Warning: Hey, you know you're in a LIME flavored chapter, right? If you don't want to be on the same page with two boys making out, hit your back button. You can get to chapter six straight from chapter four.
He retreated with a firm negative, but he left his hand where it was. I protested. He insisted.
"I had understood that the act of kissing is an integral part of human sexuality," I asked.
After a pause, hurt on my part and slightly frantic on his, he said, "Let's save the, uh, moisture for last."
This was an obvious face-saving device. My father had told me about them. He had taught me also, however, that they indicated a willingness to continue negotiation as well as a firmness about the point in question. Besides which, I was satisfied with the idea. Whatever his motives, it was a suggestion that showed his understanding of Vulcan things, and it appealed to me. I agreed.
He smiled, relieved, placed his nose in the soft place behind my jaw and nuzzled upwards firmly. Impossible, that such cool skin should leave a trail of such heat. Hesitantly, I returned the gesture. He laughed, and wrapped his arms around my shoulders and waist, one hand snug against my heart. I returned that gesture, and he rested his head on my shoulder, I rested my own head on his, and we stayed there for a time. "Have you done this before?" he asked. I could feel the vibrations in my neck, his breath on my collarbone through my clothes, his nose resting against the pulse-point in the hollow of my throat. Before I could gather enough wit to answer, he decided, "Don't answer that."
Then, without lifting his head, he unwrapped his arm from my waist and began to undo my shirt.
It was not a graceful encounter. Our hands did not know where to go. I did not know how much force to apply, and I think I hurt him, although he did not say anything. Certainly my hands left red marks where his skin was pale before I learned to lighten my touch. I know that I crushed the breath from him at one point. He was very good natured about it, saying only, "You guys must be a really solid species. You look like I could blow you away with a breath."
"You have."
He froze, and peered at me, then hugged me fiercely, reaching up to run the side of his thumb along my cheekbone. It washed down towards my jaw, and suddenly he was on a meld point. I shivered, and my breath caught. This was nothing like the heavy, intrusive melds with T'Khar Sumek, nothing like T'Pau's birdlike windstorm grasp. He rippled, soothing and solid and fearfully, awe-fully, terribly intense. And it was a bare, unintentional, effortless touch.
"Oh," I said, holding his hand there. "Jim."
"Good?" he asked, pulling away to smile hopefully at me. He stroked that point, his other hand wrapping around my wrist, and I shivered.
"Ah... yes. I will show you."
I commenced to stroke his face, making sure to catch the meld points. He exclaimed, so I retreated. He grabbed my hand. "Were you in my mind, just now?"
"Yes. As you were in mine. I thought--"
"Don't stop," he spoke into my palm, warm breath, and brought my hand back to the side of his head. "Please."
He rushed in on me, astonished joy. I joined him in enchantment. When I realized how easy it would be to lose myself here, how my cold link with T'Pring was my only lifeline to self, I backed away. Not entirely, but enough to be aware of my body. We had pressed together physically as well, I found. He was somewhat back to himself, too, and he reached down to clasp me in his hand, smiling wildly, whispering, "Knight takes King, mate."
Forgetting all discipline, forgetting T'Pring, I lost my control of self at once, reaffirmed my touch on his meld points, and surged back into his mind. The body was lost.
We shared moisture.
I awoke to a disturbance of the bed. He was trying to dress without bothering me, but I had walked the Forge, and my reflexes had not yet settled. I tried to wake quickly by using the Swift Rising. As I had not been meditating, however, it didn't work, and he had one foot out of the bed before my body was ready to obey me. As soon as I was able, I took hold of him. My touch immobilized him. "Where," I inquired in a voice that was rusty with sleep, "are you going?"
"Back to my room. I thought," he said in an uncharacteristically subdued voice, "you'd rather I went. This evening was... random."
I was grateful that I had awakened when I did. I lifted him back into bed, surprised at his lightness, and had the pleasure of seeing his weighty solemnity disperse for just a moment with surprise. "If the impetus behind this thought is what told you about the stalemate, it is an erratic force."
"Why, then?" he demanded, as shadowed as before.
"I do not know," I admitted after thinking it over. "It was outside of my experience. I shall have to meditate later. Nevertheless, what is, is. As it has been, I am not yet finished with you."
"Oh, thanks," he said, rallying a little.
"You will thank me more when I have done." He rolled his eyes. "Your clothing is superfluous. Remove it." He clutched it to him, eyeing me suspiciously. I narrowed my gaze at him. "I am a Vulcan. This evening was an irrational and emotional episode for which I have no adequate explanation and for which I shall surely pay if my father hears of it."
"Ergh." He made a rather original face, his nose wrinkling and his mouth going around to one side. "Not from me."
"Nor shall I inform him. That is beside the point." I did not release my grip of him. I tightened it, and said distinctly, "As a Vulcan--are you listening?"
"No, I'm inventing a game so weird even a Vulcan can't beat me at it."
"What will you call it?" I asked, diverted.
"Oh, I don't know. Corbofizz?"
"That sounds like a dental product. Or a carbonated beverage."
"Yes," he agreed, smiling a little, tiredly. "Or heartburn medicine. Well, I'll work on it. You were saying?"
"For a Vulcan, you must understand, curiosity is the only publicly acceptable emotion, and the relief of it, the acquisition of knowledge is the most pleasing and rewarding and permissible sensation. Therefore I say, as a Vulcan--"
"I get it, I get it, I won't be insulted."
"--That the only worthwhile part of the evening, apart from the chess, was the exploration of Terran muscular anatomy in general. Yours in particular has been, as Dr. Poole suggests, noticeably abused and is remarkably tense. I would be remiss in my duty as a member of her staff, however temporary, if I did not act to relieve that condition."
He cast me a sidelong glance. "Could we have that in English, please?"
I sighed. "Remove your garments and lie on your front. I am going to massage your back and you are not leaving this room until I am satisfied with your condition."
I got a slightly more real smile as he humored me. He was still watching me as I limbered my hands , but his eyes drooped when I touched him. I had stroked my sehlat so, long ago, but I-chiya had not felt so, nor been so agreeably quiet beneath my hands.
He had, however, given me a great deal more feedback. There was one place in particular in which I had felt a constant pain from him earlier, and the pain was of such a type that I knew it must have intensified with my touch, but Jim was silent and still. "React," I instructed him sternly, sitting back.
"'M fine," he muttered. "Don' stop."
I sighed, and applied myself to his neck and shoulders. They were more tense even than the painful place on his back or the burned and scarring wound behind his knee. Inferring a headache, I moved briefly to his scalp. I was rewarded with a blissful sigh, and so extended my time there. It was no hardship. His hair was much softer and longer than I-chiya's, and the cocooning strands felt as completing to my fingers as they had before. When I returned to his shoulders, they had relaxed notably. I was not satisfied, however, and attended further to them.
It was here that I erred. I cannot say that it was entirely my fault. Granted that Humans are less strong and less solid than Vulcans, but fragility on this scale was not to be expected. I applied the merest pressure to the grip-points, and he went completely limp.
For a moment, I froze. I had not been so surprised by the success of a neck-pinch since the first time, and there was no triumph now. With my hands, I made sure that he was breathing, that his heart still beat, that I had not broken his neck. I frightened myself badly before I remembered where his heart was.
I regarded him for a moment, my pulse slowing as I conquered my fear. It was illogical; I knew already that he was well. The fear should have dissipated with the first touch of my hand on his chest. But I was overwhelmed by warmth, and wonderment at the delicacy of the body that held such a strong will captive.
"I regret," I told the back of his head and, since no one was watching, I allowed my lips to stretch. "That was not my intention." I put my hand on the side of his face, admiring his profile, which had suddenly gone breathtakingly innocent, feeling nothing but peace from him. I looked at his ear, its pleasing round smallness. I saw it overlaid with a thick, coarsely pointing ear that stuck out in an uncultured manner from the head. For some reason, I felt a surge of self-satisfaction.
As I watched him sleep, the vision disappeared. Seeing the round ear for itself again, I bent down to press my lips to it. His brow knotted, and his mouth pulled down. I became aware of a low line of tension gradually intensifying under my hand. "You will have a headache when you awaken," I informed him. "I will try to minimize it.
I worked some more at his shoulders, until the knots were entirely smoothed. Then I surrendered, and slipped my hands back into his hair. He did not waken, but smiled a little, blurrily. When the tension ceased to recede, I realized that I would have to try something else. I turned him on his back. I had to sit on him in order to reach both his temples equally, and then I had to catch my breath and close my eyes to subdue the feeling of him, under me, between my legs.
His hands slid up along my ribs, caught hold of my shoulderblades, pulled me down. His nose dug into the hollow of my throat, then nestled in under my jaw, my ear. "That was... mmm... very nice," he said against all logic; no one enjoys a neck pinch. The massage must have helped. I felt more than heard him, warm vibration in my neck. Cool arms wrapped around me, eyelashes fluttered shut against my cheek. One hand ended up over my heart, the other wrapped around my wrist again, two fingers under my thumb. He hummed again as I awkwardly embraced him, and his breathing evened out against me.
I lay there for a space of time, listening to his quiet breathing, feeling the comfort of him about me. I found that I, too, could sleep.