Chapter 5

All thought flew from Reth’s mind. His body

was a raw nerve, pulsing with Xan’s tuneless song. One hand

encircled Reth’s dick, the other rubbed low on his trembling

stomach, as those wide lips kissed his cockhead. A fevered tongue

swirled around his sensitive tip, tickling him, and Xan struck a

steady rhythm that worked Reth’s foreskin up and down his thick

length. Reth’s fingers were numb from the hold he had on his chair.

When Xan took his entire cock between those wide lips of his, Reth

raised up off the seat, shoving deep into Xan’s damp, hot

mouth.

Xan pulled back, letting Reth slip from his

mouth but at the last second, his lips clamped down to keep Reth’s

tip inside. His tongue fondled the flared head as he massaged

Reth’s dick, tracing the slit that split the underside, sucking the

juice from his shaft. The hand fisted around his length stroked up

and down. The fingers kneaded him harder, guiding him toward

release. Reth hovered on the brink of orgasm, unwilling to come,

but the hand milking him, the tongue suckling him, the ardent mouth

hungry for him, the night and the party and the flood of memories

all conspired to set him off. He came in an explosive rush that

gagged an unsuspecting Xan, who sputtered a moment before

swallowing

“God,” Reth gasped, spent. He sank lower in

his chair, his whole body as limp and empty as his flaccid

dick.

Xan wiped a hand across his mouth but didn’t

manage to erase his grin. “I should’ve done that months

ago.”

Silently, Reth agreed.

Starlight shone in Xan’s eyes with a wicked

gleam. “I followed you here,” he admitted.

Reth roused himself. “What?”

The confusion on his face only widened Xan’s

grin. “I knew where you were going. They gave us a tour this

morning, before the crew came on board. Gave us ID cards, too.

Coded and ready to rumble, so to speak.”

Reth’s blurry mind reeled. Wait, did that

mean…

“This is just like the rec deck back at the

Academy.” Reaching into a pocket on his flight suit, Xan extracted

an ID card and held it out so Reth could see his own picture

staring back. Hiscard, there in Xan’s hand, meant that

someone else’scard was in the room’s slot outside. Someone

else was running this scenario, not Reth. “You don’t know how many

times I hacked into that system just for kicks.”

Reth felt trapped in that starry gaze. Xan’s

smile never faded as he raised his voice to call out, “Sim four

five niner.”

Beneath Reth, the chair spread out into a

soft bunk covered with thick blankets. The headrest morphed into a

pillow beneath his head. The flight deck console disappeared,

replaced with the smooth contours and flowing design of the ship’s

living quarters. The window shrank to a tiny hole through which

stars twinkled like dew. Struggling to sit up, Reth frowned at the

bedroom he found himself in. “What the…”

Anyone created by the game was just a

simulated character, nothing more. They had no control over the

computer, no authority to change the setting or the action or

anything about the game. Only living beings could do that. Which

meant…

Reth scrambled to cover himself. “No.”

Suddenly Xan was there, beside him on the

bed. Before Reth could unhook his briefs from behind his balls, Xan

caught his wrists and held his hands together, cuffed by his own.

He lay down alongside Reth, who backed up against the wall but

found himself trapped. Despite that fact, his body began to respond

to Xan’s closeness again. His cock twitched when Xan’s leg brushed

Reth’s crotch.

Reth imagined Xan flipping him onto his

stomach, ripping his flight suit away, raising his ass in the air

and diving deep inside, parting him with mouth and hands and cock.

The thought made Reth weak, and an unconscious whimper escaped his

throat. One thought rolled through his head as he stared into Xan’s

dark eyes. Please.

Aloud, he managed, “I don’t—”

Xan silenced him with a kiss. Reth’s own

juices on Xan’s lips took his breath away. “Can I just tell you?”

Xan murmured, his words mere breath between them. “Back at

graduation? You scared the shit out of me.”

His eyes were bright, pinning Reth in their

stare. “Me?” he asked, incredulous. There was nothing scary about

him, nothing this valiant flyboy beside him needed to fear.

“Why?”

With a shrug that settled his body closer to

Reth’s, Xan admitted, “I don’t know. I’d never—I mean, I

wasn’t…”

He shrugged again, then burrowed nearer, his

hands covering Reth’s. “It was cool when we were just fooling

around, you know? Then you invited me upstairs, and suddenly we

went from fun to serious in two milliseconds flat.” Xan kissed him

again, trying to smooth Reth’s frown away. “I was afraid of getting

too attached to you too fast,” he whispered. “Afraid of getting

hurt.”

“You hurt me,” Reth pointed out. He

tried to sound angry but couldn’t, tried to move away from Xan’s

insistent touch and couldn’t. “Funny as that may seem to

you—”

“No.” Xan kissed Reth’s fingertips and shook

his head, his hair tickling Reth’s face. “I’m so sorry. Why do you

think I followed you? I just want—”

“What?” Reth snapped. I just want your

mouth on me again,he added silently, but he wasn’t about to

admit it. Instead, he shook his hands free from Xan’s and demanded,

“Just what is it you want from me, Xan?”

Those sparkling eyes widened, those lips

curving into a slow, sweet smile. Xan leaned forward to claim a

quick kiss before Reth brushed him away. “I want whatever it was

you had in mind that night we first met,” he whispered. “Do you

remember?”

Now Reth sighed. “How could I forget?”

A strong hand trailed down his chest, picking

at the hem of his undershirt before fisting around his semi-erect

cock. “Then show me,” Xan breathed. “Show me why you invited me to

your room in the first place. I was wrong to leave you like that,

and I won’t do it again, honest. I want this—” He gave Reth’s dick

a gentle squeeze that sent pleasure shattering through him. “I want

you. If you’ll still have me. Please…”

Reth reached out and ran a hand through Xan’s

thick hair. It felt as heavy and full and alive as he’d always

imagined it would. With his hand on the back of Xan’s head, he

pulled the man to him until their lips met. Reth’s words were only

shapes that left themselves imprinted on Xan’s mouth. “I told you

I’d wait.”

* * * *

Reth had his hands full with the Kressl run.

At some point since the last time the ship’s maps had been updated,

a small moon had disintegrated just south of Bellisle, leaving an

asteroid belt strewn across space like debris lining a busy

highway. It took every waking hour to plot and re-plot the ship’s

course. More than once, he had to call down to the gunnery to

request clearance. Some of the damn asteroids were just too big to

outmaneuver.

Not that Reth needed an excuse to page Xan to

the depths of the ship.

By the third day of tedious navigation, the

asteroid field was clear. Sensing an impending end to his shift,

Reth pressed the intercom button that would patch him through to

the gunners below. With a faint push, he turned his navigator’s

chair away from the bridge for a little privacy and pressed a

forefinger against his earpod to capture the full pleasure of Xan’s

laugh.

When it came, it sent a shiver of delight

down Reth’s spine that coalesced into a small sun at his groin.

“Hey there, sexy,” Xan purred. He sounded close enough to touch,

and Reth unconsciously gripped the arm of his chair to keep his

fingers from straying elsewhere. “Any more balls you want me to

bust up there for you?”

Reth’s grin slipped into his voice. “I’ve got

a pair of balls for you,” he teased. “Meet me in the simdeck at

1900 hours.”

“That’s only five minutes from now,” Xan

pointed out. “I can’t leave here just yet.”

“Why not?” Reth asked. “I’ll make it worth

your while.”

He heard Xan’s sharp intake of breath and

could easily imagine the look on the gunner’s face, torn between

duty and desire. Finally, a lusty sigh filled Reth’s ear that made

him laugh. “I gotta make it quick.”

“So you’re coming?” Reth prompted.

Xan’s laugh curled through him. “Damn, lover

boy. I’m already there.”