“Jesus, it hurts. I’m close, Kyrie.”
“I know, baby. I know. I can feel it.”
I kept stroking him faster and faster, until he was frantic with the impending climax. Wrapping my fist low around his base, I continued the hard and fast pumping, cupped my upper hand around the head of his cock and spat onto him again, providing more lubrication, and then squeezed my fist around him and stroked him hand over hand the way I knew drove him craziest. He groaned and growled and thrust into my strokes, and I knew by the way his rhythm faltered how close he was to exploding.
I leaned over him and suctioned my lips around his soft, broad mushroom head, stroking hard at his base, both hands grinding up and down his length, working with my tongue and throat.
“Kyrie, god, Kyrie…I’m gonna come—”
I moaned, humming around his cock, stroking and pumping and sucking until he was crazed and maddened, grinding hard into my mouth. I followed his thrusts, keeping my lips around his tip until I felt his stomach tense and his body arched. At the moment of his climax, I bobbed my head down to take him toward my throat, pulling his cock away from his body and angling myself to open my throat so I could take him deeper, pumping my fist around his base, working my throat muscles around his head and stroking him with my tongue. He was groaning and cursing, making incoherent sounds, gasping, and I felt the hot gush of come hit the back of my throat and I backed away, swallowing. He lowered his body to the bed, hands fisting in the sheet as he fought for control. I knew what he wanted to do.
I let go of his dick long enough to move his hands to my hair, and he immediately gripped at the roots and gently but insistently pushed my head down. I went with it, resuming my hold on the base of his cock to stroke him, bobbing my head in quick dips, sucking, taking the next warm, salty wash of come down my throat.
He groaned and pulled me up, thrust shallowly so the tip glided through my lips, and I moved my hands on him in long, soft squeezes, smearing my palms around him, and then I felt him tense in my hands and thrust hard. Opening my throat, I took him as deep as I could and felt the final spurt of his seed sluice down my esophagus, and backed away to swallow it.
Valentine went limp on the bed, and I sat up, wiping at my mouth with the back of my wrist, still squeezing and stroking his throbbing cock to milk every last spasm of his release. I watched as film of whitish come oozed from his tip and used it to smear down his length, and he groaned, gasping brokenly for breath.
“Enough…enough, Kyrie,” he rasped. I let go, sat beside him, and watched as his breathing slowed. Gradually, he seemed to return to something like normal. “Stay here with me. I’m tired, Kyrie. So tired.”
“Rest, Valentine. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
He rolled to his left side, and I spooned up behind him, held him close and felt him drift to sleep. Uneasily, heart aching with love, mind buckling from the weight of unanswered questions, I slipped into sleep myself.
* * *
I woke to the sound of Roth gagging, heaving. The bed was empty, and he was on his hands and knees in the tiny bathroom, puking. My bag of clothing was on the floor near the bed, so I dressed quickly, hating the feeling of putting on clean clothes when I knew I was desperately in need of a shower. There wasn’t any other option, though. I moved to stand by the doorway of the bathroom, bending over to rest my palm on Roth’s bare back. He was still naked, and his entire body was dripping sweat. His skin was hot to the touch, his hair wet and tangled and pasted to his skull.
Gasping, Roth straightened slightly, pushing up with one hand on the rim of the toilet, visibly shaking. “Help me—help me lie down.” He struggled to get his feet under him, and I supported him, helping him stumble to the bed. He covered his eyes with his forearm, chest rising and falling. “Bucket. Need a—need a bucket.”
I went topside, found a big plastic bucket in a storage closet near the cockpit, and placed it on the floor beside Roth. He flung a hand out, reaching for me. I knelt on the floor, took his hand in mine, and placed his palm on my cheek. “I’m here, Valentine. I’m here.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he murmured.
“You don’t have to find out.”
His stomach heaved, his Adam’s apple bobbed, and I brought the bucket closer to him. He grabbed the side of the bucket, leaned into it, and gagged, dragged in a shuddering breath, and then vomited. I held the bucket in one hand and brushed the hair away from his temples with the other. When the wave passed, he rested his forehead on the rim of the bucket, gasping for breath, his stomach still heaving. He gagged again, coughed, spat, drooling, and then vomited again. Nothing came up this time but bile.
He rolled away, letting me take the bucket. “I don’t have anything left to bring up,” he said.
“I’ll see if I can find something. Some water, at least,” I said, setting the bucket on the floor beside him. “Here’s the bucket in case you need it.”
“Just…hurry.”
I scurried into the galley, where I found Harris making coffee.
He lifted his chin at me. “How’s he doing?”
“Not good.” I rummaged in the small refrigerator for a bottle of water, found a package of Saltines in a cupboard. “She gave him some kind of experimental drug. Side effects are nasty. He’s sicker than a dog.”
Judging by the carefully blank expression on Harris’s face, he’d heard us. “Should we find a doctor?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Hopefully, he can ride it out. We’ll have to see, I guess.” I paused in the doorway. “Where are we right now?”
“A few miles off the coast of Crete.”
I tried to pull up a map of the Mediterranean in my head. “Wait, Crete? Isn’t that in opposite direction of where we came from?”
Harris nodded. “Yeah. But going back the way we came is probably the worst thing we could do. We’re headed to Alexandria.”
“Alexandria? As in Africa?”
He nodded. “Last place they’d expect us to go. Mr. Roth has no business contacts there, no friends. So it’s a perfect place to go for that reason. We can hide out until Mr. Roth is feeling better and we have a chance to make a plan.” He twisted the lid on his Thermos of coffee. “We’re stopping in Crete to refuel. Little place called Sitia. We can get some fuel and food, and hopefully weather out the storm that’s headed our way.”