by Eve Langlais
“Because that’s so easy,” was Ray’s sarcastic rejoinder, yet he framed her on the other side, offering equal support. Which was so confusing.
Especially since she felt desire uncoil within her, not for just one but both.
What would happen if she told them how she felt?
Would they be shocked?
Hands slid across her abdomen. Two hands. Two men. She looked down.
“What are you doing?” Had they read her mind?
“You are taking too long to decide,” Ray said.
“What Ray is trying to say is since, the attraction seems to be mutual all around, perhaps we can help,” Zak said.
“Help how?” she asked.
Their intent became clear as they hoisted her onto the only seat large enough for the three of them. Her breath rushed out in a gasp as two sets of hands set out to denude her. Not that she complained, given Zak had his mouth plastered to hers.
He kissed her, softly, rousing her ardor, making her crave the skimming touch of his hands as he explored her.
The hair at her nape was pulled aside for a second mouth to plant hot kisses, the sensual slide sending shivers down her spine, drawing a gasp as Ray located her sensitive spots and teased them. She had more of those than expected and soon was squirming and hot.
Their mouths weren’t the only things getting busy. Four hands roamed her body, tickling her skin, rasping along her ribcage, stroking across her flat belly.
Zak pressed apart her thighs that he might insert himself between them, his own body still clothed, yet that didn’t prevent her from feeling the hard bulge as he curled an arm around her waist and drew her into him.
“Oohhh.” She closed her eyes in pleasure, and he ground her against him, his big hands spanning her waist and guiding each pleasurable rub.
Intensely aroused, she couldn’t help but pant against his mouth, suck at his tongue, drive fingers into his shoulders.
Oh, how she wanted more.
And he knew it.
He broke the kiss, which drew a cry of protect. She opened eyes heavy with passion to see him in a kneeling position but moving back and bending.
Bending down and bringing his face close. Close enough to rub the edge of his jaw along her sensitive inner thigh. First one. Then the other.
A tease that had her shuddering and her head tilting back. Lips caught hers. Ray’s this time. A hard kiss where Zak’s was soft. She welcomed him with parted lips and eager tongue, all the while squirming as Zak’s warm breath whispered against her sex.
Hot air teasing. And then a sudden lick.
Yes.
She arched and almost hurt poor Zak, who chuckled. “You might want to hold on to her so I can get another lick.”
She opened one eye and said in a sultry voice, “Can’t handle me?”
“Might be why we have to be two,” murmured Ray as he clambered onto the seat, manhandling her so she was in his lap, the harness of his body pressing against her backside. His arms looped around her and palmed her breasts. His thumbs brushed the peaks as he whispered in her ear, “I can’t wait to hear you come.”
She almost did. His word certainly sent a quiver. Zak held her thighs wide and went back in for another lick. And another. She cried out and arched, but Ray held her in place, his fingers kneading her nipples, sending a jolting pleasure to join that which quivered her sex.
Zak’s tongue swiped her thoroughly between her nether lips, lapping at her cleft, drawing her bliss into a spiral.
Her orgasm tore through her with startling suddenness, drawing a sharp cry that they ignored as they continued to caress her. Zak added a finger to his oral thrust, and she came again so hard she heard…beeping?
Beep. Beep.
The tiny sound interrupted and drew three flushed countenances to the screen.
“What is that?” she said in a voice much too husky. “Are we under attack again?”
“Not pirates. Too small.” Zak moved away from her, and for a moment, she wanted to curse the interruption. Only her ardor cooled quickly as he manipulated the screen to zoom in on the object. Ray helped her stand and handed her his shirt.
She pulled it over her head, and as her head popped free, she noticed they’d zoomed in on the unidentified flying object. “Is that—?”
“A drone?” Zak interrupted. “It is. One of Marius’s, too, judging by its signature.”
“What the frukx is it doing here?” Ray asked.
“Wait, you recognize that drone?” She pointed. “That looks the same as the one that landed on my planet. The one carrying the tainted piece of metal.”
“We’ve been hunting them,” Ray announced. “Ever since they escaped Marius’s workshop.”
“Who is Marius?”
“Marius Snype was a creator of gears, and he placed a trap on the last set he created, scattering the pieces to the ends of the universes.”
“Where’s this one going?” she mused aloud.
“Doesn’t matter. We should capture it and see if the cog inside gives us the clue to another temple.” Zak’s words were tinged with excitement.
Whereas Nema felt slightly frustrated. Her blood still boiled, and the pulse between her legs demanded satisfaction. Both males were intent on the screen instead of her.
She almost pouted.
And then she noticed the drone had disappeared.
“Where did it go?” she asked.
“I don’t know. It’s not registering on the scanner any more.” Zak frowned as he manipulated various screens, looking at the data.
Ray was the one who realized it first. “It disappeared exactly where that planet was supposed to be.”
“Spin my wheels and slap my ass,” Zak exclaimed. “What if the planet is still there?”
“An invisible planet and star,” Ray mocked.
Nema snapped her fingers. “I should have thought of it myself. It’s using a protective camouflage. We have one for Avhallonn.” And she felt suddenly stupid for not suspecting it might be the case here.
“That’s more than camouflage.” Zak pointed to the screen. “There are no readings whatsoever about anything in that space. No electromagnetic field, gravity, heat. Nothing.”
“It’s there,” she stated with confidence.
Ray shook his head. “I have to agree with Zak here. No camouflage is that good. We should see something.”
“Guide the ship to that spot,” she insisted.
“What will you give me if you’re wrong?” Zak drummed his fingers and gave her a sultry grin.
“If there’s nothing there, then I guess I’ll have to apologize with my mouth.”
Her turn to smile as both men gaped, but funniest was Ray exclaiming, “What the frukx you waiting for? Let’s prove Baby wrong.”
While she didn’t mind losing—the thought of pleasuring them was incentive, as a matter of fact—she’d rather be proven right and find the planet.
The vessel traveled quickly to the empty spot where the drone disappeared. Nema could see the simmering triumph on Zak’s face as they reached it, and he opened his mouth to say, “Told you there was…”
He trailed off, and with good reason because, without any kind of jostle or warning, they entered a different space, and it wasn’t empty. Within the hidden bubble existed an icy world, the surface of it mauve and seamless, barely lit by the pale, glowing star that appeared to be in a rotation around it.
“Holy rusted cog, there’s a planet,” Zak breathed, eyes wide in wonder.
“How is it no one’s realized it was still there?” Ray, the more pessimistic of them, remarked.
“Because it was hidden.” Nema shrugged.
“Hidden, but easily accessed. Surely we’re not the first ship to pass directly through this spot.”
“Could be someone did and kept it a secret,” Zak mused.
“Or they didn’t make it out alive.” Again, Ray had the more negative spin.
Whereas Nema felt a humming inside. A
sense that she’d found the place she’d set out to locate. “We need to explore the surface and find the temple.”
Easier said than done. The ship did a full circuit of the small planet and had nothing to show for it. Its plane was unbroken by any size of crevice, smooth and level, not even a single hump. No signs of life in the extreme cold, the iced surface thick, so thick none of the sensors could penetrate it. No way of knowing what lay underneath. Did it even have a core?
The lack of anything proved to be a dilemma that had them all scratching their heads. Especially since they’d yet to locate the drone.
“Where did it go?” Nema stared at the various screens, unable to understand the scrolling numbers and information. Her strength wasn’t in science.
Her gaze kept straying to the moving camera angles, tracking the seamlessness of the surface. A solid ball of ice. “Can we launch something? See what happens when it hits the ground?”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Ray mused aloud. “Because even though it looks like ice and presents on all the readings as ice—”
“It could totally be something else. Possibly with great big teeth!” Zak exclaimed, raking his fingers through the air then laughing.
“You mock, and yet not that long ago, we didn’t even know this hidden pocket with a planet existed,” Nema pointed out.
“Just drop something onto the surface. A canister of garbage. A boot. Anything.” Ray threw a few suggestions at them.
In the end, Zak had a useless chunk of metal that he shot with a bit of speed toward the planet.
They all watched on the screen. The explosion of tinted ice, and the resulting crater as it hit, proved they observed the true surface and not another hologram system.
“We must have missed something when we did our first pass around the planet,” Ray murmured aloud.
“The drone must be here somewhere.” Nema paced.
Another tour around the planet didn’t result in their finding it, and the remains of their test was easy enough to spot again, the crater the exact same size as before.
It made no sense. Nema paced, the humming in her louder. Insistent. Enough that she finally blurted out, “We need to land.”
Zak shook his head. “Why? There’s nothing to explore.”
“Nothing we can see from here.”
“I don’t know what you think will change. The place is an ice ball. Heck, if we stay down there too long, we could become an ice ball, too. It’s cold.”
“There is something there.” She couldn’t help but insist. She felt it. “We have to find it.”
“Is that stubbornness or the cog speaking?” Ray asked.
It was only then she realized she held on to it still. She thrust it onto a console and moved away from it.
“Can’t you feel it?” She turned to the screen, a window to the outside, and stared. Her voice was low as she said, “It’s down there, waiting.”
“And now you’re making it creepy,” Zak said.
Whereas Ray shook his head. “If you think the planet is talking to you, then we should probably be getting you far from here.”
“You can’t leave.” She whirled, tense as she huffed. “We have to get closer to the surface.”
It was Ray who drawled, “Could be the defense is bound to a tight spot and not the entire planet. Getting up close and personal would then be the only way to detect it.”
Zak sighed. “I hate the cold.”
“You can stay behind and watch the ship, where it’s safe,” Ray taunted.
“I’m going. You know I’m with you.” Zak glared at his friend.
For his part, Ray grinned. “I know, but frukxing with you is fun.”
“If you’re both done bonding?” She snapped her fingers to draw their attention.
“Bossy little thing,” Ray remarked.
“Very. But she does it well.” Zak grinned, looking entirely too pleased, and attractive.
“Little bossy thing would like us to get moving. So less talk, more action. Zak, do whatever you need to do to land this sucker. Ray, you get a land rover ready to go.”
“And what are you doing?” Ray asked.
“Having a shower and a nap. For later.” Bold. So very bold, but after what they’d done?
It lit a fire inside her, and she could feel the heat of their smoldering gazes for a while after. Sleep proved impossible.
Excitement kept her awake. Along with the hum of the planet below.
The Lake agitated inside her, but she couldn’t clearly understand its emotions. Elation, fear, and sorrow.
Sorrow about what?
Unable to sleep, she returned to prowl the bridge. Zak sat there alone, Ray missing.
“You’re just in time,” Zak said, patting his lap. “I’m just about to land.”
“Did you really just signal to me like a pet?” She tucked her hands behind her back, drawing the fabric of her jumpsuit taut over her breasts. “I am not just going to climb in your lap.”
“Did you want the chair and I’ll sit in your lap then? I’m fine if you want to be the cuddler and not the cuddlee in this relationship.”
She almost choked. “Relationship?” Her heart raced.
“Did you expect any less after what we shared?” He arched a brow.
“What about Ray?”
“What about him? He’s obviously an equal partner in this.”
“Of course,” she murmured, momentarily stunned. “And he’s okay with this?”
“More than okay.”
“And you decided this without me.”
“Pretty sure you were with us,” he practically purred, the heat in his gaze rousing an answer.
She turned from him. “I’ll decide if I want to be with either of you. Not you.”
“If you say so. Let me know when you’re ready.”
He began to speak, with no sound, his lips moving, his eyes focused on his console. Giving orders to the ship. Ignoring her instead of trying to convince her. Giving her space to decide rather than trying to seduce her over to his side.
Jerk.
Her annoyance resulted in her staring at the screen, arms crossed. She heard Ray enter just as the ship trembled, the docking feet having latched onto the surface, tethering the ship—which had been barely moving by this point—into place.
The ship’s engine dropped to a low hum.
“Meet you at the rover. I’m going to jump in a quick shower.” Zak left, and Ray fiddled with a few screens, enlarging things, and making notes on a tablet.
“Find anything interesting?” she asked.
“Not yet.” He flicked her a glance and then away. Practically ignoring her.
She moved closer. “No changes in the readings we got from space?”
“Everything is the same so far. But that might not be the case elsewhere. We’ll move out and then travel in a spiral formation around the base ship.”
“Because a spiral covers more ground and yet leaves us close enough to return if we have to.”
“Exactly.” He looked at her as he said, “You should dress warm.”
“Won’t we be wearing suits?”
“Yes. Never hurts to be prepared.”
He went back to his tablet. She could either hover and stare or put on another layer of clothes.
As she went to leave, Ray said, “Hold on a tic. You forgot something.”
“What?” she grumbled, half turning around.
He must have moved quickly since he stood less than a handspan from her. “Meet me in the rover’s bay as soon as you’re dressed.”
“I won’t be long.”
To which he replied with a kiss. A hot, passion-filled embrace that had her mewling in loss when he pulled back far enough to whisper, “Need some help getting changed?” The temptation resulted in a wet pulse between her thighs.
“What about Zak?”
“I’m sure he’d join us.”
Join. As in the three of them. Ray had just confirmed Zak’s words
, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
“I need to get ready.” She slid out of his grasp and rushed to her room, arriving with a pounding heart.
She’d never expected to find one male that would arouse and make her want things she’d sworn she didn’t. Instead, she’d found two.
And couldn’t choose.
Have them both.
It wasn’t just Zak and Ray who taunted her with that impossibility. Even her own mind worked against her. Two.
It just wasn’t done in her society. Yet she knew from research it happened quite often elsewhere.
She couldn’t help but recall that moment on the bridge, with them pleasing her.
Sharing her.
Could it really be done? The pulse between her legs screamed yes.
“You ready?” Zak’s voice asked suddenly from the speaker.
“Yes.” In more ways than one.
15
The ramp extended from the rover bay and gave them access to the ground. Ray liked to roll the vehicle from the ship, hovering having a tendency of messing up loose objects and weakening welds.
They hit the surface of the planet with a slight bump, and through the helmet comms, he heard Nema’s breath hitch. The reading on her suit showed an elevated heart rate.
Excitement.
He’d seen too many barren asteroids to feel the rush that came the first few times you landed somewhere utterly alien. He did feel a rush touching Nema.
A rush he’d thought he’d outgrown.
He flipped a switch and activated the hover, forcing the wheels to lift a handspan from the ground. The rover moved out.
“How wide are we making the spiral loops?” Zak asked. He crowded behind Ray in the driving seat while Nema got the chair beside him.
“Wide enough that we’ll get a triangulation of the area and be able to drill down on any anomalies.”
“How far can we go?” Nema asked.
“Fairly far. Our power supply should allow us to do three loops of the planet. Not that we need that many.”
“I hope we find something quick because I hate being in the rover with a suit.” Zak shifted.
Ray didn’t need to see his friend to imagine the grimace. He totally understood. Ray hated driving in a suit, but the climate wasn’t conducive to flesh. Just one hole in the vehicle and they’d lose all heat. He had no interest in becoming a meatsicle. He wore a suit. They all did.