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  “The wound’s still fresh enough—Holt and I think we can fix it entirely.” Blakely was suddenly at her other side, looking at her hopefully. “I wanted to do it earlier while you were asleep—wanted to spare you havin’ to see that ugly cut at all, but Holt thought it was a bad idea. But now…the whole mess with reconstructive surgery…Why bother when we can make everything better so easily?”

  “But…” Sadie knew what they were saying was true, knew instinctively deep in her bones and in the back of her mind in the place where she was bonded to them that what they were asking her to do was the right thing. The memory of what had happened in front of the fire at Van Heusen’s house came back suddenly in a wave, washing over her with heat and light and wanting, and she was afraid. Afraid that if she started, if she let them start, that all three of them would be utterly incapable of stopping. If only her body didn’t crave them so badly. If only she could trust herself.

  “You don’t have to worry about it going too far, Sadie,” Holt said in a low voice. “We won’t let it. We only want to heal you, to touch you one last time before we take you home and let the bond die forever.”

  “Well, I…” she began, thinking that she wanted it, too. Wanted to feel the warm, golden current flowing through all of them, binding them all together just one more time before she had to give it up forever. It scared her how much she wanted it.

  “The, uh, bond can’t get any stronger at this point unless we…you know, at the same time,” Blakely said, his dark face getting a little red. “And we’re not gonna do that. It just makes sense to use it while we’ve got it.”

  “Just let me…let me think about it, okay?” Sadie asked desperately, feeling their need mixing with her own until it was nearly overpowering. “Why don’t you two let me take a shower—I feel disgusting right now and I just want to clean up.”

  She shooed them out and they left, a little reluctantly, Sadie thought. Trying not to look at the viewer, she stripped off the hateful red dress and stepped into the shower. But she already knew what she was going to do.

  Later, it was that healing that Sadie remembered most, even more than the intense sex at Van Heusen’s. She lay naked between the two muscular male bodies and gave herself up to sensation as Blakely and Holt kissed and caressed her body from top to bottom, summoning the healing energy that flowed between them. It itched along her hurt cheek like fire until the flesh knit together and became whole once more and then everything was pure pleasure.

  Sadie closed her eyes, closed her mind to the nagging little voice of guilt and just let it happen. Hands on her breasts, her thighs, between her legs. Hot, slow kisses along her spine and belly, her hips and throat, and everywhere in between. They brought her to orgasm again and again so softly, so gently that she had barely stopped riding one crest before another one lifted her up and away.

  Through it all was the most profound sense of love and need she had ever felt, flowing from Blakely and Holt into her and back to them, forming a closed connection of emotion and pleasure that blanketed them all in a golden glow. Love you, Sadie, love you forever. Never forget this, the love we shared, the way we are now, together, forever for this moment that can never come again.

  The words seemed to sigh through her mind as first Holt and then Blakely mounted and entered her. One at a time but sweet, so sweet for all of that. Blakely cradled her gently, her back to his chest, whispering love and affection into her ear as Holt rose above her, piercing her sex with his shaft, pouring himself into her, loving her, healing her. When they had rested a little, Holt held her cheek against his chest so that Sadie could hear the steady thunder of his heart while Blakely took her gently from behind, thrusting deep to fill her completely with his hardness and his seed.

  Never forget this, never, never forget this, she thought feeling the love and the need crest within her one last time before she fell into the darkness of an exhausted sleep.

  20

  “No, Gerald, I’m sorry but I’m not free on Sunday either. That’s the day I leave.”

  His narrow, pinched face became tight with anger, a closed fist of emotion on the vid-screen.

  “I get it, Sadie. Now that you’re a big-shot reporter you don’t have time for old friends anymore.”

  “Gerald, it’s not like that and you know it.” Sadie sighed. “Look, I have to go now. I’ll call you later.” She cut the connection before he could protest and sank back in her seat.

  She supposed she should be grateful that Gerald wanted to talk to her at all. More than one old friend and neighbor had stopped speaking with her since she had shocked conservative Goshen with her eyewitness report of the prostie scandal. Even Aunt Minnie had disowned her after hearing where she had been and what she had been up to for the two-and-a-half months she’d been gone. Sadie had never been really close to her aunt, but the old lady was the nearest thing Sadie had to a parent and her rejection hurt more than she cared to think about. Hurt even more than the snide remarks and half-heard whispers behind her back when she walked down the streets of her old neighborhood.

  It did no good whatsoever to explain that she had only gone undercover to get the story and had not actually serviced any clients in her role as a prostie-borg. People in Goshen were narrow-minded and disposed to believe the worst. Everywhere she went, Sadie felt like she ought to be wearing a scarlet letter tattooed on her forehead. It was funny, actually, that her fellow Goshenites were condemning her just for doing her job when she had done much worse things on her “two-and-a-half-month mission of depravity,” as Aunt Minnie had called it, than wearing the skimpy prostie-outfits and spending time in a brothel. If only they knew what I really did, I’d probably be run right out of the colony, she thought more than once.

  Despite rejection at home, her career was really taking off. As Holt had promised, she had the only eyewitness account of the whole scandal, and the news-vids had fallen all over each other to buy her story. It seemed like a dream, but she actually had been nominated for a Solar Pulitzer in journalism. Sadie had found out only the week before and she had wanted to tell someone. Calling Gerald, however, had turned out to be a bad mistake. He had somehow gotten it into his head that she wanted to get back together and all his talk of “old friends” aside, Sadie knew he was really angling for a date. In the past she might have gone out with him and given the relationship another shot, but not now. Not after all that had happened to her while she had been away.

  It was ironic, Sadie thought, that all her professional dreams were coming true while her personal life crumbled away. She even had a job offer on the table to be a correspondent for the New New York Times. Because the NNYT was the most prestigious and respected news vid-mag in the System, Sadie felt extremely lucky. Accepting the job would mean leaving Io and relocating to Old Earth, of course, but she had decided to take it anyway. After all, what did she have to hold her to this narrow-minded, Goddess-forsaken moon anymore? Nothing, not a thing, Sadie told herself. And Old Earth was where all the power and money and opportunity was. That was where her future was now.

  Of course, her decision had nothing to do with the fact that Blakely and Holt were stationed there. Nothing at all. In fact, she barely ever thought of them anymore and she was sure they never thought of her because they never bothered to call…

  Don’t think about it, she commanded herself. It was months ago and now it’s over—completely, irrevocably over. The bond was gone, she was sure of that. She no longer felt any emotions but her own inside her head. No one else’s pain hurt her, no one else’s need filled her with longing, no one else’s love surrounded her and made her feel safe and wanted…Sadie sighed and dragged herself out of the chair to finish packing her things. She had never thought she could be so damn lonely inside her own skin. Had never thought she could miss feeling someone else’s emotions in the back of her mind.

  She didn’t have any romantic notions that she would “run into” Blakely or Holt when she moved to Old Earth. After all, it was a huge