by Linda Gayle
But when Canto lowered the table for her, she lay upon it, gripping the edges with tense fingers. There would be no freedom for her until her task was finished.
Kels followed Elion out the door into the hallway, breathing deep of the jungly, feral scents of the Dome. He wouldn’t want to make a lifelong career of it, but he did miss performing when he didn’t have a partner. He found himself more than a little excited to show off Sayal tomorrow.
Elion, on the other hand, walking stiff backed ahead of him, clearly couldn’t wait to leave. His mate glanced up and down the hall. “How do we get out?”
Kels dropped a hand on his shoulder. “This way.” Double doors swished open, and they stepped into the main arena area. Dozens of symmetrical rows of thickly cushioned blue seats ringed a circular area where overhead lights focused on the neo triad.
“Oh, hold on a minute.” Elion froze in his tracks. “I’m not going in here.”
Kels flipped a grin. “C’mon, you big duck. They’re not going to bite, or at least not bite you, and I want to get a look at our competition.”
The triad, two dusky men and a very dark woman, were arranging themselves around a jeweled swing hanging from the ceiling, discussing their options. Elion’s normally pale face had gone ashen, and Kels felt a kick of guilt. He rubbed his friend’s shoulder. “El, nothing happened to you in the Dome, did it? I mean, I’m not dredging up awful memories, right?”
“No.” His eyes sharpened again with the familiar annoyance. “I just don’t enjoy watching other people fuck.”
Kels laughed. “Are you toasted? Who doesn’t? You’ve not gone soft on me, have you?”
“My dick’s as hard as ever, you scrag. It’s my sense of decency that’s offended.”
“Ah now.” Not waiting for Elion to follow, knowing he would, Kels jogged up the flight of stairs between rows where the audience would sit. Behind each seat stood a silver stand holding the brace of neurotransmitters that would trigger the rush of dopamine or serotonin or whatever chemical produced extreme joy and pleasure to either human or alien patrons. “You ever tried this?” He patted one of the braces.
Elion barely shook his head. He kept his eyes averted from the triad, who had decided the woman should sit on the swing while the men… Well, they hadn’t quite worked that out yet. Kels sprawled in the comfortable chair and tucked the brace behind his neck. The end points lay at the base of his skull where, if it were functioning, it would pulse the orgasmic energy produced by the gamesplayers into his limbic system, producing a euphoric high like no other.
Elion sat heavily beside him. “Take that thing off.”
Turning his head carefully so as not to disturb the brace, Kels said, “I don’t even think it’s on.”
“What if it is?”
“Then hurray for my side.”
“Stop it, Kels. You know this turns my gut.”
“Why? It’s just good old-fashioned fucking.”
“There’s nothing good or old-fashioned about it.” His friend risked a glance at the triad, and Kels followed his gaze. One man’s cock lay stiff as stone against his belly, but the other fellow, oh, dear, looked like his luck had run out. The woman hopped off the swing and sank to her knees before him.
Elion turned sharply away and hissed, “I can’t even concentrate.”
“That’s the whole idea,” Kels said. “Relax. Anyhow, I don’t think there’s much worry about these three producing more than a spark.” He tugged at his lower lip, judging them with his experienced eye. “Amateurs. We should do fine tomorrow.”
After a suspicious glance to make sure the transmitter brace was nowhere near his head, Elion shifted back into his seat. “She won’t do it, Kels. I’m picking up all sorts of nerves from her.”
“So am I, but I bet it’ll translate into something fantastic once we start fucking.”
“Start? I thought that’s what you’d been doing all afternoon.”
“Mm, not hardly.” Distracted by the antics of the triad, Kels waved him to quiet. The woman was admirably working at getting the other guy hard, and the one with the erection had settled in behind her and was lubing her ass. Without meaning to, by abandoning the swing they’d come upon a good combination. The men were attractive, and the woman had exceptional tits that swung as she sucked off her partner, and her ass raised invitingly to the other man’s greased and probing fingers.
Kels’s cock began to swell, which was only natural. Thank the saints he’d never had a problem in that department. He focused back on Elion, who had finally turned to watch the group. From the edge of his eye, he studied his mate. Canto was right; they’d be cracking together, the three of them. They could drag in at least twice the haul in a triad than he and Sayal could pull alone. And of course he’d known for years that Elion wanted him. He rubbed his chin with his knuckle, thinking back on that night they’d both been soaked in hool and ended up tossed in a dirt-floored cell to sleep it off.
It hadn’t just been the hool that had led to wet kisses and desperate groping. Elion was a damned good-looking fella, even if he was uptight most of the time. If Kels hadn’t considered at the last minute the impact fucking would have on their business partnership, they might have had quite the fiery affair. Elion had had his jaunts along the way, like any healthy, pharma-free male, with both blokes and birds, but he definitely leaned toward men. Kels couldn’t live without the birds, but he didn’t mind a guy on his cock now and then. Without a doubt, they knew how to suck off better than most women.
Keen on the signs, Kels observed El’s breathing deepen, his lips slackening. Crack if this weren’t flipping him on. The triad had finally got their ducks in a row, and the taller fella was pistoning into the woman’s ass while she blew the other man. There were groans and moans all around, plenty of thrusting and hair pulling. Maybe they’d be all right after all. The neglected swing twisted in the breeze gusted by the biopure system, which also puffed the heady scent of their sexual exertion up to the audience of two.
Kels covertly eyed Elion’s crotch, and sure enough, a well-defined ridge rose temptingly. What would happen if he just casually reached over and began to stroke it?
He was just about to, when Elion turned to him and blurted, “What was it we were going to discuss?”
His sudden eruption of words made Kels jump and snatch back his roaming hand. He fisted it self-consciously in his lap, hiding his own hard-on. “Saints, El, I don’t know. I’m a bit distracted.”
Elion licked his lips, then bit them. He must be fighting all hells of a battle inside, Kels thought. His self-restraint made him all the sexier, of course. He’d been a great kisser, as he recalled…
“It was about business,” El tried again.
Kels raised his eyebrows and waved his other hand toward the triad. “This is business.” His skin burned, and he thought if he didn’t suck or fuck something soon, he’d come in his pants again for the second time that day. Crack, the three performers weren’t that exciting. Must be that Sayal had him all worked up; plus he couldn’t get the remembered girth and heft of Elion’s cock out of his brain. “You know,” he said, realizing his voice had gone husky, “Sayal asked me if we’d ever performed together.”
“Who?” A pucker formed between Elion’s brows.
“You, me, and Keeva.”
“Keeva?” He grunted a laugh. “Not in a thousand years.”
How telling that he left out Kels. Kels shifted over on one elbow, leaning closer. “What Canto said, you know, about the three of us… It’s something to consider.”
Elion looked horrified but also terribly aroused. His pupils had spread in his pale blue eyes, and his skin was flushed. His face was centimeters from Kels’s, and Kels could practically see the cells vibrating with lust.
“Do that?” Elion pointed toward the triad, who were talking to one another in panting shouts, desperately trying to coordinate their orgasms for a huge finale. “Are you insane? I could never get it up with people watching.
”
Kels murmured, “I’m watching now, and you’ve got it up.”
Elion dropped his hands protectively to his crotch. “Stop it.”
“Why?” He let his gaze roam over his friend’s face, wishing El would lean in for a kiss. “We tried it once, remember?”
“‘Course I remember.” He turned away, only to be confronted with the writhing trio, and finally threw his gaze to the ceiling. “That was a mistake, that night.”
“Maybe not. We were heading in the right direction before we…came to our senses. Besides”—he risked running the back of a finger down Elion’s cheek—“think of the money. A triad hauls in double or triple what a pair does.”
“Don’t ask me to do it.” Emotional agony laced his words as he shook his head.
Crack. Kels dropped back in his seat and braced his arms along the armrests. “I’m sorry. I was thinking selfishly. Again.”
“It’s all right.” Elion breathed out heavily. “You’re only thinking of our best interests, but seriously, I don’t know how you do this. It’s so impersonal.”
“Gets you going, though, don’t it?” His cock tented his pants, and if Elion hadn’t been right there stewing in his righteous misery, he wouldn’t have hesitated to jerk off. As it was, with the threesome grinding to a sweaty finish, he felt an orgasm rolling toward him. He gasped, gripping the armrests. “Saints, I don’t… They’re not even that good…” And abruptly a blast of heat and pleasure seared through his nervous system, rolling his eyes in his head, arching his back from the seat while jism erupted in explosive jets from his untouched cock. Color swirled behind his eyelids, and his heart thundered.
“Kels! Kels!” It was Elion, gripping his shoulder, shoving something—oh yeah, the brace—away from his head.
Shaking and quivering, riding fading waves of delight, Kels drifted back to himself. His mate’s face swam into view, and Kels, slouched down limply in the comfy chair, let out an unsteady laugh. “By the saints. Farkin’ system was on after all.”
Whatever had happened to Kels? Sayal broke off in midsentence speaking with Canto and stared as the captain staggered toward them, a sloppy grin on his face and Elion supporting him by one arm.
He looked as if he’d just had brain-busting sex. A thrill shot through her overridden nerves. Had he and Elion…? In the Dome…? But no, it was unlikely Elion’s face would still be so drawn and tense.
When they stopped in front of her and Canto, it was Elion who asked, “Is the scan finished? What are the results?”
Canto’s drily amused gaze slid over Kels before he handed Elion the digigraph. “She’s clear. I picked up some odd alien DNA, but then she explained she’d gotten the tat from Ulvik.” He shook his head and, despite his sleek hair and taut skin, adopted a grandfatherly concern. “That’s a dangerous game you’re playing with her, Havoc. You know how those lume tats can backfire. We lost half of a very promising octet last year to ink poisoning. Not Ulvik’s work, but nevertheless…”
Kels sniffed, straightened, and jammed his fingers through his thick hair, combing it back from his forehead. “It’ll all work out. Have faith. So we’re on for tomorrow?” He turned glassy eyes on her.
She looked at Elion, who scowled, then at Kels and said, “Yes, I suppose we are. Are you all right?”
“Never better. But take my advice.” He giggled and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Keep your head out of the cooker. Unless you’ve been chemically sterilized, I think it’s a bit of overkill.”
Canto pressed thumb and forefinger against his eyelids and sighed audibly. “Captain Havoc, whatever will I do with you?”
“Well, anything but fuck me, ‘cause, brother, my balls are drained.”
Elion dug his fingers into Kels’s biceps. “I think it’s time for you to sleep it off, Captain.”
The members of the triad, chatting and mopping sweat from their bodies with white towels, strolled by, and Kels raised a hand in drunken salutation. “Great job, you guys. And gal.”
They all waved back and went on their way down another mysterious corridor. Kels, still grinning, said, “Nice people. Really, really wonderful people.”
Elion closed his eyes tight, appearing to gather his patience. Decidedly sympathetic, Canto patted Sayal’s shoulder. “Very well, my dear, I suppose we’ll see you tomorrow. Do you have any questions for me?”
Too many. They would take hours. It was probably better if she didn’t know the answers and just discovered them as they went. “No, thank you. You’ve been very kind.”
He bent in a slight bow. “I look forward to your performance.”
Elion said, “Can you tell me how to get out? I’m afraid if I ask him, we’ll end up chasing that triad through the corridors.”
Canto said, “Of course. Take two rights, then a left. Look for the red door, go through that, follow the green hallway to another door, and it will take you out to the lobby.”
Sayal hoped Elion remembered that. He got Kels into gear, and they started toward the exit. She was about to ask if she should take his other arm, when Kels slung it around her shoulders and pulled her tight against his side. “How was the scan, princess?”
“It was tolerable.” The deep humming of the scanner and the pulsing lights had propelled her memory back to being under her creator’s probes as he had examined her for imperfections. She shook off the dread bringing prickles to her skin. “So what happened to you?”
He never stopped grinning. “Something wonderful.”
Elion peered around his front at her. “He got his damned head caught in a neurotransmitter and took the impact of three simultaneous orgasms full on.” He hitched Kels’s arm over his shoulders and slid his hand around his captain’s back. “It’ll take him hours to come down from this. I hope he’ll be ready for the jarouk game. Otherwise—”
“‘Course I’ll be ready.” With both of them trapped beneath his strong arms, he pulled them hard against him. “I wouldn’t let down my two favorite people.”
“Kels, you’re strangling me.” Elion twisted until Kels had loosened his affectionate death hold and shoved open another door with his boot. They’d navigated several twists and turns in the hallway and now, finally, broke into the lobby. Sayal took a deep breath of the filtered air, which at least did not smell of sex.
Kels had begun humming quietly. Elion disentangled himself and patted the captain’s cheeks. “Kels. Kels, listen to me. You need to go lie down now and sleep off this fog, or you’ll be in no shape for tonight. Do you hear me?”
Kels stared at him, eyes heavy-lidded. He leaned forward, and Sayal held her breath, for it was apparent he was going to kiss Elion, but Elion put firm hands on his chest and pushed Kels back. “Pah, Captain. Quit that nonsense. Straighten up.”
Kels sulked. “You’re feeling bossy today.”
Elion looked to her. “Sayal, talk some sense into him, please.”
She might be able to help, a little. She held Kels’s wrist near the pulse point and tried to open their bond subtly, so that Elion wouldn’t notice. She drew away some of the energy coursing through his big body. Immediately, her body flushed with sexual heat. She dropped his wrist as if it burned, but Kels did seem a bit steadier on his feet. Now he just seemed confused.
“Kels,” she said softly, “Elion is right. Please go back to your cube. We’ll meet up with you later, and we can discuss what we need to do to prepare for the jarouk game. All right?”
He rubbed his face, suddenly looking tired and hungover. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”
“Come on,” Elion said. “We’ll walk you back.”
“Nah.” He put his big, open hand on his first mate’s head and ruffled the blond hair affectionately. “‘S’all right. I can make it. You make sure Sayal gets home all right, though. Take care of her for me.”
“I will. You’re sure you remember where you’re living?”
“I’ll find it, but where’ll I find you later?”
“Let�
�s meet at the diner, eight-hour,” Sayal suggested.
Both men were amenable. Kels cupped her cheek and dropped a lingering kiss on her lips. “Keep him outta trouble, will you?”
She smiled. If anyone would get in trouble, it wouldn’t be straitlaced Elion. Kels did look adorable, shiny eyed and scruffy haired. Part of her wanted to follow him back to his cube and curl up beside him while he slept. But considering the charge of sexual energy she’d taken, that wasn’t all they’d be doing… “Sweet dreams, Captain,” she murmured.
“Mm.” He winked, then turned and jumble-stepped away, more or less in the general direction of his living quarters.
When he had stumbled out of sight around a corner, she said to Elion, “He’s an adventure, isn’t he?”
Her phrasing made him smile, not the huge, easy grin of Kels’s, but a slight lifting of the lips. Where Kels was bold sunshine and big mountains, Elion was cool, deep waters and snow on the meadow. She wished she knew more about the first mate. She’d been about to excuse herself and tell him she could find her own way home, but changed her mind. When would there be another opportunity for the two of them to be alone? Besides, there were things she’d like to learn from him. “Elion,” she said, “would you walk with me for a while?”
“You don’t want to go back to your cube?” he asked.
“Not right now. I don’t feel like I can sit or stand still.” She shook out her hands. “I’ve got the jitters. The scan, the Dome, everything. I hate to say it, but I’m feeling a bit uncertain about tomorrow.”
A layer of ice melted from his eyes. He tipped his head to peer at her more closely. “You’re not ready, are you?”
“I’m not sure. Can you tell me anything about it?”
“Only what I saw today.” His lips pressed together. “I think you’re right. We should take a walk and…talk.”
Without his asking, she slipped her hand around his elbow, and they strolled to where, she didn’t know. He led, and she followed. Slightly shorter and more slender than Kels, he gave off an air of steadiness and calm she truly needed to absorb at the moment. She hadn’t been lying about her jitters.