding deeper into her, rubbing harder against her. Mara bent forward, spine curved. Her nails dug into his skin, her face flamed, and she released the most pathetic whimper of relief.
She came hard—infuriatingly, marvelously hard—untangling the knot of tension and anxiety that had worked itself around her. As always happened with him, she surprised herself with the force of it, the pleasure somehow out of her control.
Mara sprang off Calvy, and he uttered a groan of protest, but she was already stumbling into the hall. She leaned against the wall, her cunt still contracting, until she was steady enough to make it the rest of the way to her room.
Dannos opened the door to her suite without meeting her eyes.
That was fine. He didn’t have to understand.
What she did was for herself.
And she had needed it.
Chapter Ten
Mara spent the next day convincing herself it had been enough. It didn’t need to happen again. She was better now. She could wait some more. Then as night approached, she watched the sun lower and her resolve faded with the light.
She let herself into his room and fit herself over him again, coming just as easily, just as forcefully, expecting it this time. Craving it.
Then she did it again. And again. A few times a week she’d slip into the Dern’s bed at dusk, waking him before his shift. She was there just long enough for him to set her off, never staying through the full impact. She stayed upright as she rode him and he seemed to get the idea that his participation was limited to the thrust of his cock inside her, though his hands fluttered over her body in the unavoidable way that wind ruffles the feathers of a soaring bird.
She’d walk back to her room on shaking legs, her thighs tingling, no longer bothering to swear off the next night. This was what she had to do, to combat the sadness that threatened to drown her every day she walked Balti’s empty streets.
In the morning, Harper was always waiting outside Mara’s door, switching off with Dannos after lunch. She only saw Calvy in the half-light, through half-drawn lashes. The day was divided, the experiences separate.
“No word about the Pearl yet.”
Mara looked up at Harper. She’d been staring at the landmark again, this time from the hotel’s rooftop restaurant where they were taking their lunch. She’d finished every bite of a kelp salad with raw orange fish and sat idly scraping her spoon against an empty dish of fica pear sorbet.
“Why do I feel like that isn’t going to change?”
“Just wait until Mr. Pent arrives, Ms. Leanor—he’ll get you in.”
“I wish it could be sooner.” She pulled the spoon from her mouth one last time. She’d enjoyed that sorbet to its last drop, the definition of small pleasure. The little seeds popped between her teeth, adding a satisfying crunch. Unbidden, the thought came: Calvy would have liked it. She coughed, a seed sticking in her throat. Mara tried not to think about him during the sunlit hours. As far as she was concerned, he only existed in that darkening room, in the hazy moments between day and night. But now that he’d entered her mind, she couldn’t help considering him in the context of the conversation. He was a Dern—she could not forget it. “You don’t think the captain could help move things along?”
“I wouldn’t think so.” Harper yawned. She’d been tired all morning and Mara wondered if she’d been out with Dannos the night before. More likely she’d been collecting information somewhere for Liam. Always of use, always watching. That was more like Harper.
“But he’s a prince. He must have some sway.”
“He’s an eleven.”
“Dannos says he’s well respected.”
“With his unit, maybe. Not with Dern officials.”
Harper’s mutual disgust of Calvy was normally something Mara took part in, so she wasn’t sure what made her argue now. Maybe it was her desire to see the Pearl up close, so strong she’d even stoop to wishing Calvy had the power to make it happen.
“But he grew up at court.”
“That means nothing to them. Dern only respect the position you’re born into.”
It was little comfort that his own people didn’t like Calvy any more than she did. Except his soldiers, who were still devoted to him. Mara swished water in her mouth, trying to loosen any stray seeds that might have caught in her teeth.
“Did Dannos tell you what happened to Cal—D’Aldiern?”
Harper threaded her fingers together in a move that reminded her too closely of Liam. “I think you can call him by his given name.”
Of course Harper knew what Mara did when it wasn’t her shift—Dannos loved to talk. And Mara loved to fuck. She wouldn’t be made to feel ashamed of it. “I think you’re close to overstepping.”
“You’re right—a woman does best in this world if she knows when to keep her mouth shut.” Harper stood, looking down her nose at Mara with a pointed glare before waving Dannos over to their table. “Ask him yourself.”
“Ask who what?” Dannos said, settling into the chair next to Mara.
“Nothing.” Mara stewed. Dannos would have told her. She should have waited. Then she wouldn’t have sniped at Harper, giving her more cause to strengthen her case against Mara’s presence in Liam’s life. And what did it matter what Calvy had done anyway? She didn’t need to know.
Dannos opened the warming basket next to her plate and was rewarded with the last flatbread.
“Why was Calvy demoted?”
“Miss?”
“You said you had friends who told you the story. Tell me.”
“Oh, I don’t know if—”
“Please.”
That was all the prompting Dannos needed. He tore the flatbread, folding a piece in half and biting into the crust, answering around it. “A bunch of his soldiers got caught by Theos with counterfeit weapons. Nasty business. They don’t take well to being crossed. If they think you deserve it, they will take what they are owed. Superiors told Cap to stay out of it—this General Hardcase has been trying to catch him out for years.”
“And he fell for it. He intervened.”
“Intervened himself right into a Theos prison. That’s right, miss. I bet those were a few long months.”
Mara worried the frayed edge of her napkin. “How’d he get out?”
“He agreed to put his contract up for sale. So his father could buy him out.”
I found my place, he’d boasted to her. And what? He’d given it up so his papa could rescue him? She could never imagine doing that. If she knew where she belonged, she’d never give it up. The story proved Calvy was every bit the weak-willed Dern she assumed. Nothing like her, nothing like Liam.
“And Liam got there first.” She didn’t conceal her pride as she said it.
“Good thing for Cap—now he’s got a second chance at the army. His father must be furious. His soldiers will be glad to see him back. Because of him they only spent a day away from the unit. Instead of rotting in some Theos zoo.”
Calvy had chosen to rot in that Theos zoo to save them. The bowl was empty, her craving satisfied, but Mara spun the spoon in her hand, catching light across its curved surface. That was the part of the story that didn’t make sense. “He didn’t have to do it.”
“No. He didn’t,” Dannos agreed, wiping his hands on the tablecloth. “Where to this afternoon? Or is it a sit-and-stare-at-the-Pearl kind of day?”
“The Ring, there’s a soap shop.” She sat straight, back to business. She was running out of places to look. Things to taste. It was time to try smells—some of her strongest memories were linked to them. The steamy waft of menth tea Rozz and Jimma liked in the afternoons sent warmth buzzing through her. Less appealing, but just as evident, since the sweet scent of the wax Calvy used in his hair had stayed on her skin for hours after their first night together, the slightest hint of the scent now could trigger a flood of lust in her veins.
Calvy. The story stuck in her mind as she tongued one last seed wedged between her teeth. She shouldn’t have asked about him. It didn’t matter what he’d done. It wouldn’t change what he was to her.
Mara excused herself and made for the washroom, using the mirror to dislodge that last speck of dessert. Standing with her hands on the edge of the sink, she looked down at her feet. The floor was as flat as it had ever been, so why did it feel as if the world had tilted on its axis? What entitled prince would sacrifice himself for a few army grunts? His orders had been to leave it alone. And he’d traded himself for his unit anyway.
That was the man whose room she visited each night—he wasn’t such a Dern about that. And it didn’t feel much like he was acting on orders either. When he was looking up at her, there was something in his eyes she didn’t want to name. How could she abide that look, knowing what she did now? Knowing him to be the kind of captain who’d surrender his position for the sake of those without, who’d accept a punishment that wasn’t his. How could she pretend not to recognize it for what it was? Genuine virtue, that made him inconveniently less deserving of her scorn.
The faucet next to her automated and Mara glanced up. The hotel clientele was almost entirely Dern prospectors and subsidiaries looking to claim a piece of the growing industry. So the woman in the bathroom stood out—her red hair against the black tile a bonfire in the night. That hair. Mara had been looking for weeks and the only other time she’d seen a color like it was looking in the mirror.
The woman finished coating her lips in a bronze shimmer and raised her eyebrows at Mara’s reflection. She blinked.
Mara started. “Oh—I’m staring. It’s—your hair. I’ve looked for it. All over the city.”
The woman took her measure in the mirror. “You’re searching for red-haired Balti?”
Mara nodded, not trusting herself to speak without rambling.
The woman turned to face Mara directly. “Are you a patriot?”
“A patriot?”
The woman lowered her voice. “Are you loyal to the queen?”
“Queen Balticourt?” The surprise Mara displayed caused the woman to withdraw.
“I shouldn’t have said—it was your hair. I thought you supported the cause. The dye is the best I’ve seen yet.”
“It isn’t dyed.”
“Like I said: my mistake.” The woman dropped her lip color in her hurry to pack it in her bag and Mara bent with her to the ground, catching her hand by the wrist.
“What cause?”
Mara bit into her cheek to conceal her urgency and waited. Hoping. Hoping the woman would say what she longed to hear. And the woman delivered, her eyes brimming with purpose.
“The return of the queen.”
Chapter Eleven
“Oh!”
Mara’s exclamation caught Calvy off guard. As had her door opening to the orange glow of the hall in the middle of the night. He eased his hand off his sidearm and stared at her, as surprised as she appeared to be, face-to-face somewhere other than his bed. Her pillowy lips came together with a swallow and parted again, her breath stuttering with the too-quick swelling and dipping of her chest. It was clear she’d forgotten he’d be there, standing guard. Or perhaps she was used to looking down at him. Wasn’t used to seeing him upright, clothed. Stiff and composed.
Stiff she should be used to.
Calvy sniffed sharply, fighting the instinct to come fully to attention, hands immobile at his sides. Mara had enough power, there was no telling what she’d be capable of with more. Even if her eyes lacked their normal focus, the iridescent grey dulled by an uncharacteristic fog. She half turned, returning to her room, and he noticed the damp hair at the back of her neck. The way she remained a little breathless.
Oh. Now he understood—too well—recognizing the specter of fear that agitated her movements. He was acquainted with the feeling of jolting awake in the night, lungs aching like he’d been screaming. Of surfacing out of the kind of nightmare where the details fade immediately but the emotion remains, vivid as a flare in the night sky. What would it be for her? Loss and pain and terror as bright as fire, however distant.
“Mara?”
She pivoted back to the hall, her gaze concentrating on him. “I’m out of water.”
“I’ll get Harper—”
“Let her sleep. I’ll go myself. Better yet, you can go. The vend is on the second floor.”
He hesitated.
She sighed. “You think I’m going to run off?”
Thinking it over, Calvy tapped his thumb on his leg. “Unlikely. Where would you go?”
Mara blinked. He hadn’t meant it as an insult but there was no mistaking that she’d taken it as one when she snapped, “Then go.”
His arms locked involuntarily to his torso.
With some of the frustration filtered out of her voice, she added, “Please?”
Please. A word so simple it would be foolish to give it more meaning than it deserved. He considered her for a long moment and then headed for the elevator. She wanted water—he had no reason to deny her that.
“Cal,” she called after him, so unexpectedly he froze in place. She faltered for a moment, as though the nickname on her lips was as jarring for her as it had been for him. He turned, waiting for the rest, pretending he hadn’t noticed her slip of the tongue. “Not citrin—get gilderberry.”
