Chasing the Stars (20 page)

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ Vee said at last, laying her head back down on my shoulder.

‘Not true. Tell me. Talk to me, Vee.’

‘Just this,’ said Vee, kissing my cheek. ‘And some of this.’ She kissed my eyebrow. ‘And a lot of this.’ She kissed my mouth, her lips soft against my own. Then she lay back down. We lay in silence for a while, but much as I might like to, I knew we couldn’t stay here for ever. Sooner or later, the real world would come looking for us.

But not yet. Please, not yet.

‘You’re not ahead of me regarding how you feel,’ Vee said softly. ‘I’m right alongside you, or maybe slightly ahead. It’s just . . . it’s not where I expected to be.’

We gazed at each other, nothing hidden. I wanted her so much. But I needed her to want me too. I needed her to trust me, to feel she could open up to me about anything.

‘Olivia,’ I said, ‘tell me something about you that no one else knows.’

I tilted my head to look at Nathan. He wasn’t asking for much, he was asking for everything.

Something no one else knows . . .

‘Sometimes I . . . I cry in my sleep. I wake up with tears streaming down my face,’ I admitted.

Oh God! I lowered my gaze, unable to even look at him now. How pathetic must that sound?

Silence.

‘Here’s something others know but which I’ve never told anyone,’ said Nathan. He spoke so quietly I could only just hear him. ‘Sometimes I wake up screaming.’

My eyelids flew open as I stared at him. His expression immediately told me he was serious.

‘Does that make you think less of me?’ he asked softly.

Choking up and unable to trust myself to speak, I moved closer to him, wrapping my arm tighter around his waist. My heart ached for him. I swallowed hard, then took a deep breath.

‘Nate, nothing you’ve been through or had to do in the past would ever make me think less of you,’ I whispered. ‘There’s nothing you can say or do that would make me change my mind about you. D’you understand?’ A moment, then Nathan nodded.

‘Do you believe me?’

Nathan nodded slowly.

Our faces were mere centimetres apart as I spoke. My gaze didn’t once waver. I wanted Nathan to know that I meant every syllable.

‘Vee, you say that—’

‘I mean that,’ I interrupted.

Nathan’s green eyes were so dark as to be almost black as I looked at him. I willed him not just to see and hear the truth in what I’d said, but to feel it. A smile, slight and sad, twitched on Nathan’s lips. Memories were eating away at him. I moved in closer to nibble on his bottom lip. Something else, hopefully more pleasurable, eating at him. It seemed like the natural thing to do. He looked so . . . lost. I just wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. I was as lost as he was but we could be lost together. I drew back. Could he hear my heart pounding in my chest? It was deafening me. Nathan took my hand and placed it over his heart. My eyes widened. His heart was beating just as fast as mine.

We both moved forward at the same time to kiss again, our mouths open, our lips touching, our tongues dancing together. I closed my eyes as my hands stroked slowly up and down Nathan’s chest and arm. I needed to touch him. Touching was good. I never thought I’d have this, certainly not before I made it home to Earth. Now here I was in the arms of someone who continued to occupy more and more of my thoughts and my time. Nathan pulled me closer until not even a breath of air could’ve got between us. He was holding me so tight, almost too tight, like he was trying to pull me right inside him to make us one and the same. Even I knew it doesn’t work like that. But I wasn’t going to complain.

It was all good.

Better than good.

Delicious. Definitely edible.

I couldn’t get over how glorious it felt when only a year or two ago the thought of someone else’s tongue inside my mouth would’ve made me want to gag. Hard. Now I was lying on my side, my hands moving over Nathan’s back as we kissed. His skin was almost hot to the touch. I traced over his shoulder blades, his spine, his nape. I loved the feel of his skin and muscles beneath my fingertips, so soft yet solid. How had I survived for so long without this physical contact – a handshake, a hug, a kiss?

Was I abnormal to feel like this or did all people feel this way? Was this a basic human need, to be held, to experience basic human contact, or was there something wrong with me because I’d been alone with just my brother for far too long?

Nathan’s hands moved under my T-shirt, one on my stomach, the other arm wrapped around my back, and his hands weren’t still for a second. Slowly but surely his hands stroked and caressed, and each move made me catch my breath and scorched my skin. Nathan’s hand moved up to caress my breasts. His thumb rubbed slowly back and forth across my right nipple through my bra and a bolt of lightning zinged through my body at his touch. Nathan raised me up slightly to pull my T-shirt over my head again. Then it was the turn of my bra. Once it was off, I wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him closer. We were skin against skin from the waist up. I wanted nothing to get in the way of my whole body touching his, no clothes, no more doubts, no inhibitions.

Nathan pulled away from me to unfasten my trousers. His fingers hooked into my trousers at my hips and he slowly pulled them downwards. My breath hitched in my throat as I watched him, not sure at first what he was doing. I raised my hips slightly to make it easier for him. This was so strangely unfamiliar. To literally lay myself bare for this guy. All my senses were suffering an overload. Both of us were breathing so much faster. I was so glad I wasn’t the only one having trouble catching my breath.

Once my trousers were off, it was Nathan’s turn, only he didn’t wait for me to reciprocate. He took them off himself – in about three seconds flat. I watched his eyes, too nervous to glance down, much as I wanted to.

We were naked. Alone. Together.

Nathan’s gaze moved over my body, physical as a touch. Suddenly self-conscious, I drew up my legs and tried to cover my breasts with my hands. Nathan gently took hold of my hands and placed them at my side. Was there something wrong with the environmental controls in this room? The temperature was way too high and the air in the room had all but disappeared.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he whispered, his gaze moving slowly down my body. ‘Flawless.’

Then his hands followed the path of his gaze, flitting lightly over my forehead, my eyelids, my lips, my neck, my breasts, my abdomen, and lower. Every time I raised my hands to do the same to him, he pushed them down at my sides. Frustrated, I finally left them there, especially when his lips followed the path of his hands. When his lips were kissing and licking around my navel, I thought that was as far as he would go.

But I was wrong.

His kisses were moving further down my body. I pushed myself up onto my elbows to watch. He wasn’t seriously going to go where no one had gone before, was he?

Oh. My. God.

He was! I tried to raise a hand to push him away and stop him, but Nathan took a gentle but firm grip on both my wrists. With a groan, ripped from somewhere deep inside, I lay back down, completely supine. Nothing I’d watched or read had prepared me for anything like this. A series of shocks shot through me at every touch of his tongue.

It was so intense. Almost too much. My body writhed under his care until I was sure I was going to pass out from pleasure. When at last Nathan moved up my body, I was totally boneless and couldn’t for the life of me remember how to breathe. And then Nathan was kissing my lips, my forehead, my eyelids, my chin, my cheeks. He raised his head to smile at me as the memory of how to breathe finally came back, making me pant in an effort to fill my starving lungs with air.

‘Nate, let me . . .’ I pushed at Nathan’s chest. He immediately backed away from me, looking anxious. With a smile to reassure him, I pushed him onto his back, kissing and nibbling on his neck as I did so. I rained kisses over his chest. I wanted to taste him all over too. Reciprocity was a good thing.

‘No,’ whispered Nathan, rising up to cup my face with his hands. ‘Next time.’

‘Next time? There’s going to be a next time?’ I grinned.

He didn’t want this to be just a one-time thing. I so liked the sound of that. I hadn’t wanted to assume.

Nathan went very still, his green eyes suddenly cold, hard. ‘Vee, I don’t hit and run. If you’re looking for a one-time one-off to scratch an itch, you’re looking in the wrong place. I had enough of being used like that on Callisto.’

Already Nathan was pulling away from me. Appalled, I realized he’d misunderstood. I sat up, reaching out to cup his face.

‘Nathan, that’s the opposite of what I’m looking for,’ I rushed to reassure him. ‘
You’re
what I’m looking for.’ Heat swept over my face at my inadvertent admission but I wouldn’t have taken it back even if I could.

‘You’re all I’m looking for,’ Nathan said at last, his gaze softening.

And then I was on my back with Nathan’s body covering mine, his tongue darting in and out of my mouth as he slowly but surely pushed inside my body. He was so gentle, allowing my body time to awaken to this strange new feeling. Nathan lowered his head to lick and nibble at my throat. Already the discomfort I’d felt at his entry into my body was fading. I ran my hands up and down his back as we finally moved together. It was so slow, so sweet, so tender that with each second that passed I felt like I was melting into him and he was melting into me. Love was a word, an idea, a concept, something to be watched in films and read and sung about before this moment. Now it was something I could touch and feel, something tangible that held me up high till there was no air to breathe and dragged me down low until I was drowning – and I loved every second. Nathan had caught me, heart, body and soul, and the depth of what I felt for him frightened me. Actually frightened me. It would be too easy to completely lose myself in the way I was feeling.

Nathan raised himself up to look at me, his body still joined with mine, his gaze intense. ‘You’re mine,’ he whispered.

I stroked one finger over his lips. ‘Only if you’re mine.’

‘Always.’

As the pace quickened, all doubts, all fears were pushed aside. Here and now was all that existed. Nathan was all that mattered. And for now, for this moment, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nathan and I both got dressed in sated, smiling silence. As I pulled on my boots, I could only thank God no one had come into the astro lab whilst we’d been . . . busy. Or maybe they had and we’d just been too busy to notice. That thought was mortifying. I could feel my face burning at the prospect.

‘No regrets, I hope,’ asked Nathan.

‘Not a single one,’ I replied honestly.

‘Good. Still scared?’

I considered. ‘Yes, but for completely different reasons now.’ I smiled.

Nathan’s gaze was intense as he looked at me. I could so easily surrender to a look like that and never want to escape again. Listen to me! Like I hadn’t already done so.

‘Want to go all out and do something even more scary?’ asked Nathan.

‘Like what?’

Nathan stood up and held out his hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet. ‘Promise me you won’t think, you’ll just go with your gut. OK?’

Intrigued, I nodded.

I kept telling myself I had to be cracked to put myself in the hands of someone I’d known for such a short space of time, but it felt so right, so . . . natural. It felt like I was on a gravity ride, being lifted up high and about to be dropped fast and hard. It was exciting and fear-inducing all at once. But whilst I was on this ride, I was going to hang on for dear life and enjoy every moment.

There’s nothing like seeing death, facing death, to put life in perspective. I swore when I was on Callisto that if I ever escaped from that hell hole, I would never hesitate to grab any and every opportunity that crossed my path. I promised myself I’d never be afraid of life or love and would celebrate both.

I have to admit though, I didn’t see this one coming.

Vee kept casting me curious looks as I pulled on my jacket and led the way out of the astrophysics lab.