Chapter 38 #2
Holden crosses the room while they’re staring each other down and slides behind me, hands settling at my waist. His mouth brushes the side of my neck, not enough to distract me from the argument, which is rude and effective.
“We can be careful,” he says.
Dutch’s gaze drops to Holden’s hands on me. “We can also not turn this into a clinical demonstration.”
Reyes opens the first-aid kit. “Both.”
I laugh because I’m doomed.
And then Reyes kisses me.
He does it over Dutch’s shoulder, one hand still holding the tape. His mouth opens mine. Behind me, Holden’s arms tighten. Dutch’s hand remains at my neck, thumb moving once along my jaw.
By the time Reyes steps back, my knees are not entirely diplomatic.
Holden turns me gently toward him. Our kiss is different again. He doesn’t hold any part of himself back from the fact that Dutch and Reyes are here too. His hand cups my cheek. His other hand settles over Dutch’s at my waist. A coordination. A yes. A place found and accepted.
I feel the moment all three of them stop arranging themselves around uncertainty.
Then I’m being kissed by Holden while Dutch’s mouth moves to the side of my neck and Reyes’s hands slide under my shirt.
The world becomes hands, heat, salt, fabric.
I’ve been wanted by each of them in crisis. On floors. In tunnels. In temporary rooms that smelled of antiseptic and aftermath.
Tomorrow is coming. It has paperwork and sonar and a possible apex predator in open water.
We’re choosing this anyway.
Holden lifts my shirt. Reyes helps because my shoulder is still temperamental and because he’s incapable of watching someone struggle without attempting a procedural improvement.
Dutch makes an impatient sound. “Are you undressing her or assembling furniture?”
Reyes doesn’t look at him. “Your shirt next. I need to check your dressing.”
I pull my shirt over my head and drop it on the floor. “If you two start discussing wound care while my tits are out, I’m leaving.”
Holden looks down.
Reyes looks down.
Dutch looks down.
The room goes quiet.
Powerful tool, nudity.
“Better,” I say.
Dutch says, “Yes.”
Holden’s mouth moves against my shoulder. “Agreed.”
Reyes sets the first-aid tape on the desk without looking away from me. “Dressing later.”
“Proud of everyone.”
Then Dutch’s hand is at my back, Holden’s at the clasp of my bra, Reyes’s fingers at my waistband, and pride becomes less relevant.
They move like men who’ve survived together.
Dutch steadies my weight when the ship rolls. Reyes catches my hand and kisses the healing scar in the center of my palm. Holden unfastens my bra and slides it down my arms, mouth finding the place below my ear.
I breathe in all three of them.
Dutch’s soap and the faint clean-medical smell. Reyes’s coffee and metal and ocean air. Holden’s salt and paper.
My pants go next.
Then I’m in my underwear in the center of our too-small cabin, with three men around me and no part of me trying to calculate how little wanting I can safely show.
Dutch sits on the lower bunk because he’s reached the limit of pretending standing is casual. His face tightens before he hides it.
“Bed,” I tell him.
“I’m on it.”
“Further.”
He gives us all a look and shifts back against the pillows.
I climb onto him carefully, straddling his thighs low enough not to press his ribs. His hands go to my hips. Warm. Certain. Possessive.
“Okay?” I ask.
His eyes meet mine. “I’ll tell you.”
I believe him. Mostly.
Reyes comes onto the bunk beside us, kneeling near Dutch’s side like he’s chosen the most practical position and not the one that lets his hand rest against my back. Holden moves behind me, one knee on the mattress, his chest warm against my spine.
The bunk was never meant for this.
The ship rolls.
We adjust together.
There’s something indecently intimate about that before anyone touches anywhere interesting. A shift of knees. A hand on a shoulder. Dutch’s fingers tightening when my balance changes. Holden’s palm spreading over my stomach. Reyes’s mouth at the scar in my hand again, then my wrist, then higher.
Holden’s hand slides into my underwear.
I inhale.
Dutch’s gaze locks on my face. Reyes’s mouth pauses against the inside of my elbow.
My head tips back against Holden’s shoulder. The movement gives Reyes my throat, and he takes it, mouth warm and precise along my pulse. Dutch watches me like the sight is doing something physical to him, his jaw set, breath carefully measured.
Holden’s fingers move slow. Too slow. He knows it. He’s smiling against my hair.
“You’ve become smug,” I say.
He gives me more.
The sound that leaves me isn’t strategic.
Dutch makes a low noise in response. His hands slide up my thighs. Reyes’s hand closes over one breast, thumb brushing my nipple while his mouth stays at my throat. Holden works me.
I’m going to come embarrassingly fast.
Let the ship file a report.
I reach for Reyes and pull him closer. His mouth finds mine, and the kiss takes the sound I make when Holden’s fingers curl exactly right. Dutch’s eyes darken. His hands grip my hips hard.
“Dutch,” I say against Reyes’s mouth.
I reach down and open his pants carefully.
He curses under his breath.
Reyes breaks the kiss. “Ribs.”
“Not where she’s touching.”
“Related system.”
“Reyes,” I say.
He looks at me.
“Let him tell us.”
Dutch’s thumbs move over my hips, softer now. Reyes nods once.
Holden’s fingers slow but don’t stop. “Beautiful,” he says against my ear.
I come with Reyes’s mouth on mine, Holden’s hand between my legs, and Dutch under me, holding me, his eyes refuse to miss a second.
The orgasm rolls through me warm and hard. My hand tightens around Dutch. He groans, hips moving carefully into my grip, and the sound pulls another aftershock through me.
Holden draws his hand free and kisses the side of my neck. Reyes strips out of his shirt with the efficient impatience of a man who’s decided fabric is a design flaw. Dutch watches him, then looks at Holden.
“Someone help me get this off before Reyes cuts it.”
Holden reaches for Dutch’s shirt.
Reyes says, “I was considering it.”
I sit back enough to let them work. Holden helps Dutch out of his shirt with careful hands, pausing when Dutch’s breath catches near the bandage. Reyes checks the dressing despite every complaint. His fingers are gentle at the edge of the tape, and Dutch lets him.
That does something to me too. The men caring for each other because I’m not the only person in the structure with damage.
Then Dutch catches the back of my neck and pulls me down to kiss him again.
The next minutes become a tide.
Holden naked behind me, skin warm against my back, cock hard against my ass as his hands slide over my breasts.
Reyes at my side, kissing my mouth, my jaw, the curve of my shoulder, one hand between my thighs again because apparently he has strong opinions about leaving me any time to recover.
Dutch under me, one hand in my hair, the other at my hip, letting us work around his injury without letting the injury take him from the room.
They trade places without speaking much.
A hand replaces a mouth. A kiss catches a gasp.
Dutch steadies me while Reyes kneels between my thighs and makes me see stars with that terrible, precise tongue of his.
Holden holds my hand through it, thumb brushing the scar in my palm, whispering that I’m here, I’m here, we’ve got you until the words stop being reassurance and become rhythm.
I crawl carefully up Dutch’s body. “I want...” I start, then stop because wanting has become large enough that individual sentences keep tripping over it.
Holden brushes hair back from my face. “Tell us.”
Reyes’s hand settles at my thigh. “Specifics help.”
Dutch’s mouth curves. “Greedy ones too.”
Heat floods me again, ridiculous and immediate.
“I want all of you,” I say.
Holden’s gaze softens. Reyes goes very still. Dutch’s grip tightens once.
“I want us. I want the work and the arguments and the terrible coffee and the three of you making medical decisions about me like a small hostile government. I want the bed too. The whole bed. The whole ship. The whole impossible thing.”
For once, no one makes a joke.
Then Dutch says, “Good.”
Reyes says, “Yes.”
Holden says, “All right, then.”
Of course. The most academic possible consent to a life-altering declaration.
I start laughing.
Holden rolls his eyes and kisses me quiet.
After that, the shape gets easier.
Holden finds the condoms in the drawer because preparedness has apparently become a group kink.
Dutch makes a comment about inventory control.
Reyes tells him to save oxygen. Holden moves behind me, careful of my shoulder, while Dutch sits in front of me with his hands on my thighs and Reyes kisses me from the side.
Holden enters me slowly, and I feel him shudder against my back.
I reach for Dutch, wrap my hand around him, and he goes still beneath my touch.
Reyes’s fingers slide between my legs where Holden fills me, touching just above, making the whole thing too much in the best possible way.
Dutch watches my face, then Holden’s hand at my waist, then Reyes’s fingers moving against me.
Holden moves. Reyes touches. Dutch gives me his mouth when I need somewhere to put the sounds.
When I come this time, it’s a long, deep unraveling that pulls Holden over with me, his breath breaking against my shoulder, his hand spread over my stomach like he can feel both of us from the outside. Dutch kisses me through it. Reyes holds my hand away from the wall so I don’t brace wrong.
We don’t stop there. Reyes is next inside me, with Dutch’s hand on my back and Holden at my mouth, and Reyes’s control finally frays.
He moves with that same devastating precision, but there’s heat under it now, want with the bolts loosened enough to breathe.
Dutch guides my hips when Reyes’s hands go tight.
Holden murmurs filthy, clever little things against my throat until I call him a menace and come again just to spite him.
Dutch doesn’t take me because ribs are not decorative and we’ve all become terribly invested in him remaining alive.
He complains once, then lets me put my mouth on him instead, which improves his mood dramatically and nearly gets him scolded by Reyes for moving too much.
Holden laughs. Reyes laughs, and Dutch curses.
By the end, we’re a disaster.
Sweat, salt, tangled sheets, bad angles, careful hands.
Dutch half-reclined against pillows, breathing cautiously but smiling with his eyes closed.
Reyes stretched along my side, one hand over my hip.
Holden behind me, his fingers laced with mine over my stomach.
My body feels used in the best way, loved in the active sense, chosen from every direction.
The ship hums. The ocean moves. Somewhere in the dark, Kevin exists. I don’t reach for the nearest tablet.
“Proud of you,” Dutch says.
“I hate that you know what for.”
Reyes’s thumb moves once over my hip. “Rest is an operational need.”
“Don’t make sex into a staffing memo.”
Holden kisses my shoulder. “Too late. I’m already drafting the minutes.”
I turn my head enough to glare at him. “You would.”
“I would make them elegant.”
“Motion to ban minutes,” Dutch says.
“Seconded,” Reyes says.
“All in favor?” I ask.
Three hands touch me in different places.
Motion passes.
I close my eyes.