Royal: A Sci-Fi Romance (The Jekh Saga Book 5) Page 28

  To be in a space-capable ship, the bed was a large one and accommodated the three bodies easily enough, but Luke hadn’t invited her into it for her to keep her distance. He rolled her onto her side so that her face was against his neck, and gently rubbed her back.

  When the waterworks started again, he nestled his chin atop her head and made soothing murmurs of, “It’s all right,” and “Go on and let it out.”

  She didn’t see where she had a choice. No matter how much she willed the tears to stop—no matter how much she told herself that she was silly for letting her emotions get the best of her at such a time—Luke had been right. Sometimes, the body did what it needed to do whether people wanted it to or not.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” he said quietly. “You can have your secrets.”

  She sniffled. “And you’ll have yours?”

  “I don’t have any secrets, Autumn. Nothing about me is a mystery except what has to be for my job. I’m an open book.”

  Not knowing what else to do, she nodded. Swallowed. Inhaled his tea and spice and male aroma, and scoffed at herself.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t drink my tea.” Her body convulsed with a wailing sob that surged forth and out, and she couldn’t stop shaking—couldn’t make the overwhelming feelings go away. It was all too much. People expected too much of her, and she’d been expecting the wrong things of herself for too long, and she was exhausted.

  “Okay. It’s all right.” He kissed the top of her head and rocked her in his arms like she was a colicky child, and maybe she was no better than that anymore.

  She was a person who couldn’t self-soothe because she didn’t know how and no one understood her and everything was too much.

  “Cry it out, pretty girl,” he murmured. “Nobody has to know. I won’t tell your secrets.”

  She wasn’t entirely certain that she’d care if he did.

  She was tired of being an island that no one knew about.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Alex felt the heat of the illuminating alarm clock light warming his face. Refusing to open his eyes, he groaned and reached up to the headboard to slap the thing off. He didn’t see the point of getting up so damned early. The wind’s howl hadn’t lost any stamina overnight, and the ship was rocking slightly from the repeated impacts. He didn’t even want to think about what the ship’s paint job looked like. He’d probably have to find a body shop to repair it whenever he flew into Buinet again. The paint wasn’t just for aesthetics but was a special formulation that protected the ship from space temperatures. It was expensive as hell, but fortunately, he had the money to burn.

  For now, anyway.

  He had no way of knowing what his finances were going to look like once he’d confronted his parents. He’d decided he wasn’t going to take the “wait and see” approach. In every other area of his life, he acted with sureness and assertiveness. He would do the same regarding his commitment to Luke.

  He settled back down under the covers and extended an arm across the bed to find his lover. Luke wasn’t against his back with an arm and leg slung over him the way he usually was. Alex had gotten used to being crushed in his sleep.

  His hand didn’t land on Luke’s arm or back, though. It landed on something softer.

  Alex opened his eyes because experience had taught him all about that kind of softness. His hand was on a flannel-covered breast, and the person owning that breast was lying on her back between him and Luke with her eyes wide open and round with surprise.

  And Luke’s arm and leg were slung over her, not where they should have been.

  Alex pulled his hand back as though he’d touched a hot stove burner. “Lucas,” he spat.

  Luke scoffed and then smacked his lips in his state of semi-sleep.

  “Lucas.”

  “God. What? Is the ship on fire? I don’t smell smoke.”

  “Your…wife is in my bed.”

  Luke’s brow furrowed and, slowly, he opened his eyes. He blinked several times, looked at Autumn, and then closed his eyes again. “Oh.”

  Alex sat up. “Just oh?”

  “Was cold last night. She was shivering. I moved her.”

  “I would have moved.”

  “Why?”

  “Obviously, you needed the space more than I did.”

  “The bed’s big enough to share, and I know for a fact that you’ve had more than three on it before.”

  Autumn narrowed her eyes at the ceiling.

  Alex scoffed and gave her shoulder a light poke. “Twins,” he told her. “I wonder what they’re up to now.”

  “You don’t give a shit what they’re up to,” Luke said, yawning. “You probably can’t even remember their names.”

  “I assure you that I do. Beth and Berin.” Luke had been the far more disinterested party in the affair. He’d actually hurt the girls’ feelings with his brusque dismissal. In hindsight, Alex wasn’t certain he minded so much that Luke was choosier than he’d previously let on.

  Is he actually choosy, though?

  He couldn’t have been all that discriminating if he was cuddling with Autumn.

  “How deeply was I sleeping last night?” Alex asked.

  Lifting a brow, Luke skimmed his fingertips down Autumn’s arm.

  She wore a dazed expression that wasn’t centered on Alex directly but in his direction simply because she was facing him.

  “What are you getting at?” Luke asked.

  “What happened in between all the supposed shivering and her ending up sandwiched between the two of us?”

  “If memory serves me correctly, I climbed over her, rolled her there, and went back to sleep. But you know.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve been known to forget some of the shit I do in sleep.”

  Alex could certainly vouch for that.

  Recalling some of Luke’s slumber exploits, he reached over and gave Autumn’s shoulder a teasing poke. “Do you know how he normally sleeps?”

  He waited for her to shake her head. Took her a few seconds.

  “Oh. Well, see, normally, he spoons me. He likes being the spoon in the back, and he has a habit of becoming aroused when he’s asleep. All that shifting around and grinding, you know? Three nights this week, I’ve woken up with cum on my pants because when he gets hard, his instinct is to thrust on whoever or—whatever—he’s against.”

  Her mouth parted wordlessly.

  “He’s hell on my laundry,” he continued, “but I suppose I don’t mind. I’m wondering if you mind, Autumn? Or is that not an issue you’ve encountered this morning?”

  She opened her mouth again to say something, but Luke pushed up onto his elbow and said, “Behave, Alex.”

  “Oh, but I am. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to. I’m in my bed in my ship and expected that I’d wake up and have a nice roll in the hay with my boyfriend.”

  “The roll’s not out of the question.”

  “So she’s leaving?”

  “Yes.” Autumn sat up and started pushing the covers away.

  Luke nudged her back down and stared at Alex over her reclining form. “You know, I was going to say that you’re hot when you’re irrationally jealous, but that’s not quite right. You’re hot in general. Isn’t he?” He tapped Autumn’s shoulder. “Hmm?”

  “Um.” Her gaze flitted wildly from Luke to Alex and back.

  “It’s okay to tell me. I won’t get upset. I mean, it’s hard not to look at him and think, damn, that’s a fine piece of ass.”

  “Watch it, Luke,” Alex warned. He’d gone more than thirty years without being called a piece of ass, and he didn’t plan on the trend starting right then.

  He’d be lying if he’d said he wasn’t curious about what she thought, though. He could admit he possessed some vanity.

  “What do you think?” Luke asked her, smiling.

  Autumn looked at Alex from the corners of her eyes. “He’s…attractive,” she said in a monotone.

&n
bsp; “Mm-hmm. So, I guess you can see how I ended up here.”

  “It’s not a hard leap to make. No.”

  “Yeah. I’m glad you think so.” Luke picked up a lock of Autumn’s hair and twirled it around his fingers. He raised it to his face and slid it across his lips, still staring at Alex. “I think sometimes, people misjudge each other because lazy thinking is convenient.”

  “Your point?” Alex asked.

  Luke let the hair fall back into place and lifted another lock. “That’s what happened with us at first, right? You and me?”

  Alex didn’t respond.

  Luke scoffed and traced the line of Autumn’s jaw with her hair.

  Her fingers curled over the top of the covers, and her cheeks flushed with a pink that wasn’t altogether unbecoming.

  Or at all unbecoming. She was an attractive woman, and her beauty was more accessible when she unpinned and unzipped. A pretty plaything for Luke to devour.

  “I love him,” Luke told her. “I swear, I do, but a few months ago, I would have just as soon choked him to death. I’m certain the feeling was mutual.”

  Alex rolled his eyes.

  Luke was wrong. The feeling hadn’t been mutual. Any feelings of violence Alex had felt in Luke’s direction had evaporated pretty quickly after the incident with the twins. The man had intrigued him like no one ever had before. Luke had seen right through him, instinctively knowing things about him that Alex didn’t even know about himself.

  He drummed his fingers against the mattress, waiting for Luke to get to his point if he had one.

  “Do you love me, Alex?” Luke was still fondling her hair, and Alex wanted to tell him no out of spite, but love wasn’t an emotion that mature adults played with. It wasn’t to be given and then revoked on whims.

  “You know I do,” Alex murmured, “though, at this particular moment, I’m wondering why.”

  “Luke, I should just go.” Autumn really did make a concerted effort to get up then, but Luke’s will was too strong. Alex knew that, having been on the receiving end of it many times. Luke had his arm around her before she could climb away and had yanked her back against him.

  Her wide-eyed, red-faced yelp made Alex raise the cover to confirm his suspicion of the circumstances down below.

  She was wearing Luke’s shirt, and apparently only that.

  Luke was working his knee between her legs and moving his hand down her belly to the shadowed cleft.

  Jesus.

  “A little cold in here,” Luke said.

  Her belly quivered under his light touch and breath caught.

  “Alex, Let down the covers unless you’re going to get closer to make up for the missing heat,” Luke said.

  “What are you doing?” Alex asked.

  “Showing you something. Isn’t she pretty?”

  Autumn craned her neck to look back at Luke.

  He kissed her creased forehead. “You know you are.”

  “W-what are you doing?” she asked him.

  “I’m curious to hear the answer to that, too.” Alex wasn’t sure what to keep his eyes on—Luke’s coolly neutral smile as he stared down at Autumn or the hand he insinuated between her bare legs.

  “You want me to touch you?” Luke asked her.

  “I think…the better question is should you?” she whispered.

  “I’m pretty sure I should. When’s the last time you let someone touch you?”

  She dragged her tongue across her lips and closed her eyes, and not because Luke was doing anything all that distracting. He’d barely touched her. He was using far more restraint with her than he ever would with Alex, but perhaps that was what she needed. Luke was an expert at quickly assessing what people needed. Why he was using that skill on Autumn, Alex couldn’t guess.

  “I’m going to touch you. I’m going to make sure you get warm and that you’re comfortable and sated.” Another kiss to her forehead. “And you know what? Alex is going to help.”

  “What?” she asked in unison with Alex and whipped her head around to try to see Luke.

  He shushed her, or both of them, perhaps, and moved his hand away from between her thighs. In slow upward tugs, he exposed her belly, her breasts, and rolled the shirt hem up so it rested beneath her chin. Eying Alex cheekily, he palmed her breast and raked his thumb across the nipple. Autumn gasped and her hand went to Luke’s, likely to remove it, but she couldn’t follow through.

  “You mind if he looks at you?” Luke whispered to her. “I like to share my things with the people I love.”

  “Am I…one of your things?”

  “Both of you are my things, and damn, I have the prettiest things. The two of you are way outside my budget, but I think I’m gonna keep you anyway. Why the hell not, right?”

  Alex could think of a few reasons. “Luke—” Alex couldn’t get the rest of his objection out because the fingers that had been idly thrumming Autumn’s nipple were suddenly between Alex’s lips.

  “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Luke hooked his fingers over Alex’s teeth and swirled them over the tip of his tongue. “Look at her.”

  Alex breathed out through his nose and turned his gaze down to her.

  When she was upright and buttoned-up, she tended to wear a disapproving scowl that tugged her features in ways all too reminiscent of her scheming bulldog of a father. Lying against Luke, laid bare, there was an open softness about her features. There was confusion in her expression—and Alex was certainly feeling plenty of that himself—but there was also trust. Luke had finagled her trust somehow, and apparently, he trusted her.

  Why?

  “Nod for me, baby,” Luke said and pulled his fingers from Alex’s mouth.

  Swallowing, Alex nodded.

  “Tell her she’s pretty.”

  Christ.

  Alex scratched at a speck of lint on the sheets and took a bracing breath. He wasn’t a coward, usually, but as of late he’d been finding himself in far too many situations outside his comfort zone. Being with a man—loving that man—for one. And then literally sleeping with an enemy. Circumstances were spiraling out of his control and he didn’t yet know if that was good or bad.

  But he knew she was memorably pretty.

  “Autumn, you’re…lovely,” he said, meeting her wary gaze.

  “In a lot of ways,” Luke said, swirling his moistened fingertips around her nipple, “you’re both victims of your circumstances. People have certain expectations of you and you meet them, all the while ignoring what you really need for yourself. You don’t understand each other, and that’s okay. You don’t really know each other.”

  “Are you seeking to change that?” Alex asked.

  “Mm-hmm.” Luke waved Alex closer. “Come here.”

  “What for?”

  “Because I want you to, and you don’t like disappointing me. Remember?” His voice was so matter-of-fact that nothing in it should have given Autumn pause, but Alex knew his man, and he knew what that tone meant for him.

  No, he didn’t want to disappoint Luke, even when Luke was proposing uncomfortable things. Luke had never pushed Alex past his limits. Instead, he’d helped them explore what they were.

  Alex moved closer to them.

  “Now lower,” Luke said.

  “Why?”

  Luke cupped her breast demonstrably. “Start with that one and then move to the other. Make sure you do a good job. They’d better be hard as bullets when you’re done.”

  As Autumn stared back at Luke, still wearing that look of abject confusion, Alex dragged his tongue across his lips.

  After the ordeal with the twins, Alex had imagined how things would have played out if Luke had stayed and they’d all made love. More often than not, his thoughts would drift to what he was doing with Luke, or rather, what bossy Luke was doing to him, but occasionally, he’d thought of them sharing. He’d pondered there being one woman between the two of them—the Jekhan way—and they didn’t take turns but took what they needed at the same time
.

  The docile, faceless woman in his thoughts hadn’t been anything like Autumn Ray.

  Pretty, submissive, Autumn Ray who he still wasn’t sure he trusted, even if Luke did. But Alex wriggled closer and lower and latched his mouth over her enticing breast.

  “There you go,” Luke murmured and raked a hand through Alex’s sleep-tangled hair. “I like the way that looks, baby. Suck them until they’re hard and then keep going lower. I’ve got her legs wide open for you. Show her just how enthusiastic you can be with your mouth.”

  Autumn whispered, “He doesn’t have to—”

  Alex stopped sucking to see why she’d suddenly gone quiet. With Luke shoving his tongue into her mouth and kissing her into compliance, Alex could see how she might have been distracted. He’d been on the receiving end of Luke’s dominating kisses. They were hot then, and somehow just as hot when Alex was merely a witness.

  Her implicit trust of Luke—his Luke—was an unexpected turn-on.

  Alex’s body had been nobly behaving itself up to that point, but blood was starting to pool and thrum down below. He was a part of the intimacy and had to decide if he was going to go all in and get what he needed or if he was going to be the sulking martyr holding a wasteful grudge.

  Pleasure won.

  Pulling Autumn’s other breast into his mouth, he closed his eyes and slid his hand down to his cock. Taking himself in hand, he gave his shaft a few tentative tugs just to wake himself up and then took her breasts to mouth again, one after the other.

  She moaned into Luke’s mouth with each hard suck and arched her back, thrusting her chest forward, and then away just as quickly. Perhaps she was realizing whose mouth was on her. Perhaps she couldn’t decide if she cared.

  Alex knew that feeling—that confusion from wanting pleasure but being emotionally distant from the person available to give it. Usually when he was confused, Luke straightened him out. He told him what to do, and Luke had told him to use his mouth.

  Alex eased down more in the bed, kissing between her breasts and down her belly as he went and taking the covers along with him. The ship had a chill, but they were bound to be warming up soon enough.

  When his lower lip skimmed against the soft curls at the junction of her thighs he looked up for a cue from Luke.