Authors: Jade Archer
“Nah, it’s all good. We just have to take a number and wait in line, but we’ve got plenty of time.”
“Then what’s with the sigh and the head scrubbing?” Arek asked, still frowning.
For a second, Devlynn thought about denying there was anything wrong. He only had a rather hazy notion that something was up and no real evidence to go on. But in the end, he decided against it. He and Arek had suffered for years by hiding their feelings and worries. It wasn’t a mistake Devlynn wanted to repeat. And listening to Rachel saying nothing was wrong all week had driven him to distraction—he wasn’t going to do the very same thing to Arek.
“It’s Rachel, I—”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Arek demanded, instantly on alert as he straightened in the doorway and dropped his arms to his side.
“I’m not sure. It’s nothing I can put my finger on, but…I don’t know. It just seems like the closer we get to Nareen, the more…uptight she gets. It’s almost like she’s holding back. Watching and waiting for something.”
Arek grimaced at Devlynn’s words. He couldn’t deny that a tiny voice in the back of his head had been whispering doubts and fears at him for days now too. But he’d tried to ignore them.
By sheer force of will he resisted rolling his eyes at himself. When was he ever going to learn not to do that? Pretending something didn’t exist obviously hadn’t been a good strategy in his life up until now.
The problem was, in the back of his mind he was scared Rachel might not stay. She wanted adventure, excitement and the freedom to explore, not the hard slog of a transport crate barely making ends meet hopping around the backwaters of the universe. Even the new plan of transporting arts and craft to the inner systems might not be enough to hold her interest in the long run—assuming they could actually pull it off.
What if, when all was said and done, life on
The Wyvern
wasn’t what Rachel wanted? What if it was too far from everything she’d built up in her mind when she’d first decided to run away from Thebia ?
“Do you think I’m imagining things?” Devlynn asked, breaking into Arek’s morose thoughts.
Arek took a deep breath. This wasn’t getting them anywhere.
“I’m thinking we need to pull our heads out of our asses and go talk to her.”
For a moment, Devlynn looked taken aback before a bark of laughter slipped out as he stood and moved to join him at the doorway. “So says the voice of experience, huh?”
“Smart ass.” Arek smacked his lover on the butt as he went to brush past.
“Your ass,” Devlynn replied with a saucy grin and a fleeting brush of their lips.
Arek was momentarily stunned. He still wasn’t used to the casual intimacies of their altered relationship. But at the same time a definite possessive pride had taken hold of him with Devlynn’s words and the all too brief contact of their lips.
He clamped his hands around Devlynn’s upper arms and dragged him back for a more satisfying kiss—delighted when Devlynn grunted in shock then joined in enthusiastically.
Arek loved the wild, needy look that had crept into Devlynn’s eyes when the kiss finally came to an end.
“Mmm…definitely mine.” Arek stole another taste of Devlynn’s now slightly swollen lips and released him. “Let’s go track down our girl and figure out what’s going on.”
Sitting at the small table in the centre of the common-room, Rachel finally admitted defeat and shoved the power cell away in disgust. She’d been trying for nearly a week to salvage the damn thing, but it was completely beyond repair.
The tangle of circuits and useless metal irritated her all the more when she realised giving up on it meant she had nothing to distract her from the gnawing doubts and fears plaguing her. The closer they got to their destination, the more knots seemed to form in her belly.
While she didn’t relish the idea, she’d pretty much decided to confront her lovers and lay it all on the line once they got to Nareen. One way or the other she needed to know. She needed to look into their eyes and see for herself if there was any room for her. Permanent room. Room to grow more attached every day. To explore every possibility that could be hoped for between three people. If there wasn’t, if Arek and Devlynn didn’t really need or want a permanent third in their lives, she needed to accept it now and move on before she fell for them completely.
It was probably slightly cowardly to wait, she supposed. But she was going to need to get as far away from them as fast as possible if it turned out she was right and they didn’t need her around for the long haul. She couldn’t do that trapped on
The Wyvern
. At least at a spaceport, she had escape options.
Devlynn’s voice startled her out of her reverie.
“Okay, that’s it. What’s going on?”
Rachel jumped to her feet with a guilty lurch and spun around at the sound of Devlynn’s stern voice. Her heart sped up when she came face-to-face with two very annoyed men staring her down.
There’s no way they know what I was thinking,
she reminded herself firmly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She turned away to start tidying up her mess—conveniently avoiding their eyes. She hated when people left their stuff lying around for someone else to—
“Don’t even try it,” Devlynn growled. “You’ve been telling me for days there’s nothing wrong and I’m not buying it anymore.”
Rachel stopped and studied them. She guessed now was as good a time as any. They were in orbit so it was only a matter of hours, at the most a day or two before they docked on Nareen anyway. Might as well get it out in the open while the pair of them were both standing there glaring at her.
“You don’t need me.”
“What?” Devlynn’s scowl instantly disappeared, replaced by a stunned incomprehension.
“The fuck we don’t!” Arek snarled.
“You’ve got each other. You’ve always had each other.”
“So what?” Arek demanded, taking a step towards her.
“What do you mean ‘so what’?” Rachel backed away. She couldn’t handle them touching her right now. “I can’t be surplus to requirements. I—”
“Who the hell said anything about being surplus?” Arek barked.
“Arek—” Devlynn reached out to taking hold of their lover’s forearm.
“What? I mean, can you believe this shit?”
Rachel stopped backing away and narrowed her eyes at Arek’s belligerent tone. He wasn’t listening to her. “You. Don’t. Need. Me. Look at the other day when the two of you were working on those data pads. It was very obvious you didn’t want me to be involved.”
“Shit,” Devlynn cursed, glaring at Arek. “I told you we should have talked to her.”
“That’s got nothing to do with this. I wanted to be sure we could get the contract to transport goods to Centre before we told you about it. I wanted it to be…a surprise.”
Rachel snorted in disbelief—right, a surprise. “It still shows you don’t really need me. And one day soon you’re going to figure that out.”
“Fuck that,” Arek shot back, pulling his arm free from Devlynn’s hold. “We. Want. You. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Yeah, for now. Sure. But what about tomorrow? Or the day after that? I mean, you’ve been together for years and managed okay. You don’t really need me. And now that you’ve finally worked things out between—”
“But we want you, Rachel,” Devlynn said gently. “We’re good together. A team. You, me and Arek against the universe. At least, I thought—”
“Devlynn—”
“Why is this so hard for you to accept?” Arek challenged. “Is it because you don’t really want to stay? Is that it? Is this just an excuse to leave us?”
“No!” Rachel shouted in denial. How could he—?
Rachel took the opportunity to really look at Arek. She was shocked by the vulnerability and trepidation she saw beneath the thin veneer of tough, in-command captain. Turning to Devlynn, she saw a similar amount of unease and doubt.
Suddenly, instead of backing away and being afraid to touch, she found herself taking a hesitant step forward—drawn to the need and fear she saw in them. Hating that she might have put it there.
“But…you’re both so perfect together. Why…? I mean—”
“And you don’t think I see you and Devlynn together and think exactly the same thing?” Rachel opened her mouth to argue it wasn’t the same thing at all, but Arek placed a calloused finger over her lips and stopped her. “Don’t second-guess this. Just trust it. Trust us. Otherwise—” Arek took a deep breath and stared at her—looking as exposed and unguarded as she had ever seen him. “Otherwise you might miss out on something amazing.”
Rachel stood watching him for a good long time—hearing her own words echoed back to her and being forced to swallow them down. Arek and Devlynn waited silently, their eyes searching her face for a response.
Slowly, everything fell into place and she relaxed for the first time in days. Arek was right. She could worry and fuss and second-guess this—she could reason that they didn’t really need her, that they’d soon grow tired of her—or she could believe in it and see what happened.
Slowly—tentatively—Rachel let her face ease into a small smile. “Amazing, huh?”
She saw the tension ease slightly in the tight muscles and stiff stance of both men and her heart lightened with relief.
“Uh huh,” Arek said, his voice edging towards rough and husky.
Rachel turned her head to gaze at Devlynn—he looked just as needy as Arek was starting to sound. With the sudden clarity of a lover’s intuition she knew exactly what they all needed.
“Prove it,” she whispered, taking a step back until she was in the middle of the nook sectioned off as a lounge area in the corner in the common room.
Surrounded on three sides by deep, soft couches, the area was designed for resting and relaxing together in the long quiet hours between loading and unloading cargo at various space ports. But Rachel had very different plans for it today. She wanted to explore the men in front of her. To wash away the doubts and fears and drown in the possibilities—the future there might be for the three of them if she could just find the courage to take a chance on them.
She’d never been a coward. She wasn’t sure why she’d found herself faltering in the last few days. She only knew she was determined to make up for it now.
“Come here,” she breathed.
“Gladly.” Arek—always the more bold and aggressive of the pair—drew her in for a thorough, demanding kiss.
As their tongues tangled, everything else simply faded away. There was just Arek, the warm welcome of his mouth and a sudden explosion of the passion that was always simmering just below the surface between them.
A moan that was equal parts Arek and Rachel filled the room as they explored and tasted and quested with their tongues—seeking more and deeper and never getting enough. Desire, lust and the need to reassure each other drove them on hard.
As they kissed, Arek’s hands moved lightly up her sides—caressing over her hips, her rib-cage, then the soft curve of her breasts until his thumbs brushed against her nipples through the thin material of her tunic. He rubbed over them then pinched lightly—encouraging them to become hard, aching nubs that begged for more of his attention as she pushed into his touch.
She felt Devlynn’s warmth at her back as he crowded into her—sandwiching her between them in a delicious press of bodies. His comforting presence washed over her, even as the fingers he trailed up her arms sent lightening strikes of arousal zigzagging over her.
Gods, she wanted them!
Pushing back into Devlynn, she rubbed against him wantonly, enjoying the feel of his thick cock rubbing across her ass and the heartfelt moan that slipped from Devlynn’s lips. At the same time she frantically tugged at Arek’s tunic, needing to get to the warm chest beneath and taste every hard line.
Before she’d even managed to slip the second fastening free she was pushing the material aside and nipping at the strong cords of Arek’s neck muscles. Another fastening and she licked along his collarbone. Finally, Arek lost patience and tore the tunic up over his head. Rachel thanked the gods and instantly ran her tongue around the flat brown disk of his nipple. Arek went wild—thrusting against her as he threw back his head and groaned in bliss.
“Oh, fuck! That’s hot!” Devlynn moaned.
“So good, baby,” Arek croaked as his fingers pushed into her hair—caressing and massaging her scalp as she playfully nuzzled at one nipple before turning her attention to its neglected twin.
Behind her, Devlynn’s touch was almost reverent while she loved on Arek. His hands ran down the long fall of her hair, over her back then up her side to cup her breasts. His lips pressed into the hollow beneath her ear, before he kissed his way down to her shoulder and began to work on opening her tunic.
Rachel pushed into his hands, encouraging him to go faster, wanting to feel his work-toughened hands on her breasts more than she wanted her next breath. She wanted to feel them all—skin on skin with nothing between them but passion and a new but infinitely exciting and hopeful love.
Not able to take another second of delay, she spun around—striping off her tunic roughly as she went. Once free, she attacked Devlynn, pulling and tugging on his shirt until it was over his head and across the room and she could finally feel him.