Crystals Three Chosen Mates (5 page)

“When can you come to our pod?” Stepho asked.

She laughed softly with excitement. Relief that they seemed to be as anxious as she was to resume their relationship washed through her. “I have to work the dinner service.”

“Are you working twelve-hour days?” Henri asked with concern. He didn’t hesitate to work long hours himself, but he didn’t like when Crystal did. His protectiveness warmed her, rather than annoyed her like when other men in her life had tried to put protective walls around her.

She shook her head. “No, Fisher and I don’t cook morning meal. So far, the supply of nutrishakes is sufficient to provide breakfast.”

“Is Fisher that charming kitchen helper?” Henri asked with a touch of sarcasm.

Chuckling, she nodded. “He likes to keep the line moving.”

“So, when are you done with dinner service?” Stepho asked impatiently.

She turned to him and thought she recognized the intense desire in his eyes that had to be shining in her own as well. “Give me your pod number, and I’ll be there as soon as I can. Probably around nine.”

“So late?” Stepho pouted, his normally full lower lip pushed out even farther.

Stars, she couldn’t wait to nibble on those lips again. He had to be pulling the sulky look on purpose. He knew how crazy his mouth drove her.

“I’ll clean the kitchen after dinner as fast as possible,” she reassured him. Then she thought about her biggest fear when it came to these two men. “H-have either of you received your mating assignment?”

“No, have you?” Henri asked.

“No. I haven’t heard of any new assignments since the OAS attacks.”

“It’s one of the Pro-Freedom Movement’s grievances,” Henri said. “They want to abolish assigned matings.”

Crystal’s attention spiked at Henri’s usage of the term Pro-Freedom Movement. The OAS’s original grievance had focused on the Council’s ban on funding space exploration research, but their demands had grown. In addition to calling for the end of mandatory matings, they were calling for the abolition of hereditary careers and the resignation of the Council, who were to be replaced by representatives of the people selected by free elections. In response to this growing list of desired reforms, the protestors now referred to themselves as the Pro-Freedom Movement.

Did Henri’s use of the term indicate he and Stepho were sympathizers to the OAS? If so, she’d just made huge progress in her undercover assignment…at the cost of her personal relationship. Because if Henri and Stepho ever found out she’d gathered information about the OAS while she was having an intimate relationship with them, they’d never forgive her.

But then, this was only an in-the-moment relationship. Once she returned to her duties in Fourth Quadrant, she’d certainly never cross paths with the two scientists again. If her aptitude for undercover work was as good as the Major said, then she should be able to keep both sides of this scale in balance.

“Are you familiar with any of their other grievances?” she asked, starting her search for intel.

Both men looked over their shoulders at the occupied tables near them, as if checking for eavesdroppers.

Then Henri leaned toward her. “We’ll have all night to talk, Starlight,” he said, using the intimate nickname he’d given her.

She swayed slightly in her seat while her body heated as she recalled the delicious dynamics of their relationship. “Tell me how to find you.”

Henri gave her directions to the pod he shared with Stepho. Though it wasn’t uncommon for military men to engage in intimate contact because of the lack of available females on the planet, it apparently was rare for intelligentsia men to co-habitate. From the sound of it, Henri and Stepho existed in a fringe group of their society that the Council disapproved of, but hadn’t yet made illegal. Maybe that was why the men weren’t so concerned with their peers’ censorship of their relationship with her. They were already living outside the norms of intelligentsia behavior.

When the men left the cafeteria, Crystal returned to the kitchen to start dinner preparations, her cheeks hurting from the grin she couldn’t erase.

“Nice of you to join me after I cleaned all the pots,” Fisher grumbled.

“You know you could have sent them next door to the dishwashers,” she retorted, refusing to let his moodiness affect her.

“I know how
you
like to keep your pots in your own kitchen.” Fisher yanked out the utensil drawer and dropped the clean serving spoons in it. “So, who were the intelligentsia goobers?”

“I never realized how immature you were, Fishy. For your information, those were my OAS sympathizer contacts,” she boasted.

“When’d you meet them? Because it’d be damn obvious even to a blind man you had a previous relationship.”

Her cheeks heated, and she cursed her fair coloring. Could everyone in the cafeteria tell she’d been involved with Henri and Stepho? Regardless of their claim to not care about class differences, she knew other members of the intelligentsia certainly did. Word could reach Henri and Stepho’s superiors, and they could lose their reputations, possibly their life’s work.

“So, it was
that
kind of a relationship,” Fisher taunted, and she realized he’d just tricked her into revealing more than he knew.

“They were refugees in Fourth Quadrant after the OAS attacks. I served them in the mess hall, and we talked sometimes. We share a common interest in food science.” And that was all she would tell him. It was all he needed to know.

His dark eyes narrowed as he studied her. “You’re going to reestablish your relationship with them tonight, aren’t you?” He waved a hand in the air. “Don’t bother answering. I can see the flush from the beginnings of your arousal.”

Stars, did he know her that well? Considering they had been going at it every night since they arrived in First Quadrant, it was definitely possible. It was good she was turning her attention to Henri and Stepho. Maybe by focusing so much energy on each other, she and Fisher were missing opportunities to connect with other members of the intelligentsia. But she found it difficult to accept the chafing thought of Fisher getting intimate with some female scientist.

“I hope you get some good intel along with your orgasms tonight,” Fisher snarked, and with that, he made it a little easier for her to walk away. “Major Jeffers wants to see some results, or he’s going to pull us out of here by the end of next week.”

“What about the food service?”

“He’ll find a new kitchen pair.” Fisher shrugged. “The poor intelligentsia will just have to make do with an inferior food preparer.”

And she’d have to say goodbye to Henri and Stepho again, much too soon. Tonight, she would get some information of value, so she and Fisher could stay in First Quadrant a little longer. But her gut churned at the thought of betraying Henri and Stepho’s trust, and if she didn’t keep her contacts confidential, she would be risking their lives. The Council sentenced those who committed treason to the death penalty, enforced as soon as the defendants left the courtroom.

Chapter Four

Crystal raised her fist to knock on the pod door after checking the number designation several times. Her heart fluttered in her chest like the wings of an ancient hummingbird. She couldn’t tell which made her more nervous—resuming her relationship with Henri and Stepho or covertly gathering intel to pass on to the Council.

Finally, she sucked down her anxiety and knocked.

The door slid open, and Henri reached across the threshold for her. She stepped into his arms while tears pricked her eyes. Stepho wrapped his longer arms around her and Henri as the door slid shut, blocking out the rest of the world.

For the longest time, they simply embraced each other, and she greedily inhaled their unique scents—Henri, slightly spicy, and Stepho, more green-smelling, as if the plants he worked with had instilled him with their fragrance.

Henri kissed the top of her head. “Let’s do this with less clothing.”

Immediately, Stepho dropped his arms from around her, and Henri and quickly stripped off his beige intelligentsia uniform as Henri worked on removing his own clothes, drawing a chuckle from her. At least she knew where she stood with both of them. There was no denying their need for her when she caught sight of their fully erect cocks.

She dropped to her knees and pulled them to her mouth with a hand on each of them. Stroking and sucking and licking, she felt such joy swelling inside her she thought she might burst like a supernova. She pushed their tips together and greedily sucked them both into her mouth, stretching her lips wide to accommodate their moderate widths.

Glancing up, Crystal watched Henri and Stepho kissing with their arms wrapped around each other. Oh hellitude, it always sparked her fire when she saw them embracing like that.

She sucked them into her mouth deeper, and used her fingertips to tease their butt holes, waiting to see who would get off first. Usually, Henri protested her finger up his ass, but Stepho was wild about it.

Neither of them seemed to notice her pushing in, as they were too occupied with clashing teeth and nipping at each other’s lips. It made her think they’d been abstaining since they left her. They looked as hungry for each other as she was for them.

Stepho’s hips jerked erratically as she stroked his prostrate and sucked his cock alongside Henri’s. Stepho tended to come first, but then he had remarkable staying power for round two. And round two was Crystal’s favorite.

Her wet heat soaked through the seam her uniform trousers as she relived the sensual memories of Henri in her pussy and Stepho in her ass.

After a few more jerks, Stepho came in her mouth with a loud grunt. She tightened her lips around both men’s tips, trying to swallow Stepho’s cum without losing her suction around Henri’s cock. The extra pressure tossed Henri over the top. He shot into her mouth as he shouted, “Fuck!”

She drank him down, which was easier since Stepho had slipped out of her mouth after his climax when he’d grown too sensitive.

Finally, Henri stopped pulsing in her mouth, and he clutched her head between his palms to hold her still. “Oh, fuck. I missed that,” he groaned, breathing heavily.

She sat back on her heels and grinned up at the blissed expressions on Henri and Stepho’s faces. She relished making these men lose control like that.

“Stepho, I think our little Miss Starlight is feeling a bit smug.” Henri flicked his finger down the tip of her nose.

“It
was
a good blow job, Henri,” Stepho expressed his approval.

Crystal’s grin stretched wider.

“Now, look what you’ve done,” Henri mock-protested. “You know how hard it was the first time to train her to be submissive.”

Stars, she adored playing these games with Henri and Stepho. She tried to wipe the grin from her face, in preparation for their role-playing, but she was just too damn happy.

Henri slowly shook his head. “She’s not going to be very submissive until we show her we mean business.”

Crystal caught a wink from Stepho before he said, “How many swats do you think it will take, Henri?”

“It’s been a long time. Who knows what kind of misbehaving she’s been up to since we’ve last seen her?”

Stepho looked down at her with a touch of hurt in his eyes. “You think she’s been with someone else?”

Oh blasters, she couldn’t stand seeing him upset like that. Damn Fisher, why had he teased her into having sex with him? And why had she continued even after arriving in First Quadrant when she knew there was a high probability of running into Henri and Stepho again?

The answer was simple. She hadn’t thought she had a shred of a chance at reestablishing her connection with the two intelligentsias on their home turf. She’d been satisfying herself—binging was more accurate—on the one man who had been available in her peer class, however unsuitable he was. Talk about a defense mechanism to keep her heart from cracking apart a second time.

Now, there was only one thing she could do.

“I’ve only dreamt of you and Henri,” she said to Stepho, which was the truth, while omitting the piece about Fisher.

Stepho’s brown eyes lit with pleasure, rewarding her for her little fib.

“Stand up, Starlight,” Henri instructed. “Take off that uniform.”

Stepho sat on the edge of the doublewide berth, waiting for her to lie face down across his lap. His cock twitched as it started to come back to life.

After stripping, she pitched her uniform into a corner of the room, and Henri laughed.

“Glad to see some things haven’t changed.” He’d always razzed her about her lack of housekeeping skills. Her pod in Fourth Quadrant was a mess of semi-clean uniforms tossed between pots of her favorite fruit-bearing plants growing under special lights.

“Now, go where you belong,” Henri ordered, and she didn’t hesitate to drape herself over Stepho’s dark, thick thighs.

She wiggled slightly, enjoying the feel of his short, bristly leg hair against her mound, and earned herself the first swat of Henri’s hand.

“No squirming, Miss Starlight,” he commanded.