Over and over, I lost track of everything but how I could breathe and if I even wanted to. Who needed air? I closed my eyes, burying my face against his shoulder. Judge murmured words behind me, hot words. We were all in a cocoon. The world couldn’t touch us as our moment moved on.
I came slowly this time. “Cash,” I whispered his name.
His breath sucked in, once, twice, and then he came, too. For a second, his face almost looked pained, but then it smoothed out. His eyes were closed, and he kissed my lips over and over.
Judge pulled me back, and Cash sighed. “Love you. He is going to make you feel amazing over and over.” He sounded groggy, and I smiled. A sleepy Cash was an adorable one.
My other husband was as hard as I’d ever seen him. I stroked his cock, from his tip to his balls. “Careful, Di. One more of those and I’m going to explode.”
He kissed my face, all over. “I’ve waited for you my whole life. Wasn’t going to lose you because of some black hole. You survived an Infected bite. How are you so amazing?”
How could I have been nervous around Judge, even for a second? He was hands down the sweetest man I’d ever known. “I don’t know what I did to inspire this kind of loyalty. I love you. I’ll never stop being grateful.”
The tip of his penis rubbed against my clit. I moaned. I was sensitive. After nothing but my own hand, imagining them for years, this much attention had my nerve endings on edge. It wasn’t going to take much.
His eyes were pleading. Judge wanted this as much as I did. “Can I climb on top?”
He nodded, fast. “Yes.”
I took his cock in my hand as I did as I’d asked. With one stroke, I brought him inside of me, arching my back to get him deeper.
He drew my hands into his. Leaning forward, I moved slowly. Up and down, riding his cock in such a way I could rub my very alert clit against his extremely erect cock.
My ears rang. I held back; I wanted to make this last for Judge. I wanted him to know he was special, that coming back to him meant something to me. I was so on the edge. I wasn’t sure I could speak my own name if asked to in that moment.
Judge’s hips jerked beneath me. “Shit, Di, I’m going to …”
“Yeah …” I pressed down on his penis, coming at the same time as he did. We both cried out. I lost his hands, my breasts hitting his chest as I fell forward.
He wrapped his arms around me while his cock continued to throb inside my body. We stayed that way for a long while. I didn’t want to move. Maybe ever again.
Cash rolled over, eventually hugging Judge and me in his embrace.
“Okay.” He whispered against our bodies. “Bed. Now.”
It didn’t take either of them very long to conk out. With my body stuck between the two of them, I was warm and cozy. They should have lulled me to sleep, but I was wide awake. There was still someone missing from my reunion. Damian piloted the ship. They’d drawn straws, but I highly suspected he’d somehow manipulated the results. He didn’t mind sharing his love with the others. His body and his time with me constituted a very different matter.
He’d come for me when it was his turn. Judge rolled closer, muttering my name but not opening his eyes. He smiled. I wondered if he still had a difficult time sleeping. Cash breathed deeply. My body slowly calmed down. I didn’t sleep much anymore. War and constant threats had left me jumpy, coupled with the agony of missing my men, which had me constantly numb. They weren’t great combinations for bedtime.
The Sandler Cartel had worse things they could do to me than shoving me through a black hole. I could end up in the Dark Worlds, sold to the highest bidder and used until I had nothing left to give.
Sandler didn’t care if a woman was married. He didn’t care if a woman said no. Among other equally disgusting things, Garrison Sandler sold women.
My family protected me as best they could from most things, but it didn’t help with the sleeping. Cash moved his hands on my hip. He nuzzled into my back. Judge’s smile fell, and he made a noise in his throat, which told me he was about to have one of his bad dreams. I stroked the side of his face. I’d actually missed this, comforting him in the night.
“Sshh. You’re okay.” His brow eased. My sweet Judge.
Cash kissed my shoulder. “Is that how you did it? All of these years I’ve been wondering how you got Judge to sleep through the night.”
His voice was barely a whisper, but I heard him. Rolling over a bit to face him, I grinned at Cash. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Dozing, but you’re not sleeping, and I’m very attuned to you at the moment.” He kissed my mouth, gently. “What’s keeping you awake? Am I snoring?”
I grinned. “I don’t sleep much. Things are very frightening right now. I slept before. That’s probably it for the night.”
He kissed my palm. “I have to tell you how sorry I am. The Infected were my responsibility. They got to you. I can’t forgive myself. I won’t ever.”
“Hey now, that whole thing was an accident. Blame me. I got bitten. I should have been paying better attention. I could have gotten away if I hadn’t been dumb. So please, let’s blame me.”
Cash shook his head. “No.”
“Cash …”
He sighed. “Have I told you about the time I took my mother to the zoo?”
“No.” I stroked his bottom lip with my forefinger. “I don’t know that story.”
“We had a day away from my father. You remember what I told you about him? He was awful to my mom, always yelling, totally narcissistic. Made us both miserable. Such a relief to have been away from the quasi-abuse. Sometimes I’m scared I have some of that inside of me.”
I shook my head—a little too roughly because Judge shifted like he’d been slightly disturbed. It took him a second, but he settled again.
I tried to whisper lower. “You’re not. Nothing like him.”
“I appreciate your faith in me, more than you can know. I’ll always try to make sure I’m not that person. Every day. Anyway, I took my mother to the zoo. Or she took me. I was never clear on exactly who took whom anywhere when it came to my mom.”
Cash had told me his mother had withered and died under the emotional abuse from his father. I could imagine Cash taking care of her, even when he was young.
“How old were you in this memory?” I loved to hear him talk, but I really wanted to be able to picture it.
“Seven.” He scrunched his nose. “Maybe eight.”
I could see him in my mind’s eye. Dark hair, dark eyes, maybe his eyebrows had already started to thicken. Had his face always been long, or did the shape change? His eyes would have taken up most of his face, huge, brown and wise beyond his years.
“She would have to have taken you, then, right?” I couldn’t imagine it the other way around. Of course, at seven I’d been living on Artemis, just coming out of the black hole. What did I know?
He smirked. “The driver took us. I think it was my idea to go. We wandered around from exhibit to exhibit looking at the animals. Most of them don’t live anywhere except zoos anymore. Other than work animals, most places on our side of the galaxy don’t let animals live if they’re in the way.”
“I’ve never been to a zoo. There wasn’t one on the Station. Other than there, I never lived anywhere but with you. I’ve never seen one. Are the animals in cages?”
He kissed me gently. “I forget you’ve not done a lot of stuff. You were so brave coming through the hole and living on your own, but you’ve really not travelled.”
“I guess we did spend time on Earth. If I went to a zoo, I don’t remember.” I couldn’t remember it. I just remembered my dad and my uncles constantly arguing with my grandfather. Then we left in the middle of the night.
“They are not in cages. Enclosures meant to look like their natural habitats. The unicorn in the unicorn space.”
I grabbed his arm, and his eyes widened. “Cash, unicorns are not real.”
“They are where I’m fro
m.”
I could have squealed. “Really? I’m sorry. Go on.”
“My mom actually seemed happy that day. She liked the birds. She liked the animals with funny faces. I was so happy to be there with her, making her smile.”
I thought of my brothers. They all smiled all the time, even during the scary moments. They didn’t know any different.
“I can’t imagine her not smiling around you all the time.”
He shrugged, and I understood more from that movement than anything else. He’d been so helpless to his mom’s pain there had been nothing he could do about it, and he still carried it around.
“I promised her that day I’d take care of her. I promised her I’d make sure she was always happy. I … I obviously didn’t keep my promise to her. I didn’t to you either. I have a real history now of breaking my word to the women I love. It won’t happen again. I’ll die first.”
I placed my hand over his heart. “You have nothing to be blamed for. I am not upset with you. I’m not holding back any blame. In fact”—I took a deep breath—“this is tough to say. But when I was dying …”
His sucking in his breath paused me for a second, but I did continue. “When I was dying, I went to our spot. That’s where I wanted to be, so I could be close to you. Even though you weren’t there, you were. Like you were holding me.”
A tear slipped from his eye, and he brushed it away. “We can agree to disagree on this. Just know I will die before I let anything happen to this second chance.”
I cuddled against his chest. “Go to sleep, my love. I’ll try to as well so I don’t keep you awake.”
“I love you, too.”
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew I was being shaken gently to my feet. Damian smiled at me, and after I squirmed away from Cash and Judge, I wrapped my arms around him, giving the guys on the bed a quick look. Judge hadn’t stirred, and Cash was on his back, one arm over his head. He didn’t move when Damian took me.
“Hi,” he whispered in my ear. “Been waiting all night.”
I kissed his cheek. “Thanks for flying.”
“Thanks for not being dead.”
CHAPTER THREE
Battle Plans
I held onto Damian while he carried me into his bedroom. I wasn’t sure who was flying Artemis, but I was sure they had it worked out. Tomorrow, I would worry about the real world. My guys had made tonight really special, like a dream I hoped I wouldn’t wake from.
Damian la down on the bed in one of the extra bedrooms. I climbed on top of him, straddling his lap.
“Hi, Damian.” I ran my hand down the side of his face. “How are you?”
He exhaled a long breath. “Better now.”
Judge had gotten really muscular in our time apart, but if anything, Damian had lost weight. He was still gorgeous but leaner, and there was, if possible, even more wariness in his eyes.
“It wasn’t your fault.” I was going to have to say this to all of them. In all the time I’d spent obsessing, I’d never thought, not for one second, they’d blame themselves for a Zombie infestation. “None of it.”
He traced my face with the tip of his index finger. “It is, but I’m not going to argue with you about it. The truth is, you were dead. For a little more than half a year, as we tried to get back to Orion, I thought you were dead, so you were in my mind. Then for two years, maybe, you were dead. We didn’t know. You’re here. I should be able to take a breath around the pain. Only I haven’t yet. I don’t know why.”
I kissed his cheek, lingering over the spot to breathe him in. “Because you’re Damian. Because your heart is huge. Because you love me. Because it might take a little time for you to believe it.”
He closed his eyes, and his body shuddered. “Diana …”
I kissed him all over his face, anywhere I could reach—the tip of his chin, his cheeks, his closed eyes.
“Damian, I love you. I was never dead. I was almost dead but never actually. I woke on this side of the galaxy alone, wondering if all of your timelines had moved on without me. I’d spend time fixating on things. Like, did Judge ever get Evander to admit they had screwed up the glass? Or did Damian go back home and fall in love? What was his wife like?”
His eyes flew open. “Diana …”
I held up my hand. “I didn’t know if you were dead, either. It was possible you’d lived a whole life without me. I know pain, too. Please believe me, my love.”
He kissed me straight on the lips. “For the record, I never would have ever moved on. There wouldn’t be a wife. There wouldn’t have been a life.”
I wanted his pain gone. It was going to take some time and maybe some help. But we had tonight. That was everything. “Then I guess we would have both been pretty miserable souls.”
He kissed me long and slow, his hands coming around my back and pulling me to him against his chest. He was warm, and we were both alive.
I rocked against him, making sure to rub his cock against me. His hands slid down my hips, and he moaned. His eyes opened, and he placed his forehead against mine. I loved that feeling, so close, so connected to him.
“Please, Diana.”
I never could resist his please. “Anything, Damian. What do you need?”
“You. I need to feel you alive. Please, can I be inside of you?”
I reached between us, having to back up a little do so, and stroked his cock on the outside of his shorts. He sucked in his breath.
“You can be inside of me just about any time you want. Always. For the rest of our lives, which, assuming nothing else goes terribly wrong, will be a long time.”
His nostrils flared. “Do you remember our idea for the farm on the planet where no one would find us?”
“We can still have that.” I kissed him lightly on the lips. “As soon as the people who want to kill me or kidnap me are gone.”
“Wait …”
I shouldn’t have brought that up, and so instead of ruining the mood, I opted to distract him. I pushed down his shorts and pressed him deep inside of me.
He grunted, his head falling back against the headboard. “Shit, Diana. I’m—”
“Close, I know. That’s how I want you, Damian. Deep inside of me, hot and ready.” I didn’t know where the words came from. I wasn’t this way with anyone else. But I’d always understood what Damian needed, and I loved giving it to him. Maybe I should have been sore and tender, but I wasn’t. Adrenaline rode me, and I wasn’t going to question it right then. I wanted him.
I moved slowly at first, drawing him with me, holding his eye contact as I moved. He breathed heavily, his hands gripping the bed. Inside of me, his cock pulsated. I could feel how much he wanted me. There was nothing headier than that.
I travelled up and down his cock, our hips dancing together. He’d moan and I’d gasp. I was close, too. Damian was ready, and I was too.
“This is too fast.” He bit down on his lip, his neck muscles straining. “I’ll make it up to you.”
He reached out, stroking my breasts, brining my nipples to peaks. “Nothing to worry about. You come, and I’m going to come.”
Damian nodded once. “Please.”
“Do it, Damian.”
His movements sped, stroking my clit, making my insides clench in anticipation. When he came, it was beautiful. His face revealed a mixture of pleasure and pain. He pulled me against him, tighter than I had been, and I was lost, my body spending all that I had left around him. I collapsed on his shoulder, and he spoke love in my ear. I couldn’t make out what he said; maybe it was nonsense. But I got the gist. He loved me. He’d never let me go again.
I was more than fine with that.
Sometime later, I woke up. The ship had slightly changed direction. All the time I’d spent on Artemis had made me very attuned to her shifts and changes, even in space. The coordinates I’d given the guys should have been a straight shot to the first stopping point on our way to the rendezvous point. Steps had been taken to di
sguise the final planet where we would winter and wait for Sandler to relax. Then we’d retake the station and end his abilities to conduct his war machine.
All I had to do was not get taken in the meantime and act like I didn’t know they wanted me. My friend Paloma had been key in us gaining this information, but no one had heard from her in a month. I hoped she was okay.
Damian had an arm and a leg slung over me. I gently pulled out of his hold, and he murmured something unintelligible before rolling over onto his side. I quietly crept to his closet and grabbed a long shirt. I’d only known my guys in their uniforms, but like me, they’d acquired clothes along the way. Damian’s shirt fell past my knees, so it would do for now. I quickly went into the bathroom and cleaned myself. The adrenaline had worn off, and now my body actually hurt from all the lovemaking we had done.
I’d never felt so completely achy and happy at the same time before.
On quiet toes, I made my way to the control room where I wasn’t surprised to find Sterling at the helm. He needed less sleep than the others, or at least it usually seemed that way.
He looked up when I came in, and he smiled, although I knew I hadn’t surprised him, thanks to his super-hearing. He usually tried to hide those attributes, lest someone find them off-putting. I never minded. “Shouldn’t you be out cold?”
“Think I’m kind of overstimulated, if you want to know the truth.” I sat down on his lap in front of the control panel. “You changed direction. It woke me. What’s going on?”
Sterling bit lightly on my neck. “This is Damian’s shirt. I think we need to make a rule that you can’t wear any of our clothing. I have no issue sharing you with these guys—they’re like my brothers—but I want you out of his shirt and in mine.”
I pinched his leg. “I’ll wear yours tomorrow. Focus. Why did you change directions?”
“Because I got a weird reading, and I wasn’t sure if it was space junk or something I should be concerned about. I’m new to this side of the galaxy. I’ll learn the rules fast, but I have to learn them, nonetheless.”