Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

T he whistle blew just about the time Legacy Vasquez tried to drill through his fingers.

“Shit!” He jerked back, singeing his glove with the laser bit but missing anything important.

“Damn, man. Good thing it’s quitting time.” His best friend on the drilling crew, Garmon, grinned at him, teeth very white against all the red dust on his face.

“You know it.” He broke down his drill and cleaned it quickly. Not doing so could cause hours of downtime when it failed, and a drilling engineer was only as good as his equipment.

“You’re usually not careless, man. You feeling okay?”

Legacy grimaced, thinking, as he had been all day, about Aeryn and his tentacle porn. “Yeah, I’m fine. I mean I’m not sick. Just distracted.”

“Well, you know what they say about the drills,” Garmon intoned.

“Distracted will get you killed,” Legacy said with Garmon. “Yeah. I know.” He shook his head. “It’s not even a bad distraction.”

“Oh-ho! Who is it? And are they live or virtual?”

“You are such a freak, man,” he teased. Garmon preferred the no-strings attached thrill of cybersex with a virtual partner. That way, he got just what he wanted, no worries about getting an omega pregnant, and he could access them anytime. Legacy had no issues with that, as much as he gave Garmon shit. To each his own.

He just preferred someone live and warm and willing.

Like his roommate, Aeryn.

Holy crap, Aeryn did it for him. Okay, so he wasn’t going to look too closely at his hero kink, because if anyone had needed saving from himself and from Carstyle Mining Inc., it had been Aeryn. A skinny ginger with freckles and a bad leg? Oh God, he was begging to be beaten up. So Legacy has struck up a conversation on the freaking transport jump to his third posting with the company, and Aeryn’s first. And they’d been roomies ever since.

And he really liked Aeryn, even as he lusted after the guy every damn time he went into heat and stayed in his room for three days, making Legacy hard as rock and grumpy as hell from having to smell what he wanted and couldn’t have.

And then there was this tentacle thing.

It was like he’d gone into overdrive since he knew something about Aeryn now. Something sexual. He’d visited the site on a free trial.

Holy shit that was an eye-opener.

Garmon was staring at him, and Legacy had a feeling he’d missed something. “What?”

“I said of course I am, and again, who’s the distraction?”

“It’s virtual.” That was kind of true, right? He was imagining Aeryn being…tentacled.

Garmon’s face fell. “Aw, man, I was going to get my vicarious rocks off on your story.”

“Well, too bad.” He finished up storing the drill before stowing his tool kit in the onsite lockers. Garmon followed, and they walked to the transport together. They never lived on whatever planet they were mining. The company discouraged fraternizing with the locals for a lot of reasons, so they all lived on the orbiting stations.

They hopped up to the station in no time, and he headed for his quarters, ducking Garmon’s invite to go have a beer. He’d been spending more and more time in the apartment, wanting to be with Aeryn, just because if nothing else, now he knew the guy was interested in sex, even if he’d never shown a response to Legacy’s subtle come-ons.

These days he was thinking maybe he was just too subtle. Maybe Aeryn was a little clueless about the possibilities of sex with a real human, kind of like Garmon was.

Now he had a way in, and he was trying to decide what to do to exploit it.

He headed into the quarters, finding Aeryn asleep on the couch, his tablet propped on his chest.

Oh, stars and planets. Sweat popped out on his forehead. If he’d been playing games or watching vids, Aeryn would be on the big screen. So, had he been setting up to watch his porn when he fell asleep? He probably hadn’t had time to really watch anything, but the idea made Legacy hard as a rock.

First, he needed to shower. Then he needed to sit very close to Aeryn on the couch and see what he was doing.

He washed up as quickly as he could, then headed out to look down at Aeryn, who was no longer curled up tightly. He’d rolled to his back as if he was safe with Legacy. He bent to ease Aeryn’s feet up off the couch and into his lap as he sat down. Legacy clicked on the big vid screen, putting on something with explosions while he waited for Aeryn to wake up.

Aeryn finally snorted, kicking a little, then opening his eyes. “Oh, hey.”

“Hey.” He grinned, because Aeryn’s hair was sticking up all over. Adorable.

“My feet are on you.”

“Yep. That was how there was room for me.” He patted Aeryn’s feet.

Aeryn flushed bright red and scrambled to try to sit up. Legacy held him in place for a moment.

“It’s cool, if you want to stay.” He let go then so Aeryn didn’t feel trapped.

“Okay.” Aeryn eased back down, and Legacy wanted to shout, because that was a victory of sorts. Aeryn was touching him voluntarily, not just hovering close to him on the couch.

They progressed.

Now all he had to do was get Aeryn to really relax around him, like relax and breathe so maybe he’d get a kiss by the end of the night. Which was probably just a fantasy, but you know, whatever worked.

“So what are we watching?” Aeryn asked.

“I was thinking maybe something with explosions.”

Aeryn laughed. “You always want something with explosions.”

“Uh-huh. We could always watch something within tentacles.” He studied Aeryn closely.

“That’s not funny.” Aeryn shoved his tablet under a couch cushion.

“It’s a little funny. Don’t worry, I’m not judging you. You know what I watch.”

“Well, no, I really don’t, but kind of. I assume there’s lots of boobs.” Aeryn was going to explode if his cheeks got any pinker.

“No, not really. I watch a lot of dick.”

Aeryn started sputtering and coughing, and he moved his feet, putting them down on the floor, almost standing up, but Legacy grabbed his arm to keep him where he was.

“Is that a problem?” Legacy asked.

“No, God, no. I just didn’t know that about you. I mean, I’m not gonna judge you for being, you know, into male omegas. I’m totally into male alphas.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I kind of figured that by the way you watch me.” It made him hard.

“Oh my God. I’m sorry, I never meant to, like, wig you out or anything. Oh my God.”

“Stop.” Legacy held Aeryn still. “I’m not upset, not at all. In fact, it kind of makes me happy.”

“Really?” Aeryn’s eyebrows both went up. “I—I’m just a skinny weirdo with a bad limp.”

“Yeah, and I’m just an overly muscled dumbass with a scarred lip.”

“You’re not dumb. You’re a drilling engineer. You’re super smart. You have to know physics and math and stuff.” Aeryn looked like he was willing to take on the world for Legacy and make sure that no one talked down to him, including himself. It might be the cutest thing ever.

“Thanks. Anyway. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not opposed to the idea of you watching me.”

“Cool. Maybe we could watch something like a thriller today. Car chases instead of so many explosions. You know, hand-to-hand combat, like with somebody hot in it.” Aeryn scooted back toward him.

“Sure, and who do you think is a hot actor?”

Aeryn’s cheeks went nuclear now. “Umm. I’ll let you pick.”

Legacy had to wonder what that meant. Maybe it was somebody who looked a little bit like him. He hoped so.

They definitely progressed.