Salvo: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 3)

by H. E. Trent

  In spite of Owen’s trepidations, he did.

  Not close enough for Luke, apparently. Luke reached around Ais, grabbed Owen by the sleeve, and yanked him forward. “Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  “I’m not entirely sure what you expect to happen.”

  “That’s not up to me. That’s up to Ais. I’m just helping her get what she wants.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Don’t ask me. Ask her.”

  Owen looked down at her.

  She had her hands wrapped loosely around Luke’s wrists, and her gaze was straight ahead, fixed somewhere in the vicinity of Owen’s navel.

  “Ais?” He had to swallow down the lump in his throat or she’d hear how badly he wanted this thing he shouldn’t have had. She’d have too much leverage over him, and Luke would, too. “What do you want?”

  Slowly, she extended a hand to the bottom of his shirt, lifting it slightly along with her gaze.

  “I think she wants you to take that off,” Luke said.

  Owen did, slowly and perhaps a bit against his better judgment. He shouldn’t have been opening an avenue for what would probably be an unmitigated disaster, but Ais was a disaster he needed.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Luke asked.

  Ais slid her hands up Owen’s belly, swirled the tips of her fingers around the hair at his navel and up to his chest.

  “Natural blond,” Luke whispered. “Carpet matches the drapes.”

  Owen rolled his eyes.

  Ais didn’t seem to get the joke. Even if she had caught the Terran reference, she may not have been able to discern the color differences, anyway.

  She found a birthmark beneath his rib—a small, reddish oval—and nudged it.

  Owen’s laugh fell out involuntarily at the tickle, and his body bowed away, but there was Luke’s hand gripping his waistband. Pulling him forward.

  “He’s ticklish, by the way,” Luke said. “I don’t think tickling is what you’re going for.”

  “No,” she said. She gave up on her curious probing of his birthmark, and moved her hands down to either side of Luke’s.

  Owen swallowed hard again.

  Luke moved his hand, and she put hers where his had been, right over the button.

  As she worked open the button and pulled the zipper down, Owen stared up at the ceiling.

  He should have been stopping her. After everything she’d been through, he may have been taking advantage of her, and he didn’t want that on his conscience. He hadn’t relocated her to make her his sexual plaything. He’d thought he was protecting her.

  That was what he’d told himself, anyway.

  “I know better,” he muttered, and her fingers were around his shaft and his breath rushed out.

  “What’s that?” Luke asked.

  “I said I fucking know better.”

  “About what?”

  “This.”

  Ais toyed with the wet spot at the tip of him again, just as she’d had the last time she’d touched his cock, but only briefly. She nudged the elastic band of his boxers down farther, freeing his sac, exposing him completely to her gaze and Luke’s.

  Luke stroked the side of her neck, and then leaned back onto his forearms. “You sound like there’s a victim here. Is there one?”

  “I may not be the best person to ask.”

  “Do you feel like a victim right now, Ais?”

  She was tracing down the center line of Owen’s sac, and his toes curled in his boots. “Hmm?”

  “Are you feeling used? Debauched?”

  “How use? No touch. He touch others.” She huffed.

  Owen put his gaze back on the ceiling, mostly so he didn’t have to see Luke’s expression. Luke had always had an uncanny knack for reading nuances in a conversation and he, better than anyone, would have known exactly what Ais was referring to.

  “You want him to touch you the way he touched those others?” Luke asked.

  “Yes?”

  “No, I don’t think you do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they were nothing to him and you’re not. You don’t want to be touched like you’re nothing, do you?”

  She took a moment to respond. Perhaps she’d had to remind herself that not all touches were equal. “No,” she said finally.

  “You want him to touch you like he sees you, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look at her, Owen.”

  Owen looked down then, because there’d been no invitation to negotiation in Luke’s commanding tone.

  She’d stopped touching him. She wasn’t meeting his gaze, exactly, but close enough.

  Luke was rubbing her shoulder, his thumb working up and down the back of her neck. She was comfortable with him, and him with her. Owen, on the other hand, may have emanated calm, but on the inside, he was a storm. Knowing what to do was always easier when at the end, he could walk away and not look back. He couldn’t walk away from Luke. He was his best friend and that would probably never change. He wasn’t so sure where Ais came into play. He hadn’t meant to keep her, or even touch her.

  “A lamb in a pen with two wolves,” he muttered.

  Luke laughed and kissed the side of Ais’s neck. “Who’s the lamb? You or Ais?”

  Owen was becoming less sure, but he knew he needed to wrest some semblance of control over the situation. Luke was steering and Ais was letting him, but Owen needed to do what was right, in spite of what the two of them may have had in mind.

  He took Ais’s hands and pulled her to her feet.

  “Don’t be a buzzkill,” Luke said.

  “Shut up.” Owen laid her down, putting her head on the pillow. He kicked off his boots and then the jeans that had pooled around his ankles. “I get what you’re trying to do, but I’ve got to do what’s right.”

  “You think she doesn’t know what she’s asking for? She’s twenty-five, Owen. She’s not an innocent virgin.”

  Twenty-five?

  Definitely older than Owen had thought.

  Still.

  He heeled his pants out of the way and hooked his socks down with his big toes.

  “May as well be if she’s only ever had experiences she didn’t ask for.”

  “Ah.” Luke shifted out of the way so Ais could stretch her legs.

  She lay on her side, and watched Owen undress—or at least the shapes of him as he moved his parts.

  “You’ve gone full-on mountain man, huh?” Luke’s gaze was on Owen’s crotch, his lips half quirked.

  Owen grunted. “People change. It’s been years since you’ve seen me without pants.”

  “I haven’t changed.”

  “So you still shave from navel to taint.”

  “Yep.”

  “I prefer the hair.”

  Luke shrugged and slipped his hand down the front of his pants. “It’s your junk. Do with it as you see fit.” He looked to Ais. “What do you prefer?”

  “I like…touch.”

  “Smooth things or rough things?”

  Owen rolled his eyes. He wasn’t about to let Luke offer her a hands-on demonstration on the virtues of both ways.

  He climbed onto the bed between Ais’s feet and gripped the bottom of her dress. She started to sit up, but Luke nudged her back down. “I can guess where this is going.”

  “Want to see,” she said.

  “Nothing to see,” Owen said. Nothing for her to see, anyway.

  While he may have had his qualms about using her body in the same way that Reg or anyone else might have, there were things he could do for her that Reg likely hadn’t. Owen didn’t get the impression that Reg would have done anything for anyone that didn’t also give him release.

  He rolled her dress up slowly, past her knees, and up her thighs.

  Luke moved beside her, hand still in his pants, though he’d unfastened the button. “Here.” With his free hand, he unzipped her dress at the side and helped her free her arms from the sleeves.r />
  Her breasts were out and Luke’s hand was on them, but Owen welcomed the distraction. Luke’s tender massage was likely why she didn’t flinch when Owen pressed his lips to her warm, smooth inner thigh, or why she didn’t clamp around his head when he lashed his tongue against her flesh.

  But then her hand was in his hair, patting him gently, either encouraging him or acknowledging him, he couldn’t tell which, but her grip didn’t seem like a plea for him to stop.

  He hoped she wouldn’t ask for that.

  He pushed her skirt away from his face and up to her belly so he could see what Luke was doing.

  Luke had at some point lost his shirt, and he was using both hands to push Ais’s small breasts together. “Like this?” he murmured into her hair. “Tell me what you want. You should get whatever you want.”

  “Yes,” she said huskily, tightening her fingers in Owen’s hair as Luke lowered his mouth to one rose red nipple.

  Her back arched and she gasped, and jealousy coiled in Owen. Not at her permissiveness in being touched, but that Owen lacked the intuition to mellow her the way Luke did. But what they were doing wasn’t about him, really. Owen was just an invitee, and the party was hers. He was supposed to be giving her a gift.

  He brushed the crease between her inner thigh and sex with his fingertips and watched her face. “Ais. I’m…going to touch you. Tell me that’s okay.”

  She patted the top of Owen’s head again. “More…kiss.”

  “I think he’s gonna do a little more than just kiss you.” Luke chuckled and then pulled her nipple back into his mouth. She squirmed reflexively, and Owen had to grab her hips to keep her steady.

  “Yeah,” he whispered. “A little more than that.” He eased her legs over his shoulders and, watching her again, pressed his thumb down her smooth, pink seam.

  “Wet?” he murmured.

  “You need a second opinion?” Luke asked.

  Owen growled. He’d simply been surprised that she’d find the circumstances arousing…or the company.

  “Touch,” she said breathily. She released her grip on Owen’s hair only to tap one of the still hands he had pressed to her thighs. “No tease. Touch.”

  “You want me to?”

  “Please.”

  Jesus.

  Owen slid his hands under her ass and used his thumbs to spread her folds. Wet and gleaming, and clenching already from just his breath and his proximity.

  He leaned in for a taste, because he didn’t see how he could be there and not sample what his hostess was so generously offering. He worked just the tip of his tongue into her and then explored her seam, smiling triumphantly as her thighs clenched and her breath faltered.

  Wet warmth spread where the end of his cock pressed to his belly. He was agonizingly hard and could probably erupt with a few clumsy thrusts against the bed sheets, but his needs didn’t matter. He had a job to do. He wanted her dripping with need so there’d be no pain when he slid his fingers into her one by one and made her bloom.

  He licked slowly around her bud before pulling it between his lips. He flicked the underside with his tongue and with each of her gasps increased the suction a bit more.

  She writhed, rolling her hips circularly as if to back off from the sensation, but there was nowhere for her to escape to. He slid the tip of this thumb into her hot sheath and she stopped moving, then—everything but her cunt. It clenched hard around his digit and spasmed when he slipped it in farther.

  “Owen,” she croaked, grinding her heels into the meat of his back. “You… I…”

  “There are words for what he’s doing,” Luke whispered. “Maybe I’ll teach them to you so you’ll know how to ask for what you want. You want him to do more of that?”

  “Yes,” she said breathily. “Please.”

  Owen couldn’t imagine Ais ever asking for such a thing, in spite of what Luke may have hoped, but he was going to give her the treat anyway.

  He leaned back just enough to look at his good work—the slick wetness of where his tongue had explored and her own glistening arousal. He blew gently at her clit and down her crevice before pressing his mouth wholly over her. He wanted to undo her with the swipes and jabs of his tongue and show her that he thought there was yet another beautiful thing about her, and that he was devouring it.

  He freed his thumb and pressed his index finger in instead, followed by the middle finger. Slowly, he worked them in past the first knuckles to the second, and he ground his cock against the bed as he did.

  She was so tight. There was no chance in hell he was going to be inside her, but he couldn’t turn off his body’s urgent plea. He would have taken her if she been anyone else. He would have pinned her beneath his body, worked himself into her heat, and sought that starburst of pleasure. Maybe he would have kissed her. Probably not. But no matter what, he would have left Luke to finish up when he was done. He would have left Luke to the job of making her feel good and fooling her into thinking she wasn’t being used.

  Ais wasn’t an anonymous hookup, and he couldn’t treat her like one even if doing so would have been so much easier on his conscience.

  “Fuck,” he whispered.

  She rode his fingers and rocked against his lips, his tongue, and her hand tightened in hair yet again.

  “I…I can’t,” she whimpered, but she could, and Owen would make her.

  Luke murmured, “Don’t run away from it, sweetheart.”

  She tightened one leg around Owen’s neck, gripped his hair harder. “No…run.”

  “You’ll be very, very still, won’t you?” Luke whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Good girl.” Luke snaked his hand down her body, over the wadded skirt of her dress, and pressed his fingers to either side of Owen’s tongue. He massaged her apart and made more room for Owen’s mouth as if Owen’s two hands weren’t enough. Or perhaps he was just reminding him to go.

  To lick. Taste.

  He slipped his thumb into Owen’s mouth and found Ais’s clit.

  Owen gave it up to Luke and directed his attention lower, alternating the thrusts of his fingers with his tongue.

  Her grip on his hair loosened and tightened, not guiding him so much as reacting, and he noted those cues, committed to memory what she liked, what made her gush.

  When Luke withdrew his hand, Owen didn’t check to see why. He reclaimed the territory he’d conquered first and flicked her clit hard and fast until the whispers she’d been directing to Luke turned into gibberish and her body’s reflexive response was to curl away from them both.

  But she couldn’t. Owen had her bottom pinned and Luke her top, so all she could do was endure.

  She endured loudly, and Owen kept licking through the pain of his scalp and of the dig of her heels against his spine. He kept licking, and sucking, probing until her breath came out in a long rasp and her body shivered.

  Then, he relinquished her clit after one more lick with a flattened tongue. He didn’t want to leave a single drop behind.

  “Owen…” she whispered, reaching for him as he let her legs fall to the bed.

  He didn’t know what she was asking for. Women didn’t reach for him after he’d touched them unless they were looking for someplace else for him to put his dick.

  “Here,” Luke said. He crawled out of the way, toward the wall, leaving the edge of the bed unoccupied.

  Owen must have been staring too long at the space, because Luke reached across Ais and patted the space.

  “No need to let the nakedness go to waste. Might as well cuddle.”

  Owen hadn’t taken off his clothes because he’d intended to fuck her. He’d only meant to give her some scrap of dominance. She could easily redress, simply by smoothing her skirt down and putting her arms back into her dress, but he’d still be bare.

  Ais scooted toward Luke, looking expectantly at Owen.

  Surprisingly, he wanted to be there in that space. For once, he wanted to know what having a woman pressed to him in s
leep felt like, and a woman more interested in him than for his cock, at that.

  “Owen…” she whispered, and the plea in her voice nearly broke his brain.

  She still wanted to touch him.

  I shouldn’t…

  But she wanted him to.

  I could get up after she falls asleep.

  And he could send Luke away, back to his bed at the main house, and they could pretend the scene had never happened.

  If that’s what she wants.

  He swallowed and, with nerves strung tight, stretched out beside her and pulled the covers up over her them, mostly intending to cover her chest from Luke’s preying gaze.

  Luke slung an arm over her and chuckled. “I’d say that was just like old times, but I’d be lying.”

  “You’re right,” Owen muttered. “It’s not.”

  No one was wearing semen and the lady hadn’t put her shoes on her feet or Luke’s info into her COM before merrily hitting the road.

  “No talk,” Ais said. “No…tell of them.”

  “Sorry,” Luke said, chuckling. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just meant we’re not much for lounging after the fact.”

  Ais rolled onto her side, and rested her head atop Owen’s arm.

  He knew if he turned his attention downward, he’d see her staring up at him with some unarticulated query he wouldn’t know how to answer, but he looked anyway. He needed to convince himself of her regret.

  He didn’t see that at all. Only curiosity.

  And when she danced her fingertips down the bridge of his nose, over his lips, and then played with his beard so tenderly, he knew he was screwed.

  The woman actually seemed to like him.

  What the fuck?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ais woke as she frequently did during the night, finding the cottage dark and quiet, but her body so warm. She was pinned between two male bodies—a circumstance that she hadn’t ever dreamed would be so lovely.

  Of course, she’d known of the Jekhan convention and their need to take two lovers, but the Tyneali—as far as she’d observed—weren’t so amorous. Their men may have resided in the same households, and perhaps even the same bedrooms, but as far as Ais could tell, they didn’t share beds. She’d heard the Tyneali whisper that they didn’t understand the human compulsion to share beds. They found the habit unsettling, but hadn’t saw fit to breed the compulsion out of the Jekhan men. That would have been folly, anyway, given Jekhan biological needs. Another thing the Tyneali had “fucked up,” as one of the McGarrys might have said.