Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
She had an idea she was about to find out if she didn’t beat a hasty retreat. Turning tail, she fled down the main corridor, back to her room with its tiny bathroom—or “fresher” as the Kindred called it. She would doubtless have plenty of time to take a long, leisurely shower while her two shipmates screwed each other’s brains out.
They weren’t quiet about it either. As she washed her hands and started to get out of the tight black warm-skin, which she’d been wearing all this time, Penny heard the moaning begin.
The thing about Rive and Y’lla, she thought, was that Rive was every bit as vocal as his wife when they made love. Of course, Penny had had her share of roommates in college and grad school who were screamers, but all of them had been girls. She’d never heard a man shout and carry on every bit as much as his female lover when they went at it. But Rive and Y’lla were truly in a class by themselves.
“Gods!” Penny clearly heard Rive groan. “You’re so tight, my darling! Your sweet little pussy massages my shaft just right.”
“And you’re so big and hard!” Y’lla moaned right back. “Oh Goddess, Rive, I fall in love with you all over again every time you fill me!”
Good grief! This time Penny did roll her eyes. She knew full well that the Kindred formed a mental link with their mate once the two of them bonded. Couldn’t her shipmates have kept their lovemaking silent by thinking the pornographic things they were shouting at the top of their lungs?
Apparently not. Either the two of them had totally forgotten about her presence on the ship again, or they were complete exhibitionists—which was entirely possible, come to think of it.
Penny turned on the shower to try and drown them out, but it didn’t do any good.
“Pound me!” Y’lla was wailing. “Fuck me hard, Rive! Make me yours all over again! Fill me with your seed!”
“Not yet, my darling,” he growled back. “I’m not done pleasuring you yet. First I want to—”
And then the sound of their voices abruptly cut off.
Penny frowned in surprise. What was going on? After a solid week of making love out loud, had her two shipmates finally decided to keep it down? But why would Rive stop shouting in the middle of a sentence like that?
She turned off the shower, which had just begun to get steamy, in order to hear better. But there was no thumping or bumping or slapping or squelching or any of the other loud physical sounds she associated with being forced to overhear Rive and Y’lla’s lovemaking.
What was going on with them?
Whatever it is, it’s their business, Penny told herself firmly. I’m just going to take my shower and wait a little while to be sure they’re done before I go back out there.
But the sudden silence was unnerving. There was no sound at all coming from the front of the ship—not even the constant soft humming of the auxiliary motor which never stopped running.
What was going on?
Penny told herself she didn’t want to know—didn’t want to see. Despite being forced to overhear her shipmates’ lovemaking for the past week, she was not an eavesdropper or a voyeur.
But something was wrong—she just knew it. She felt it.
What could it be?
This is a dangerous station—Kat and Commander Sylvan both said so, she reminded herself. What if some evil person snuck in and killed them both and they’re in the ship with me right now?
But she hadn’t heard the shuttle’s side door open or the sound of any kind of weapon discharging. So what was going on?
At last Penny’s anxiety overcame her desperate urge not to catch her shipmates in flagrante delicto. Slipping back into her warm-skin and boots, she quietly opened her cabin door and peered cautiously out into the hallway.
She would just go a little way down the hallway, she promised herself. She would take a quick peek and try not to see too much—just to be sure that Rive and Y’lla were all right.
Walking as quietly as she could in her thick boots, Penny made her way towards the front of the ship. It was harder to be quiet than usual because every noise she made seemed to echo in the sudden silence. She couldn’t even hear any breathing sounds coming from her shipmates. What in the world was going on?
When she got to the front part of the ship, she edged her head around the corner to see into the cockpit. Rive and Y’lla were there, all right and just as Penny had feared, they were right in the middle of making love. But they weren’t moving—not even to breathe.
In fact, the two of them appeared to be frozen in time.
Six
Penny put a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream—not that her shipmates would have heard it. Both of them were completely motionless and frozen in the middle of their intimate act.