“Okay… Tell us when you can.” She pushes up onto her toes and kisses me. “I need to shower… and then, since there’s no point in waiting up for Arc anymore, I am going to need help getting to sleep.”
She goes upstairs and I watch from the doorway.
When Risk stops beside me, I switch to Sianese, just in case. “I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but it works.”
“I know,” he says.
“Of course you do.”
CHRYS
Their outpost is finally warm enough I can stand on the bathroom floor barefoot and not want to immediately find socks. The water has always been warm enough.
A stylist on this planet does platinum cards, so I was able to get theexactpurple shampoo I used back on Earth. “Thank God.”
The shower is nice. The bath would be nicer, but it’s already too late for that.
Cleaned up, dried off, and standing in the door to the bedroom with a towel wrapped around me, I glare at the empty bed and purse my lips.
When I go to the door to the hallway…
They stand on either side of it, looking at each other like I’ve just interrupted a debate.
“Did I miss something important?” I ask, looking back and forth between them.
“No.” Risk pushes himself away from the wall. “We were trying to decide where certain lines were… For instance, I know you wanted to see us in there when you got out of the shower. Shock saw us with you tonight… but knowing and seeing aren’t as important as hearing.”
I don’t argue with them. Consent is important, and I’m sure those lines get fuzzy with all three of them.
“Consider this your formal invitation to trust your gifts, implicitly.” Shock makes a face when I call them gifts, but I ignore it. “Now, get your butts in here and get to working on keeping me warm.”
Risk picks me up and Shock pulls back the covers, but I don’t want to snuggle down yet. I want what I always want, which gives me pause.
“Do you think the mixed up meds might still be in my system?” I let go of the towel and squirm as Risk sets me down. “I’ve never been this perpetually horny in my life.”
“It’s because you’re taking Vitamin S.” Risk tucks my hair behind my ear. “The effects are designed to make bonding easier. That means a lot of different things, including being perpetually horny.”
“So, itisthe drugs.” I smile up at them so they know it’s a joke. “Well, I guess we’ll all just have to suffer through my all-horny-all-the-time phase.”
“If this is suffering,” Shock leans down and pinches my nipple with his tongue. That ability is going in a new Agency article. “Count me in.”
“I’ve thought about splitting my tongue. I’ve never really got beyond idle curiosity, but it’s a pretty standard procedure backon Earth now… women getting their boyfriends and husbands to do it for a little alien role play.”
“We like your tongue just the way it is, thank you,” Shock says, pressing his thumb to my lips and easing my mouth open.
I nip at his finger. “I like yours too.”
He pulls me up to my knees and kisses me as Risk moves closer. Four hands smooth over my skin, and Shock pulls back from me only to nudge me to Risk for his turn.
They pass me back and forth between them, shedding clothing as they tease me.
I sigh as I pass between them.
“What is it?” Risk strokes my jaw.
“I wish Arc was here.”
“So do we.” He tips his head to the side, his smile is impish. “Should we wait until he gets back?”
