When I woke up, I couldn’t breathe. I gasped for air. Like I was under water. My back hurt. My ears rang. I couldn’t hear what Lewis said to Cash, but he gave directions for something. Sterling was suddenly there, his hand on my back. He pressed hard on it, and they were sticking something over my face.
“Oxygen.” Sterling said it loudly enough I could hear it. Damian was there; Sterling shoved him away, yelling something at him, and then Judge came into my sight but just for a second before Sterling knocked him back too. I didn’t want them sick. I couldn’t breathe. There was no air. Cutting off the air …
“Please, Diana. Please,” Damian shouted into the room. “Don’t do this. Not like this. Can’t lose you. Please.”
The machine closed around me. Darkness.
I woke up again to the sound of beeping. It was the medical machine moving off my body. Lewis had his mask off, and he smiled down at me.
“Hey, Doll. Sit up.” He helped me.
I’d never felt so weak. I’d been sick with childhood illnesses, but I’d never felt anything like this. “What’s happening now?”
“You.” He tugged me against him. “You lived through it. Vitals are good. Breathing is good. Fever is gone. Twenty-four hours I waited to be sure. You’re still here. It was close. Pneumonia. Scared the crap out of me. Longest two weeks of my life. But you’re here.”
The room spun, so I didn’t let go of Lewis. “Two weeks?”
“Yes.” He kissed my cheeks, my hair, my nose. “I’ve done something kind of bad. I didn’t tell them I was waking you. Wanted a minute. Sterling’s across the enclosure. He’s probably already heard you’re awake, so he’ll be here any second. I don’t know if he’ll tell the others. We don’t have long.” Lewis kissed my lips, biting down on the bottom. I must have been a sweaty mess, but he didn’t seem to care. “I don’t want slow. Okay? I don’t want it. I need you. I love you. I can’t have regrets. I want the babies too. The whole dream. I told myself if you lived, I’d believe like Cash does. No more holding back. If you want that, too?”
I touched the side of his face. “Is that what you were doing? I thought you didn’t want to rush the beginning.”
“I lied.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “No more. I love you.”
Sterling appeared next to him. “I didn’t tell the others, but I think Judge saw me run by, so he’ll be here momentarily. I can hear him jumping out of the top of the pod room.” Sterling tugged me into his arms. “I love you, too. Sweet baby, if you ever get sick like that again, it’ll kill me. I’ll drop dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Were you seriously not going to tell us?” Judge sped toward me, knocking into Sterling. “You haven’t let me near her in two weeks. Not even when she was in the machine. Scoot over.”
Sterling kissed me once more before he moved over to give Judge room. Judge took my cheeks in his hands and gently caressed my lips with his own. “I love you.”
“I love you, too … Listen, I am …”
“If you say you’re sorry, I’m going to spank your pretty ass.” Cash appeared out of nowhere, wrapping his arms around me. “Welcome back to the land of the living. You scared me, and I deal with the Infected all day long. Cut off a hand, drop it on the ground, it grows a whole new body around the hand. That’s scary stuff. Nope. Nothing as bad as you nearly quitting breathing.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, and then I saw him—Damian. He stood by the door. He’d lost weight. His face was haggard, and his eyes clouded. I took a better look at all of them. Not one of them had slept much, and the weight loss seemed true for each of them in turn. I opened my arms, and Damian fell into them. Stumbled forward like he couldn’t walk. His head found my shoulder.
He exhaled his words. “Thank you.”
Soon they were all wrapped around me and each other. A big, giant hug in the med bay. I must be disgusting. They didn’t seem to care.
“I fixed Artemis.” Judge spoke low. “She’s all fixed. Just like I promised she would be.”
I squeezed his hand. This was the best hug ever.
After I showered, ate, and was once again declared fit by Lewis, I met them in the game room. No one wanted to work. A movie seemed the best idea.
“It’s still Damian’s night,” Cash let me know. “We’re going to start over with the movie. Try again. Tomorrow you can ease into work slowly. One thing. Then a rest. Build back up to a full-on schedule over the next two weeks. You’re going to feel better quickly thanks to the machine, but make no mistake, you are going to be weak.”
I nodded. “I won’t push it. I’ll do as you tell me to.”
“Good.” He seemed satisfied with my answer. I plopped down next to Damian, who pulled me into his arms just like he’d done before I passed out on him two weeks earlier. I ran my hands over his chest to feel his heartbeat.
“I’m sorry I got sick like that. I know that’s how you lost your mom. I’m so sorry.”
He nuzzled my hair. “You didn’t make yourself ill on purpose. Don’t apologize. I got a different ending than the one I thought was coming. You’re here. I’m … I don’t have the proper adjective.”
The movie started again. Presumably they’d not finished it the night I got sick. It was exciting. The heroes had to beat back monsters, and then there was this secondary love story that …
The snore alerted me to someone being asleep. I looked over at Lewis, but he sat with his eyes closed, quiet. He was out, but not deeply asleep yet. With my head raised, I could see Damian’s lids closed, his dark lashes a contrast to his pale skin. His hand was limp on my side. The snores turned out to be from Sterling, who never snored as far as I knew. He sat in his chair, his head leaning to the side. For good measure, I checked. Judge and Cash were both out cold too. All of my five, in the middle of the day, passed out on the couches.
I picked up the remote and shut off the television. If we were all having a nap, then we were all having a nap.
I closed my eyes and sleep came. Deep, untroubled, healthy sleep.
None of us roused until the next morning. Dinner was forgotten; the whole evening through the deep of the night, no one moved. I only woke up the next morning because Judge tripped over Sterling while getting up to use the bathroom. They both stumbled forward, which made a huge racket—enough to wake everyone else at once.
“Shit.” Damian rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry. What time is it? I have to make dinner.”
“Breakfast, brother.” Sterling laughed. “We missed dinner. You okay, sweet baby?”
I nodded. “I’m good.” I hadn’t lifted my head off Damian. He was comfortable.
Lewis walked over to us and looked down. “Your eyes are clear. That’s good.”
Cash held his hands over his head. “She’s going to be fine now.”
“I missed my night.” Damian groaned. “Sterling, can I have till dinner?”
“Yep.” Sterling patted me on the head and then twice on Damian’s cheek. “Have at it.”
I ended up shaving Damian’s face for him. He was awake but by no means looked rested. He didn’t speak much while he sat in my bathroom and let me shave the whiskers of the last two weeks—which were practically a full on beard—from his cheeks. His eyes followed my movements. I’d only just finished cleaning him off when his hand grabbed my wrist.
I stopped moving. “Damian?”
“You know I love you, right? Please tell me you do. I wondered for two weeks if I hadn’t really made you understand.”
I climbed onto his lap, straddling him in the chair. “I do. I can feel it in my own heart. Deep inside. Your love for me is there. Do you feel mine for you?”
He kissed my lips gently, raising his hips when he did. “I do. But you’re only just better. I can’t show you the way I’d like to what your love means to me.”
I pushed down on him. “Could you show me gently? Slowly? Just this one time? Because I think I could handle that.”
“I can.”
> He kissed me lovingly before he picked me up to bring me to the bed. “You don’t move. You let me love you. That’s what I need. Please.”
“Sounds like heaven.”
He grinned his half smile that went crooked up one side of his face. “It will be for me.”
I lay on the bed while he undressed me piece by piece before slipping off his own clothing. I’d not been wrong about the weight loss. He was still strong, gorgeous. Still, his pain was evident in the way I could now make out some of his ribs.
I leaned up to kiss where his heart beat. He smiled down at me. “Don’t go without taking me with you. Anywhere.”
“Damian …”
“Shh. I’m … I’m sorry. No sadness right now.”
He kissed down my body; parts that weren’t usually a turn on suddenly were with him. The back of my knee. The crook of my elbow. There was nowhere Damian didn’t want to make love to me. I closed my eyes and let him. His breath was warm, his heart beat, and he loved me.
After a time he found my pussy and ravaged affection on my clit. He moaned when he did so. I opened my eyes to see him. Damian—who asked for so little—made me hot in the way that he adored my body. He pulled back, his breath fast, his eyes wide.
I nodded, knowing what he asked me, and he moved until he could push inside of me. Slowly. We didn’t rush. Slow movements eventually hurried but never got frantic. I came the same way. My body needed the release, needed Damian, and it was a blissful joining when he followed me into oblivion.
He was out cold a few minutes later. I ran my hands over his back lightly, watching every breath he took in and out.
A few hours later, I rolled him onto his stomach, waking him gently with a kiss when I did so. He breathed in through his nose. “Sorry, I guess I …”
I put a piece of a protein bar between his lips. “I only woke you to feed you. Then you can go back to sleep if you want.”
His eyes widened, but he chewed what I placed in his mouth. I broke him off another piece. “Open.” He did as I said, and I gave him another bite to chew. Damian ate the whole protein bar from my fingers. When I was finished feeding him, he grinned at me, true happiness as some of the weight of the world seemed to leave his gaze.
“Thank you, Diana. That was kind of awesome.”
I sat back. “I know.”
“I want the babies, too. Sterling told us all when you were sick. That’s what you want? I do too. Your babies. I’ll love them all, even if none of them are mine. Let’s be parents. It’ll be so … normal. No more Infected. No more time differentials. No more you getting sick. The five of us. You. Our babies. I’ll quit today, if you want.”
“Sterling said five years. I think that’ll give us the least amount of attention.”
He agreed. And made love to me slowly again to show me how much.
When Sterling joined me that evening, after I’d bathed, shaved, and changed all of my sheets, he plopped down on the bed, saying something about needing game night soon but not that night. I’d no sooner turned around than he was out cold, flat on his stomach.
My five were going to need as much rest as I did. Maybe more.
****
When I was finally up to par, I went back to my full time duties, which tended to be helping wherever I was needed. If they didn’t have something specific they wanted from me, I found plenty to keep me busy.
XXY lost his hand. It fell off while I cleaned the filters on the other side of Cash’s lab.
“Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.” He stormed over to the glass. “I’m going to have to send the robot in before he grows another Infected.”
I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I know you were hoping he’d keep the hand you managed to fix.”
“You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”
Cash would never be that way. Those he didn’t save would always weigh on him like he failed. Each and every time.
Chapter Twenty
Forever
Lewis didn’t waste any time. I walked into Artemis on his night on the schedule, and there were candles lit everywhere. I stopped in my tracks. He’d poured a red substance into two glasses and handed me one.
I sniffed at the drink. “Lewis Hurst. Did you find wine? Alcohol?”
“I have my secret stash. I don’t drink alone. So I haven’t in five years because I think Damian would flip out over this. His father had a bit of a problem with booze. I thought it was safe enough for you and me to enjoy one bottle together.”
I sat across from him. “I can have one glass. Two puts me on my rear end. And I think you might have plans for tonight that don’t include watching me sleep with my mouth hanging open, wondering if I’m going to throw up.”
“Good call. So one glass for you. Two for me.”
I let him pour me some. Mars Station had a ton of bars around. Alcohol wasn’t forbidden, and for the most part people let off steam pretty well. My Uncle Nolan ran a tight station, and there was always security on the main strip when the bars were open. When I had turned eighteen, Uncle C.J. brought me for a drink. My father had been furious. He had wanted to take me for a drink. We’d done it the next night, which had made my mom mad. Why hadn’t anyone told her? She’d wanted to come. Night three. By the end of the week, I’d had a drink with everyone but Cooper. He didn’t consume alcohol—with the way his family sometimes turned out, he liked to keep his head totally clear. He’d given me my first water wrench instead.
Funny memories. Paloma had been shipped off to the Sisters of the Universe right after that. I’d never known why, and since I hadn’t had others to drink with, I’d pretty much stopped except for birthdays or special occasions.
I sat on my knees. “Tell you something I haven’t told anyone?”
“Yes,” he scooted over and handed me my drink, which I sipped. The aroma-filled liquid slipped down my throat with ease. Just the smell itself was enough to make me feel relaxed.
“Today is Asher’s birthday. My brother.”
“Cooper Jackson’s kid. The one whom you saved from Sandler.”
Lewis had an amazing memory. “Yes, that’s the one. When I think about any of it, and honestly, I hold back a lot of family recollection, it does me no good. Maybe there will come a time I can really think about all of them without pain, but not yet.” They hadn’t shown up. I’d turned off the countdown clock. Why make myself crazy? “Anyway, when I think on it? Worrying if he got away or if they caught him or if he died, that’s what gets me. That’s always there. Today my tongue got thick in the way it does before I can’t communicate for long periods of time. I almost quit talking in the pod room.”
His brow furrowed. “What stopped it?”
“Not what. Who. You did. You came in, and you asked me if I wanted to come see the newborn calves and say hi to Damian with you. I’ve never been able to pull it back before. But I did. For you. Thank you.”
He took the glass from my hand and set it aside. Then he was on me faster than I’d ever seen him move. His mouth drank from my lips like I was air itself. I clung to his body. I don’t know who stripped whom, only we were soon naked. My breasts were sensitive, and when he sucked on my nipples I cried out from the pleasure. His hands were everywhere, and I tried to keep up, finally giving up to let him run the show.
He’d held back for so long. His hand felt inside of me, finding my clit and stroking it. He hummed while he pleasured me, as though he’d never been so happy in the world. I cried out, coming all over his fingers. He grinned down at me, his smile proprietary. I was his, and he knew it.
“Feeling a little full of yourself there, doctor?”
“A man likes to know when his woman is getting what she needs.” He pressed his knee against my core, and I ground against it, loving the fullness, loving the pain that came with the pleasure of feeling that part of his body right there. With a quick shift of his body, he moved around behind me. “Hold onto the headboard, Doll.”
He wanted it from behind? This w
as new for me. Sometimes they wanted to be on top or me on the bottom, but from behind? Okay. I was game.
Lewis’s swift fingers found my clit and played with it again, getting me close before he slipped inside of me. From this angle, he could drive in deep. I cried out from the penetration. He was big, but I was ready.
His right hand cupped my breast, the other covering my hand on the headboard while he pressed in and out of me. I pushed back with my hips, meeting his surge, and he cried out, too. Lewis wanted it a little rough, and I wanted him to have it. The harder I made it for him, the more it seemed to turn him on.
He was a man who liked a challenge.
Our joining wasn’t easy or sweet, but it was ours. He reached between us, finding my clit and pressing on the nerves. I came hard and fast, over and over again. I couldn’t catch my breath, and he held me up while he came deep inside of me.
We both collapsed down onto the bed. He lay on top of me, and I gasped for air. The candles in the room danced shadows on the wall.
I could see our movements reflected in the shadows and I knew I’d never forget the sight.
“I love you.” He kissed my shoulder blade. “Love me?”
“Forever.”
Time had a way of moving forward. I jumped down from the rafters several months later to find Judge waiting for me, his arms crossed. “Well?”
I looked left and right. “Think I’m missing something.”
“Everyone here has told you they want a baby. A family. Except me. Don’t you want to know if I do?”
He looked so despondent I couldn’t laugh at him. “That’s not for me to ask. It’s for you to tell me. I’ve been waiting on you.”
“I do. I want a baby. I’d be a terrible father. You’re going to have to teach me how to do it. But, yes. Okay? When we leave here, I’m game.”
They’d all told me how bad they were going to be at parenting. We had five years before we could consider the subject. I wasn’t worried. I’d never known a more protective group than the five here. When it came down to it, I suspected they’d be holding my hand and not the other way around.