Kidnapped By Her Husbands (Wings of Artemis Book 1) (17 page)

Nolan swung around, both of us able to see Geoff as he stormed toward us. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt, both of which were covered in grease.

“I broke her. She grabbed onto my arm when I hit the wall.”

“I’m not broken. He hurt my arm. It was an accident. Let’s go to the medical bay. Dane will be coming any second.”

Nolan grunted and walked again, this time with Geoff close on his heels. “Dane spent the night in her room.”

“Oh.” Geoff’s voice rose a notch. “Are we allowed to do that again? Awesome.”

My cheeks must be the color of a tomato. I wanted to say something, but I was too busy wishing I could vanish.

“We shouldn’t be. What happened to recovering her? To treating her like a temporary problem until our girl returned?”

“Hey.” Geoff strode faster and punched him in the arm. “I was never there for any conversation like that. I was too busy saving her life and bringing her here. If you dumbasses had spoken to me, I would have told you that wasn’t going to work. She’s Melissa. She’s smarter than all of us.” He paused. “And I don’t believe Dane would have agreed to it, either. He designed the science. She’s a fully cognizant person.”

The ship jolted, and Geoff grabbed the wall. “C.J. isn’t still driving?”

“No, it’s Wes.” Nolan shook his head. “Something must be in the way. He’s changing course.”

I hadn’t been able to speak, not to utter a word since Nolan called me a temporary problem. The ramifications of his statement hit me harder than him throwing me into the wall. Nolan had gotten me into the room and set me on the table when Dane rushed through the door. He was still pulling on his shirt and tucking it in when he entered. He wasn’t wearing any shoes.

“Talk to me. What happened?” Before anyone answered he plugged numbers into the table. “Someone answer.”

“She tried to stop me from punching the wall, and I threw her into it. I didn’t mean it.”

Dane swung around to stare at him. “You threw a pregnant woman into the wall?”

“It was a mistake.” Nolan looked at the floor. “And, since we’re being all judgmental, how was it in her room last night?”

Dane turned toward the table. “I don’t have to answer that. You know the rules. Unless you’re in there with us, you don’t get to ever know.”

“We’re not supposed to mess with her. She’s a…”

I interrupted. There was only so much I could take. “A temporary problem until you get your girl back.” They all stopped talking to stare at me. Even Nolan lifted his gaze to meet mine. “Nothing wrong with my hearing.”

Geoff spoke fast. “Then you heard me say I didn’t feel that way, and I doubted Dane did either. If Wes and C.J. were here, they’d probably object, too. Don’t mind Nolan. He has permanent foot-in-mouth problem when he’s mad, afraid, or his back is to the wall.”

If Nolan would have answered, I didn’t want to know. He didn’t want friendship, he’d been very clear. “He’s right.”

“He is?” And “I am?” sounded at the same time. I nodded, pushing the plastic off me.

“My shoulder feels much better. I don’t need any help. I think I just jammed it. Don’t bother.” I stood, proud of myself. The last time I’d been so stressed in the medical area, I’d fainted. “The second I get in that mind machine and I get my memories, I’m gone. This version of me, the one I know, leaves forever. She’ll come take my place, this woman you all want, and I’ll be dead. A temporary problem.”

I rubbed at my stomach. Some version of me would exist in the world, or at least a woman wearing my body. Would she make the same choices I had for my daughter? Would she make such large mistakes?

“I go in there to get
her
memory, and I die.” I turned to Dane for agreement and he nodded. That was all the confirmation I needed.

“You’re not real.” Nolan had the good taste not to look at me when he delivered his verbal blow.

“I feel real. I think, I make decisions. I’m growing life. I can cry. I can faint, as you keep pointing out. I can make large mistakes that land me in a room with a psycho wielding a gun. I can…have a really good night followed by a terrible morning.” My head hurt and it wasn’t from me trying to recall something about my life.

Dane reached out to take my hand, but I didn’t let him. I knew it would hurt his feelings, and I didn’t want that, so I looked directly at him. “I promised you truth. Right now, if someone touches me I’m going to scream.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Fair enough. I’d just like to remind you of what I told you last night. You don’t have to get in the machine. In fact, if I can be even more explicit, please don’t.”

“What?” Nolan was on Dane before either I or the doctor saw it coming. “You don’t get to do this. You always wanted her all to yourself. Found a way to get it? To turn her against us and take her?”

Dane wrenched himself out of Nolan’s grip. “Why the fuck would I do that? You want to have that conversation with someone else. You’re all my brothers. You want to ask someone why they took her and ran for who knows where? You find him and you ask it. I would never do that to all of you or to her. We’re talking about not putting a woman we’re in love with into a machine that hurts her. What are you afraid of? She’s still Melissa. Everything that made Mel is still there.”

“No.” Nolan’s voice bare rose above a whisper. “I can see it in her eyes. My Melissa isn’t in there.”

“Okay.” Geoff shoved himself in between the two of them. “Let’s take a deep breath.”

No one needed me for this conversation, and I had to escape. With their backs to me, I walked out the door of the medical bay. My shoulder ached, but I hadn’t lied to Dane when I’d told him I really was fine. My baby kicked me, and I patted her before I rounded the corner. If I ran to my room, I’d spend the day obsessing.

There wasn’t a single thing I could do to make this better, other than to retrieve my memories. My daughter wouldn’t be safe unless I did. Something happened to put me in this position to begin with. I needed to know what.

Fear couldn’t rule my decision making.

Eventually, I found my way to the control room. I walked through the door, not surprised to see Wes sitting in a chair staring at a large screen in front of him. He hadn’t seen me yet and I took the opportunity to look around the room. Seven chairs were placed in front of computer consuls with the one Wes used out in front. He had a small tablet in his lap and the viewing screen showed blocks of color in various grids. I didn’t know what any of it meant.

The room had seen better days, as had everything on Artemis, so I wasn’t surprised. The ship jolted and Wes hit on a button on the tablet before he leaned back in his seat and put his feet up.

He hadn’t been in the medical bay, hadn’t seen Nolan and Dane fighting. He didn’t yet know I realized the truth.

I didn’t know him well yet, but I could tell he didn’t hate me the way Nolan did.

“Any way you can make it stop jolting around?”

He swung around to look at me, a smile lighting his face. “Hey, you. What are you doing here?” He stood and dragged a chair closer to his own. “Come sit.”

I made my way over and collapsed as much as sat where he indicated. “Seriously, every time the ship shakes, I think we’re doomed.”

“It’s just space shakes. Nothing to worry about whatsoever. I turned us a bit. Looks like there’s an abandoned Noble ship with some stuff we can salvage on our way to the space station.”

Wes’ clean smell met my nose and before I could overthink it, I got out of my chair and sat on his lap.

“Hey.” He wrapped his arms around me, as best as he could considering my large stomach, and pressed me close. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Am I hurting you? I realize I’m huge.”

He touched the side of my face, bringing his gaze to me. “You’re still tiny. Big belly, small body. No, you can’t hurt me by sitting on my lap. Talk to me.”

“When I get in the machine to return my memories this part of me will die. I’ll basically be gone. She’ll be back. I know I have to do it, to give you your wife. She seems like she was very important. So much so that Dane and Nolan are shoving each other in the med bay over her. And it’s going to hurt. It’s kind of hard to live with the idea that I’m basically a temporary inhabitant of her body. Nolan hates me. I ended up getting pushed into a wall.” I buried my face in his shoulder. “Long morning. Is it okay I came here or does seeing me just remind you of all that you lost?”

His whole body sighed against mine. “Seeing you again, having you here, makes me want to live again. What do you mean you’re a temporary inhabitant?”

“Can we just sit here for a minute and not talk about it? I know I brought it up, but would it be okay for me to not answer right off? I’d like to just…breathe right now.”

Wes squeezed me tighter. “You breathe as long as you need. I’ve got you.”

I decided to pretend he did.

Chapter 11

Flying lessons

“COULD
you show me how to fly this?”

Wes raised his head to look at me. He’d been sitting with his eyes closed but not sleeping for a few minutes. His breathing had been too alert for sleep, and I suspected he’d never conk out while he was in charge of the Artemis. He rubbed at his eyes.

“You want to fly? I’m happy to show you.”

I moved to get off his lap and he held on tighter, not letting me go. “Come on, I must be breaking your legs by now.”

“No, you’re not. Besides, I can’t think of a better way to learn how to steer Artemis than sitting right here on my lap. It’ll help with the instruction.”

Wes shifted, and I could feel he’d gotten hard. Should I say something? I really did want to learn how to fly the Artemis. What if something happened to all of them? Would I simply drift around in space, missing them, until I died? Five different heartbreaks…

I snuggled against him, and he moaned softly in my ear. “You’re distracting me. I really do want you to teach me.”

“I’m going to.” He placed a hand on my belly, rubbing me gently through my shirt. “I can’t help it if you turn me on, Mel. You always have. I’ve been perpetually hard since I met you.”

He pulled the pad out and held it in front of both of us. “First thing, you’re going to want to hit the clear button. See where it says that? Bottom right?”

“I can read. They didn’t take that.”

He rubbed his forehead against my neck. “I never know if people are going to understand me when I explain things. I tend to start out too basic until I figure out what level I should be explaining. If I get too abstract, reign me in from that, too.”

I clicked the clear button and the view screen changed. Gone were the blocks and strange colors Wes had been looking at and in its place a map filled with the circles, which I quickly recognized as planets and stars, took its place.

“Now, it’s really point and click. The ship will fly itself. As you get better at it, you can control, using the same tablet, the speed and angle, if you want. I’d recommend you get to know Artemis more before you do so, but she’ll get us where we want to and even avoid objects.”

He made it sound easy. “But C.J. had the ship shaking last night and you were maneuvering things, too.”

“Like everything else in the universe, it’s all about how much control you want. I like to look at maps differently. For me, it’s all about moving on a grid. I made an algorithm to look at it differently. I’m the only one who prefers it. Speed, velocity, it’s all different colors. And the ship shakes when C.J. flies it because he’s constantly changing speeds.” He clicked on the tablet and a computer screen appeared. “This is the screen that shows us all the other ships within our vicinity. I’ve set it to show me empty, discarded vessels. After we drop off Frank, Jim, and Dan at their ship, we’ll head to the one I found. See what we can get out of it. I adjusted our course to make both things easier.”

I shifted on his lap until I could face him. “I’m going to study this. Will you help me do it a few times until I’ve got it?”

His eyes brightened. “If that’s what you want.”

“I do. Can I say something weird?”

He pushed my bangs off my forehead. “Sure. I like odd things.”

“Your voice, it’s just so…enthralling.” Even yesterday I would have been horrified at myself. I’d had sex with Dane and now, pressed against Wes, with his cock poking at my side, I was saying things I knew would get a physical reaction from him. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I wanted to—which I didn’t. I craved him. If I was honest, I desired all of them, even Nolan, who both terrified and captivated me.

Right now, I needed to get Wes’ hands on my body. He was my husband in this world. It had to be okay for me to want him.

Not to mention, I wasn’t lying. His voice did things to me. I’d pay to listen to him, if I had to.

He sucked in his breath. “Really, honey?”

I loved when he pulled out that nickname. “Say anything to me. Say nothing important. Just let me listen to you.”

His mouth took hold of mine, and I crawled up his body until I straddled his lap. My belly was in the way but I didn’t care. We’d have to adjust if this went any further. Sex on the chair was probably out of the question, unless Wes proved really bendable.

I suddenly had an idea. They’d talked to us about in Master’s. A gift to our husband…I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I wanted to try.

Pulling back, I stopped kissing him. He sucked his breath. “Too much, honey?”

“Not nearly.” I got off his lap, lowering myself, carefully, to my knees in front of him. He breathed hard, his chest expanding. Had I done this with him before? I’d love to have the memory. Was I good at it? Did he like it?

“What are you doing, honey?” He bent forward. “I can’t kiss you on the ground.”

“No.” I scooted forward on my knees. Heat took over my cheeks. What if he rejected this? “It’s hard to kiss me, but I can take you in my mouth. Would you like that?” I hurried through my response, forcing myself to hold his gaze. The instructors at Master’s had told us men loved this. They’d proven, however, that a lot of their teachings were wrong.

Wes didn’t answer right away. We stared at one another with nothing but the sound of the ship beneath us.