Bightmares Read online

  She smiled and nodded a little, silently mouthing, “It’s okay.”

  Ford slowly sat up and changed positions to kneel behind Aaron. He dropped the bottle of lube that Aaron had handed him to the bed. Taking his time and moving slowly, he started stroking Aaron’s back, from shoulders to waist to ass, kissing him, loving him.

  Aaron kept his eyes closed and his forehead touching Caph’s as he slowly rocked his hips back and forth a little.

  Emi, absorbed in this more as spectator than participant, shared Ford’s happy surprise. One of the first things she’d learned about her men was the sad fact that “Cap doesn’t bottom.” Not until they’d shared their crew story with her, about Kels’ death and Aaron’s vicious torture at the hands of the raiders, did she understand why. Before that time, Aaron had no trouble playing the bottom or top role, enjoying both.

  For the first time since then, he was asking to rejoin them in this way.

  Emi focused on Aaron’s energy but kept her eyes locked with Ford’s. Aaron did want this, desperately, having missed it all these years but unable to consider enjoying it before now. After a few minutes, when she gave Ford another slight nod, he picked up the lube and used some to slowly work one finger into Aaron’s dark hole.

  Ford stopped when Aaron moaned, but Emi nodded again, encouraging, when she knew Aaron’s sounds were from pleasure, not pain.

  Carefully, gently, Ford worked to loosen him. Aaron’s breathing quickened as he continued to rock his hips against Emi, his cock even harder inside her.

  When Ford added a second finger, Aaron gasped and lightly breathed, “Yes!”

  “You like that?” Ford softly asked.

  “Yes!”

  Ford stroked his back with his free hand. “I want to love you like this again, Aar. I’ve missed this so much. I want to show you how much I love you.”

  Aaron moaned again, encouraging him to continue.

  She tightened her grip around both men. Caph fully realized what was happening and had stopped his frantic dry-humping against Emi’s leg to focus his attention on Aaron. He twined his fingers in the other man’s hair, kissed him, softly whispered to him as Aaron kept his eyes closed and held on to Emi.

  By the time Ford reached three fingers, Aaron was begging for more. When Ford felt Aaron was ready, he slicked his cock with lube and positioned it at his ass. With one last, reassuring look at Emi to confirm it was okay, he slowly pressed forward.

  Aaron thrust back to meet him with an inarticulate cry. “Yes!” he sobbed. “Yes!”

  Emi and Caph both tightened their hold on Aaron, loving him as he started moving his hips in synchronized time with Ford’s thrusts.

  Ford stroked his hands down Aaron’s back. “Are you okay?”

  “Don’t stop!”

  Caph recaptured his mouth. Emi felt mesmerized, awestruck by the loving passion engulfing the three men, so thick it almost formed a visible aura around them. They’d needed this, the last missing piece to help them shed whatever pain still haunted their souls. Especially Aaron.

  Finally convinced Aaron was okay, Ford was drawn into his own passion. His eyes closed as his lower lip caught under his teeth. It wouldn’t take him long to come, not as close to the edge as Emi sensed he was.

  Aaron didn’t so much fuck her with his cock embedded inside her as he drew safety and comfort from her, enjoying this long-missing pleasure.

  “Jesus, I love you, Aar,” Ford whispered. “Goddamn, I love you so much.”

  Bless his heart, she sensed Caph wanted to jump in there as soon as Ford finished, but she knew he would wait to see if Aaron wanted him to. “We’ve both missed you,” Caph whispered to Aaron. “I used to love it when you’d put me in the middle and he’d fuck me while I fucked you. Remember that?”

  “Gods, yes!” Aaron gasped.

  Emi felt her own sex throb at that mental image, of the larger man sandwiched between the others.

  Holy crap! She couldn’t wait to see that!

  “I can’t hold it,” Ford said.

  “Do it,” Aaron told him. “Please!”

  Emi felt the bed shake as Ford’s thrusts came faster, harder, until he gave a cry and fell forward onto his arms to keep from crushing them all, gasping and panting.

  Aaron’s hips still worked his hard cock inside Emi.

  “You okay, Aar?” Ford asked, worry now tainting his post-coital energy.

  “Yeah,” Aaron whispered. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Caph. “You.”

  “Yeah?”

  Aaron kissed him. “Yeah. Right now. I want you, too. I need you.”

  Ford carefully withdrew and stepped into the head to clean up. By the time he returned, Caph had positioned himself and slicked his shaft with lube. Ford lay where Caph had, his arm around Aaron as he softly whispered to him.

  “We love you, man. We love you so much.”

  Caph carefully pressed for entrance. Emi felt his keen worry, even more than Ford’s. When he looked up, she met his gaze and smiled. “It’s okay,” she silently mouthed, not wanting to interrupt them. This was their healing, and she was happy to take a backseat to helping Aaron cross this bridge, however he needed to do it.

  Slowly, he pushed his thick cock inside Aaron. Aaron stilled his hips for a moment until Caph was positioned. “Do it, buddy,” he said as Ford stroked his back. “Fuck me.”

  Caph carefully held Aaron’s hips while he slowly thrust.

  Ford tangled his fingers in Aaron’s hair. “Come for him. I remember how much you enjoyed his cock. You used to love sitting back on his lap, leaning against him while me and Kels sucked your cock and played with your balls.

  Emi hoped they didn’t hear her gasp. At this rate, she’d be more than ready for another round of her own. That mental image was just too frakking delicious not to store away for future use.

  Aaron softly moaned. “Oh, fuck yeah. I remember.”

  “You used to say you felt like we’d suck your balls right out through your cock.”

  Aaron groaned as his strokes inside Emi became harder, more erratic as he seesawed between fucking her and fucking himself onto Caph’s cock.

  “Maybe next time you can suck my cock while he’s fucking you,” Ford said.

  That did it. Aaron thrust hard and let out a loud moan. Emi felt his body shudder as he climaxed. Caph quickly caught up and added his orgasm to it, but before he could pull out, Emi grabbed his arm and shook her head, indicating for him to stay right there.

  Now Aaron cried. Not in pain, Emi sensed, but in relief as he demolished some of the mental barriers he’d held on to for years to protect his heart from the excruciating memories. Long, deep, anguished sobs wracked his body as the others held him.

  “He’s okay,” Emi whispered to the other two men, reassuring them. “He needs this. This is good.”

  Aaron’s sobs turned into loud, long moans, painful to hear. The other two men tightly held onto him as he cried. Emi stroked his hair, feeling him finally letting out at least some of the pain and anguish and loss he’d carried deep inside for so many years. After nearly twenty minutes, he’d cried himself to sleep in their arms.

  She patted Caph on the arm. “Be careful, baby. Don’t wake him,” she warned.

  “Is he okay?” Caph worriedly asked. “Did I hurt him? Please tell me I didn’t hurt him.”

  She smiled as she glanced at Ford. She knew he understood in a way Caph wouldn’t. “Don’t worry, you didn’t hurt him. He’s okay. He’s better than he’s been in a long time.”

  Caph cleaned up, brought a washcloth for Aaron, and then slipped into bed on Emi’s other side. He and Ford both kept their arms around Aaron.

  She lay there in the dark, unable to sleep as she focused her attention on Aaron. His pain still unwound and drained from him as he felt his lovers around him, holding him safe in their arms. This wasn’t a one-time quick fix for his problems, but it truly started the deeper healing she’d longed to help him find.

  Eyes closed,
she felt their energies, their emotions. Caph, then Ford, slipped into deeper sleep, into dreams she couldn’t see but which didn’t appear to trouble them. Aaron’s energy curled around him, his body asleep, but his mind still lodged in that half-conscious area where the brain tenaciously refused to let go of thought.

  After an hour, she felt him break through that veil and lift his head.

  “Em?” he whispered.

  She stroked his hair. “Love you.”

  He kissed her before he settled back onto her chest. “Love you, too. Am I squishing you?”

  “Nope. You stay right there.”

  He shifted position anyway, carefully rolling them onto their sides, his back to Caph, hers to Ford. Neither man awoke. Then he nuzzled his lips against her chest, kissing her. “I love you, babe. You have no idea how fucking much I love you.”

  “Good, because you’re stuck with me for life.” His energy felt lighter, a brighter mental color than she’d ever sensed from him even in the best and happiest of times they’d had together so far. “And you do realize I want to do some of those things they talked about, right?”

  He chuckled. “Gonna help me make up for lost time?”

  “As Ford would say, ‘Oh, hell yeah.’”

  She closed her eyes and, content to know Aaron was okay, she drifted to sleep.

  * * * *

  Aaron lay there long after he knew she’d fallen asleep. He listened to the sounds of all of them breathing, enjoyed the feel of their flesh against his, the sweet, musky scent of their lovemaking still lingering in the air.

  He hadn’t planned to do that, but caught in the moment, it felt right. Even the tears later felt good. No guilt over enjoying it, no bad memories to sully it.

  Nothing but their love and arms holding him.

  I’m a lucky bastard.

  Then one of them, he suspected Caph, let out a long, rolling, musical fart in his sleep.

  Aaron clamped his mouth shut and tried not to laugh, fearing if he started not only would he not be able to stop, but that he’d wake the others. It felt good to want to laugh like that.

  It felt good to want to live again.

  He finally drifted back to sleep. That night, at least, he didn’t have anything but good dreams.

  Chapter Four

  Emi sat in her chair in front of the bridge console as she nervously listened to the three men go through a final pre-flight checklist after their umbilicals and the gangways were retracted. After twenty minutes, Aaron hit the com link button.

  “Dockmaster, this is the Tamora Bight. We’re ready to depart.”

  “Roger, Captain. The pilot tug will lock on shortly.”

  Caph winked at her. “This is it, babe. The real thing.”

  She stared at the front vid screens, where Earth slowly rotated beneath them. A Cat 2 hurricane churned in the Gulf of Mexico, clearly visible in the waning light. She felt detached from it, as if she hadn’t spent her entire life on that rock. It held memories, her parents’ ashes, and nothing more. Well, her best friend Donna lived there, but Emi had to live her own life. They would keep in touch through messages and video, that one connection not enough to keep Emi on Earth.

  Not when she had three men who loved her.

  “This is it,” she softly echoed.

  Caph frowned. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why the long face?”

  “Is it bad that there’s nothing left for me there? What does it say about me?”

  “Home isn’t a place, babe,” Ford chimed in. “Not any one place, at least. It’s a state of mind.”

  Aaron pulled himself out of his command chair. He walked to stand behind her and massage her shoulders. “We’re home,” he softly said. “The four of us together. These two guys, and now you.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” the twins parroted, then scowled at each other.

  Emi smiled. “Please don’t change. I like it when you do that.”

  Aaron released her shoulders after a final squeeze. “I warned you, Em. Give it twenty years, you’ll change your mind.”

  * * * *

  The journey to Mars would take longer in real life than it did in the simulator because they needed more systems testing. If they were in a hurry they could jump and make it there in less than a week. This trip was their official shakedown cruise, so they had to take their time and thoroughly test all their systems. Breaking down at the far end of the galaxy wasn’t a pleasant option. At the end of their eight-week journey, the red planet came into focus on their front vid screens.

  The view sucked the breath out of Emi’s lungs. “Wow!” she softly breathed, stunned, amazed.

  Mars.

  Busy with her duties on the ship and trying to learn about the systems, she had temporarily lost sight of the fact that they would drop to the surface and moor at a Martian base.

  When she turned to Aaron, he winked. “Seems like we welcomed you to Mars in a pretty hot way in the sim.”

  Ford laughed. “Oh, hell yeah!”

  Caph grinned. “That’s one of the things I wouldn’t mind re-enacting in real life.”

  * * * *

  Night had fallen by the time they completed their drop to the Martian surface. The hover lifts moved them into the protective hangar, the ground crew connected their gangways, airlocks, and utility umbilicals, and then the dockmaster declared them securely docked and free to debark. The red planet’s moons, Phobos and Deimos, were both visible in the nearly cloudless sky. From their place in the hangar, Emi could look through the front view ports and stare at the night sky as well as the ruddy dirt visible outside the complex in the pools of light cast by the external lighting. Situated in the Oxia Pauls quadrangle, the DaVinci 2 base was located in Chryse Planitia, or CP for short.

  Ford and Caph left the bridge to take care of routine systems checks and docking chores. Emi stood at the front view ports and started at what little was visible of the Martian landscape.

  An odd feeling of déjà vu swept over her when Aaron stepped forward and slipped his arms around her waist. He feathered his lips across the back of her neck. “So what kind of mood are you in?” The lightness in his soul had remained ever since their night together before leaving the hub. She hoped they could find other opportunities while here on Mars to maybe help further his recovery.

  She pulled his arms tightly around her and rocked her hips. Immediately, she felt his cock stiffen through his pants, where it was pressed along the seam of her ass. “I’m definitely in a playful mood.”

  His teeth gently grazed her flesh. “How playful?”

  “Why don’t you clarify, Captain?”

  He chuckled. “I think Ford and Caph will finish their chores in record time to get their asses back to our quarters. Question is, you looking for some one-on-one or group playtime?”

  She wiggled her hips again. “Definitely group. We won’t get enough of that the next few months. I think I’m with Caph in wanting to reenact the sim in this case.”

  “Mmm. Good.” He scooped her into his arms and headed toward their cabin. “The more, the merrier.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as he carried her. Once there, he playfully dropped her onto the bed and stood over her as he stripped.

  “You are well overdue for a damn good fucking, baby girl.” He dropped his clothes to the floor and climbed onto the bed. “I think I want a doctor sandwich tonight.”

  She loved it when he grew playful like this. It was yet another sign of his emotional healing. “Oh, yeah? Well, maybe I want another captain sandwich.” He lifted her shirt and started nuzzling her tummy. “Or maybe I want to see you sitting on Caph’s cock while me and Ford try to suck your balls out.”

  He started laughing. When he looked up, his eyes were crinkled with amusement. “Well, regardless of what we end up doing, I would suggest you get naked if you want to do any of them.” He pushed her shirt up her torso, kissing the bared flesh.

  She quickly p
ulled it off while he worked on unfastening her uniform pants. Naked under him, he pushed her legs apart and nuzzled the soft, sensitive flesh inside her thighs. “So you’ve been having dirty thoughts about your captain, hmm?” He gently nipped her, making her moan. “Naughty doctor.”

  “Oh, baby, you have no idea how many dirty thoughts I have about all three of you.”

  “Really?” He gently nipped her other thigh, followed by a long, hot swipe of his tongue rasping across her flesh. “Like what?”

  She was going to answer him when they both heard pounding footsteps racing down the corridor from the direction of the galley. By the time the twins hit the open cabin doorway and pushed their way through together, Caph already had his shirt off, and Ford was working on his.

  “What’d we miss?” they parroted as they frantically stripped.

  Emi laughed. “Nothing yet.”

  The impact of both men’s naked bodies hitting the mattress at the same time bounced Emi and Aaron and made her laugh. Aaron lifted his head. His eyes met hers.

  He smirked, that deliciously evil, playful expression that could do her in every time. “Did you decide yet?” he asked her.

  “Decide what?” the twins asked.

  Emi threw her head back and laughed. Aaron explained. “I was offering the good doctor here her choice of entrees off the crew molestation menu.”

  “Ooh,” the twins said, not even bothering to glare at each other. “Fuck yeah!”

  Emi laughed even harder and finally sat up. “Calm down, boys, everyone will get a turn.”

  “So what’ll it be, Em?” Aaron asked. “Doctor sandwich, crème de la captain, or maybe motormouth à la mode?”

  Ford snickered. “Y’all don’t seem to complain too much about how chatty I am in bed normally.”

  “Caph, shut him up for a minute, would you, please?” Aaron asked.

  Caph grinned and cupped the back of Ford’s head. “Gladly.” He pulled the other man’s face down to his lap, where Ford greedily inhaled Caph’s stiff member.