I floated until I couldn’t anymore. When that stopped, it was like I fell, hard. Pain assaulted me. I cried out, and a cold washcloth was placed on my forehead.

“I know that hurts,” Jordan’s voice whispered in my ear. “The knife is out. You can go into the machine now.”

The pain. There was only the pain.

When I woke again, it was inside the medical machine. I wasn’t dead, which was great news, but I didn’t feel wonderful. When nausea rolled through me, I closed my eyes. Sleep came back fast. I didn’t dream, which was a relief. Medical induced imaginings were always terrifying. I preferred the warmth and nothingness of darkness right then.

When I arose for the third time, I wasn’t in the machine but tucked into a bed. It wasn’t my own since the bedside table didn’t have the crystal that Jordan gave me. It took me a second to recognize the space as Bo’s. Things were strewn all over the floor, and he’d never picked up his socks. That was what finally brought recognition. The socks all over the place.

“Hey.” It wasn’t Bo’s voice but River’s. He knelt down on the side of the bed, placing a hand on the side of my face. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost a whisper. “You’re nice and cool, which is good. The doctor we contacted remotely told us that once you came out of the machine, you needed to sleep for a good long while. I don’t think it’s been enough time. You kept trying to wake up in the machine. Turn off your brain. It’s okay to just rest right now.”

I swallowed. “You’re okay.” It was good to see his face. Xavier had clearly not finished what he intended after I passed out.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’m fine. Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again. If someone is coming at me with a weapon, you let him. I can take care of myself; I have a lot. And even if they got me, I’ve lived a life. Granted, it would be a short one, but it would have been a life. You’re not to sacrifice yourself ever for me, you beautiful woman. Do you understand?”

Truth was, I couldn’t make that promise and that was when an ache I knew would be coming, a pain I was suddenly aware of in my heart alerted me to the real reason I couldn’t sleep.

“‘Cilla, I want a promise.”

I shook my head. “You’re not getting one.”

He groaned then ran his thumb over my eyebrow. “Close your eyes. We’ll do this later.”

“Are you giving her a hard time?” The door opened and closed while Bo entered the room. “She’s not slept enough.”

River nodded. “I know.” He stood and moved away, letting Bo come close.

The man whose bed I was in took River’s place beside me. “This is my fault. I should never even have mentioned that things were going according to plan. I tempted fate. I know better. But in the future, my love, you yell out something like Bo, River’s going to get killed. You don’t dart forward like some avenging angel and take a knife in the gut.”

“She won’t promise me.” River leaned against the wall.

Bo looked over his shoulder. “We’ll work on her later.”

I closed my eyes. They wanted me to sleep. I’d try to do that. It was better than telling them the truth I knew I’d have to confess. Apparently, near death experiences meant that I had to stop lying to myself.

They were right. I hadn’t slept enough.

I walked on quiet feet through the main hallway of Malice. It was very early in the morning according to the clock in Bo’s room. The guys weren’t with me, which was a relief in the sense that seeing them watching over me would make me feel warm and snuggly. That didn’t work for what I had to do. I needed to be honest with them, even though it was going to hurt me—and them, which was worse—to do so.

I found them around the small table in the comm room. They all had coffee in their hands. It smelled amazing, although I doubted it was the first thing I should stick in my stomach after waking up.

“Hey.” Jordan jumped to his feet from the pilot’s seat. “You’re awake. I’m sorry you were alone.”

“Oh, that’s okay.”

They all started speaking at once. It was apologies and explanations and declarations about my health. I held out my hand to stop them. When Bo moved toward me with his arms open, I took a step back. There was nothing I would have loved more than a hug. Only, I couldn’t be dishonest and that would mean that I wouldn’t be hugging Bo anymore.

Or Jordan. And I wouldn’t get to know what it would be like to be with River when he trusted our feelings.

“I can’t do this.” Saying the words felt like a death. I’d imagined the whole walk over to the comm room how awful I would feel uttering the words. It was so much worse.

Jordan raised his eyebrows. “Can’t do what, love?”

Oh, I wished he had picked any other word. “I can’t live like this.”

Bo answered instead of Jordan. “This has been incredibly intense. I know that. Xavier has always been our biggest problem, but he’s dead now. He won’t be hurting anyone ever again. We’ll get back to business, the way it’s been since you joined us.”

I had to put a hand on the wall or I might faint from either lack of food or a complete emotional breakdown. “That’s the thing. This is hard to say. Impossibly hard. Because I love you. All three of you. But the truth of the matter is that I have a really hard time with the pirating. I’m not judging you. I know that in my entire life, I will never meet better men. You’re kind. Funny. Smart. Interesting. Loving people. You don’t hurt regular folks, although I’d argue that someone gets into trouble when you rob their ships, and those crews have families, too. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t the stabbing. It was the space station. I have to live somewhere quietly, where there is a chance to be decent. I know, Bo, you told me that first day that my parents sell their daughters. They try to kill their sons. I get it. They’re bad people, awful parents. I’ve always known. That doesn’t mean that I have to be a bad person, just because they are. This isn’t the life I’m supposed to live.” I sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry, Jordan. I wanted to believe the winds were for us, too. And, Bo, this isn’t because of that conversation.” The tears started. I’d never been able to control them, not when I was really upset. “River, you were right not to trust me.”

“Actually, darling”—River hadn’t moved—“I think I do trust you. Never more so than right now. This is absolute truth coming out of you, maybe for the first time.”

“The world is awful. It’s cold, and it’s hard. I never told you this before. It’s so awful I can barely stand it. My father sold off his first wife to purchase my mother. They try to kill children. I have to do better. That’s not this. I’m sorry. I’ll stay in my room except to grab food until you drop me off. I won’t get in the way. I wanted this. I really am in love with you all, but I can’t be who you need, either.”

I turned and ran. Food would wait. I wasn’t sure I could stomach it anyway.

---

The crystal Jordan had given me blinked with color in the weird, almost magical way that it always did. I was sure that someone could give me the scientific reason for why it did that, but I preferred the mystery.

I wiped at my eyes. I’d quit crying. I had no one to blame but myself. When I’d first learned what they did, I should have acknowledged my initial reaction as being one I wasn’t going to be able to change. If that made me a judgmental, awful person, then that’s what I was. They were incredible people. I loved the men, not the job.

I lifted up my shirt. A big, ugly ragged looking scar marred my skin. A doctor could make the mark go away. The machines didn’t usually handle the cosmetic. I didn’t think I’d ever get rid of it. Better to remember what had happened and what I had lost.

This was a loss. The biggest I would ever face.

I put my head in the pillow. The hours passed slowly. I waited until I was sure two of the guys would be in their rooms and one would be piloting the ship to get out of bed. I snuck out for food. As quickly and quietly as I could manage, I hydrated some meat and poured myself some water. It wasn’t the same as Bo’s cooking, but it filled me up.

I crept back into my room and closed the door. Without a tablet of my own, I had nothing to read, so I closed my eyes and just tried to breathe.

The ship changed direction. I didn’t know when I had become so attuned to Malice—the shifts in space, the movements—but the few weeks I’d been on her had taught me what certain movements meant. Whoever piloted was turning us in a different direction. Maybe there was a more direct route to where they were going to leave me.

A knock sounded on the door, and I rose. The cowardly part of myself, the one that hadn’t spoken up all this time, had hoped they’d leave me alone. How was I going to get through this again? But they deserved to tell me what a terrible person I was, and I was going to stand there and take it.

I opened the door. All three of the faces I would miss for the rest of my life stared back at me.

“Hi.” I swung the door open further. This was their ship. They could come in and yell at me on it.

They stepped inside, each one of them taking a place in a different spot in the room. River sat down on the edge of my bed while Jordan leaned against the wall on the other side. Bo kept his place in front of the door.

It was Jordan who addressed me first. “We’ve been thinking a lot about what you said. And we just have a question.”

I swallowed through the dryness in my throat. “Okay.”

“Do you really love us? You said that you did. And I don’t think you’re a liar. This is important. Is it real? Or do you just want to go and you said that to not be cruel.”

I choked back a sob. “No, I really love you. This feels like dying. Okay? And the only thing I want to do is make the pain stop. I can’t do that. I have to be honest. I think that doing this day in and day out, the pirating part, it would slowly kill me. I know that makes me a judgmental, high and mighty person. I can’t help it.”

“Well.” Bo cleared his throat, the slightest smile on his face. “Everyone has a flaw. Nice to finally see yours.”

I rubbed at my eyes. “Are you laughing at me? Why are you smiling?”

Bo took one step forward. “Truth is, we’re kind of tired of this, too. It’s what we do and in a way similar to your initial situation. We didn’t have anywhere else to go. We never did.”

“Now we think we do.” River’s voice called my attention to him. “See? We’re all thinking that your father needs to be removed from his daughters. He seems to have lived a life causing harm to all those around him. One way or another, we can get him off his farm. Would you like to go back there? With us? I mean, Bo and Jordan both had experience living off the land twenty years ago. I never did so you’re going to have to hand hold me. I’ll figure something out to be useful. Go back, take the farm, raise your sisters until they’re old enough to choose for themselves?”

I stood, frozen as though my feet might not work were I to choose to move. “Are you serious?”

“We’d never joke about this,” Jordan added. “Any more than you would lie about how you’re feeling. We can make this work. Even River who has been a city boy and a ship pirate. He’ll adjust. It’ll be a novelty that people are not trying to kill him.”

I nodded fast, so much so that my hair fell right into my eyes. “Yes. Yes. I’d like that. I’d like it so much. I would just…”

“Good.” Bo tugged me against him, kissing me hard on the mouth. “Because you’re nuts if you think you’re getting rid of us. We’d sooner slit our own throats. Took us a slow minute to decide where to go. No more of this. We don’t have to be pirates. We do have to be with you. You’re our wife.”

Jordan took me from Bo, and Bo let him like it was the most natural thing in the world. “It was too fast. I get it. You doubted. Next time, just come to us and tell us what you need. What you need matters. And in this case, it just forced us to admit what we’d all really been feeling anyway. The stabbing had started that dialogue. That’s what we were doing when you came in.”

River rose, and then I was in his arms. “I’m so sorry you got stabbed. So incredibly sorry. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t leave us. Don’t cut out our hearts. Let us make you happy. That would be the best thing I could ever do in my entire life.”

“Okay.” Tears slipped from my eyes again, and I’d thought I was cried out. But these were happy tears, and maybe they came from a different place entirely.

Bo leaned over and kissed my cheek, and then Jordan did the same. It was Bo who spoke. “I’m going to take the ship off autopilot and make sure we’re in the right direction for home.”

Jordan rocked back on his feet. “I’m going to inventory what we have here. I know you hate the stealing, love. We will have to sell it, which will be the last time. We’ll use it to help with the farm and maybe to pay off your father. If he won’t take the payoff, I’ll physically oust him. That might happen, by the way. We won’t kill him, but he has to go.”

I wiped at my eyes. “Sounds good.”

“I’m staying here, with you,” River finished.

Bo and Jordan nodded at him before they left the room. River turned me around so that I faced him directly. “You took a knife in the gut to save me. You almost died. And you did, by the way, almost die. And then you tried to leave. ‘Cilla.” He’d been calling me that a lot, shortening my name. I loved it. “You are going to either be the death of me or finally help me become the guy I should have been twenty years ago. I love you. You stood there so bravely in the control room and told us your truth. That’s after you shoved me backward and took a knife. Where do you get this strength from? I want to bottle it and use it on myself.”

I kissed his chin, and he sighed. “To be fair, River, I wasn’t planning on taking the knife in my gut. I was just trying to make sure you didn’t.”

“Well, that doesn’t negate the act. I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life.”

I almost asked him who had killed Xavier, and then I didn’t. I couldn’t remember what happened after the knifing and that was a gift. If my brain blocked out the imagery, then so be it. I’d stay ignorantly blissful.

He kissed me, gently. “I want to show you how I love you. I know it’s fast, like Jordan said. Some things just are. This is real. You belong to me. Being married to a Sandler is never easy. I will do better than the men in my family traditionally do. I promise.”

I didn’t know anything about how badly the men in his family did. I only knew that I would do everything I could for the rest of my life to see to it that River smiled regularly and always knew he could trust me.

I kissed him back, harder. I’d learned what a claiming felt like when it happened and that was what I gave him. He moaned against me which sent shivers through my body. In two seconds, I was flat on my back on the bed. His movements weren’t gentle or steady, in fact, I was pretty sure that his hands were shaking. I didn’t care. I just kissed and kissed him.

His tongue came into my mouth, and I pressed mine against it. Our mouths danced. He tasted sweet, and I lost myself in the caresses. He pulled back to look at me. In his gaze, I saw warring emotions—he was hot and also sad.

“What?” I caressed down the side of his cheek.

“I almost lost you.”

I shook my head. “I almost lost you.”

“‘Cilla…”

I kissed him to stop whatever he would have said. “Out of your own head. Here with me.”

“Yes.”

Like my telling him to switch gears made him do so, he dove back into kissing me. He moved his hand, his fingers traveling down the outside of my shirt to squeeze my breasts. I ground against him. My little bit of experience was going to go a long way this evening. Whether he knew it or not, he wanted me to lead him through the beginning of this.

I threw my shirt off, exposing my breasts. I didn’t have a bra on, having been ready to stay in bed for the rest of my time on Malice. Why bother? His eyes widened. “They’re even more beautiful than I thought they’d be.”

I forced myself not to laugh. He was being entirely sincere, and his utter awestruck expression was a real turn on. Only a foolish woman would take for granted how wonderful it was to be so completely attractive to the man in her life. Or in my case, men. I wasn’t going to be stupid about how I loved them.

I took his hand and placed it over my nipple. He squeezed it, and when I shuddered, River’s cat-like smile appeared. Yes, he knew what he was doing. Whatever insecurity still rode him earlier fled in that moment. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that. The self-confidence reappeared in his blue eyes.

He dropped his head, and rather than squeeze my nipple, he sucked on it. I fell back on the bed. Okay, yes. This was happening, and it was so hot.

“You taste like honey, ‘Cilla.”

“I love how you say my name, River.”

He was hard, I could feel how much so even through his pants. He flared his nostrils. “Hard and fast this time? Then next time, I swear, slow and all about you.”

“Never has to be all about me. It has to be about us. I want your pleasure, too. And, yes, sounds good.”

River’s gaze held steady on my face. “You are real. I have to keep reminding myself I didn’t dream you up.”

He threw his shirt off then followed with his pants. I caressed him through his underwear, wanting to feel his hard, throbbing cock in my hand for just a second. He moaned, his neck arching backward. “So good.”

“More?” I pulled him out of the slit of his briefs and stroked him again, hard.

He winced. “Not too much more, or I’m going to come in your hand.”

“You could.” In fact, my mouth watered with the thought.

River shook his head. “Not the first time.”

He tugged his underwear off then undressed me the rest of the way. I didn’t help. He had such a concentrated expression, I kind of wanted to see what River would do without my interference. He did like to execute plans.

“Flip.” He took my hips and did that for me even after he gave me the direction. “Hands on the wall. When we get to our farm, I’m getting a headboard put into your bedroom so you can hold onto it.”

River ran a finger on one of my ass cheeks. “River?” I had to question him. I’d never done it this way before, and I was all for new things, but exactly what were we doing?

He bit down lightly on my shoulder. “Just taking you from behind, darling. Nothing to worry about. I’m going to make you come. I promise you that.” He slipped a finger inside of me, and we both moaned. “You’re hot and wet. You do want me as much as I want you.”

I leaned my head back against him. “Always needing proof, love?”

“Consider it my own lack of self-confidence. I’ll pull it together after I make you come about a hundred times. Then I’ll start to believe it.”

I shook my head. I did love the sound of his voice. “Liar. You don’t have a confidence problem. You just want to hear me tell you that I want you.”

He kissed the top of my temple. “Well, that, too.”

River played with my clit. Stroked it, pinched it, swirled his finger around it until I panted for more. But he didn’t let me come. When I was close, he stopped. I laughed, unable to help myself. “Torture?”

“You’re going to come around my cock this time.”

That sounded incredible. He pushed inside of me from behind. I cried out. I’d not been taken this way before. He was deeper than I could have imagined him being. My head fell forward but not my body. He held me against him, his strong arm circling my front to act as a support. I held onto the wall as he moved in and out of me, one of his hands on my stomach, the other on my hip. This level of penetration was new but completely stimulating.

My body clenched and throbbed around him. Soon, we were moaning together, each of us ready for the completion that would take us over. I could feel the way he was learning my body. If I really reacted to a particular movement, he did it again. And again.

I could feel that I was about to shatter, and then I did. Into a million floating pieces. River cried out my name while he emptied himself inside of me.

I saw stars, colors, the movement of the universe. I was safe in his arm.

Later, as we lay tucked in my sheets, River rambled. I’d never seen him like this before, and I hoped he did this every time we made love. It would be a private thing, that only I knew about him.

“And then I was thinking that it would make sense to use the blue one. It just fits better into that compartment. And I love you. I’ve told you that right?” I nodded at him. He’d been saying it pretty consistently since we’d snuggled. I’d never hear it enough. If he wanted to say it a million times, he could.

I was getting tired. I bent an elbow to stare down at him before I kissed him, which effectively stopped him from talking. He sighed. “Love you, ‘Cilla.”

“Let’s go to sleep, River.”

He nodded. “Sounds good.”

Three months later

---

“That’s everything.” Bo jumped off the side of the ship as he addressed not me but the ship broker he’d sold Malice to. He tugged me against him, and I wrapped my arms around his waist.

“It’s a good ship,” the old man answered. “I never thought I’d see the like again.”

Jordan, who stood on my other side, turned to ask him. “What do you mean?”

“I was born on the other side of that black hole by Mars Station.”

What black hole? I’d ask the guys later. I hated showing how little I understood the universe in front of strangers.

“This ship came from there. My grandfather used to build them. He had pictures of them that I used to look at. “I’ve heard of only one other on this side of the galaxy. That one is called Artemis. No one will ever be selling her. The family that has her keeps to themselves. But this one, Malice, she came from the same shipping yard. They don’t make them like that anymore. They should. But they don’t.”

River squatted down on the ground right in front of me. “Maybe we should have charged more.”

“River,” both Jordan and I said at the same time, and he grinned at me.

We left, turning from the ship in the direction of the transport that would take us to the nearest town by our farm. We’d then walk a few hours home. My father had run for his life when we showed up. He had taken my mother and snuck away as fast as he could. They’d never even gotten to offer him any money. Cowardice did what it did, I supposed.

“You okay, Bo?” I kissed his cheek, twice. That had been his father’s ship, and the only home he’d had for twenty years.

He nodded. “It’s fine. Time moves on, and so must I. Besides, as you once said, it wouldn’t have been a good place to raise a baby. I’d rather be on the farm.”

“Baby?” Jordan rounded on me, and River stumbled before he caught himself.

“How did you know?” I rolled my eyes. So much for keeping a secret. “I didn’t plan it.” I held up my arm. “The slavers turned off my fertility chip. I didn’t know.”

Bo shook his head. “The secret puking in the bathroom the last three mornings was a tip off.”

“I’m so clueless.” Jordan scooped me in his arms. “We’re going to have a baby.”

River shouted. “Put her down. If you drop her, she’ll get hurt and now so will the baby.”

I had to laugh. We lived on my family’s farm, which Jordan had gotten working so well we might turn a profit from the wheat alone. River had taken to trading in town, and now, more and more merchants were coming to our area. He thought if it kept up, in a year we’d be a center for commerce in the district. Bo knew how to make things grow. My six sisters were so relieved at their futures. They were helping and going to school.

I was in my element. Every day was more than full and content in a way I’d never expected to be. Now there would be a baby.

All because fate rolled down on me like dominoes and knocked me to the floor. I’d woken up on a ship called Malice.

---