When?
How many people are involved with Terra Ka? Obviously, Ambassador Tiro.
My breathing has woken up Lorian, and he sits up murmuring against my hip, “Are you okay?”
"Just thinking." I put the book back on Rafe’s bedside table and face Lorian. "About healing. I overheard staff whispering in the hall—something about Tribune Jin Kol’s death at a place called Ariel. I thought you said it was legal.”
“It was completely legal, but?—”
“The system is working as intended,” Rafe says sleepily, but still sitting up to look at me. “Be content that womb-burner breathes no more.” Then Rafe runs a hand through my hair in a way that’s more than just comforting. It’s nuanced with arousal.
And I can’t deny that something primal in me wants to celebrate everything that has happened in the last few days by having mind-blowing sex with my husbands.
I’m just scared.
"Eve—" Lorian starts, but I press my fingers to his lips.
"I want to have sex with you both so much, but I'm afraid that when we make love, I'll disappear. That the pleasure of this fantasy—that you came back for me and wanted me—will shatter, and I’ll discover it’s none of this is real. That I’m still at your father’s house, or even worse, that I’m still on Earth and this was just a romance novel I read last night."
"Then we won't—" Rafe begins, but I turn to catch hislips with mine, silencing his protest with the first real kiss I've given either of them for a long time.
Rafe freezes, then melts against me with a sound that's part relief and part desperate sexual need. I can feel all his emotion and desire being poured into this kiss and his hands shaking where they touch my waist. Like he might break me.
"I need you," I breathe when we part. "Both of you; I want you, but I need you to reassure me this is all real. That I won’t wake up in my tiny, cold, human apartment back on Earth.”
Lorian cups my face with tenderness. “Nothing is as real as this, Eve. You’re ours, and we’re yours. No amount of pleasure or pain is going to change that.”
“Eve, wherever you are, we will be there too,” Rafe says.
"You are my home." Silent tears slip down my cheeks. "And I want to come home. Completely. I’m just so scared that this is too good to be true.”
They exchange one of their twin looks, an entire conversation in a glance.
"We can wait. We'll wait forever if—" Rafe says, and I cut him off.
“I don’t want to wait.” I touch my chest. “I need you both. I need to be as close to you as possible. To push our relationship and our bond to its full extent to be able to move forward. To know whether this is a dream or reality. But I’m still terrified of losing this, if it is a fantasy.”
“You’ve always wanted the truth,” Lorian says. “Even when it hurts.” Then, he takes my hands and turns them palms up, revealing the cuts from our wedding. “This is proof. I doubt your fantasy would have included this.”
“I guess …”
“Let us make love to you as your husbands,” Rafe says.
“Both at once. Both pleasure and pain. Then you will know it’s real. It’s no fantasy you would imagine,” Lorian suggests.
A momentary fear passes through me. I know how rough they can be. “You mean you want me at once? Not holding back?” I ask trying to clarify.
Lorian takes my chin in his hand. “Not holding back at all. Taking you in all the wayswe’vefantasized about. Then you will know it’s real.”
“And you won’t be hurt. Dr. Veil can repair your body,” Rafe adds.
I swallow hard. “Tell me what you want to do to me, as my husbands.”
Lorian shakes his head, and Rafe says, “It’ll be more authentic if we show you. Don’t you trust us?”
Do I trust them not to kill me? Do I trust them not to hurt me too much? Do I want them to fuck me until I’m sure this is all real? That is the only question that really matters. They’re willing to do it, so why am I so afraid?
Because it’s their fantasy, not mine, and I don’t know how dark and terrible their fantasy might be.
