CHAPTER TWELVE
Location Number Three
“Well, this sucks. Chalk it up to another way I’ve screwed everybody,” Ari shouted over the wind. He turned from us and tromped through the snow toward one of what looked like three pods.
A memory hit me, and it wasn’t, unfortunately, of Orion. I had lived like this before. A very long time ago on the other side of the black hole. We’d run through the winter, feeling frozen, staying hidden, and remaining in a small enclosures that looked like that one. But then Uncle C.J. had come.
I bent over, grabbing my knees as I tried to breathe through the memory. By the universe, I had been only five years old. Why was this coming back now? I’d been hungry a lot, even though I’d pretended I ate my fill. I never wanted my mom to know. Even back then, I understood that as little as I ate, she got less. She’d die from starvation before she let me go hungry …
Tears pooled in my eyes.
Sterling knelt down in front of me. “It’s not so bad, Sweet Baby.”
I couldn’t talk to him. He was going to have to wait for me to work out whatever this was. My tongue wanted to take on that swelling feeling that temporarily rendered me mute, but I forced down the sensation.
“I think these are the same enclosures. The ones they used to set up to keep us alive. I think they’re exactly the same.”
I raised my head to see the man speaking to me. I’d seen him once, with my mother. Jackson. The boy I’d lived with for a bit, before his parents betrayed us. We’d starved and ran together. He was my first friend.
“Jackson.”
Damian pointed between us. “I take it you two know each other.”
I made myself stand straight. I was better than this. I didn’t fall apart because of some stupid memories. “A long time ago. So weird you’re with us now.”
“Weird because it’s like the universe sent out central casting and put us both in this spot and in the fight? Or weird because you don’t trust me, thanks to my parents?”
I held out my hands. “I don’t know the first thing about you. The last time I saw you, Uncle Nolan was giving your father until the count of ten to get you off the shuttle before my Uncle killed him.”
I hadn’t realized I remembered that. My head pounded. Lewis stepped behind me and rubbed my back.
Jackson kicked the snow. “Fuck. Okay. Here’s the deal. My old man and my mom and all the assholes who called me theirs until they didn’t anymore, betrayed your family. They were all rebels, but they were playing for the other side. Things went badly for us. My father got older, fatter, dumber, and meaner every passing year. By the time I was ten, I was the one keeping him alive. Didn’t go so well. When he finally croaked, I got on a ship, not even knowing where it was going. Halfway through the black hole, they found me.”
“You stowed away to the other side of the universe?” Cash crossed his arms.
“That’s right. I did. The captain turned out not to be an asshole. He trained me to fix things and then to build them.” He raised his eyebrows in challenge. “He and your uncle C.J. became good friends over the years until the captain died. Now you’ve got me. I’m not a traitor. I hate the Sandlers with a passion. They’re why the closest thing I ever had to a real father died. They strung him up and killed him just for shits and giggles.”
I took a deep breath. His story moved me in a way tales rarely did anymore. The Sandlers had a reputation for doing what he described. He’d been involved in some of the worst times of my life. We were both still standing, and for whatever reason, we were both here.
“Good to see you again.” It might have been the stupidest thing I’d ever said, but there it was.
He shook his head, but a grin formed on his face. “Nice to see you can actually speak, by the way. I always thought of you as Silent Diana.”
I really hoped no one heard that nickname and picked it up.
* * *
Over the next few weeks, we got the place in relative working order. Three pods to house hundreds of us wasn’t going to work, and I slowly but surely learned everyone’s names as we built more shelters and got life under control. If anyone looked down from space to check us out, we looked like a simple farming community trying to make it work on a desolate planet on the outskirts of space.
As it was, we were dangerously close to the Sandler border, so near his people that, as Cash said one night, we could sneeze the wrong way and end up hitting a planet he owned. I wished that was an exaggeration.
We’d come to think of our small port in space as L3, for Location Three, and if the place had any other name, we didn’t know it. In the meantime, I heard nothing from my family or Paloma. No one made the mistake of trying to make me feel better.
I snuggled into the winter coat that had become my constant companion. L3 wasn’t as cold as Orion, but it reminded me distinctly of my early childhood temperatures. Jackson had proved to be immensely helpful and an incredible builder. Once Sterling stopped following him around like he was about to commit a crime, we’d all figured out how to get along.
Ari suffered a great deal. Three quarters of his day was spent trying to figure out if what he saw and felt was actually real or a figment of his imagination. None of it was stuff he would talk about, and the longer it went on, the more he retreated into himself. One word answers had become his norm.
I sighed and sank back into my chair. My guys were actually thriving under the work. They were, after all, scientists and explorers. They’d chosen Orion. They liked cold, quiet planets where little happened.
I didn’t mind the solitude, only the temperature.
My siblings, however, hated the whole place from top to bottom. Asher was sullen and Colin not better. Their nannies, whom my mother had hired and who had been with them since Mars Station, complained day in and day out about their attitudes, and if it had been possible to let any of them leave, I would have sent the nannies on their way by now. As it was, I had six unhappy Alexander children looking at me to make it right. I was out of ideas. They hated school, and I got that, but it was all we had to do for the time being. I didn’t have the time or resources to make anything fun.
“What’s going on in your head?” Cash stood in the doorway of the office tent holding a drink in his gloved hand.
“Nothing worth discussing.” I leaned forward. “How’s the research lab going?”
Another benefit of the cold temperature was Cash could finish some work Dane had left behind when he’d taken off with my mother. He was going to cure a flu that had long plagued the Dark Planets.
I was so enormously proud of him.
“You’re not happy, Boo.”
I stood and walked into his waiting arms. “I’m cold. I have always been extremely averse to being frozen. Consider it a gift from my childhood.”
“Fair enough.” He closed the zipper on the outside of the tent. “I bet I could make you warm.”
I grinned. “Let’s see you do it.”
He set down his glass on one of our few tables. “Hands on the desk.”
Cash did so love to order me around. Excited goosebumps broke out all over my body. He got a specific timbre to his voice that immediately made my body go into high alert for wanting him.
I was fully dressed and in my winter coat, but I turned around and placed my hands on the desk. The act itself required me to bend over slightly, so my ass stuck out in his general direction. He walked over and patted it lightly, showing me hadn’t missed my derriere pointing in his general direction.
“Good girl.” He moved the hair off the back of my neck so he could kiss me there. “Remember your word?”
“No, actually.” I never used the damn thing. I doubted there would ever be a time I would be so interested in telling Cash to stop I would have to use a safe word.
He groaned behind me. “We aren’t doing this without one. So if you can’t remember the last one—blanket—then come up with another one.”
“Blanket will do.” I couldn’t help my smile. We’d done this dance before, and I had never once wanted out of whatever he’d decided we were enjoying together. Cash had never asked me to use the word “no” as “yes” either. I believed if I told him no, he would stop. But every time he insisted I have a safe word and then patted me on the head when I pretended I didn’t remember it.
As if my thinking it conjured the motion, he patted me on the head.
I managed not to laugh.
“I asked you a question before, and you deflected me.”
“Oh?” I tried deflection again. He’d never let me get away with it. This was the foreplay. I’d learned on Orion how to keep Cash’s dominant side happy.
He tugged on my pants until they dropped to my ankles. A burst of cold hair hit my bare legs, but Cash’s body heat was right behind me, and I didn’t stay cold.
He thumbed my underwear, pressing for a second on my core through the cotton panties. “I asked you a question.”
I looked over my shoulder. “Going to spank me?” Please.
I didn’t want this from the other guys, but from Cash? Yes. Yes. Yes.
He rubbed my rear, dragging down the panties with his finger. “You’re not going to top me from the bottom, Boo. I might spank you. But not when you ask me to.”
My whole body shuddered. I’d do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. I always would. The bossier he got, the more I gave in until a peace came over me so strongly I thought the whole universe would be fine. The sensation lasted a long while after we were done making love, too. The rest of the day I’d feel … relaxed.
“I love you.” I had to say it.
He sucked in his breath behind me. “Turn around.”
Really? He wanted me to let go of the table? I flipped around to face him.
Cash tilted his head to the side. “Sit on the table.”
That I could do. I nodded and complied. He stepped forward and fully pulled my panties off. I breathed heavily. If I’d have guessed, I’d have said that by now he’d have pressed his cock inside of me from behind. We’d both be quickly losing our minds. Instead, Cash was moving really slowly.
He dropped to his knees and scooted forward. I almost opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing, but I decided against it. Why spoil the moment? He was in charge. I’d trust him. It was so easy to believe in Cash. He was brilliant and so completely mine.
His mouth found my clit, and I cried out, unable to resist. He didn’t seem to mind but instead pushed on my thighs to open them slightly more. I made way for him, and he pressed his tongue against me. I closed my eyes. By the universe, it felt good.
Cash moaned against me, causing vibrations that only intensified the pleasure his mouth moving against my clit already caused within me. I fell back on my elbows; my neck seemed to give up the ability to hold up my head, and I let it hang where it wanted.
There was nothing but Cash and me. His mouth on me until I came. The room spun, and my husband had a smug smile on his face.
“Nothing makes me happier than making you come.”
I crooked my finger at him. “Think you could do it again? This time with your big cock?”
He laughed, a long sound that was over almost as fast as it started. “Is that a challenge?”
“Maybe.”
He scooted me over until I could lay flat on my back without banging into the chairs or any other make-shift furniture that filled my office. I tugged at his pants.
“Take them off me.” He ran his fingers over my stomach.
I nodded and sat up enough that I could undo his button, unzip his fly, and pull off his pants. “Underwear, too?”
“Yep.”
I wasn’t going to do anything without his permission since that was how he liked this. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t play a bit in the meantime. Before I took off his briefs, I ran my hand over his cock. It jumped in my hand. For Cash, control in the bedroom was everything. He was close.
I tugged the remaining clothing down off of him, freeing his fully erect cock. I ached to have him inside of me.
“Can I touch you?”
He shook his head. “Not this time, my love. I’ll come off too fast if you do. I want to come inside of you.”
Cash pushed at my legs, spreading my thighs before he moved into a position where he could enter me. He inched inside before pressing deeper and deeper until I sheathed him entirely. He moaned, an almost pained look crossing his face.
I stroked my hand down the side of his face. “It won’t take me long to come again.”
His mouth met mine while his body started to move. There was nothing gentle about it. His movements were frantic, each stroke causing friction against my clit. It was almost too much, but I loved it.
There was no warning I was going to come again. I exploded around him, my whole body clenching, the inside walls of my pussy milking him tightly. He moaned loudly before coming hard, deep inside of me.
I closed my eyes. Things were rough here, but there were these extreme moments of happiness. On the floor with Cash, the cold didn’t matter. He made everything warm.
I ran my hands up and down the strong muscles of his back. He hadn’t moved in a bit, and I loved how his weight felt on top of me. His breathing wasn’t deep. He hadn’t fallen asleep. We were both simply being quiet.
He’d asked me a question. “I was thinking about how difficult things are here. I’m not now.”
“Where was the easiest place you’ve ever been?” He rolled over, bringing me with him. We’d get cold like this soon, and I hated to think of the moment we’d have to move.
“Orion.” That was an easy question. Much as I’d missed my family, those had been the best, easiest time of my life.
He smiled against my hair. “I hoped you would say Orion. So the thing is that it was really hard to get it up and running. By the time you got there, we mostly had it. But it was rough in the beginning. Give us some time. We’ll make this home.”
“It is home. You guys are here.”
An hour later, I sorted through files on my tablet in a considerably better mood. My Cash-zone, the way I felt after I made love to him, when it felt like the whole world ran smoothly and I had no worries, made my day easier. I whistled while I read reports from the station head. I’d never wanted to have my mother’s job, but it looked like I had it, for the time being.
All was going to be well.
A loud bang sounded in the distance. I jumped to my feet. What in the universe was that? I rushed out of the tent, grabbing my coat on the way out. A blaze of fire soared into the late afternoon sky, and I stood frozen watching it. My mind struggled to understand what I witnessed.
Something was on fire … but what was it?
It was a tent, one of the big ones, and from where I was, the distance indicated it was the medical bay. My heart lodged in my throat, and my feet were moving before my head caught up to what I’d realized. The medical bay had blown up.
I rushed forward and nearly collided with Damian, who got in my way. “Don’t go any farther. I’m serious, Diana. You stay here.”
I shoved him off. Cash and Lewis and Ari and who knew who else were probably inside of that bay, and it blazed like an inferno. I wasn’t staying an appropriate distance back. I rushed forward, around my husband who still ordered me not to go any farther.
When I reached the fire, Damian caught me, tugging me against him. Jackson ran toward the flames; he was saying something, but I couldn’t hear him. I whirled around, looking for my loves. Damian had me, and I caught Sterling surging forward carrying a fire device to battle the flame. Judge was right behind him, bringing up the rear.
Where were Cash and Lewis? Where was Ari? I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t form words, and I wouldn’t be able to do so until I saw them.
Lewis’ dark head caught my attention. He leaned over someone. I surged forward to him, Damian right behind me. It was Damian’s sharp intake of breath that made me focus on what I saw. Lewis worked hard, pumping on someone’s chest while Ari held a device over the person, taking life signs.
Whoever it was looked badly burned.
“Diana, don’t look,” Damian pleaded with me, but as I stared at the ground, I found I couldn’t look away. Who was that? It was the coat that finally got me. It was the orange hat that caught my attention. Whoever lay there must have been on their way back outside. I knew that hat.
Damian pulled me against him. Why did he do that? I struggled in his hold, but he didn’t let go.
The orange hat, half burned, half off…
I knew that damned hat. I’d looked at it every day when I’d been hidden on Artemis and watching the guys before I knew them. Cash had come out wearing that hat. I’d even thought of him as Orange Hat before I had a name to give him.
“Lewis.” I called out his name, and he raised his eyes to meet mine. Utter horror spread over his gaze before he hid it away. “What do you need?”
Panic wasn’t helpful. Action was what was called for. The how and why and what would come later. Cash would not die. If he was dead, they were going to figure out how to bring him back. He didn’t get to die. He didn’t get to leave. I would see to it. So help me, I would.
Tears I had no time for came and went. “Lewis, what do you need?”
Ari answered. “First, tell me if there are actual bears all around us or not.”
What? I didn’t understand him, but right at that moment, with no time to speak, I decided not to question him. “No bears. Just snow and fire.” And Cash not moving. By the universe, was he even breathing?
Ari spoke again. “Nearly all the med machines were in there. We need a med machine, damn it.”
“Let’s move him.” It seemed simple enough. They needed a med machine. All of our shuttles had them.
Lewis finally answered me. “I can’t move him and keep him alive, Doll. I can’t. I’ve barely got him. He took the full blow. I don’t know why he’s not already gone.”
That wasn’t an acceptable answer. Something had to be done and …
I looked up as a small shuttle roared over our heads. It landed with a loud thunk, indicating a sloppy landing. The hatch opened, and Judge rushed out. Hadn’t he run toward the flames? I’d lost track of him. “Come on.” He waved violently. “Med machine. Let’s go. Now.”
Lewis had said he couldn’t move him. He lifted his gaze from where he still did compressions on Cash’s chest to meet Damian’s eyes.
“It’s his only chance. Help me.”
Damian let go of me, and a frenzy of movement happened. I gasped; my chest felt tight. They couldn’t move him, and yet they had to. Would he even survive the few seconds it took to get him to the machine?
And could the med device even fix him? Ari, Judge, Damian, and Lewis carried him into the shuttle. I sank down into the snow. I had to give Lewis space to get things done. They didn’t need me hovering. I could feel the tears pooling in my eyes. I wouldn’t shed them. Cash wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He couldn’t.
Sterling arrived in my view. I wasn’t sure how long I had been sitting in the snow. I could fall apart, and he would love me. I knew that. Still, I stayed strong. I’d survived many things, but I knew I’d break apart into a million pieces if Cash died. If that happened, and only then, would I lose it. Until then, I was going to keep myself intact and helpful.
“What do we know?”
“Fire’s out. It was a bomb and not one of your father’s creations. We’ve got the guy who set it. He has residue all over himself. He’s been with us a long time. He works for Sandler. His only instruction was to hit us when we were vulnerable. As far as I can tell, and I need to dig deeper, he hasn’t been able to contact Sandler since we got here, thanks to the steps Judge took to control outgoing communications. I’ll make sure. But I think that’s why he set it off today. Frustration. Med bay was vulnerable. No guards on the doctors. No security.”
I got to my feet. “That was stupid. I should have done better than that.”
“No, this is on me. I’m security.”
“We trusted this group.” Which was dumb. Assuming everyone was okay because my family thought so was a mistake. They’d been wrong before. Very, very wrong. “And we were still setting up. We would have worked out security eventually. That changes. Now. Sterling, no holds barred. Do what it takes to make us safe.”
He nodded. “I have always admired your backbone. You do what you have to when it’s called for, no matter how hard.”
“Cash is fighting for his life. Don’t compliment me. This moment here—this whole day—this is the worst I’ll ever be. Never again will I mess up and not take precautions. I will always assume everything could go wrong. And if he dies …”
I couldn’t finish my statement. If he died, they could bury whatever part of me believed in happy endings. If he left this world, then I’d prove exactly how much of my mother lived inside of me.
“Sweet baby, if anyone could survive this, it’s Cash.”
“Optimism doesn’t suit you, Sterling. I bet it choked you to even say that.”
He picked me up in his arms, and I let him hold me. “Don’t lose your soul. I’ll do the really bad stuff. I just need your permission.”
I kissed his cheek. “You have it. How awful am I for giving it to you?”
“I’d have done it anyway. Anything to keep my family safe.”
Anything. I agreed.