Origin

by Dani Worth

  I lifted my arms to circle Anders’s neck behind me, and Clay must have taken that as an offering of my breasts because his mouth closed over my right nipple. He sucked it into his mouth.

  I cried out and lowered one arm to his chest, leaving my other hand where it was so my fingers could feel the stubble on Anders’s jaw as he kissed any part of my skin he could reach. His hands drifted down my arms and around to my waist. He smoothed palms over my hips like he memorized the shape of me. His erection prodded me from behind and I ground against him, loving his rumbling groan against my back.

  Clay made a frustrated noise and the water stopped.

  I opened my eyes, blinked moisture away to find him shaking his head.

  “Why did you have to wait until I was half dead to do this?” He grinned to show that his complaint was a tease.

  I put my hands on his waist and moved him to the side, then stepped away from Anders, loving that the noise he made this time was nothing but a masculine grunt of protest. I didn’t even care that they’d see the scars on my back as I stepped from the shower and bent to see if the towels were in the wall drawer next to it.

  Both men made noises then, and I kept facing away from them because I wasn’t sure how they’d take the very real feeling of feminine power that suddenly swamped me. Then I just shook my head, grabbed three towels and turned back to find that Anders had pulled Clay to his front and was stroking his hands all over Clay’s body as they both watched me.

  Anders used his longer reach to snag the towel first and he started drying Clay with it. I smiled and dried myself, running the towel around my neck and down over my breasts. I spread my arms and dragged the soft material over my back, thrusting my breasts out in a wanton display that made Anders stop what he was doing to stare. Then he shook his head. “Claybourne, we are both in so much trouble.”

  I loved that wicked drawl in his voice. Shivers crawled up my spine and I shared a smile with Clay. “I think the captain is dry. One more wet person.” I crooked my finger until Anders stepped out to stop in front of me. I then proceeded to torture him with the soft cloth. I ran it over his neck and shoulders, stroked it down his chest, stepped so close my body plastered to his as I ran it around his back and swished it back and forth.

  “So, so much trouble, Claybourne,” he said on a growl.

  Clay only laughed and stepped out of the shower. He swayed and Anders and I both reached for him.

  “Bed sounds like a good idea,” he said.

  He really was too tired for what I wanted and I tried to shove back my disappointment. Maybe Anders was right. I was going to be trouble because it felt like a ravenous monster had been let loose inside me and she wanted to touch and taste every part of their bodies.

  Clay led the way. He picked up the first satchel someone had tossed on the bed and dropped it on the floor. I grabbed mine and started to look inside for the soft sleep pants and shirt I’d packed for the rent room on Burga One.

  “Really?” Anders asked. He took the bag right out of my hands and threw it to the corner. “You think we’re letting you put on clothes now that we finally got you to part with them?”

  Clay was nodding as he climbed onto the bed. “You’ll be lucky if we ever let you put clothes on again.”

  I started to tense up with the word let, but again, the fear that had been a part of most of my life just dissipated. “Let me?” I said, running my hand down my hips.

  Anders threw his head back, his laughter loud and long.

  I grinned, couldn’t stop it because he had the most wonderful, joyous laugh—one that even made Clay smile at him.

  He lowered his head to look at me. “Trouble,” was all he muttered before he snatched me right off my feet and dropped me next to Clay. He knelt on the bottom of the bed and stared, his gaze going back and forth as he took in both Clay and me. He opened his mouth, shut it and swallowed hard. After putting a hand on my ankle and Clay’s, he tightened his fingers and kept staring. He wanted to say something, but whatever it was choked him up.

  Clay’s head moved on the pillow beside me and I turned my head until our gazes met. “Go get him,” he ordered.

  I nodded, sat up and started to scoot down the bed, but Anders suddenly growled and crawled up until I laid back and he hovered over me. His huge body dwarfed mine. “I should be so scared,” I whispered.

  “Are you?” he asked.

  I shook my head and sent my hand out on a search for Clay’s. He threaded our fingers together, raised my hand and kissed it.

  “Make love to the pretty girl, Sullivan.”

  “Trying to order me around in bed, Captain?” Anders turned all that smoldering affection on to the man beside me.

  “Always.” Clay shifted closer. “I want to watch.”

  “You’ll do more than watch,” Anders said as he lowered himself onto me.

  I hissed at the wonderful heat coming off all that skin. His shoulders were so broad. I ran my hands over them, then down to the hair on his chest. “I love this,” I said, tangling my fingers in it. He slowly rubbed his chest back and forth over my breasts and I arched up into him and instinctively spread my legs to cradle his lower body against me.

  This time he hissed, then cursed, and I loved it. Loved the way he was reduced to four-letter words.

  I love him.

  Glancing at Clay—who couldn’t seem to figure out where he wanted to look—made me smile.

  I loved both of them.

  My heart swelled but I didn’t tell them because I knew they would fight me staying on this ship, that they wanted me to see my home, be a part of its rebuild. They felt I deserved a chance and would surely offer up some nonsense about me needing to be with other people to find what I truly wanted.

  Clay’s remark about other Gwinarians on the planet had let me know this was their plan.

  That swelling of love hit a wall of pain as I understood that the two of them would be staying together. I liked that they’d be together—it just hurt that it would be without me as well.

  Suddenly, I wanted my bond with them to be just as strong as theirs was with each other. Before Anders could try and talk again, I lifted up and took his mouth. He groaned when I slid my tongue between his lips, when I ran it over his teeth and coaxed his tongue out to play. My hands took on a will of their own and I touched every part of him I could reach, moaning when I pressed down on his butt and felt the glide of his cock over my wet folds.

  Anders pulled his mouth back and sucked air into his lungs as he shuddered and pumped his hips against me. “Holy shit,” he moaned. “Claybourne, gods.”

  “I’m watching. Stunned here too, babe.”

  Anders lifted up on his arms. The big man was shaking and I knew he was holding back. I didn’t want that. I used my eyes to silently plead with Clay, to beg him to join in and help me completely unravel the big man. I spread my legs wider and Anders started to pull away.

  “No,” I said, wrapping my legs around his hips to press him back.

  “Siri,” he gasped, moving his hips again. “Sweetheart, we gotta slow this down or I’m gonna lose it.”

  “Please,” I said, lifting up to suck and bite his neck. “Lose it on me. Lose it in me.”

  “Fuck,” he bit out, moving his hips back enough to press the tip of his cock at my entrance.

  Clay groaned and reached between us to wrap his fingers around Anders and guide him inside.

  “Not helping me stay on course here, Claybourne.”

  “Shut up. You love my hands on you.”

  “Yeah,” Anders gasped as he sank deep inside me. “That’s the fucking problem.”

  “Oh,” I breathed.

  “Shit. There she goes with that oh noise again.” Anders buried his face in my neck and started counting.

  Clay chuckled and stroked Anders’s back. He must have clutched Anders’s ass because the big guy clenched against me.

  “You’re gonna make me lose it like a damned teenager.” Anders suddenl
y lifted his face. His blond bangs flopped over his eyes and he blew them back so he could see me. “You okay, sweetheart?”

  “I’m more than okay.” I held his arms, lifted my hips and tightened my legs around him. “I’ll be even better if you’d fucking move.”

  His mouth went slack, his eyes glazed over and I knew then that he understood for sure that I was completely okay with what we were doing. He began to move inside me, stroking in a way I’d never felt. It was good. It was really good. I cried out, unable to stop the smile on my face as I let the pleasure take me over.

  “I’ve never—” Clay broke off and groaned and managed to turn my face toward him. He took a shuddering breath. “Siri, you look so gorgeous. Baby, you look so—” He broke off again and came close enough to lick my bottom lip.

  I gasped and took one hand away from the death grip I’d had on Anders’s arms and reached for whatever I could touch on Clay. It happened to be his hip. I clenched my fingers in his hip, wondering if I touched the word tattoo. He turned onto his side and I could grasp his cock. All it took was one touch and he shouted and came all over my hand and my side and probably Anders.

  I scooped it up and ran my hand over Anders’s back to dig my fingers into his ass as that feeling started—the one I’d felt in his room before.

  “Shit,” Claybourne muttered. “Who’s the teenager here?”

  Anders was mumbling words I couldn’t even understand as I cried out and tightened around him. “Oh!” I yelled the word this time as that wonderful tension took over my whole body before letting me fly into the release I was coming to love so, so much. I yelled again and felt Anders shaking against me and in the back of my mind I realized he was finishing too and that Clay was pulling his face around for a kiss. I sucked air into my hot lungs and tightened my legs even more, and when I finally came down, I could only lie there and watch them stare at me, my eyes slitted.

  There was something in both their faces—something that should have reassured me that they were possibly thinking of forever with me too. But I couldn’t stay awake long enough to focus. All I could do was breath out one word again.

  “Oh.”

  The last thing I heard was Anders laughing. The last thing I felt was Clay’s mouth on mine. I sighed and dropped into sleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  Neither man could keep from touching me whenever I was anywhere near them the next day, but when they went to check on Crichton, I went the opposite direction. I took the vidscreen into the observation deck, planning to try and disappear into a story and away from the thoughts tearing me up. I loved them so much, it was killing me—the thought of them moving on without me once they got me to Kithra.

  I was only in the room for a few minutes when I realized I wouldn’t be able to read. Didn’t matter anyway because Clay was feeling a lot better and he sought me out fast. One minute I was staring into space and the next, I was flat on my back getting kissed like crazy. And I loved his taste, just as I loved Anders’s. Clay had been drinking that lemon tea and the flavor mixed with his own unique essence, made me stroke my tongue in his mouth over and over.

  He pulled away just enough to keep kissing my skin. He opened his mouth on my jaw, moved down my neck, then growled when he met the material of my shirt. Deft fingers had it unfastened and spread open before I could get my hands up to help. He sat up and murmured, “Low lights.” He stayed there, staring before he reached out to cup my breasts in his hands. “You are stunning.”

  I held my arms up to him and he lowered back down to slant his mouth over mine. He stroked his fingers over my left breast as he sucked on my bottom lip. “Think there’s enough room on these cushions for Anders?” he whispered.

  “We’ll make room,” I whispered back, guessing that he wanted the three of us together each time.

  “Asking because he’ll show up any minute.”

  I just laughed.

  He sat up and shook his head as he stared down at my body. “These freckles are so damned sexy,” he whispered, running his hand over my collarbone where I knew there were a lot of them. There were footsteps in the hall and he closed my shirt over my breasts. “I have to physically lock the panel.”

  “How much you want to bet that’s Anders?”

  He flashed that crooked grin and my stomach fluttered just as Anders barreled into the room. Clay and I both laughed at the disgruntled look on his face. “You started without me.”

  “Hey, you had her last night. It’s my turn.” But he reached out and bunched his hand in Anders’s shirt to tug the big man down for a kiss that raised the temperature of the room. “Lock the panel,” he finally whispered against Anders’s lips. “Then take your clothes off.”

  “There he goes, ordering me around in the bedroom.”

  “This isn’t the bedroom,” Clay muttered. “But take your clothes off anyway. I always did like the window in here.” He spread my shirt back open. “And look at how pretty she looks in here.”

  “She looks pretty everywhere.”

  It didn’t escape my notice that Anders did everything Clay had told him to. He locked the panel, then stripped and dropped his clothes on the small floor space. But then, he took matters into his own hands and came up behind Clay to reach around and grab the bottom of his shirt. “Lift your arms,” he ordered as he pulled the material up.

  Clay winked down at me and lifted his arms.

  My hands immediately went to his skin and his tattoos. I traced my fingers over them. “I love this one,” I said softly as I ran my fingers over the mark on his shoulder. “What is it?”

  “The symbol for karma. I got it when I started going after Saturna ships.”

  “The first time I saw it, I wanted to put my mouth on it. I want to put my mouth on your whole body. It’s beautiful.”

  Anders had straddled my legs behind Clay and was sucking on his neck as he reached around to work the fastener on the captain’s pants. Clay tilted his head to give him better access, his blue eyes glittering down at me.

  “Both of you—you look wonderful with the blanket of space and stars behind you.” I ran my hands over Clay’s chest. He had less hair than Anders, but I found I liked the texture of his smoother skin against my fingers just as much. “I like your dark hair against his light.”

  Clay reached up to cup Anders’s head just as the bigger man slid his hand inside Clay’s pants. They began to move together over me and I held my breath, wondering if I could find that jumping off place just by watching them, without touching myself at all. It certainly felt like I could as heat surged in my groin and spread along every nerve ending in my body.

  “I love watching you together,” I whispered. “So much.”

  “I want to watch you two together,” Anders said, his mouth still against Clay’s neck. “Make love to the pretty girl, Captain.”

  Clay shuddered and leaned over me. Anders’s hands slid to his hips and he pulled the captain’s backside—no, ass—into his groin, groaning and rolling his hips. Clay’s eyes were just above mine and they’d gone wide and were starting to glaze over. “Naked,” he gasped out. “We need to be naked too. Gods.”

  Anders stood and nearly slammed his head into the low, curved window. Grumbling, he jumped down and hauled Clay up to strip him. He bent down, rummaged in the clothes and put something into Clay’s hand.

  “Lube?” Clay looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrow. “Just which one of us is this for?”

  Anders only gave him a naughty smile—one that looked like he’d stolen it right off Clay’s face. Clay stared at him, swallowed.

  “Take her clothes off, Captain. I’m thinking you should try and kiss every damned freckle on her body.”

  I held my breath.

  They stood looking down at me. For too long. I started to frown then sat up and tugged my open shirt off my shoulders.

  They sprang into action. Clay reached for the fastener on my pants and Anders tugged off my shoes. Within two seconds I was naked and C
lay was hovering over me, raking his gaze up and down my body. “Damn,” he breathed.

  Anders stroked his hands down Clay’s back, making the smaller man arch into his touch even as he held himself above me.

  “Maybe I want to try and be on top,” I said, my voice low.

  “Fine by me,” Clay said, starting to sit back up, but he stopped when Anders moved behind him.

  “No.” Anders pushed him back down and followed. He must have been kissing or licking the captain’s back because Clay suddenly went quiet. I’d noticed that he did that when he was really turned on. I’d also noticed that his spine was really sensitive. “I want you right here,” Anders continued. “Do what I said. Make love to the pretty girl.”

  Clay still held the tube of lubricant. He stared at it and shuddered.

  “I don’t think I’m going to need that,” I whispered, shifting my hips up, trying to feel his body.

  “That’s for him.” Anders reached around and plucked the tube out of the captain’s hand. “And me.”

  The last two words were growled more than spoken and Clay went even stiller above me. He didn’t look too sure about this and worry started to build in my stomach. I reached up to touch his face, lifting an eyebrow when he focused on me. “Claybourne?” I whispered his name.

  “Oh damn. You’re going to do it too.” He shut his eyes.

  “Do what?”

  “Use my whole name at certain times, just like Anders.” He choked on the last word, then moaned and I knew that whatever Anders was doing behind him was okay with him. He opened his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

  “Are you okay with what he’s doing? Really okay?” I bit my lip.

  Anders stopped kissing the captain’s back and pulled him against his chest so he could look around him at me. “You worrying, sweetheart?”

  I nodded. “He doesn’t look entirely comfortable.”

  Anders clutched Clay’s jaw and turned his head so he could look into his face. He stared for a few moments then gave the captain a soft smile. “Tell me.”