Chapter Sixteen

 

Upon his return to Freedom Center Station, Ryan had gratefully stripped out of his clothing and stepped into the shower stall to examine his injuries minor cuts and contusions; two broken toes; a lump the size of a robin's egg on the back of his skull; a shoulder turning even darker colors of blue and purple. Even his tongue hurt, where his teeth had slammed on it when the android threw him into the wall of the pit.

 

Ryan turned the faucet, praying for a long hot shower.

 

What he got was a trickle of water that wasn't exactly cold, but sure as hell wasn't piping hot. The temperature was as tepid as it had been on the previous night. Ryan quickly washed his hair and body, wincing when he had to raise his twice-injured shoulder. The shower wasn't at all what he had hoped for.

 

He kept his face under the stream of water as long as he could stand it, then dried himself, taking extra care with the open socket where his ruined left eye had once been. Ryan slid the scuffed eye patch back on and stared at his reflection.

 

"I need a shave," he muttered, "but the hell with it."

 

Nude, he stepped out into the small bedroom adjoining the bath. Krysty was flipping through a small book with a cracked red leather binding she'd found in the drawer of the nightstand.

 

"What you reading?" he asked.

 

"Holy Bible ," she replied. "Been a while."

 

"Sure."

 

" 'Placed here by the Gideons.' " Krysty read from the cover. "Wonder who they were? Some kind of traveling-preacher show? Mebbe they went from hotel to hotel, leaving Bibles all around to spread the word of God."

 

"Leaving behind the word of God instead of paying the bill, you mean," Ryan corrected.

 

"No, no, my Uncle Tyas McCann told me about missionaries back when I was a girl in Harmony. Went everywhere to spread the word. Good men and women who believed in something positive, not like those sick flagellants beating themselves to death hoping for heaven," she replied. "I think these Gideons must've done the same thing as missionaries."

 

Ryan shrugged, "Mebbe. Ask Doc, if you dare."

 

"No shave, lover?" the green-eyed woman asked softly as she ran the back of her hand along of one Ryan's sandpaper cheeks.

 

"Too tired," Ryan said, falling back on the mattress. "There's no hot water, either. You might want to run a bath and let it sit for a while. Least then you can bathe at room temperature. If this joint is the best the wondrous Freedom Mall has to offer, I'd hate to see the worst."

 

"I don't mind the stubble," the redhead replied, sitting down at the foot of the bed. "I'm used to the rugged look. Your toenails could use a clipping, however."

 

Ryan raised a leg up from the bed. "That damn sec droid took care of two of them. Got any scissors?"

 

"I think J.B. does, in one of his pockets. I never know what he's going to be pulling out to show off next. Don't want to bother him now, though."

 

Ryan and Krysty shared a knowing grin. Having a room with sheets, pillows and a real bed was a luxury, especially for a man and woman used to having to grab brief moments of lovemaking in roadside camps. And rarely did the chance arrive where the group felt secure enough to divide themselves up to allow the privacy needed for intimacy.

 

The previous night the pair had been too wiped to even think of sex. This night, however, even with his head still ringing from the droid battle, Ryan was more than ready for some loveplay.

 

And Krysty's own sexual appetites were even greater than his own.

 

"Close call, us being able to find an eye doc with lenses for J.B." Ryan said. "Can think of a thousand other places where we'd been up the creek, him breaking his glasses like that."

 

"I know."

 

"A man with poor eyesight doesn't have much of a chance when he's trying to stay alive in Deathlands. Get himself and the ones around him chilled in a triple hurry."

 

"We dealt with it as it came down, lover," Krysty replied. "Like we always have."

 

"Trader would've cut J.B. loose to find his own way."

 

"So what? As I've told you before, you're not Trader. You're better than he ever thought about being."

 

"Am I? Am I really?" Ryan asked. "In his own way, Trader was the most honorable man I ever met. Never did anybody wrong on a deal. Never traded some of the more deadlier stockpiles we found in those hideaways he was always so good at sniffing out. Hell, he could have earned enough jack to set up his own private little barony if he'd sold that supply of nerve gas we found."

 

"I never said he wasn't a man with some honor hidden away in a dark corner somewhere," Krysty replied. "I said you were his better, and nothing you say is going to change my mind about that, Ryan Cawdor."

 

While speaking, Krysty began to examine Ryan's offered foot and calf carefully, lightly running her fingers along the body hair growing there while looking at his toes. To Ryan, the sensation was akin to having five feathers run gently up and down his weary six-foot-plus frame. The woman at his feet turned and placed the lifted leg on one side of her hips, allowing herself full, unencumbered access between Ryan's legs.

 

"I must be slipping," she observed, staring at Ryan's crotch.

 

A timely fragment from Ryan's dream from the mat-trans jump popped into his mind. "'Not a creature was stirring,'" he said.

 

Krysty gave a lusty chuckle.

 

 

"Told you I was tired," Ryan added.

 

 

"Bullshit, Ryan. I've never known you not to beup to satisfying our mutual sexual desires. What you need is a more direct approach." And on that statement, Krysty scooted back even farther, bending her head and allowing her full mane of red hair to obscure Ryan's view of what she was doing.

 

Not that he needed to have a picture drawn for him. His senses began to ignore his aches and pains from the sec-droid battle and devote their attentions to a new manner of bodily caress.

 

Krysty took him in her mouth, gently, softly lolling her tongue around and around the swelling corona of Ryan's rapidly extending manhood. He groaned. A gentle suction pulled at him as Krysty inhaled, while still keeping her tongue in rapid motion like a trapped hummingbird.

 

Such a move would raise an erection from a dead man, and even though he was beaten around the edges and his back had felt better and his shoulder hurt like a viper had bitten into it, Ryan was far from being deceased. Thanks to Krysty's ministrations, he was feeling more alive by the minute.

 

"I thought you were taking a bath," Ryan breathed, his own carnal desires starting to fully awaken. There was no hiding his interest.

 

"Later, lover. After we're done," Krysty said, her voice thickening as she stood and removed her outer shirt. She then playfully unsnapped her bra from the back, releasing the twin cones of flesh previously housed inside. "You like the topless look?"

 

"Come here and I'll show you."

 

Ryan allowed his eye to feast on the sight. He followed each indentation left in the sensitive skin where the straps of the bra had bitten into her voluptuous upper body. He wanted to trace each groove with his mouth and kiss away the reddish lines left in her pale flesh.

 

Krysty posed provocatively under his gaze.

 

"Why, Mr. Cawdor, I do believe you intend to take indecent liberties with me."

 

"That's the plan."

 

Krysty pouted, then strolled over, her boots gliding sinuously along the thick pile of the room's carpeting. She crossed her arms and placed her hands over her breasts, hiding the pink tips of her jutting nipples, but allowing some of the large areolae to peep through her splayed fingers.

 

"Think you can handle both of these?" she asked, bending at the waist and using her hands to create a plunging cavern of cleavage.

 

"I prefer to take one at a time," Ryan replied. "Like this."

 

He nuzzled her neck, working his way down to the tops of her bare breasts. He flicked his tongue along one nipple while using his fingers to lightly stoke the other. Fast, then slow.

 

"Mmm," Krysty breathed. "You ambidextrous little devil, you."

 

Ryan didn't respond. His mouth was busy with other, more-important tasks.

 

Krysty felt his hands at her waist, feeling around her belt and the snap of her pants. She was about to reach down and assist in their removal when Ryan was able to unlatch the buckle one-handed and flick the snap open in an easy, fluid motion. She squirmed out of the jeans and panties as he held on to their waistbands, pulling them down as she moved.

 

"I'm ready, lover," she breathed, looking down at him through half-lidded eyes glowing a dusky green. "From the looks of things, I think you're ready, too."

 

And then she was on top of him, joining him as their lips and genitals met in a lusty embrace of passion that began as a slow, steady rhythm. Soon, however, the motion broke out into a whiplash ride of thrusting that brought them simultaneously to the peaks of paradise.

 

 

 

RYAN WAS AWAKENED from a gentle doze by a light knocking at the hotel door. Instantly his senses came to full attention. Trouble normally didn't come with a knock, but one never could be too careful. "You order room service?" he asked Krysty.

 

 

"No, but that's not a bad idea," she said drowsily. "Breakfast in bed."

 

"Still night," Ryan said, glancing at his wrist chron. "Not even eleven yet."

 

The big man reluctantly untangled his arms from around Krysty's sumptuous body, his bad shoulder drawing a wince across his face. He stood up carefully, pulling the covers over her splendid nudity.

 

"Who is it?" he called while picking up his SIG-Sauer from the nightstand. Ryan crouched at the base of the door and cocked the handblaster, waiting for whoever might answer.

 

"Me, Dad. Sorry to bother you."

 

Ryan relaxed and stood up. "Just a sec, Dean," he said. Ryan looked around the room, spotting and inventorying his shirt, coat, boots, then remembered he left his well-traveled trousers in the tiny hotel bathroom. "Let me pull on some pants."

 

Once he was partially clothed, Ryan opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. "Hey, Dean. Jak," he said in greeting to the pair. "I'd let you in, but Krysty's sleeping."

 

"Okay, Ryan," the albino said. "Come by too late? Wake up?"

 

"Nah, I was just resting. Been a triple-long day. What's going on?"

 

"Well, Jak and me are bored listening to Doc. He's started going off on something about the crazy-ass theories of some Dutch guy named Von Daniken and how we were all put here by aliens from another planet and he just won't shut up about it," Dean said, rolling his eyes.

 

"Yeah, I've been on the receiving end of Doc's lectures before," Ryan replied sympathetically. "He'll fall asleep soon enough once he gets tired of listening to himself ramble on."

 

"Until then, we wanted to go out and see the mall. Get away from him until he talks himself out or something," Dean continued.

 

"Got a destination in mind?" Ryan asked.

 

"There's a place for guys our age in here, Dad. Called a vid arcade. Supposed to have games and stuff. All kidsno oldies allowed."

 

"I've heard of them. All the rage in the predark days." Ryan grinned at Jak. "Surprised at you, Jak. Thought you didn't like being called 'kid.' "

 

"Don't," Jak said flatly. "Have to keep watch on Dean."

 

"I read you," Ryan said. "And I appreciate that."

 

"If the vid arcade sucks, we can still look around. Me and Jak figured we could recce this mall, find out where the good times are for guys our age."

 

"Find Dean hobby horse. Let him ride," Jak teased.

 

"You're not that much older than me, Jak," Dean replied.

 

"I don't care where you go, as long as you stay out of bars and gaudies. I don't need you coming back here drunk or infected."

 

"Oh, Dad. We just want to look."

 

"Keep eye on him," Jak said.

 

"You do that."

 

"I can take care of myself, you know," Dean protested, his face darkening at the thought of being too young or inexperienced to go out into the mall alone.

 

He turned to Jak. "You want to sit in the room and chat with Doc, you go right ahead. Bore your white ass into a coma triple quick."

 

"Mebbe knock you both into coma," Jak said. "Shut both up."

 

Ryan mulled the proposed jaunt over in his mind. Other than the battle he'd entered into in the pita battle he'd gone into of his own free willhe'd seen no signs of trouble in Freedom. The mall was run tighter than most villes he'd been through, and people seemed to want to mind their own businessblue-light specials or not.

 

He'd never allow Dean to go out alone, but with Jak at his back, Ryan knew they'd be as safe as one could be in Deathlands.

 

"Be safe," Ryan said.

 

"Count on it," Dean replied.