A Solid Core of Alpha (38 page)

As it was, he lived for the promise of it with stomach-dropping exhilaration.

He’d watched his monitor, starving for the sight of Anderson’s face, and saw a minor miracle of transformation. There were still bad days—enough to be frightening—when Anderson’s voice was flat and his attention was very clearly elsewhere. But at the end of those days, there would be an apology and sometimes even an outrageous comment that would take C.J. by surprise.

“Anderson, buddy, I’ve got to sign off. Another shipment of those ice-piss lizards is due in tomorrow, and this time, Marshall and I want the whole station on alert.”

Anderson’s rather serene blank countenance had suddenly found focus. “I’m sorry I’ve been out of it, C.J., but Bobby wanted to know if humans pissed on the floor after the ice-piss lizards, if maybe the heat differential wouldn’t melt the ice and fix the problem.”

C.J. goggled and then wrinkled his nose. “Oh, Jesus, Anderson—did you hear what you just said?”

Anderson blinked, and then found his first complete expression of the day. “Oh God, that’s horrible! Ewwww! I’m so sorry, man. Shit like that is why we all need a superego, isn’t it?”

C.J. had giggled then and said, “Yeah, well, in your case, tell Kate to step up her game!”

It had been Anderson’s turn to giggle. C.J. had still needed to log off, but the moment remained as one of the bright spots to remind him that it was a process, and it wasn’t going to happen overnight.

It hadn’t. It was still not done. But C.J. was going to see him for real—for
real
—and Anderson was going to be himself. Even on the bad days, he was still going to be himself, and C.J. was going to get to be there.

What if C.J. wasn’t good enough?

He’d been surprisingly happy (and surprisingly competent) at his new job. Marshall had complimented him like a grade school teacher until C.J. had complained.

“Man, would you be saying this shit to other seconds, Marshall? I feel like your student or something!”

“Quite frankly, C.J., I’ve had such a stunning string of spectacular failures, this is all completely sincere. I’m just thrilled you’re neither a complete fuck-up nor a complete psycho. Take the praise and run with it, little brother. I’m fucking glad to have you on board!”

God, C.J. loved Marshall.

But what about this? C.J. had failed the one big relationship he’d ever had, and hell, given the way he and Jensen had managed to stay in each other’s bed for years, he’d even failed at ending it. The nature of that had changed from backup lover to buddy-in-orgy when Molly had arrived, but still, C.J.’s track record wasn’t great.

He wanted to be worthy. Anderson had been a bloody goddamned hero when he’d arrived at the station, and he was a fucking miracle now. C.J. just wanted to be worthy of that. Was that so much to ask?

He was about to find out. He’d been squirming in his seat like he had to pee for the last two hours of the trip, and now the shuttle was about to land.

C.J.
STEPPED
down the ramp and into the off-planet terminal, looking around. Jensen had said either he or Molly would come to do the meet-’n-greet and drive C.J. to his bungalow, but the two of them actually had better things to do, and more than once, C.J. had been greeted by a message to take a hover-cab.

He saw the usual press of people, but no Jensen, and Molly’s hair was pretty hard to miss, so he sighed, hefted his overnight bag over one shoulder, and picked up his suitcase with the other hand. He’d taken two steps toward the walkway, where the crowd thinned out, when he heard his name.

“C.J.! C.J.! Ceeeeeeee-Jaaaaaaaaayyy, look over here!”

C.J. turned, half grinning already because he
knew
that voice, but he was still unprepared for Anderson charging full tilt across the shuttle exchange, throwing himself at C.J. and climbing him like a tree.

C.J. had just enough presence of mind to cup his ass—tight and muscular now—and open his mouth to say hi when Anderson kissed him, openmouthed, uninhibited, tongue thrusting into C.J.’s mouth, making sexy little whimpers in his throat for about a thousand years, and when C.J. pulled back, panting, his groin swollen against Anderson’s, he had just enough time to catch his breath before he had to taste again.

This time he thrust
his
tongue inside and tangled them together, and God, did Anderson taste like everything C.J. needed. Something spicy and sweet and bold and soft—and he wanted C.J.—wanted him badly, and C.J. didn’t have a reason in the world to say no.

“God….” C.J. pulled away and leaned his forehead against Anderson’s, letting Anderson’s legs slide down around his legs until Anderson’s feet touched the ground. “Jesus, you gained weight!”

Anderson laughed, breathing hard, and for a moment, they were the only two people in the entire shuttle-port, or the entire solar system, or even the entire galaxy, and in that moment, that was just fine.

Eventually they straightened and grinned stupidly at each other.

“So I take it you’re allowed off the grounds now,” C.J. said gratefully.

Anderson nodded and picked up the suitcase that had fallen by his side, and C.J. let him. “I’ve been taking how-to-be-a-grown-up on Hermes-Eight lessons,” Anderson said, his eyes twinkling.

“Yeah, like what?”

“Well, I’ve got a two-person hover license!” God, he was cute—as excited as a child.

“Nice,” C.J. said, nodding encouragingly.

“And I learned where the grocery stores were and how to shop—and that was sort of a big furry deal, by the way. We had a communal grocery outlet on the mining colony. This was a lot different. Do you
know
how much junk food you can buy at a grocery
store
? At the outlet, they used to monitor, so they knew when Mom had the right ratio of vegetables to protein to carbs. It was pretty intense, but
here
, we can buy
anything.
And so I went shopping with Molly, so we could stock your fridge for when you got home, and I bought some of your favorite stuff. She said you can cook pretty well, so we got the ingredients for some of the stuff she said you like to make and—”

“Uhm, Anderson?”

“Yeah?”

“How much soda and candy have you eaten?”

Anderson belched and grinned at him. “Enough to make a ten-year-old sick for a week.”

C.J. laughed all the way out to the parking lot. Sure enough, Jensen had pulled C.J.’s hovercraft out of storage, and Anderson had a key-card.

The day was blindingly hot. It was high summer in the northern hemisphere, so Anderson had the top up, and he loaded C.J.’s luggage in the back after starting the airflow system to keep things cooler. For C.J.’s part, after the recycled air (helped by the atrium, of course) of the space station, it didn’t matter whether he was planetside in the height of summer or depths of winter, he was always happiest with the windows open.

Anderson drove like the brand new driver he was—he skidded in too rough to the stops, revved the hover too hard for the starts, and went too fast in between. C.J. loved it—he flipped through the monitor at his wrist and tuned it with the hover’s sound system, playing one of the songs he’d heard from Anderson’s archives as loud as was polite for the neighborhood, and Anderson just kept on driving.

They skidded into C.J.’s yard and put the hover in the shed, grabbed the luggage, and walked across the lawn to the bungalow. C.J. looked around the nice, level field of green-blue grass indigenous to Hermes-Eight and then glanced at Anderson.

“You didn’t happen to mow my lawn, did you? Because Jensen’s supposed to, and he always forgets and then blames some poor teenager, who’s just trying to earn extra creds while he’s going to university, for bailing. It’s perfect this time. He made you do it, didn’t he?”

Anderson barely looked at him. “I volunteered, but yeah.” Anderson glanced up and grimaced. “I’m sorry, I was trying to remember that song you were playing. We had it on the ship, didn’t we?”

C.J. nodded, scanned his wrist monitor to unlock his door, and let them both in. The place had been aired out since he left, and his back relaxed a few notches as he gave a little sigh of contentment. God, he loved his little home. It hadn’t felt like he’d really enjoyed his last month here, and that was a shame, because he loved planetside almost as much as he loved stationside. Marshall was talking about moving to a ten-week-on, six-week-off schedule, with a slight decrease in pay, and C.J. thought he wouldn’t mind doing that, especially if he got to spend his six weeks off with Anderson.

But first, they had to get through this month.

“You had a lot of music on the ship,” C.J. said now, in response to Anderson’s question. “Music must have been really important to your colony. Your cache of recordings of old music from across the populated worlds was bigger than the one here, and your own musicians….” C.J. shook his head in admiration. “Well, you had a lot of them, and they were amazing. Jeez, Anderson, you cannot
believe
how grateful all the universities here are for what you preserved. You’ve got money coming in from all over, you know that, right?”

Anderson’s smile was small and a little embarrassed. “That’s not why I did it.”

C.J. leaned into him and looked at him sideways and saw that Anderson was looking at him the same way. “I know why you did it,” C.J. said quietly. “And why you did it doesn’t make it any less remarkable, okay? So be proud of that. Be proud of what you saved and the people you came from. Mining colonies are heroes here on Hermes-Eight. You brought that to life for us, made it real and beautiful and terrible and sad and amazing. Be proud, Anderson. Don’t make what you did small because you were a scared kid who didn’t want to lose one moment of your world. That’s one of the things that makes it great.”

Anderson grimaced then and frowned a little but didn’t answer.

“What?” C.J. prodded.

“I’m waiting to see what anyone has to say about it.”

“What does Anderson have to say?”

Anderson turned a beaming smile to him, like sunshine through a storm. “Anderson says thank you,” he said dryly, and C.J. smiled back and kissed him through the rain.

It was supposed to be a short kiss, an affirmation type kiss, the kind where you can kiss once and then move on with the rest of the little details in life. Except all it took was one taste, Anderson’s gasp, his open mouth, and C.J. was suddenly hard and in need like he couldn’t remember being in need in his life.

He’d spent a lot of time thinking about Anderson—a lot of time in his bed, alone, with his cock in his hand and a properly lubricated adult toy wedging him open and vulnerable with the fine edge of pain that Anderson’s size had given him—and all those moments, all of those wishes for the real Anderson, for a time when their bodies might be naked and real and raw together, without the twisted coils of identity and duty, tangling up their breath and their sex were all… all right here, kissing him back with increasing desperation.

Anderson gasped and thrust his hands under C.J.’s shirt, and C.J. whined a little. Oh… oh God… to be touched. He bunched Anderson’s knitted tank and pulled it out of his tight, clinging leggings—Anderson did like to show off his slim build, didn’t he?—and slid his hands under Anderson’s pants just to cup those taut little butt-cheeks in the palm of his hand and pull Anderson’s groin up against his thigh.

Anderson groaned and thrust his hips closer.

“Anderson?”

“Hmmm… oh… oh God….” Anderson was grinding up against C.J.’s thigh with such insistence that C.J. thought he’d come in a moment, and C.J. wanted him deep and hard in C.J.’s mouth before that happened.

“Do you… did Jensen say you could…?”

“Yes,” Anderson grunted, glaring because C.J. had stopped massaging Anderson’s ass with his hands. His expressive brown eyes could narrow to amazingly dangerous slits when he was irritated, and C.J. pressed his thigh against Anderson’s swollen erection teasingly.

“Yes what?” C.J. insisted, not wanting to push this when it shouldn’t be pushed.

“Yes, you can fuck me as often as you want,” Anderson whispered wickedly, and C.J. had to clench his entire lower body to keep from coming right then.

“Oh thank God,” C.J. muttered, and Jensen was forgotten as he kissed Anderson again and again, loving the softness of that lush little mouth and the sweetly accepting way he opened that mouth like he could inhale C.J. whole.

C.J. let him grind, just a little, just until C.J. managed the elastic and hook-and-eye fly of the tight, stretchy pants. “Now stop that,” C.J. cautioned. “It’s been nearly five months, Anderson, if you’re going to come, you’re going to come in my mouth.”

Anderson nodded obediently, and C.J. shucked those clingy pants down to Anderson’s ankles and welcomed the weight when Anderson put his hands on C.J.’s shoulders to kick out of them, right in C.J.’s living room. C.J. fell to his knees and looked up for a moment, rubbing his palms on Anderson’s furry blond thighs.

“What?” Anderson peered down at him. He half-closed his eyes and shuddered when C.J. took his jutting cock in a long-fingered hand and squeezed.

“You’re so beautiful in the sunlight,” C.J. murmured, and then he opened his mouth wide, pulled his lips over his teeth, and pulled the head of Anderson’s cock into his mouth, pushing the foreskin back with his lips as he went.

It tasted
so
good. He sucked harder, pulling it into the back of his mouth, and swallowed so it could go deeper. Anderson’s fingers grappled through the tight, tiny coils of C.J.’s hair, and C.J. pulled back until only the crown was between his lips, hollowed his cheeks, sucked and squeezed at the same time.

“Auughhh… God….” Anderson’s choked groan was punctuated with an involuntary thrust of his hips.

C.J. was ready, and he opened his mouth just enough to catch the thrust all the way in the back of his throat and then used his hand around the base and squeezed.

“Oh, God… C.J., I’m
so
gonna come….”

C.J. pulled his head back and used his fist to pull the last of the foreskin down over the head, teasing it with his tongue when it appeared.