22. Essa
twenty-two
Essa
A dam's fingers work through my hair so efficiently that it feels like we've been doing this tradition longer than the two days we've been tied to one another. My eyes are closed as he separates sections of my hair to twist and knot and bind.
Seth is lying in my lap, my fingers running through his curls while he drifts away every few minutes. He'll startle himself awake soon and then settle back against my thighs until it happens again.
Once Adam finishes with my hair, I'll get them painted, and we can move on with the rest of our day. This is what our life would've been like here on Haven III. It would've been bearable with them here, but I'm glad it won't be our life for very long.
There are only a few days until Niivi and Iddis are to be married, and then we can return to the Jolly Folly. My eyes snap open, realizing I haven't messaged anyone to let them know we're okay. I jerk so fast that it wakes Seth, who sits up quickly, hands bunched into fists in front of him, and his body tense like he's ready to fight.
I hate that either of them has these reflexes, and I make a mental note to return to planning a way to find out where they were kept on Earth and convincing Phial to let me use some of his explosives to blow it up. Surely, the human government won't care about criminals being blown up, and if we're smart enough, we won't even be caught.
Sneak in, blow it up, sneak out. Easy peasy.
"Calm." I run my fingers through Seth's hair, down his neck, until my nails scrape down his back. Little bumps pop up on his skin, all the way down his arms, as he shivers at the touch. His body responds to me so easily, and he relaxes from his worry.
"Would you mind handing me my comm? I need to message Phial about something."
I don't tell him that the something is asking him about his explosives. It's a two-for-one. I can ask Phial about his hidden stashes and let the crew know that we are doing fine on Haven III and they don't need to scheme some sort of plan to save us.
Knowing the crew, they've probably already gotten my whiteboard out of my room and have planned something. Something stupid, but still something.
"How much longer is her hair going to be?" Seth asks as he lies back down in my lap, this time on his back so he can look up at me and Adam.
"It's done when it's done," Adam says.
I snort at his response, and Seth sends me a wink that tells me he's about to bother Adam even more. "Sounding a lot like the original right now."
"Exasperated by dumb questions being asked?" Adam asks in reply.
"I'm pretty sure Original Adam wouldn't have said they were dumb questions." Seth grins as he speaks knowing full well how much Adam doesn't like being compared to the male his DNA was derived from. Not because he has no respect for Original Adam, but because both of my males are their own person.
They've been created from the same DNA and might have the same memories up to a certain point, but they've made their own. They've endured things the originals didn't, and their relationship is definitely much different than Original Seth and Adam's relationship.
"Original Adam also had more patience than me and wouldn't take out his irritation on your ass," Adam says it all through clenched teeth because his default mood is angry no matter what, even when he's over here giving Seth an erection. "I think you like me better how I am now."
Seth reaches down to adjust himself in the loose-fitting pants I gave each of them to wear. Haven III is a warm planet, and although the palace is cooled, it can still get warm during midday. The fabric does nothing to conceal the growing stiffness in Seth's pants, and the way Adam presses himself closer to my back makes me hyperaware of his arousal as well.
Such weird foreplay these males are into. Bickering with one another to get blood into their cocks. Strange.
"What do you say, Essa?" Seth asks me, drawing my attention away from where he's moved on from adjusting himself and is now palming his length in slow, languid strokes through the black material. "Want Adam to take out his irritation on my ass?"
Adam finishes one of the braids as Seth speaks. He wastes no time in wrapping his fingers tight around the back of my neck and squeezing enough to get his point across that he wants me to bite him. Or maybe he wants to be in charge, but I don't want that right now. I want my sweet, complacent male.
My fangs descend at the thought, thrumming instantly with the drip of the small reserves of venom I've built back up since last night. It won't be enough to keep him soft and needy for long, but it'll give us both what we want.
"Oh, maybe not," Seth chuckles as he lifts himself off me.
I have to twist around to watch as he lunges for Adam, pressing his lips into the other man's and taking him down to the bed before Adam can register that he's being manipulated. Adam either enjoys it, is lost in his other partner, or wants things to continue as they are because he's quick to settle on his back, hand splayed on Seth's lower back as he kisses him.
I watch the two for long moments. I'd heard them many times in the room next to me. Yes, I might've also enjoyed listening in on them, even though I probably shouldn't have, considering I was breaching their privacy. That's neither here nor there.
I'm finding that I enjoy watching them probably as much as Adam enjoyed watching Seth and me last night. We're more alike than we would've ever guessed, and it revolves around our sweet red-headed center.
"Are you joining us or watching?" Seth asks when he breaks away from Adam's kisses long enough to speak.
Adam, of course, doesn't like it. He's growling and tugging Seth back to him before he gets his answer, but I don't second-guess his invitation. I'm pretty sure they want me with them even when they're with one another, but we haven't broached this yet. I don't want to overstep since they were with one another first.
I know inside that we're all equals in this now that they are mine, but they may feel differently. They didn't grow up with the same cultural norms as I did. For all I know, they might still see me as a stranger in the relationship, someone to enjoy one-on-one rather than together.
I don't know. Sloane has told me plenty of things she's done with her males, but she's much more open about her affections than anyone I know. That and her males don't sleep with one another, so maybe it's different.
Even though I turn on the bed, adjusting the thin material that makes my skirt so I don't tangle in it, I don't try to join them any more than before. I don't know how. They each have only one mouth, so it's not like I can very well kiss one of them while they're kissing each other.
"Fuck's sake," Adam growls as his hand fists in Seth's hair and pushes him down his body. Seth resists for just a moment before kissing a trail down Adam's chest while pulling down his pants enough to free his erection.
I watch in amazement, much like I did last night. Seth pleasures Adam with his tongue, licking from root to tip, his lips wrapping around the ruddy head before it disappears into his mouth. Nothing is better than the sweet way his eyelids grow heavy as he sucks.
Adam doesn't let me admire our shared male for long before he grabs my arm, the closest part of me to him, and drags me closer to him so he can press our lips together.
"One day, I want you both sucking my cock," he tells me as he swipes his tongue over the tip of one of my fangs. Not much venom drips from them since my reserves are so low, but there's enough to blow out his pupils. There's only enough to make him docile if I sink my teeth into his skin.
"Not today," I tell him.
He kisses me more angrily, teeth scraping, tongue forcing its way into my mouth. It's a fight with us, but it won't be for much longer. When he bites my lower lip, I wrap a hand around his neck and pin him to the bed. He doesn't like that, but he'll like this next part enough to make up for it.
"Do you want to be my good boy when we fuck for the first time?"
Adam's fight dies out, his whole body stilling for one glorious second as my words catch him off guard, then he's back to lips pulling back in a snarl, nostrils flaring in anger. He's too easy to read now, but Seth helps me out all the same.
"He wants it, but good luck getting him to say it out loud when he's like this."
Adam wraps a hand behind Seth's head and forces him down on his cock until he's gagging and choking, though the smile on Seth's face is evident even if there are tears in his eyes.
I keep Adam pressed to the bed by his throat even as he tries to wriggle out of my hold. Between my hand on his neck and Seth's mouth on his cock, we have him trapped, and I'm sure he doesn't like that.
Well, he probably loves it, but no one except for Seth gets to know that, and it's only because he's in Adam's mind. Somewhere, I'm unsure if I want to be in because I could imagine not much getting done in the real world if all three of us were in one another's minds.
"You know the rules. I only bite males who ask for it or ones who try to attack me." I emphasize the word try because it makes Adam's nostrils flare again.
He can pretend all he wants to be offended, but he likes that I'm stronger than him, likes that I can protect him. I can offer him a safe place to submit because as scary and as powerful as he is, he wants someone else to take care of him. He wants to be my sweet, submissive male.
When I release his neck, it's no surprise to me when he lunges as much as he can using anger and his abdominals. He bares his teeth at me, getting close enough to my neck that he grazes the skin with his teeth as though he'd actually bite me.
Before I decide if I ever want him to bite me or not, I force him back to the bed and dig my fangs into the same spot I've bitten him every time before. Some Haventh, who enjoy the act, also enjoy marking their partners up all over, but I don't do this for the thrill of biting or marking and claiming. I do this because I have to. No other reason, and I don't need to add to Adam's scars. He doesn't like them, and I won't add to that, even if these scars are added with consent.
There's not much venom in my fangs, so he'll be back to feeling like himself in no time, which also means there's no more playing around with him now that I've gotten my prey nice and relaxed in bed.
The relieved whimper that escapes Adam's lips is punctuated by his hand slipping from Seth's head and falling limp to the bed. Now that he's not being forced down, Seth pulls his mouth off Adam's length and begins to tease it more than anything with soft strokes of his tongue and kisses pressed against it.
"So sweet for us," I tell Adam, making sure he knows that in this state he's always safe with us.
It would be easy to break his trust if we were to make light of his submission. So I stroke my fingers over his hair as pink blooms in his cheeks and soft, sweet little whimpers pull from his throat.
"You're going to be so good for us, aren't you?"
Adam attempts to nod, and it's good enough for me. The venom in his system makes him sluggish and relaxed. He's still in there, though, and he's willing. I'm trusting Seth to let me know if anything changes. Based on the males' devotion to one another, I can't imagine him letting me do something one of them doesn't like.
"I've never done this with multiple partners," I tell Seth as I look down the length of Adam's body to decide how we're to do this.
"We have," Seth says, and I can't help how I rear back at that.
I'm not upset at them, but I'm more than a little jealous that they've had this experience with others. I don't like it, and it's evident on my face. Seth has to avert his eyes, but he distracts himself from the fear I'm probably pulling out of him by kissing a trail from the head of Adam's cock down to his balls.
"Only you from now on, Essa, promise."
My heart does a little flutter at those words, and I do my best to ignore the jealousy, trying to rear its ugly head. I'm not innocent, either. I've slept with my fair share of males. Well, enough to know what I do and do not enjoy in the bedroom.
Jovi and Alik were sometimes even kind enough to let Phial or me have a pleasure crew on the ship between jobs, not that we'll ever need a pleasure crew again. Jovi and Alik have their mate, Phial and Avery are, well, whatever Phial and Avery are, and I now have two concubines. And, yes, yes, Holoth is on Rythar, starting a family with K'Vella.
"Okay, well, how should we share our male then?" I ask Seth, moving to kneel closer to him so I can watch his lips press into Adam's skin.
I'd very much like to watch them lie with one another at some point, though I have a feeling Adam's the one in charge of those couplings.
Seth clears his throat, eyes peeking up at me through pale lashes. "Adam's normally not the filling in that sandwich."
Adam lets out a pathetic little whimper at Seth's statement and his cock twitches. He may not be the center when he's in charge, but he just might like being the center when it's the three of us, and he's relaxed and needy with my venom.
"I don't know your relationship, but are you ever the one to rut him?" I ask, hoping it isn't too personal of a question.
I assume it's okay since we are all three together now. There will certainly be more personal questions than who goes inside who. Plus, they'll both be inside me at some point, so it's only fair to know in which direction this all goes.
Seth snorts again, this time pushing away from Adam's groin so he's kneeling between his legs and looking at me.
"Usually, he's the one topping, but he lets me do it sometimes," Seth tells me, watching me intently. He covers his uncertainty well with his carefree look. "Is that what you want for our first time together? I'll take his ass, and you ride him?"
Adam whimpers again, reminding us he's still an eager and willing participant. His cock is leaking from the tip with his arousal, and his eyes flick between Seth and me, waiting for us to decide how we're going to share him.
"Is there anything you need? I don't think your human males produce lubrication in your–"
Seth kisses me, silencing my questions. "Essa, baby, you say things in the least sexy way possible sometimes," he tells me with a grin before kissing my lips again and turning my confused look into one of complacency. "We need lube, yes." He clears his throat as his face flushes quickly. "We already prepared ourselves earlier when we said we needed to shower. We weren't sure who was going to be inside who, so we both prepared just in case."
"Oh, well, thank you," I say, and then feel silly.
His words filter through my mind again, and I tilt my head. He said he wasn't sure who would be inside who, and he didn't specify just between the two of them.
I can't help but be curious, so I ask, "Would either of you allow me inside you?"
Seth throws his head back and fills the room with his beautiful laughter. It might make me embarrassed with how loud he's being, but then again, he sounds so beautiful when so full of joy. When he finishes, he pats Adam's leg, making his cock twitch.
"As soon as we get off this planet, we'll get you a strap-on, baby," Seth tells me.
If my cheeks could flush like his, they would because I only know about strap-ons after a game of truth or dare with Sloane where she told me she'd rutted a male before. I, of course, had many questions about how. As far as I knew, human females didn't have genitalia capable of that.
Seth doesn't know about that curiosity, though. No, he's saying all of this because he is truly fine with it, and somehow, that takes all of my shame and embarrassment and eases it into nothing.
"Very well, for today, I think I want you on your back," I tell him, trying to return to having some semblance of authority.
I don't need to pretend very hard because Seth likes taking direction. He falls onto his back, hands behind his head as he waits for further instructions. I look at my two concubines lying in bed next to one another. So soft and vulnerable and all mine to protect and please.