Plan B by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Page B

delightedly as warm, knowing fingers stroked down the line of her throat.

    "You find me too Liaden, Miri?" Val Con's voice was husky in her ear, his cheek soft against hers.

    She breathed in the scent of him and let the breath go in a half-gasping laugh as desire broke over her. "The clothes threw me," she murmured. "Why don't you take 'em off?"

    He laughed gently, took her wineglass and bent to put it aside, his weight pushing her into the cushions. Then his lips were back, demanding full attention, while his hands stroked and teased and finally found the fastenings of the dress and loosed them.

    She tried to return the favor, reaching to open the fine white shirt, but he eluded her hands, keeping her pinned and all but helpless while he slipped the dress down over her shoulders and a bit further, nuzzling her throat, kissing her breasts, her belly. . .

    The dress was gone. She reached again to help him out of the shirt, aching to feel his skin against hers—and was fended off with a breathless laugh: "Ah, not so greedy, cha'trez. . ."

    Mouth and hands engaged her full attention once more, the soft fabrics of trousers and shirt stroking against her nakedness alternately frustrating and exhilarating.

    At some point, he picked her up and lay her down again on that high, wide bed, and was gone for a moment, returning with his hand full of bed-flowers.

    He covered her in them, laughing; crushed one in long fingers and stroked the fragrance across her breasts. She shivered and laughed and twisted, pulling him down and mock wrestling, desperate to have him, with an urgency the flower-scent fed.

    He laughed, fingers and lips teasing; but allowed the shirt—and at once allowed everything, abandoning the role of command as she bit and kissed and stroked and the flowers were crushed beneath them and gave up their seductive odor.

    She lay across his chest, teasing, nearly lazy against the flower's urgency. Val Con's eyes were half-closed, his face blurred with desire, hands stroking, beginning to insist. But he wasn't in control now, she was. She rubbed against him, felt his hips move and laughed as she kissed his ear.

    "So greedy, Val Con. . ."

    A laugh—or a soft groan. "Miri. . ."

    She closed her eyes, concentrating on the feel of him, on the warmth, on how well their bodies fit, on the desire barely restrained, soon to be loosed.

    She looked at the pattern of him inside her head.

    And— reached out , very softly, to stroke it and breathe on it and—kiss it—and love it and desire it and—

    Beneath her, Val Con went utterly still. Miri opened her eyes.

    "Cha'trez. . ." He touched her face, his eyes wide and shocked-looking, as if he'd been suddenly wakened. "Miri, what are you doing?"

    She looked at him through slitted eyes, still more than half cuddling the pattern of him—the him of him—against her, feeling the love flow from her; feeling it return, enriched and expanded.

    "Loving you," she managed. Then, as the distress in his eyes began to resonate in his pattern. "Should I stop?"

    "No." His hands closed hard around her waist and he rolled, spilling her over into the crushed flowers and him hard and urgent atop her. "Never stop."

    It was bodies, then, and lust and the flowers and finally two voices crying out as one in joy and wonder.

    They were still tangled around each other when the timer shut the room lights down. Both were fast asleep.

Dutiful Passage : In Orbit

    "Once more," First Mate Priscilla Mendoza called, "sequence twelve . . .  now !"

    Inside the lifeboat the pilot hit the sequence. Outside, the laser turrets swiveled, left, right, up, down, extended and finally withdrew into their shielding.

    "Great!" she said. "Shut her down, Seth; we're meshed."

    The little ship obediently powered down and the pilot slipped out of the slot, slamming the hatch.

    "Last one," he said. "Time to take on the Yxtrang."

    Priscilla blinked up at him—long, rat-faced, laconic Seth,