Jewel Read Online Free Page B

appearance. It
felt sculpted to her, artificial, her parents’ dream of the daughter they
wished they had had, rather than the one that had actually been born to them.
The one bright spot in Jewel’s appearance was that her skin had begun to slip
back into its natural mocha from the creamier tones her parents had bought for
her. She couldn’t have stopped the process if she had wanted to—bleaching
treatments were expensive—but she had to admit she wanted to see the way she’d
look with the colors the stars had intended for her.
    She ran a fingertip over her left temple, tracing the
perfectly camouflaged patch of artificial skin she’d worn there for the past
nine months. She wore a similar scrap on the right side of her head to make
certain her face maintained a balanced appearance and no one guessed what she
was concealing beneath it. Yet another legacy of her parents that made life
just a little bit more difficult now that she was living without them. Of
course, from their perspective, anything they could do to make her life more
difficult these days would prove to be money well spent. They must be
apoplectic that she had escaped from them.
    Jewel sighed, more from decades-old heartache than from
exhaustion and turned to the shower stall. Resources were tight aboard the Euripides ,
especially with their large contingent of passengers, so everything, even
recyclable commodities like water, was being tightly rationed. She punched her
three-minute shower allotment into the control panel and set the temperature at
ninety-four degrees. She slipped inside to take advantage of every single
second of the spray.
    A fine, warm mist enveloped her for a few moments, a
soothing prelude to the cleansing to come. Then the real force of the water
struck her and she filled her hands with cleanser and began to scrub the
detritus off her face and body.
    As she worked, she thought she heard the door to the
lavatory open and wondered if she could really be so tired that she’d forgotten
to punch the privacy lock. “Stars, Vega, can’t you hear the shower running?”
    Vega didn’t answer, and the blurry shape approaching the
privacy screen was much taller than her roommate would ever be.
    Fear flushed through Jewel’s body, wiping away the initial
signs of her fatigue in an invigorating surge of adrenaline. “Hey,” she
snapped. “I’m naked in here!”
    She cracked open the privacy screen, sticking her head out
while continuing to shield her naked body from view.
    Erik Gunnarson stood three feet away from her, grinning from
ear to ear. “I should hope so, Ms. Aurora. This wouldn’t be as much fun if you
were still clothed.”
    Jewel stepped back in shock. “How did you get in here? The
cabin door was locked and Vega’s right outside.”
    “I’m the ship’s exec,” Erik reminded her. “I have a master
key. And as for Vega, let’s hope she continues to sleep.”
    He stepped closer, removing the belt of the gi he’d
been wearing since the whole crisis started back in the exercise room.
    Jewel pulled back deeper into the shower stall. “But what
are you doing here?” she asked.
    Erik slipped the gi off his broad shoulders exposing
a chest that was every bit as impressive as Jewel had hoped it would be. His
hands moved to the top of his pants and hesitated. “I’m hoping to take a shower
with you. Do you really want me to leave?”
    Jewel focused on Erik’s crotch. She didn’t want to look
there. She knew it was rude, or crude, or something like that. But she’d never
seen a man’s penis in the flesh and suddenly she could as Erik lowered his
pants and exposed himself. It wasn’t hard yet, but hung down in front of him,
dangling next to balls big enough to fill her hand. Even as she watched, the
phallus swelled and stirred and started growing larger.
    “I’ll take that as an invitation,” Erik told her.
    He touched the water controls, punching in a new set of
commands, and then slid past the privacy screen to