Reclaiming Their Love

  Sometime later, while he stroked his finger over my stomach, he spoke. “We talked about plants. He brought me to see my horses. Showed me around. We actually have a tremendous amount in common.”

  I didn’t have to ask of whom he spoke. Cooper. I could have told him they’d have a lot to talk about. I wasn’t going to do I told you so with Damian. “That’s incredible.”

  “Then eventually we brought up my father.”

  He’d been leaning on his hand looking down at me but altered his position to lie fully on his side spooning me. I kissed his forehead. “Did it all go to hell then?”

  “No, it was nice, actually. He seemed impressed with the way my father had kept us all alive. Hadn’t known his brother could have been such a good dad. He loved some stupid stories I told and then told me things about their childhood I hadn’t known. Some story about getting locked out in a storm. I loved it. I think he did, too.”

  I was sure Cooper did. “I’m so happy you had that kind of night.”

  “Ended kind of great, too.” He tugged me closer. “I made love to my wife.”

  I petted the back of his neck as I stared at the ceiling. This place was new, and I still wasn’t feeling one hundred percent. Yet anywhere with my guys would always feel like home.

  Damian sighed, and I glanced over at him. He was asleep. I wasn’t tired, but I loved the warmth of his body. If I could be this comfortable forever, I’d take it.

  I woke slowly, aware of two things right away. The sunlight machine made it feel like mid-morning, and Damian was erect against me. He snored lightly, which told me he was still out cold. But his body had certainly started to wake. His hand messaged my breast, and heat pooled between my legs. I could think of worse ways to be awoken in the morning.

  “Damian …”

  His eyes fluttered open, and realization dawned on his face, followed by a fast smile. “Looks like I was having really good dreams about you.”

  “I—”

  The door flung open, and Sterling leaned against the doorframe. “Up you two. There are actually things to do today.”

  Damian pointed at the hallway. “Out.”

  “No. You woke me up last night. I let you sleep in. I’m the nice guy here. Diana’s father wants to see her. Who would you rather see right now? Me or Geoff?”

  Damian groaned and sat. “You could have led with the father.”

  “Yeah, but this was more fun.” He winked at me. I was glad to see more happiness in Sterling’s eyes than had been there lately. “See you soon, Sweet Baby.”

  I grinned at Damian while Sterling left. “We did have some luck never being bothered on Orion. We could have all been naked if we wanted to be.”

  “I don’t want to see them naked outside of an occasional threesome or foursome or whatever.” Damian laughed. “I’d rather be naked with only you.”

  I leaned on my elbow. “Damian, you didn’t participate on the day we all had our first groupings. Granted, someone had to fly Artemis. Was that the only reason you didn’t come into the multi-person sex fests?”

  “Great description.” He kissed me lightly on the lips, biting down slightly. “I like you alone in bed. I don’t mind sharing your heart, but when I’m with you, I don’t want to share your body. Unless I have to. Never say never and all that. Not yet.”

  I kissed his cheek. “Whatever you want.”

  “Love you.”

  * * *

  My father walked me around the outer wall of the compound. “There are thousands of systems and redundancies to keep them working. We have people checking them all the time, but I don’t trust any of them like I do you. I don’t want to find myself in a situation where the trash disposals all shut down on me.”

  I touched his arm. “Was making bombs easier than this?”

  “Hugely.” He rubbed his chin. “I have to tell you, darling, I’m making bombs again. The new ships going out have my bombs in them.”

  He’d quit years ago. Mars Station had enough of his explosives to last years and years. He told me it drained him, made him feel like life was always about to explode. He worked security, and my mother said he was as good at determining threats as he’d ever been at making things go boom.

  “Dad…”

  He rubbed his forehead. “We left the other side of the galaxy so we could give you a better life. I’m not sure we did. This is as bad as I ever remember it being.”

  “It’s a bad time. It’s not all horrible. I’m actually…happy.” I took his hand in mine. I had never seen him this level of stressed out before.

  “Then it’s all been worth it.”

  I hoped he really meant that.

  * * *

  Judge and I wandered through the compound, looking at the systems together. Like on the ship, he’d be great for big picture design while I worked on the small details. Wes and my father were busy monitoring the outside world for threats, and Nolan spent his days with CJ and Sterling making a new plan to fight the Sandler Cartel.

  Damian and Cooper were taking a look at the agricultural situation together, and the doctors had gone into Dane’s lab that morning and had yet to emerge.

  I pointed at one of the air filtration units. “It’s blowing the wrong way?”

  “Huh?” Judge had been scrolling through his tablet, becoming an expert on all things underground compound. He thought he could get the radon level down to even better than where it was. I’d been having a tough time keeping his attention on anything else.

  There were sometimes difficulties in dealing with a genius.

  “Never mind.” I didn’t need his help to deal with the air filtration. It was more my line of work anyway.

  Wes had thought to equip each room with a ladder attached to the wall, should we need to get up toward the ceiling to check on the machines. Judge leaned back against the wall, reading his tablet, and if he noticed me taking out the ladder, he didn’t comment.

  Maybe what I needed were flying shoes. The next time I could get his attention, I’d suggest it. Seemed like something he might actually be able to invent.

  I grabbed the wrench out of my back pocket and climbed the ladder. A few turns of my wrench and I had the top of the device off so I could look at the insides. It took me a few moments to find the problem, and only because it seemed so ridiculous I almost couldn’t consider it real.

  There was a spider living inside the air filtration device, and it had made a huge nest around the wires.

  “What the hell?”

  I’d seen insects and lots of them on Mars Station. Oh hell, I knew better. Spiders weren’t insects. They were arachnids. But dealing with them was about the same as other bugs when I had to be the one to manage them. They came off ships from various planets. Usually, the filtration systems killed them with no problem. But sometimes they lived for a while. One time, we’d had to kill hundreds of Venusian ants. That had sucked. But I had never seen a spider like this one. It was purple.

  And then it made a hissing noise akin to a cat before it launched itself at my head. I tried to stop it, failed, and fell backwards off the ladder.

  My head spun. With my luck, I’d be concussed again, only that wasn’t my biggest concern. The damned thing had bitten my cheek. I cried out as Judge screamed my name. I swear the spider grew to half my size, or maybe I was delirious because the walls were suddenly bleeding and Judge became something with eight legs and arms himself.

  Nothing made sense.

  And then I couldn’t breathe.

  * * *

  I woke in the med machine, my least favorite place in the universe. I heard voices outside. Closing my eyes, I tried to breathe. The machine would have told them I was awake, so either I wasn’t really healed yet or they hadn’t noticed.

  Lewis spoke in a low voice. “I swear there’s nothing in that closet. It’s a side effect.”

  “She’s awake,” Ari answered him, even though I was sure they hadn’t been speaking of me.

  The machine opened
, and Cash stared down at me. “Trying to die again, Boo?”

  I let him lift me. “Always.” My whole body shuddered, and revolt moved through me. “The spider bit me. And it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Above even that zombie. I hate those things.”

  He kissed my forehead. “This is the last time you’re almost dying. Got me? I’m not kidding. You try and die again, and I’m going to spank your ass.”

  I closed my eyes and pressed my spinning head against his chest. He felt safe, and I thought he’d probably forgive me if I threw up on him. “Promises. Promises.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  What Happened to Ari and What Happens Now

  Lewis elbowed Cash, who let go of me long enough for Lewis to kiss me. He tasted like strawberries, and I immediately wanted some. Maybe if I asked nicely…

  He pressed our noses together. “Did you know you were allergic to spiders? That might have been one of those things, as both your doctor and your husband, I should have known.”

  “I’ve never been bitten before, so no, I didn’t know. Also, I’ve never seen a purple one; maybe I’m only allergic to the one kind.”

  Lewis shook his head and held up his tablet. “I ran blood panels. It’s all spiders. Damn it.” He rubbed his chin. “You’re going to have to carry an injection. You’ll have to dose yourself if you get bitten again. You barely got here this time.”

  I stroked the side of his face. No one worried about things he couldn’t control more than Lewis. It was a two-fold problem for him. The first was his initial upbringing of being abandoned by his parents and then basically left to rot by the system that should have protected him. He’d been born to be a physician. He cared about people and knew he had little to no control over what happened to them.

  I had to do better at not getting hurt. Still, he needed to understand the situation. “Darling, I don’t think I could’ve dosed myself. The thing bit my face.” A horrifying thought occurred to me. I wasn’t egotistical, but still … my face. “Is there a horrible scar?”

  Cash grinned, running his finger where I had been bitten. “No, I got that all nice and smoothed out for you.”

  Lewis wasn’t done. “You’re going to have to figure out how to dose yourself. You almost didn’t get here in time. Judge came in screaming that you’d basically stopped breathing. And I suppose I can’t blame you for falling off the ladder since you were going into shock.”

  “I think her point”—Ari spoke from behind them, catching my attention for the first time since I’d come out of the med machine—“is she can’t dose herself if a rabid spider is biting her and spreading its web all over her body.”

  That had happened? “Oh gross.”

  “Thanks.” Cash turned around and glared at Ari. “She really didn’t need the imagery.”

  Ari jumped off the table. He was dressed in gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt. His hair, usually in a bun, fell loosely around his shoulders. Dark circles marred my friend’s face, making his eyes appear hollow.

  “Ari.” I scooted around my husbands, got off the table, and padded over to him. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’ve sunk our efforts—the Quinn-created plan—to stop Garrison and his band of lunatics from taking over this side of the galaxy. We’re living in an underground bunker, and we have nowhere to run. I’ve destroyed us. So no, Diana, baby, I’m not good. How are you? I’ve met two of your husbands. They’re very attentive. Obviously good doctors. And when I’m not hallucinating, I’m glad for care.” He leaned back against the wall behind him. “I think I might have met the third one when he came into the room carrying you, but at the time I thought flying beasts were all over the room, so who knows.”

  The only sound in the room after he finished speaking was the slight hum of the medical machine powering down.

  “Ari.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. Ari and I didn’t have the kind of relationship where we hugged. He was a doctor, a psychiatrist, although for some reason he almost never practiced his particular field. He took people on more as “friends” than as doctor-patient. There was a story behind his reluctance to officially treat, but I didn’t know it and he didn’t share his own narrative easily. Except for talking about his father. He loved to discuss him, but I thought maybe half his stories were made up.

  “You’re going to tell me it’s not my fault, honey? I know that. It’s exactly what I’d say. And maybe that’s right. It’s not my fault I got dosed with drugs that made me tell them every little thing about our plans, like they had a tube in my brain that could simply empty everything I ever knew at their command. But it was my fault I got caught.”

  I never got to answer him. Uncle Dane rushed into the room like the hallway behind him was on fire. He held his tablet. “I’ve been reading about the spiders. We have almost no information in our main database. They’re a local legend. Diana.” He rushed to my side. “Back into the machine.”

  My heart fell into my stomach. This wasn’t over? “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s always a second round of toxins. Cash, can you—”

  My husband was already at the machine. “One relapse or more? How fast?”

  “It’s all folklore.”

  I held up my hands. “Then I might not fall back under, and I might not need to get back in the machine.”

  “I’m impressed you’re not puking. Don’t you usually hurl when you come out?” Ari yawned. “Or was that Paloma? I can’t remember which one of you threw up all the time, darling.”

  Lewis groaned. “Enough with the pet names.”

  I turned to smile at Lewis. “He does it to everyone.”

  “Not everyone.” Ari shrugged. “I’m not going to call Lewis darling. Unless he wants me to.”

  “Enough,” Cash shouted over his shoulder. “I’d rather have you in the machine than let you go back into shock. We might not be able to save you again.”

  Lewis’ eyes pleaded with me to listen. I really didn’t have a choice. “Knock me out so I don’t get claustrophobic.”

  Cash nodded once. “Consider it done, my love.”

  I woke in my bed some time later. Most likely, I’d been awake enough that someone had taken me from the med machine and brought me here after I’d been released. I simply didn’t remember, thanks to the knockout drugs. Lewis slept next to me, snoring loudly in the way only he did.

  I rolled over a bit, wrapping my arm around him to snuggle against his side. He didn’t stir or stop snoring at all. He must be really, really tired. Any amount of time could have passed while I was in the dreaded machine. Who knew when he had last gotten any rest?

  As quietly as I could, I slipped past him and into the bathroom. A shower seemed like a really good idea. The mirror showed me Cash hadn’t lied when he’d said I had no scar on my face. I shuddered with revulsion. I had to never, ever think about that spider again. And somehow I was going to have to see to it I never found myself in the position of encountering the hissing arachnid for the rest of my life.

  I turned on the warm water and stepped under the spray, letting it wash away the whole experience. I had to get back to Ari and see if I could help him. He’d been there for me when I needed someone. Then, I also—

  The door to the shower opened and closed allowing Lewis to join me under the heat. “Hey, Doll.”

  I didn’t say anything but instead wrapped my arms around his neck so we could be even closer. He kissed me gently. “How’d you get in here without waking me?”

  “You were out cold.”

  He kissed both my cheeks. “Did I wake you? Snoring?”

  The way he slept was something he worried about even though I’d never given him any indication it bothered me at all, because it didn’t. “I think I just woke. Nothing to do with you.”

  His gaze travelled around my face. “I love you so much. I don’t know why I get to have you. But I’m keeping you. Okay? I love you.”

  “Did it ever occur to you maybe I’m the on
e who doesn’t deserve you? That maybe I’m the one who got really lucky and can’t figure out why I was given the chance to be in your life?”

  He shook his head once. “Shut up.”

  Our mouths fused together for a second before his tongue pressed between my lips to dance with my own. The water sprayed down on us, drenching me and forcing my eyes closed. It only made the moment more intense. His hands were all over me, and I held onto him for dear life, afraid I might fall over if I let go for even a second.

  Lewis’ cock pressed between us, and I moaned as it rubbed against the outside of my pussy. He pulled back from kissing me to whisper in my ear. “Looks like someone is glad to see you.”

  “The big someone who lives between your legs.”

  My husband snickered. “When I first met you, you were a virgin. You’d never have said something like that.”

  “Feels like a lifetime ago.”

  He hoisted me up, turning off the shower, and I opened my eyes. “Or sometimes, like yesterday. Particularly when I’m watching your heartbeat monitor from the other side of the med machine.”

  Lewis carried me out of the shower before he dried us both off.

  “I love you, Lewis.”

  He blinked rapidly at my statement and nodded once. Love was a big deal to Lewis. He hadn’t had anyone ever say it to him before me. I couldn’t tell him enough.

  A second later, I was back in his arms, where he carried me out and laid me on the bed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t speak a word to me again until after we’d made love. He was amazingly romantic, focused, and devoted to me. When he made love to me, it was all he thought about.

  Things like speech sometimes went out the window.

  I’d gotten very good at following his lead. We were both already naked, and I admired his lean body in the dim light of the fake morning illumination our computer system was giving us.

  He was breathtaking. I ran my hands over his chest, feeling every muscle. I held my fingers over his heart to feel it beat. I knew it was mine. I’d always take good care of it, and I’d destroy anyone who caused him pain. I wasn’t bloodthirsty, but for Lewis I could be.