Captivated (30 page)

It was magical. She’d pulled her clothes off and her hair free before the men had even put their things down.

Wandering past one large pool, she headed down a little to a smaller one just beyond. She dipped a toe in, groaning at the temperature. She wanted to jump in, but as she didn’t know how deep it was or even if there were rocks she couldn’t see, she waded in until she could push off and swim a lazy path from one end of the pool to the next.

The water was heavy in minerals, the texture silky, making her extra buoyant.

It wasn’t long before she had company, but they left her alone for a while until she’d worked off her excess energy and most of her annoyance with them.

“This place is wonderful.” She headed to a nearby rock outcropping. The stones were smooth from the water’s caress. They made a nice seat and enabled her to keep her legs submerged as she watched the two of them swim toward her.

“I have reservations about your coming.”

“I for one think you should shut up about that until we’ve fucked her into a much better mood.” Julian turned every bit of his sexual attention her way and send a thrill right through her.

“Well, I can see the appeal of that plan.” Vincenz swam up between her legs. “But I think she deserves this first. I’m sorry. It’s not
that I think you aren’t smart enough or brave enough. You are. And we do need you. I just …” He swallowed hard and she gave in, allowing herself to touch him. “I don’t want to risk you. If something happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“It’s very difficult to be mad with you when you’re so sweet. I know this virus, Vincenz. I know it. And you don’t. And just let
me
say that if you touched it, or were exposed to it and got ill, chances are you’d die and then it would be because I wasn’t there. How can
I
live with that? Don’t you think it’s awfully coincidental that you found me, brought me back to Mirage and opened your lives to me and I turn out to be the specialist in just exactly what you need? I’m a scientist. I believe in what I can see. In what I can prove. This is more than that. I’m meant to be here. I’m meant to go with you. Even if you don’t want me, you know, romantically, after this all ends, I can help.”

He pushed up, all the muscles on his chest and shoulders bunching as he exerted himself. He kissed her hard. “Have we failed then? In showing you what we feel? We must have if you don’t know if we’d want you or not when this is over.”

Vincenz pulled her into the water and Julian came up behind her, wedging her between them like she needed so much. She tried not to show it, tried to hold back the tears of doubt she’d been choking on since Julian had shoved her away.

They both hugged her tight. “Baby. Gods above and below.” Julian kissed her neck and her ear. “I love you. I’m sorry, so very sorry I made you doubt that. I’m an asshole. But an asshole who loves you so much he’s pretty scared by it.”

Vincenz kissed her cheeks, taking in her tears. “Don’t cry. Please. I can’t stand seeing you like this because of us. Stay with me. Stay with Julian. Where you belong. I love you, beautiful Hannah.”

She squirmed to turn halfway to throw an arm around each of them. “I thought I had read it wrong. Thought I had loved you both
so much only to have you both move on and love each other while I had to rebuild, knowing you were somewhere but not with me.”

Vincenz groaned, hugging her tight. “No. No. Never. Your place is with me and Julian. Beside us, between us.”

“Below too. Oh and above.” Julian hugged her other side as he moved them back to the shallows so they could stand.

“Let’s lay out the blanket and have a snack. We can talk more.” Vincenz got out and bent to find the blanket to spread while Hannah found the food and sat between them, her legs stretched, arms behind her, supporting her weight.

“I met Marame right after I got to basic training. I told you I grew up in an orphanage. So I never really had anyone I considered to be family until the corps.” Julian lay flat, looking up at the ceiling and back into the past. She waited, so happy he would share, not wanting to spook him.

“I remember my parents. Or rather the last time I saw them. We were refugees from Catan. After the earthquakes there, the government sent in airlifts to take people out and move them to camps in other ’Verses. It was chaos. No food. Scant water. Not enough spots on the transport out. My mother shoved to the front of the line and tossed me into the crowd on the landing deck. I never saw her again.
Them
again. The records don’t show them ever leaving.”

Catan had been rendered virtually uninhabitable after a series of major earthquakes, which had started fires and all manner of other natural disasters. No one lived there now and it was only visited by researchers. Millions had died.

He hadn’t saved them, she realized. Realized that even at three he’d seen it as his fault. He hadn’t saved them and he’d grown up alone.

“Ellis saved my life and gave me a second chance. A third chance I suppose. But Marame became my family. The sister and mother I
never had. She was my best friend. The person I trusted above all others. She always had my back. She never judged me. She made me laugh. Made every day better and that she’s gone is such a fucking crime there are days I can barely get through because it
hurts
that I can’t talk to her again. That I can never introduce you to her. She’d have loved you, by the way.”

Hannah tried hard not to cry again, but his pain echoed through his skin where she’d laid her palm over his heart.

“And so last night I was buying you some sweets and a woman from the tavern recognized me. Asked about Marame. And she wasn’t there. She was gone and I had no good reason for it and the stupidity of it sent me reeling. How can I say she’s dead and have it just be words? There’s no reason for it.
None
. It was pointless. And empty. And I can’t take it back and make it not be true.” And this strong man nearly sobbed as he said the last.

She lay beside him, curling into his body her hand clasped with Vincenz’s, who bracketed Julian’s other side.

“And sometimes I am so angry. I want to kill and maim, I want to rip people to shreds for taking my family away again. But never you. Do you understand me?”

She looked up at him and nodded. “Of course.”

He seemed satisfied with that. “I didn’t save her. I lived and she didn’t and I feel guilty about it. And I look at you and then I don’t. Which makes me feel guilty all over again.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t meet her. I’m sorry she was murdered. I’m sorry you have a hole inside where she used to be.”

He laughed, rueful. “You and Vin fill my empty spaces. Even the jagged ones. I didn’t mean it when I made the comment about fixing you. Gods, I’m sorry. You get to me and it makes me nervous because I can’t defend against you. You lay me bare.”

She attempted to keep her bottom lip from trembling but failed.
“I know you didn’t. I mean, I wasn’t totally sure and then I was worried I’d misread things and I’m not good with this, or with people and so I …”

He hauled her up, on top of him, his grip on her upper arms tight but not brutal and kissed every doubt out of her. He kissed her until she wasn’t sure where her breath ended and his breath began. And it didn’t matter.

His tongue slid into her mouth like a thief, sinuous, sensual, his taste making itself at home within her. He grabbed two handfuls of her ass and ground her against his cock. He nipped her lips, her chin, took a handful of her hair and pulled, angling her head to get at her neck.

He rolled her over, looming above her, eyes glittering in the low light, intent. He rained kisses across her face, over her closed eyes, the curve of her cheeks, back to her mouth where he took a long, leisurely tour.

“Hands and knees.”

It was a good thing, as her knees were so rubbery she couldn’t have stood.

He gave her ass three sharp smacks, at first because the sound appealed to him, but then for the pretty pink handprint.

“Get over here, Vin, and put your cock in that pretty mouth.”

Vincenz got to his knees, caressing her hip as he leaned closer to Julian. “I need your mouth first.”

Julian shivered and then gave over to the wonder of Vincenz’s kiss. The sure, aggressive way his tongue slid over the seam of his lips and then inside. Vincenz tasted when he kissed. He sampled in little licks and then moved in to devour, as he did now.

Impatient for his cock, Hannah shifted and he slapped her ass another time, reveling in her squeal that ripened into a moan when he drew his fingertips over the spot, her skin hot to the touch.

It was his turn to moan as Vincenz sucked his tongue, fluttering
his own against it. Julian’s cock was so hard it could feel the pound, pound, pound of his pulse there.

Vin pulled back and then back in to kiss the base of his throat.

“That’s better.” He got back to Hannah, hunching to kiss her and swallow her cries as Julian wrapped her hair around his fist and pulled as he pressed his cock into her cunt.

Wet.

“Already wet.”

She pushed back to meet him, sucking his cock in deep and bringing stars to his vision it felt so fucking good.

He yanked a little harder on her hair and her pussy rippled around him. That she responded the way she did made him feel like a king. Only he and Vin knew this part of her. This dirty, gorgeous woman who gave herself so freely.

“I wish I’d brought the clamps,” Vincenz murmured as he broke the kiss.

“You used the clamps and I wasn’t there?”

Vincenz grinned up at him. “They’re in the drawer next to my side of the bed if you want to use them. Her nipples get so hard and puffy. And when I took them off …” He looked back down to her face tipped up from the grip Julian had in her hair. “When I took them off she came hard.” He reached down and rubbed the head of his cock over her lips as Julian dug in and began to fuck her in deep, hard thrusts.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes.” She licked her lips and Julian heard and saw Vincenz’s breath hitch.

Provocative without even meaning to be. Seven hells, she was so powerful in her submission. It drove him to his metaphorical knees. The way he knew it did for Vincenz too.

“Don’t neglect her clit.” Vincenz gave in and began the slow press into her mouth.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. I love her clit.”

The two of them grinned, but then she tightened around his cock and he grunted. Vin’s grunt echoed as Julian stretched forward to watch her suck Vin’s cock, her tongue flat, pressing against the underside, just beneath the crown.

“He does like it right like that.”

Vincenz couldn’t tear his gaze from the sight of her mouth on his cock. Except that she gave him her eyes, just like he’d demanded. She gave him his pleasure and remembered his command. Which only made him hotter for her.

“I want to fuck your face.” He sighed and she whimpered. Not in pain or distress.

Julian reached around her body and found her clit, swollen, hard and slick. He tickled it lightly until her sweet moans took on an edge of frustration.

“Do you want me to make you come?”

He was surprised he could get the words out around his clenched teeth. She felt so good the only thing holding him back from coming was his attention on her clit.

She squirmed, slamming back against him several times, pushing him hard and right to the very knife’s edge. He squeezed gently, plumping her clit between his thumb and forefinger and she arched her back, making needy, demanding sounds around a mouthful of Vin’s cock.

“Seven hells, your cunt is so hot and tight. Each time I squeeze your clit it’s like a molten wave of flesh rippling around me. So. Fucking. Good.”

But he didn’t want to go without her so he added a little more
pressure and that did the trick. She began to come, straining to push back and keep him deep as she spasmed around him so hard it pulled him right in and he came along with her as he fucked her deep, continuing to hold her hair, controlling her as he did.

Vincenz waited until Julian pulled out before he went back to work. “Now then, suck me the way I like it, beautiful Hannah.”

He took her hair from Julian and yanked hard enough to elicit a startled cry from her. A cry that deepened into a moan as he let loose and thrust.

He’d wanted to fuck her face every time she got his cock in her mouth, but had held back, thinking she might not be ready.

But as usual, Hannah had her own mind and was far stronger and eager than he’d given her credit for.

“You hungry for it? Hmm?”

She hummed her assent as he thrust harder. She adjusted her breathing as he continued.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you are this way? Hands and knees. Handprints on your sweet ass. All that gorgeous hair wrapped around my fist as I fuck that mouth of yours. And you love it. I don’t know what I did to deserve this dream come true, but rest assured, Hannah, it’s my plan to make you so satisfied for the rest of your days you’ll never want for anything. But my cock.”

She whimpered again. A needy sound that traveled up the stalk of him, up to the head, where she occasionally slid her tongue though the slit, and down to his balls.

He didn’t have much time left. After her tears he was already laid to waste, and then Julian spoke about his childhood and losing Marame and that was more than he could bear. He needed to bury himself in them, in this thing they’d all created together.

Her tits swayed so prettily.

“I think we should get your nipples pierced. They’ll look even prettier when I come all over them.”

She closed her eyes just a moment before opening them again just as he began to come. “Take it, sweet Hannah. Swallow it all.”

And she did.

W
il rose from his chair and addressed the room. A gathering of the top Family members who had the sort of clearance they’d need to hear what he was about to say.

“We have destroyed the Imperium’s ability to make the portal-collapsing devices. They will be unable to procure the key ingredient, Liberiam, which is found in only a few scattered ’Verses, all of them on our side of the line. We’ve installed detectors for air quality tests on each of them. If Liberiam is mined, we’ve found out it gives off a specific chemical signature. We can detect this signature with our tests.”