He rolled until he lay on his side, leaning on his elbow. “If you think for one second that we’re going to let you face the reality of childcare on your own, you’re mistaken. You aren’t going to go without rest. I’ll pace the hall for you with her if she needs it, while you get some sleep. But okay, I’ll ask the others.”
“Thanks.” I slipped away. “Breakfast. Come and eat some.”
Surprisingly, they all showed to eat. I was glad we had so much of the canned grossness, because everyone ate like they’d never seen food before. Even Nolan seemed happy with the meal. At the very least, he didn’t level any insults at me over the meal. I sat in the chair between Geoff and Dane. The latter draped his arm around the back of it.
“Want me to look at your cuts?”
I shook my head. “They’re all fine.”
“Stubborn.”
I kicked him in the shin, and he laughed. Geoff shook his head. “You planning on eating?”
“Yes, actually.” I took a few bites and had to smile. I’d made it eatable. It wasn’t gourmet, but it tasted good enough. Geoff watched me chew for a bit before he turned his attention to his own food.
Across the table, C.J. winked at me, and Wes drummed his fingers on the table. Only Nolan remained quietly eating with no other movements.
“Do we ever do anything fun?” I cleared my throat. “I mean other than sex.”
That caught all of their attention, and all five sets of eyes were on me. C.J. leaned in his seat. “You mean together? All five of us? Other than sex?”
“Do we have sex? The five of us together?”
Nolan pushed his chair back with a loud screech. “Thank you for breakfast.”
“You’re welcome.” He deposited his plate in the sink and then left the room.
Wes leaned forward. “We very rarely have sex altogether. Maybe twice in all the years. You’re very big on one-on-one, private, door closed, mind your own business time.”
“Are you all having sex with her already?” Geoff dropped his fork on the plate. “While I’ve been trying to figure out how to destroy my own bomb, since I don’t want it going off in her heart, you’re all having sex? Shit, I’ve still been beating myself up over kissing her on the shuttle.”
Wes shrugged and stood. “I can do more than one thing at a time. I’m on to something with getting the wireless problem taken care of. We may not need you to defuse the bomb.”
“I’m figuring it out regardless. What if whatever you’re doing doesn’t work?”
Wes took his plate to the sink and put it on top of Nolan’s. “I’ve got faith in you, brother. And, for the record, I like the one-on-one sex time. But, if you want to have at it on occasion with more than one partner at a time, I’ve always been game. I like to suck your tits while one of them takes you from behind.”
Oh boy. I’d really opened a discussion, hadn’t I? Heat rushed to my face and I shifted in my chair as Dane stood, taking my empty dish with his to the sink. “Actually, I wouldn’t mind a poker night. Can you make that happen, Geoff? I’d love to take some credits from you.”
“I could go for poker, too.” C.J. stood.
Just like that, breakfast ended, except for Geoff who remained at the table. I turned to him until I could look at him full on.
“I still think of you as my kidnapper, but you’re not. You were my rescuer.”
He sucked in his breath. “I’m just glad I was there that day, to see your picture pop on the screen, and that I could get in to you.”
“What were you doing on Master’s?”
“There’s a supplier there who sells metallic parts I need.”
Seemed weird. How had he gotten in? Why had my picture shown the day it did? I shook my head. “I’ve hardly seen you since we got here.”
“Why would you want to?” He fiddled with his fork. “You have one of my bombs fused to your heart. I invented it, and it might kill you.”
I placed my hand on his. “I’m not going to pretend I’m not terrified of it. I don’t let myself think about it. I think we need to focus on who put it in there. Cooper seemed surprised. He didn’t know about it, so whatever happened with him, he wasn’t involved.”
“He took you from us. Drugged us all and then went off with you, faked your death, and had your mind erased. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t put much faith in what Prince Cooper has to say.”
I’d heard pieces of this but never the whole thing spelled out before. “How did he drug you?”
“Must have put something in our food. We all woke, strewn around the ship, and you were gone. C.J. can find anyone, but you were just…gone. Then we found the shuttle, exploded. Before that, your vitals and Cooper’s both shut off on Dane’s chip. We didn’t lose hope until we saw the wreckage.”
“Then why did I end up at Master’s? It doesn’t make sense he’d take me and then drop me there.”
“Yes it does.” He shook his head. “Sweetheart, he had you wiped so he could take you for himself. He planned to take our baby and go away with you, alone.”
I supposed it was possible. Only it didn’t sit right. “Can we go with the idea he didn’t do it for a second and figure out who would take one of your bombs and put it in me? Who would…”
He stood, stopping my thought. “C.J. would be better for that. I have to work out the bomb. I’m sorry. Poker, tonight. See you later, sweetheart.”
He left in a hurry. I needed to do something about Geoff. If I actually blew, he’d never forgive himself. There was no room for blame in my odd life. We all had to be together. Even Nolan, eventually, although I hadn’t a clue how to make that happen.
Instead, I cleaned the kitchen. There was a quiet to it, the routine of putting things where they belonged and getting it all organized again. I had to fix the ship. Artemis belonged to me. I couldn’t have it looking so unhappy and destroyed all the time.
There would be worse things to do than fixing our living space. Maybe when I finished, I would know what to do about Geoff, how to figure out who stuck the bomb in me, and what to do about Cooper. We’d be at Truest soon and then on to The Bridge. I needed answers before then.
Cooper said I would die in that machine. He either knew what he was talking about or he didn’t. Why did everything have to be life or death?
I found paint in the storage facility and, although we didn’t have the bright colors I might have wished for, the beige came out nicely on the walls in the kitchen. With the splotches gone from the walls, the room certainly seemed more like I wanted to have a meal in it.
The counters were falling apart and I found some glue and started piecing them together. It looked like someone had taken a hammer to them at some point.
Damn it, Geoff.
I stopped moving, a voice moving through the room. It took me a minute to realize it was my own. Only it wasn’t happening. It was a memory. “Holy cow.” I waited to see if more would happen.
“Damn it, Geoff. I told you not to touch my goddamned stuff. Do I go into your room and fuck around with yours?”
A deep sighed sounded. “I thought you’d like it. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it down. I made it for you because you said you liked clouds.”
“I like them. I don’t want them floating over my head in my bedroom like some kind of electrical monstrosity I have to stare at every time I get in my bed.”
I rubbed at my head. If my memory had decided now was the time to turn on, then I wouldn’t complain. In any case, I’d gotten a little insight. What had they done with all my stuff while I’d been gone?
Having never been invited into Geoff’s room, I knocked. I had a pretty good idea Dane, Wes, and C.J. would not object to my going into their spaces. Would Geoff? When no one answered, I opened the door a crack and poked my head inside. At first I thought the room empty, but I quickly saw that wasn’t true. Geoff was out cold on the bed, lying on his back, with headphones on. I wondered what he listened to while he slept.
The polite
thing to do would be to close the door and leave him alone, except that I saw what I searched for. The cloud piece he’d made me, which would have floated above my bed, stuck out of his closet. I wanted it. If I put it up, and got him into my room, he would see I cared and that I remembered something that had to do with him.
He’d have to believe then I held no blame toward him.
I snuck in, pausing when he rolled over onto his side, but he didn’t wake. Would he hear me if he didn’t have the headphones on?
I turned until I stared at the screen. It was off, so whatever he was listening to wasn’t from there. Did he sleep listening to music? It would be really helpful if my memory returned on all subjects and not simply about clouds and sexual preferences.
Not letting myself pause any longer, I grabbed the cloud machine and snuck out.
Putting up his gift to me, which I had clearly discarded, proved harder than I’d imagined. It took the whole rest of the day. I cut myself three times and nearly fell off the bed. If there was some kind of handbook about what pregnant women should or should not be doing, I’d never seen it.
Soon, everyone would be hungry, and I’d wanted to cook. Of course, that was before I’d painted walls and reinstalled a cloud machine. I lay on the bed and hit the button to turn it on. Above my head, the clouds started floating, an inch off the ceiling. They were magnetic and moved thanks to a device on the floor.
I stared at the scene and groaned. Like my other self, I really hated them. Looking at them moving would get old really fast. I could see why she wanted them down. Only it had been a nice gesture, and I could keep them off when Geoff wasn’t in the room.
All I needed was for him to come see them.
My feet were swollen, and I made a note to mention the problem to Dane, later. Waddling my way to Geoff’s room, I knocked on the door, loudly this time. He didn’t answer, and I took a deep breath. If he still slept, this time he needed to rouse. I poked my head in to find him in nearly the same position he’d been in before.
I hoped he had good dreams while I spent the day hooking machines on my ceiling and nearly killing myself in the process. If he rolled his eyes and walked out of my room, I was going to hit him over the head.
After I crossed to his bed, I touched him lightly on the arm. He sat in a flash, headphones flying to the side, and his eyes huge. “What’s wrong?”
Okay. I made a mental note to keep in mind that Geoff woke fast when touched. “I need you.”
He jumped to his feet. “Is it your heart? The bomb? Talk to me, sweetheart.”
I extended my hand. “Not my heart. Not the bomb. Come, please.”
He took my fingers. “You’re scaring me.”
“Don’t be scared. I remembered something. About you. About us.”
We reached my bedroom, and he stopped short. “You did? About me?”
“Yes, about you. Go in.” He walked in front of me, and I nearly collided with him when he abruptly quit moving again. His gaze fixed on the cloud scene above my bed.
“You remembered this?” He pointed to it. “Wait, this was in my closet.”
“Um. I may have been sneaking around in your room while you slept. Don’t be mad. Please.”
I rocked on my feet. I’d been hoping for more of a positive response than the one I got. He didn’t move, he simply stared at the floating clouds like he couldn’t quite make them out. I shuffled closer to his side.
“I realize it was a huge invasion of privacy. I guess…I wanted to give you a big gesture. I wasn’t nice about this the first time, and it must have taken you forever to make it. This is starting over. Or something.”
He turned on me so fast, I didn’t see it coming. With a swift move, he’d grabbed both of my shoulders and walked me backwards into the wall. “Did you put this up yourself?”
“Ah, yes. Did I do it wrong?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? What if you’d hurt yourself? You have no business climbing around putting stuff on the ceiling. You have a bomb in your heart. And I…I…” He kissed me, softly. If I’d had any idea he would go from yelling to caressing, I wouldn’t have imagined he’d do it so gently. He made love to me with his mouth.
Deep kisses were followed by small, gentle ones. “Sweetheart…You…Love…” He spoke in between breaths, in between sucking my lip into his mouth and tracing it with his tongue. I could barely stand. I’d wanted a reaction to the clouds, and I’d gotten one.
He reached between us, caressing my breast before his hand moved to the ever-growing mound that was my stomach.
Geoff stopped, tugging my hair once, hard. “No more climbing on things high enough to get to the ceiling. Understand?”
“If I’m going to get kissed like that for climbing on the bed, I just might do it again.”
He made a groaning sound and closed his eyes. “You remembered that I made you the clouds. I never in a million years would have picked that.”
“Here’s the truth. I’m having a hard time reconciling myself, the two parts of me. I thought about how I could show you there was no need for you to feel guilty about something you couldn’t foresee coming and this is what came to me.”
He fell to his knees and I darted forward, like I could catch him. “Are you okay?”
He scooted closer. “I’ve never been better.”
Geoff never asked. Like he had on the shuttle, he took what he wanted. Before I could suck in another breath, my shorts were around my ankles and his mouth was on my pussy. I gasped. With all the sex I’d been having, and the petting associated with it, I’d not had anyone’s mouth on my core yet. Geoff dove in. His tongue was on my clit, his finger pressed deep inside of me, and I couldn’t breathe.
He had an amazing tongue, and he moaned as he found ways to massage me with his mouth. It didn’t take long for me to quake with the need to come. I’d been so lost and lonely at Master’s, even if I hadn’t known it. Each time I reconnected with one of my guys, it was like a part of me came back alive.
I might never remember everything about my life before—or any more of it at all, for that matter—but there were memories to be made and the chance to love people who never gave up on me, even while I thought they were evil and wrong.
With a jolt, I came hard in Geoff’s mouth. My knees threatened to give out, so I sunk gently to the floor, pulling him into my arms when I did. Pressed against me, I could feel how hard he was and his body shook in time with mine. He seemed hot and ready.
I stroked him, running my hands across his spine when I did.
“Do you want to come inside my mouth or my core?”
He stared at me, his gaze searching for something. “I get a choice?”
“Always.” I ran my finger down the slope of his nose, tracing his strong features, wanting to implant this memory so no one could take it, ever.
“In you, please.” He kissed me gently. “I want your wet, hot self spasming around my dick. I want it so bad. I can hardly think from needing you.”
I stood and extended my hand to him. He took it and we walked in silence toward the bed. “Lay down. I have to be on top or we have to be creative. My stomach gets in the way.”
He kissed my cheek, holding his mouth there for an extra few seconds in a gesture that made my heart flutter. “You on top. I want to look in your eyes when you come.”
Geoff let go of my hand and lay down on the bed. I undressed him slowly, not taking my gaze from his eyes for more than a few seconds at a time as I did. When he was naked, I caressed his body, rubbing his muscles and running my hands through his hair, wherever I found it on his body. Every second I took to touch him seemed to harden his cock.
“Sweetheart…” His voice sounded like a plea and his hands fisted the bed. I’d touched him everywhere but his erection.
With a smile, I straddled him, taking him deep inside me inch by slow inch. Sweat broke out on his brow.
“Fuck. Oh wow. I fucking love you.” He groaned his words and I couldn’t h
elp my smile. I rode him, up and down, his body jerking beneath me with each move we made. Soon we found our rhythm, his hips dancing with my own, until I moaned and he cried out at every thrust. Pleasure came fast and finally together. I closed my eyes as I collapsed on top of him. His arms hugged me to him. There was no need for speech. Geoff was mine and I’d claimed him as such. If I never remembered, right then I was okay with it. “I love you,” he whispered in my ear.
I kissed his chest. I wouldn’t forget this, I could never allow it.
Chapter 14
A Full House
PLAYING poker with the guys turned into a nightly activity. They loved it and they took it very seriously. As I had only recently learned how to play, I tended to fold and watch the others go for gold. Geoff almost always won, which drove Dane the craziest.
By the end of the evenings, Geoff would strum on his guitar. I never knew what he played, but I loved listening to the sounds.
Nolan never joined us, and I hardly saw him even during the days.
With just a day away from the station, we’d fallen into a routine I’d grown comfortable with. I painted and cleaned. The Artemis looked better and, if my feet swelled at the end of the day, I ignored the discomfort.
I never slept alone, even if I fell asleep that way. No one had showed me the schedule C.J. made, yet they all showed up like they knew when they were supposed to share my room. Sometimes we just slept, although those nights were few and far between. If I worried how that would transfer to them all having to help me with a baby, I didn’t mention it. If they had the same concerns, they never told me.
“You ready for today?” C.J. stood in front of me, zipping me into one of his hoodies.
“No.” I blew out my breath. “Why do I have to go? Can’t you just do it without me?”
“Whine. Whine. Whine.” He raised an eyebrow even as he smirked at me. “Come on. Don’t you want to see something off this ship?”
He finished dressing me. “Do you think it’s smart for my pregnant self to go somewhere I have to hide my face under your hood for fear of discovery? I trust you. Go pick out my clothes without me.”