Kidnapped By Her Husbands (Wings of Artemis Book 1) (20 page)

“Do you need help? I can get Dane. He wanted to come earlier. Nolan thought you could use some alone time first.”

I shut the door behind him. “Nolan was right.”

“Here.” He held the box in front of him. “I thought, when we believed you were dead, I would eat this on your birthday. As kind of a tribute to you or whatever. I’d rather give it to you.”

I took the package from him and looked at what he’d given me. “What is it?”

“Presents work better when we open them.” He leaned against the window, looking outside. As I knew there was nothing out there to see except the vastness of space, I had to ask myself why he didn’t want to watch me discover what he’d given me.

I tore at the blue wrapping and then opened the brown box inside. My mouth fell open as I saw what he’d handed me. “Chocolate.”

C.J. turned to meet my gaze. “You still like it, right?”

“I only had it once on Master’s. I loved, loved, loved it.” I crossed to him and threw my arms around his neck. “Thank you for this.” My stomach grumbled, reminding me it had been too long since I’d eaten. “You have to share it with me.”

He shook his head. “I want you to have it.”

I pulled out a piece of the dark goodness and broke it half. “Please.” I pressed some toward his mouth. “Share with me. I won’t like it as much if I can’t enjoy it with you.”

C.J. closed his eyes and bit down, taking the food directly from my hand. I watched, transfixed, as he chewed and swallowed. His mouth was full, his lips begging to be kissed, and I’d sampled his caresses earlier. He opened his lids and stared right back at me. Neither of us spoke for a few moments, and my heart kicked up a notch.

C.J. was seriously hot.

“Sharing implies you’re going to eat it, too.”

I took a bite, not taking my gaze off him. The chocolate tasted rich, dark, and heady. Eating my absolute favorite substance in the universe—or at least I suspected it was—did nothing to cool me down. If anything, it heightened every sense in my body.

“Thank you for the gift. I’ve never had one before.”

He touched the side of my face with a shaking hand. “I thought I’d killed you today.”

“How do you figure that?” I pressed my palm on top of his hand, holding him still. How or why C.J. thought he had any culpability in what happened was beyond me.

He took a loud, shuddering breath. “I put in you there. I should have walked in first. It didn’t look like a trap. I was convinced it was a totally benign find.”

“You could have had no way of knowing…”

“No.” His loud shout interrupted me and echoed in the room. I wasn’t scared of his temper. He wasn’t really yelling at me, but at life, at what happened, at how powerless he must have felt standing on the other side of the door, unable to get to me when the room detached from the ship.

I pressed my forehead to his, needing the contact as much as he did. It had been a very long day. “Listen to me. You couldn’t have known.”

“This isn’t my first day on the job. I know there are traps. I let myself be fooled by how old the ship seemed, by how easy everything went, by finally getting some alone time with you. I didn’t pay attention. I know you don’t like apologies, you just want results, but you need to let me tell you how sorry I am. You have to believe me when I say I can do better.”

With my forehead against his, kissing both his eyes wasn’t hard to do. I pulled away slightly and moved my lips to his cheeks, the top of his nose, his chin. His hands moved to my side, shaking slightly. C.J. seemed a bundle of nerves hidden in a big, strong, imposing body where no one would ever know how scared he could get.

Unless he wanted them to.

“I accept your apology, although I think you’re wrong to think you need to give it. I’m glad it was me and not you in there. Cooper rescued me. He might not have done that for you. Then what would we have done? Since he was there to save the day, neither me, nor the baby, were at risk. It’s all okay.”

C.J. pulled me into a tight hug and I let him. He leaned against the window and I pressed into him. Neither of us moved. Time passed. Eventually, his heart slowed. Still, neither of us made any effort to do anything more than hold each other.

Finally, I pulled away enough so I could stick the rest of the piece of chocolate in my mouth. He watched me chew through narrowed lids.

“Best gift ever.”

When he smiled, I felt like I’d won a battle. He’d come in to me on edge. All he needed was some time. I was more than happy to give it to him.

“You don’t remember this, obviously, but you and I have known each other our whole lives. Or most of them.”

“Really?” I loved that he volunteered information. I didn’t have to drag it out of him. “Tell me.”

“We’re both children of Nomads. Born on ships, raised in constant battle. We’d see each other once, maybe twice a year on The Bridge. Your mother is the general, the woman in charge of the whole revolution. Mine was her closest friend until she died ten years ago. From the second I could think about girls, you were all I imagined. Unlike some of the others here, I always understood that if I had a wife, I would share. I’m good with the creating a family group, of having brothers I’d give my life for.”

I grinned at him. “Did you finally tell me? Was it a big thing?”

C.J. shook his head, cocking his head slightly to the side. “One does not simply tell the rebel princess one is in love with her unless one wants to risk her publicly humiliating one.”

My smile disappeared and my ears rang instead. I saw the second he realized what he’d said upset me. “M. No, listen, that was a bad joke.”

“Brody, the kid on Hall, he called me the rebel princess. Is it because of my mother? And just how bad am I? I can see it, hell, feel it when I’m in Dane and Wes’ arms. I did not take proper care of their hearts. How could I let that happen? Why do people have me around if I’m a nightmare?”

As I spoke the words, my body began to shake. C.J tugged me in for a close hug. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know you were worried. I didn’t know you think you’re…bad. You’re tough, demanding. You’re not cruel unless you have to be. Wes, Dane, Nolan, Geoff…maybe Cooper, they’d all die for you. None of them would say they had any room for complaint. I can’t believe anyone would vocalize anything other than sheer happiness at your presence.”

I groaned. “They might not say it, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any reason for complaint.”

“I didn’t tell you I loved you because I’m a chicken shit when it comes to this kind of thing. You had no idea. None. I watched you take Nolan and Geoff as husbands, and I wanted to explode, even though I was thrilled for them. They seemed like good guys. Then…one day I was tired of waiting. We were in the same space station at the same time. I got drunk—liquid courage—and I let you know in a bar how I’d been wanting you for so long.”

I wished I could remember. “What did I do?”

“You told me if I still felt the same way in six months, come find you and you’d think about it.”

I groaned and closed my eyes. What was the matter with me? Did I not care at all about other people? Why didn’t I immediately recognize how hard that must have been for him?

He finally finished. “When you docked Artemis next to the ship I was on four months later, and you asked me if I wanted some pie, it proved to be the best day of my life.”

“Pie? Do you particularly like pie?”

He grinned. “I do now.”

Why had I made him wait? Another mystery of my missing memories. “I’m so glad I did that.”

“Me too.”

I kissed him. Initiating the caress didn’t even scare me. He pressed his mouth to mine and I could taste the chocolate on his tongue when we fused together. When I ended the embrace, we were both breathing hard.

I didn’t have actual memories of him, but the same way I could tell by instinct what Dane and Wes needed, I understood some things about C.J. The more I got to know myself, the more I realized I actually wanted to give them what made them happy. To do so made me warm inside.

In the process, they seemed very keen to meet my desires, too.

I was a really lucky woman.

Stepping back, I smiled at him. “Think we could spend the whole night like this? Maybe we could fill the tub, share it.” I’d already showered but the idea of lying in a tub with him had little to nothing to do with actually getting clean. “Then be together on the bed, fall asleep, wake sometime in the middle of the night, find each other again?”

His brow furrowed and he moved away from the window. “All night?”

“Unless you don’t want to?” Had I read him wrong? Was he more of a quick in and out kind of a guy?

“I’ll go fill the tub. I’ve never done this before.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I mean, it sounds really…exactly right.”

Just because he’d always known he had to share didn’t mean we couldn’t be alone when we were together. I wanted to give C.J. all my attention. My mouth quirked as I thought about the hours ahead. His coming into my room made my bad mood flee.

I stripped off my clothes and followed him into the bathroom. He turned to look at me from where he sat on the edge of the tub and his mouth fell open. Of course I knew walking in naked was provocative. That had been the point.

“Maybe not so sexy with my big belly in the way?”

He stood. “Are you kidding?”

I eyed the water. “Going to get in?”

He pulled off his shirt and stripped out of his pants. My mouth went dry watching him. C.J. was one giant muscle. “We’re going to be tight in there. I’m not small.”

“Even better.”

There was power in knowing how much he wanted me—his cock stood at attention—and there was pleasure to be found in making him happy. If the other version of me didn’t know these things, then she was lesser for it.

When he was fully in the tub, I stepped into it, letting the warm water drape my body. I couldn’t get my tummy fully covered, which was fine. I leaned back on C.J.’s body until we were stretched out together, me on top of him, his cock pressed into my ass.

After a while, he moved his hand until he traced small circles over my stomach. When the baby jumped under his hand, he laughed quietly in my ear. “If you like this, we’ll get some bubble bath at the station when I go to get your clothes. It’s expensive, but the accounts are flush.”

“Only if you promise we can make this a regular thing.”

He lightly bit my shoulder. “Yes.”

“How do we usually work this? Do we exist on some kind of schedule?”

His hand stopped moving. “That’s the way it worked on my mother’s ship. My father and my uncles knew when they would see her. It worked well for them. You’ve always preferred to control that. You say when and who.”

I didn’t want that kind of control. It sounded exhausting. How did I know whose feelings I hurt by not paying enough attention? “Would you make me a schedule?”

“If you want.” The way his voice raised told me he liked the idea, too. “We’d have to build in some flexibility. And give you downtime to yourself.”

I shook my head. “Thank you for knowing what needs to happen.”

“M.” He breathed the letter he used for my name like he was praying.

He was such a sweet guy wrapped in the body of a fighter. And he was mine.

Chapter 13

The Clouds Above

C.J.
surged his cock into me and I moaned. I’d told him we would wake up and have sex in the middle of the night. It was impossible for that to happen since we’d yet to go to sleep in the first place. By the time we’d gotten out of the tub, warm, snuggled, and horny, we’d not been able to get enough of each other.

My strong husband gripped me from behind. I sat in his lap, his cock inside of me as he directed me how to move and when.

Pitch blackness bathed the room since someone must have turned off the hallway light. I couldn’t see C.J. but, oh, could I feel him deep inside me.

“Up.” He whispered in my ear and I pulled out until I was just able to keep the top of his erection inside my pussy. C.J. groaned and panted, his breathing getting louder each time we did this. He wasn’t going to be able to hold off for long.

“I need…” C.J. couldn’t finish his sentence. He wasn’t alone, I found it hard to talk, too. I pressed down, taking him fully inside me, and we both moaned, his cock twitching as my muscles stretched to fit him.

He wiped my hair off my forehead and kissed my neck. “What? What do you need? Tell me, M. Let me give it to you.”

“I need to come. Can you make me? Please?”

“Fuck, yes.” He pressed another finger against me and stroked. I cried out when he did, but it wasn’t enough. “I’m going to keep my fingers here, right on your clit. You move when I tell you to. I need this, too. You and me, together. I want it.”

I did too and the little sense his words made to me didn’t matter. When it came down to it, C.J. needed to claim me and I wanted him to. I pulled out again, and this time he stroked me hard. As I pushed on him one more time, I came hard, on his fingers, on his cock.

“C.J.” I called out his name as he said mine. He took over the moment, his hips surging forward until he came, too. In the darkness, I saw stars and I collapsed backwards against him.

He must have turned us until we lay spooning on the bed. I had no energy. My bones and muscles weren’t functioning. His hands came around me, over my stomach.

“Don’t go,” I managed to whisper.

He kissed my neck. “Never.”

“When I’m not me anymore, I want you to remember this, to remind me. How perfect tonight was. Can you do that?”

His breathing hitched. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” None of them understood. I would get into a machine that would cause me pain—or Dane would figure out how to make the same thing happen here—and when I woke, I wouldn’t be a girl who wanted hot baths and to be held. I’d be the one they all wanted, but who never stopped to give them a second thought. Master’s took so much away from me, but it also opened my heart.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to pretend to sleep. Why did the sadness sneak in whenever I was happy? Was it because I knew this was temporary?