Abiogenesis (18 page)

Abruptly, he tore his mouth from hers and rolled, carrying her with him until she was straddling his belly. She looked down at him in surprise. He placed his hands along her thighs and surged upwards and she felt his cock slipping along her cleft. "Say it."

She gasped, closing her eyes and focusing on the luscious feel of his hard flesh, relishing the heat and length and breadth of it.

When she opened her eyes to look at him once more, she saw that he’d tucked an arm behind his head, lifting his shoulders off the bed so that he could watch her. Her mouth went dry, moisture and heat flooded her sex with anticipation. Holding her gaze, he looked down at the place where their bodies met. She followed, rising up slightly at his urging and watching as he reached for his cock and rubbed the head of it along her cleft, nudging that place where she desperately wanted him teasingly.

"You love me."

She nodded dizzily, rotating her hips in an effort to fit their bodies together.

"I need to hear you say it," he ground out.

Dalia opened her eyes to look at him as she felt him push the head of his cock past the mouth of her opening. "I love you."

His features went taut. He swallowed convulsively, his gaze searching her face. She smiled, lifting her hand to stroke his cheek. "I do love you."

His eyes slid closed. Groaning, he thrust upward.

She gasped with pleasure as she felt the muscles of her passage yielding to him, pushing back to encompass him completely, until she could feel him nudging against her womb. He caught her hips, urging her to rise up. She lifted, watching his face as he studied the joining of their bodies intently.

They teased each other unhurriedly, holding their rising passions at bay mercilessly, watching the ecstasy flicker across each other’s expression. The time came, however, when Dalia knew she couldn’t contain it any more. She reached between them, massaging the nub of her clit. Reuel went still, watching her, holding his breath.

Abruptly, he sat up, catching one distended nipple in his mouth and suckling it so hard Dalia’s climax struck her shatteringly. She cried out, moving faster now, feeling it rip through her in a scalding flash of heat. He nuzzled her breasts, caught her hips, and forced her to move faster until his own body convulsed in exquisite pleasure, holding her so tightly to him she could scarcely breathe.

Almost reluctantly, he loosened his hold after a few moments. Dragging her down to lie beside him, he stroked the damp hair from her cheeks. "I want...." He paused, as if he was uncertain of how to continue. "I want a family unit."

Dalia swam upwards from near oblivion in surprise. "What?"

His gaze flickered over her face speculatively, doubt surfacing in his eyes. "Will you contract with me?"

Fear surged through her. Dalia sat up abruptly. "I can’t. I don’t think I can do that."

Reuel sat up, as well, his face a mixture of confusion and anger. "Why?"

"I’ve no skills ... for that."

He frowned. "You could learn."

"You’re angry with me. You would always be angry with me, because I’d make mistakes and ... you don’t know how to forgive."

He caught her face between his palms, forcing her to meet his gaze. There was desperation in his eyes, pain. "Teach me," he said earnestly.

Dalia studied his face and finally sighed. "I thought you meant to send me away, to take the baby. I’ve spent months trying to accept it. I’ve spent months trying not to love you anymore, because I didn’t think you loved me. Before, I thought it was what I wanted, anything that you wanted. I can’t think now."

He swallowed convulsively and finally pulled her close, tucking her head against his shoulder. "We must start again, from the beginning."

Dalia sighed. "That’s just it. I’m not sure I want to again. I tried to tell you."

His arms tightened. "If you hadn’t wanted to, if you had stopped caring for me, what just happened between us wouldn’t have happened at all, and certainly not as it did."

She said nothing for several moments. Finally, she chuckled. "Do you ever tire of being right?"

He pulled away from her, studied her searchingly and finally smiled faintly as he stroked her cheek. "Not nearly as much as I tire of being wrong. Get dressed. I want to show you your new home."

Dalia felt a surge of both relief and excitement.

Both deflated as she pulled her shift on.

Pierce would almost certainly be waiting and watching for her. "I forgot about Pierce," she muttered.

Reuel’s head snapped up. Frowning, he returned his attention to dressing. "You care for him?"

She studied him, realizing he was containing his anger with an effort. It irritated her. "Yes, I do. Too much to want to hurt him."

He studied her speculatively for several moments. "I will show you both your new home," he managed finally.

Dalia turned her face away, biting her lip to keep from smiling. "Is it beautiful?"

He relaxed fractionally. "It is."

She’d more than half hoped she’d been wrong about Pierce when she saw that the crowd that had been below some twenty minutes earlier had vanished, but she saw as they walked down the gangplank that she hadn’t been. The moment they started down, Pierce stood away from the column he’d been leaning against. His gaze scanned her briefly, and then zeroed in on Reuel.

Dalia’s heart sank. She forced a smile, glancing at the structure at the edge of the landing platform, and then up at the sky and the landscape as far as she could see.

The building had been erected of stone, and built for beauty as well as function. The column Pierce had been leaning on was one of twelve. Each looked to be nearly fifteen feet in height and perhaps three in diameter. At the tops, which supported the roof of the structure, long, broad leaves of had been carved into the stone.

The light of a bright yellow sun shone down upon it, illuminating the interior of the building through tall, wide doors and windows, splashing across a floor paved with colored stones.

Beyond the structure to the east, a young city budded from a flat, green plane.

The air was clean and sweet, the sky bright turquoise.

"It is beautiful!" Dalia exclaimed, turning to encompass Reuel with her smile of appreciation.

Pierce’s face was taut when they reached him. With an effort, he disengaged his gaze from Reuel’s challenging one and looked down at her. "If you don’t need me, I should go, I think," he said stiffly.

Dalia grasped his hand, stopping him. Shaking her head ever so slightly, she smiled at him coaxingly. "Reuel offered to show us the city. You’re not going to run off?"

Pierce glanced from her hopeful face to Reuel’s unwelcoming one. Finally, grinning, he looped his arm through hers. "It doesn’t look like a complicated layout. I expect we can find our own way around."

Reuel’s eyes narrowed. Matching his pace to theirs, he caught Dalia’s other hand and looped it through his arm. The two men exchanged challenging glances above her head.

Dalia tugged at both of them. "What is this building? I’ve never seen anything like it."

Smiling in a faintly triumphant way, Reuel glanced down at her. "I designed it after an ancient human structure. I made some modifications, naturally."

"I couldn’t help but notice you have a ... passion for ancient things."

Reuel sent her a smoldering glance. "I have a passion for beautiful things."

She could hear Pierce grinding his teeth. "It doesn’t look very practical. I’d think it would take a great deal of energy to keep this comfortable. It wouldn’t meet the conservation laws of the confederation."

"Human laws do not apply to us. In any case, it is very efficient. It uses virtually no energy to maintain the comfort level because this area we chose to build our city has very little fluctuation in temperatures throughout the year. We wanted to build a city that was beautiful and preserve the natural beauty of our world at the same time, not despoil it as the humans did theirs. Every effort has been made to incorporate the latest conservation technology, because it is wiser to do so than wait until there is no choice."

Dalia sighed with a touch of impatience as they strolled through the structure and out the other side. It seemed likely that Reuel and Pierce would be snipping at one another throughout the tour, but she decided she wasn’t going to choose between them and hurt one to please the other, or allow them to spoil her enjoyment.

Determinedly, she forged onward as they left the building and started along the stone paved road that led to the city. She began to tire, however, long before they reached the outskirts, the muscles in her distended belly straining from the walk. Tugging her hands free, she slipped one beneath the weight to support it, rubbing her aching muscles absently with the other.

Chapter Eighteen

"What’s wrong?" Reuel and Pierce demanded in stereo.

"Nothing!" she said irritably, struggling to maintain an even breath and wondering why she felt as if she were climbing when the road seemed perfectly flat.

Reuel stopped, glancing from the building they’d just left to the city. "You’re tired?" he asked, disbelief evident in his voice.

Dalia gave him a narrow eyed glare. "Try strapping twenty pounds to your cock and carrying it around!" she snapped.

Pierce let out a bark of laughter before he apparently thought better of it. She sent him an evil look. He lifted his brows, assuming a carefully neutral expression. When she glanced back at Reuel, she saw his lips were twitching on the verge of a smile. Quite suddenly, despite the throbbing ache in her back and stomach, Dalia chuckled. "Sorry. It hurts, damn it."

Without a word, Reuel scooped her into his arms.

Pierce glared at both of them, but Dalia found she was too relieved to be off her feet to worry about the prick to his ego at the moment. "I don’t suppose there’s any ground transportation?" he said tightly.

Reuel glanced at him. "I have personal transport," he said slowly. "But it’s across the city, at my home."

"Not very helpful. Why don’t you let me take her and you go get the transport?"

Reuel’s face darkened. "I can carry her."

"She’d be more comfortable in on a padded seat, though, wouldn’t you?"

Dalia glared at both of them. "It would serve you both right if I dropped this thing right here!"

A look of horror washed across both men’s faces as they looked at each other sharply. "Majia’s balls! You’re not going to, though, right?" Pierce exclaimed.

"Now?" Reuel demanded, twisting around and glancing from the building they’d just left to the city once more, realizing it looked much further away than he’d thought.

Until she’d said it, it hadn’t occurred to Dalia that there was even a possibility of it. The pain had not really subsided, however, when Reuel had picked her up, and she realized that she’d been struggling to ignore the pain in her back and belly for some time.

Reuel had effectively distracted her for a while, but almost as soon as she’d begun walking it had returned, rapidly becoming much worse that before.

Frowning, she activated her inboard computer. Computer, analyze the pain radiating from my back through my abdomen.

Contractions.

What kind of contractions? Dalia asked uneasily, wondering if she shouldn’t have made love to Reuel after all.

Birth contractions. The skull of the unknown life-form has been engaged in the pubic cavity. Descending canal.

Dalia felt the blood leave her face. Can you scan the life-form, computer?

Scanning. Carbon based life-form. Humanoid.

Stage of development? Dalia asked fearfully. Can you ascertain whether or not the life-form can survive without the assistance of the host life-form?

Calculated stage of development, 90%. Internal organ development sufficient to sustain life-form.

If it’s only 90%, why is it being born now?

Unknown.

Should it be stopped? Can it be stopped?

Negative.

She looked up at Reuel fearfully, then at Pierce, swallowing with an effort against the lump of anxiety knotting her throat. She licked her lips. "Now."

The single word was sufficient to strike terror in the hearts of both men. They froze, staring at one another as if each one expected the other to come up with a solution. Abruptly, Reuel turned and started walking quickly toward the city.

Pierce fell into step beside them. "Where’s the med center?"

"The center of the city," Reuel said grimly.

"How long?"

"Fifteen minutes." He glanced down at Dalia. "Maybe twenty."

"Here, I’ll carry her a while."

"No."

"Do you mind?" Dalia demanded, gritting her teeth.

Pierce switched sides. Moving around Reuel, he reached up to stroke her hair back from her face. "Sorry, Dally," he murmured, ignoring the glare Reuel bent on him. "Is it bad?"

"No," she gasped, and then groaned as the pain intensified suddenly. "Yes!"

Reuel walked a little faster.

Dalia panted. "Stop!"

Reuel stopped as if he’d hit a brick wall. "What?"

"This makes my back hurt worse. Put me down. I’ll walk a little."

Again, the two men exchanged panicked glances.

"Will you stop it!" she snapped irritably.

Reluctantly, Reuel set her on her feet. Grasping her stomach, Dalia managed a half a dozen shuffling steps before she bent double. "Son of a bitch!" she yelped.

Pierce caught hold of Reuel’s wrist, tightening his grip when Reuel would have pulled free. "We’ll make a chair for you, baby. Put one arm around his neck and one around mine."

Dalia nodded, hobbling over to them and sitting carefully on their joined arms.

"Better?"

Gritting her teeth, she nodded. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that sitting up only made her belly hurt much, much worse. She dropped her head on Pierce’s shoulder, trying to concentrate on filtering out the pain. She could handle it. She knew she could.

She had to. If she scared either one of them any worse, they were liable to drop her and flee.

Once the reached the edge of the city, they gathered a crowd. "What is it? What’s wrong with her?" someone questioned them sharply.