Take Two Read online

  Sex with either or both of them hadn’t been mentioned again after the disastrous first night. In time Sadie got over her embarrassment and almost forgot that she had been willing to trade sexual favors for a chance at the story of the century. She was both relieved and strangely disappointed that the subject had been dropped so thoroughly, though that didn’t make any sense—did it?

  Holt was charming and a perfect gentleman and Blakely flirted with her outrageously, but he didn’t seem to mean any harm by it. According to Holt the dark-haired detective would flirt with anyone—it was just his exuberant personality coming out. Sadie enjoyed the attention and liked spending time with both partners. To pass the time she often played chess with Holt or cards with Blakely, who was an expert at every possible means of cheating. He taught her several tricks and they ganged up on Holt when all three played together until the blond detective quit, grumbling that there were more aces up either of their sleeves than in the actual deck.

  The two-week trip was so genial and pleasant after the initial awkwardness of the first night that it would have been like spending time with two older brothers if not for the slight edge of tension that still existed between them. Sadie didn’t notice it so much when she was alone with either Blakely or Holt, but whenever all three were in any kind of close proximity it gave every word spoken, every gesture made, a special significance that she found impossible to ignore.

  Somehow she kept finding herself between them, sitting on the couch, at the table, or just standing in the food prep area. It took her a while to notice that, but when she did, she wondered if it was a conscious effort on Blakely’s and Holt’s part or if they were completely unaware of it. Whether it was on purpose or purely accidental, Sadie took care that no matter how close they got, she was never directly touching both of them skin-to-skin at the same time. It just seemed…safer that way.

  She wasn’t able to find out anymore about the mysterious bond between them, but it was daily in evidence. It was there in the way the two men finished each other’s sentences, knew each other’s whereabouts at any given time, and sometimes seemed to communicate volumes with only a look.

  Sadie had almost given up on understanding whatever it was that bound them so closely together, but then something particularly strange happened the night before they reached orbit around Iapetus.

  Sadie had found a small chip repair kit and was sitting in the middle of the couch, working with a light stylus to try and bring her Overlook-Me chip back from the dead. The kit’s components were out of date, but she thought with just a little tweaking she could make it work. She was concentrating fiercely, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth as she worked, thinking that she was pretty certain she would be able to coax at least a few more hours of life out of the chip when her grip on the slick barrel of the stylus slipped and the micron-thin beam of pure radiance that powered the instrument sliced neatly through the flesh of her palm leaving a deep gash.

  She sucked in a deep breath, almost a gasp as the searing, white-hot pain screamed along her nerve-endings, insisting that her hand was on fire. The injury was so sudden and sharp that she could only stare at the wound, her palm rapidly filling with blood, and think distantly that it looked like she had a handful of her favorite nail polish. The name of the polish, she remembered, was Hot Blooded.

  “Hey, you all right, kid?” Blakely was there immediately, he had been close by in the food prep area and obviously heard the noise she made. He sat down on the couch beside her and took the hurt hand between his own. “Damn, that’s nasty,” he commented, looking at the scorched edges of the cut. “Hey, Holt,” he called. “C’mere and bring the…”

  “Got it.” The tall blond man suddenly appeared on her other side with a flat metal box that had a large red cross on the cover in his hands. Sadie spared a moment to wonder how in the Solar System Holt could have known what was happening and what was needed. He had been in the Navicom chamber, which was at the far end of the ship and soundproof as well, for the past hour. Before she could frame a question, Holt sat on the other side of her on the c-gel couch and opened the box.

  While Blakely held her steady, Holt cleaned and bandaged the wound and wrapped her hand in a flexi-seal designed to reduce movement and promote healing.

  “You’d better be careful with that for a while,” the blond man said, still holding her hand gently. “Bad cut like that will take a while to heal.”

  “I…thank you.” Sadie looked gratefully from one set of blue eyes to the other and realized that, yet again, she was directly between them. They were all sitting so close together on the couch that she could feel their warm breath caressing her cheeks and they both still held her wounded hand, Blakely touching her forearm to steady her and Holt holding her fingertips. They were both touching her.

  As the realization hit Sadie, it was like a switch was thrown somewhere in the region of her solar plexus and a surge of strange, sensual energy poured through her as it had on the two other occasions when she had been making skin-to-skin contact with both of the men at once.

  “Oh…” The sigh was torn from her throat as the comfortable atmosphere between the three of them was suddenly charged with a hot current of need. She became aware that Blakely was kissing her throat while Holt leaned over her and took her mouth with an intensity she had never felt in any kiss before.

  “Goddess, you’re sweet,” growled a low voice in her ear that Sadie recognized as Blakely’s.

  “Mmm,” Holt affirmed, too busy kissing her to make a more verbal agreement. Sadie felt like she was drowning in the sensations assaulting her and the feeling of four strong hands roaming over her body. She was wearing another one of the men’s shirts, Holt’s this time, and she was suddenly aware that someone had unbuttoned the front of it to bare her breasts. Fingers were idly twisting her aching nipples and someone’s hand was sliding between her unresisting thighs to caress the sudden wetness there.

  She knew she had to stop what was happening between the three of them, but her brain and her body were on two completely different wavelengths. All she could think as strong hands parted her thighs and two long fingers slid deep into her hot sex was how good, how utterly right it all felt. She was drowning in sweet sensation, no longer sure which man was doing what to her and not caring either. Blakely was kissing her now, having taken over for his partner so that Holt could suck her sensitive nipples into his mouth and nip them, rolling a talented tongue over each aching bud. The strong fingers continued to fuck her, slow and deep. A broad thumb brushed roughly over her swollen clit making her cry out softly. Sadie felt herself building toward a shattering climax. She was gasping and moaning into Blakely’s mouth and he swallowed her cries eagerly as she writhed between the two, large masculine bodies on the couch.

  Goddess…going to come. Going to come so hard… Sadie was thinking, arching her hips to meet the thrusting of the fingers within her. She still didn’t know whether they belonged to Blakely or Holt, but it didn’t seem to matter—they were equally welcome in her body, she realized. She only wished she could have more. The image of the three of them naked in bed together, Blakely taking her from the front and Holt from behind swam deliriously before her mind’s eye and wouldn’t go away. To be sandwiched between them like that…to be filled so utterly and completely…a part of her knew she would regret it, would feel like the Solar System’s biggest slut if she let that happen, but the desire was so strong, burning inside her like a white-hot star that couldn’t be quenched in any other way.

  I’m not like this. Not that kind of girl, part of her mind screamed desperately, but, again, Sadie’s body wasn’t prepared to notice anything other than the current of desire and the deliciously dizzying sensations to which the two men were subjecting her. Sadie had to bite her tongue to keep from begging them to take her…to fuck her. She was close…so close…

  Oddly enough, it was the itching sensation in her wounded hand that brought her back from the edge of no return. It started