A Valentine for Two

by Lia Davis

“I’m not wearing pants, I’m fine.” After another kiss, she turned her attention to Talbot. Before she ever approached, she saw his erection outlined by his tighter fitting clothing.

  He kept his eyes on hers while she worked the more complex fastenings of his shirt. She couldn’t help but run her hand over his smooth chest, then down his stomach to the belt that held his weapons. “May I remove this?”

  He answered by raising his eyebrows.

  At his agreement, she unbuckled the belt and took care setting it aside to at last rid him of his pants. Wearing no undergarments, he presented his erection to her, long, thick and smooth.

  “That’s what the thought of you two do to me.” His voice came out low, breathy.

  Her core heated, and she gave a quick glance back to Lucas. He practically had his tongue hanging out.

  Though the thought of leaving and satiating all of them did cross her mind, she still had her duties to complete. As her parents taught her, she needed to leave her males craving more before giving in. “If you let me dress you, I promise later I will do the undressing.” In a bit of a naughty move, she gave Talbot a light caress down his length before holding the pants out to him.

  “You’re not going to have time to undress me, I’m ripping this off as soon as we reach the inn, and you better be ready.” He stepped into the pants then lifted his arms and allowed her to put the tunic on.

  At his new look, she smiled, but there was still one last detail. She picked up the last garment and held it up, first showing it to Lucas.

  He stood up straight and nodded.

  “Here’s one more piece.” She went around Talbot, stepped up on a little stool put in the room exactly for this purpose, and fastened a sheer silver cape around his neck. Her breath caught at the act.

  “What’s this?” Talbot turned to the mirror and the cape flared out behind him.

  Lucas came over and ran his hand down Talbot’s shoulder. “That looks perfect.”

  “I don’t understand.” Talbot looked between them.

  “Everyone in a triad has a certain role.” At practically branding him, she lowered her voice. “The female is obvious, but with males it’s sometimes harder to tell who fulfills which duties.”

  “So I get a cape, meaning?” He faced Lucas.

  Lucas took a breath. “You’re the vertex, the leader, the alpha.”

  Her males stared at each other. Strange how the roles simply happened. It was natural.

  “I must say that I love my outfit.” Talbot wrapped one arm around Lucas then one around her. He drew them both close and gently kissed each of them. “As the leader of this Triad, do I get to say we leave now?”

  “Don’t you want to see more of the bazaar?” She admitted she teased them.

  “That is not at all what I want to see.” He put his belt back on, and both he and Lucas gathered up their clothes.

  Together, they walked up to the counter to make their purchase.

  “This outfit will definitely not work on Kinjani. I may have to leave it behind.” Again, he offered Lucas some coins, and Lucas paid using his tablet.

  At his words, her cheeks heated. How did she forget? Talbot wasn’t permanent—he was leaving in a few days. Not off to another planet, but off to another galaxy. He had a life elsewhere, duties and a job. She couldn’t just dub him the leader and expect him to stay. It wasn’t even an expectation, because there was no way he was allowed to stay let alone mate with them. Their government would never allow it, never mind Kinjani.

  Yes, it had only been a couple of days, but they fit, and she knew he was the one. The one who filled the gap, would protect her and Lucas, would fulfill them. Yet, in a couple more days, he would be gone. Not again.

  Tears welled up in her eyes and she pressed her palm to her chest.

  “Kenna, what’s wrong?” Lucas took hold of her wrist.

  No doubt she couldn’t utter the words and keep her composure. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You can’t walk off alone.” Lucas raised his voice.

  Talbot turned to her.

  She couldn’t even glance at him in the Mersennean clothes that he wouldn’t need soon.

  “Kenna?” Lucas held her tighter.

  “I just need a water chamber.” She shook him off and tried not to run out through the shop, which would cause Lucas to chase after her. They lost the third of their triad years ago, now they would suffer the loss again. What was worse? Death? Or knowing the one you wanted was out there somewhere and being kept away? She didn’t know, she didn’t care, she just knew she needed to get out of there. The tears finally escaped, and so did she.

  Chapter Eight

  “Kenna doesn’t take this long when she needs to use the water chamber.” Lucas raked his hands through his hair and dashed toward the female’s bath chamber door, wondering exactly how he would enter with the other males hovering around the exit waiting for their female and not get ripped to pieces.

  Talbot went to his side and captured his arm. “Maybe she’s preparing herself for something.”

  Hold on one Mersennean minute. He knew exactly how he would get inside and pointed to the door. “Talbot. You need to go in there and make sure Kenna is all right.” They now had their third. No matter how Kenna dressed up their third he was still a big strapping powerful alien with weapons attached to his waist, and he would dare anyone to stop him from entering no male’s land.

  Two females went through the door, but not before glancing back at them twice.

  “You don’t enter a female’s area like that.” Talbot shook his head. “Plus, she just may need a few minutes.”

  The vertex was supposed to protect them, while Lucas fell into his place as the meridian or reasoner. “No offense, but after all these years I know exactly how long it takes for her to do everything.”

  With a raised eyebrow, Talbot stared him down. “I’ll make you a deal. If those two women exit before Kenna, I will go inside and retrieve her.”

  A female walked out, giving Talbot a long look before being scooped up by her males. “Was that one of them?” Lucas pointed in the direction the triad took.

  Talbot shrugged.

  “You said you would go after Kenna if the two females came out before her, how will you know when to go in if you don’t know if that’s one of them?” He stepped in front of Talbot and stared him down.

  “Honestly, I really only care about what Kenna looks like, I wasn’t paying attention to anyone else.” Talbot gave him a grin.

  He narrowed his eyes. A second female exited and he was quite sure that was one of the ones. “Talbot.”

  “Fine.” He tossed his cape behind his shoulders and with a little dramatic flurry ran into to the female water chamber. What was wrong with Kenna? He prayed she didn’t become ill, not with the last few days of their time together.

  Two males practically growled in his direction and went to go inside as well.

  “Wait.” He held his hand out. “We are just checking our female. She’s been in there quite some time.”

  Both males stopped. “That’s your third?” one of them asked.

  Lucas opened his mouth, but didn’t know the right answer. Kenna dubbed Talbot their vertex, even dressed him like part of their triad, but he was from another planet, a different species all together. Such unions weren’t allowed on Mersenne.

  Before Lucas had the chance to speak, Talbot rushed out. “Kenna isn’t in there.”

  “What?” Without giving the words a chance to sink in, he pushed Talbot aside, covered his eyes and ran inside.

  “Excuse me.” A female walked by him.

  Talbot came up behind him. “I checked all the little rooms and opened the door on a female in the middle of her ablutions. I’m pretty sure she’ll never forget seeing a Kinjani for the first time.”

  After personally checking each of the private rooms, he wiped his hand over his face and dashed back out of the water chamber. “We have to find her.” Apparently, Kenna nev
er went to the water chamber. She dashed away, but why? Heat overtook him as tried to think of where she went, where to search. Anything could happen out there.

  “Are all Mersennean males so protective?” Talbot shielded his eyes and scanned the area. “Maybe she simply needs a few minutes.”

  “Yes, thousands of pieces of literature have been written about how our females are to be cherished and sheltered. You have responsibilities now. A triad is sacred and you better get used to it as our—” He cut himself off and turned away. There was no doubt why Kenna ran off and the thought nearly brought tears to his eyes.

  “What is it?” Talbot took him by the shoulders and led him off to one side.

  Lucas took a breath and looked up into those silver eyes. No wonder Kenna was taken with him. He was as well. The male basically vibrated with energy. “No matter what we call you or how we dress you, no matter if you sleep in our bed or how you tend to us, the fact of the matter is that you are going to leave when we return to the space station.”

  Talbot let his hand fall to his side and took a breath. “The thought has crossed my mind more than once. Mersenne doesn’t offer visas. They don’t allow interspecies unions, and they don’t allow females off their planet.”

  If Talbot looked into it, he must care. If Kenna ran off, she must care. If he let another even touch Kenna so easily, he must care. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “First, we need to find her.” Talbot took his arm.

  “I know where to look.” With no time to think about his growing feelings for Talbot, he pointed to the exit. “She likes to go look at Femkat when upset. She had to go to a clearing where she could see it unobstructed.”

  Together, they left the bazaar. The surrounding area was reserved for flora and fauna, trees and little paths.

  As if thinking with one mind, they both turned and found not only exactly what they were looking for in the form of a wide open space, but who they were looking for in the form of their female. They dashed over to her.

  She stood with her back facing them, arms crossed over her chest and looking up. Sure enough, against the pink sky was Femkat, its rings just starting to glow with Helia lowering in the sky. “They said many eons ago Femkat had a satellite all its own. Then one day, long before we had the imagery to capture it, a comet crashed into the little satellite, shattering it to pieces. Rather than destroy Femkat, the debris surrounded our moon, melded together to create the different colors, and graced it with the ribbons. Out of destruction came something glorious.”

  He took her hand. She held him tight.

  Talbot took his position behind them and wrapped his arms around their shoulders pulling them to him. “Then I would say that after my near crash landing onto your planet, something magnificent came out of that.”

  Both he and Kenna turned to Talbot making a little circle.

  “The rings will always be there,” she whispered.

  Talbot brushed the back of his hand along her cheek. “That’s not true. You and I both know that one day eons from now they’ll dissipate and eons from then, those looking up at Femkat won’t believe there was ever a moment in time where ribbons of color wound around their moon.”

  A tear streamed down her cheek. “Do you know that every Helia cycle we have a celebration of the rings? We just appreciate them.”

  He wiped her tear away. “Then maybe, since we don’t know how long the rings of anything else will be there, we simply celebrate the time we have?”

  “Tal—”

  Before she said anything else, he cut her off by putting his finger over her lips.

  “We don’t know anything but what is right now.” As if to send her his message, Talbot widened his eyes.

  Lucas nodded. The way Talbot dealt with their female definitely confirmed the position they bestowed upon him.

  “Do you think we can celebrate being together, since that is what is happening right now?” Their vertex bent down and gave her a kiss.

  The way Kenna melted into Talbot stirred something deep inside Lucas. Watching them together both aroused and comforted him.

  When Talbot pulled back, she looked up at him with glazed over eyes. “We can do that.”

  Lucas expected no less of an answer from Kenna. She would listen to her males when it came to such matters.

  “Then I say we leave. I just want to be with the two of you.” Talbot led the way back to the vehicle, instantly falling into the role he craved and coveted, but for how long?

  Chapter Nine

  Once more, Talbot found himself in bed with Lucas waiting for Kenna. Only, things had changed. A fun little romp with two Mersenneans suddenly turned into him being a leader of a triad. Not a place he wanted when this started, but in the course of two days, it was suddenly his primary goal.

  Before he waxed poetic about the two beings who came into his life when he needed them most, and how they were going to be ripped apart as soon as their little excursion was over, he needed to figure out what to do, make sure he did right by all of them.

  He leaned back among the pillows and looked up through the skylight. It seemed fitting that the room at their inn had a huge ceiling window. By the time they arrived, Femkat had risen against the night sky and put on quite a show. No wonder Kenna was so taken with the satellite.

  “What’s next?” Lucas’ voice broke his reverie.

  Lucas possessed the right amount of masculinity coupled with a bit of softness he liked. The male was a thinker and that stirred him. Since he was old enough to recognize desire, he knew he required both sexes to be fulfilled. This situation was tailor-made for him except for the minor inconvenience of planetary law and intergalactic travel. Rather than dwell on the negative, he needed to do as he asked Kenna and celebrate what they had right now. He curled his arm around Lucas and pulled him over. “This.” He connected their mouths.

  In less than an instant, Lucas swirled his tongue around Talbot’s and pulled him closer. His kiss was hard, full of demands, the male needed to be satisfied now.

  With his passion growing, he took his opportunity to sneak his hand down Lucas’ hip, pulled aside his bedclothes and gripped his erection. “Someone is aroused.” Hard, throbbing, thick, Lucas started to move with him the second he treated him to some strong strokes.

  “Ah.” Lucas slid his hand over and found Talbot’s erection.

  No sooner had they begun than the door to the bath chamber opened, and Kenna gasped.

  Both he and Lucas lifted their heads. She was more ethereal than ever in a see-through, flowing gown. The light shining through the thin fabric gave him the perfect view to her gorgeous curves.

  “Kenna.” Lucas propped himself up on his elbows. “I just...”

  She lifted her hand. “Don’t stop. Kiss him again.”

  The two gazed at each other a bit longer, then Lucas faced to him, and gave Talbot another strong kiss, one that he returned with just as much enthusiasm as his male counterpart.

  “Kenna, now.” Lucas growled and held his arm out.

  At Lucas’ command, she untied the garment, let it fall to the floor and took her rightful place between them.

  As she kissed Lucas, Talbot let his hands travel over her, taking in her copious breasts, her hard nipples, ripe and perfect for tasting, and her luscious hips.

  Right when he thought he would burst if he didn’t get some attention from her, she turned and kissed him.

  Her lips caressed his, gifting him with a gentle confection in stark contrast to Lucas’ ministrations, the combination setting him ablaze.

  Like the night before, they all intertwined. Hands and mouths explored one another and all too soon they were panting in need. At this point, he wasn’t even sure who was stroking him, working to heighten his desire, but he knew he had to have some relief soon. Never had he been in this much want.

  Kenna positioned herself on her side, with her back toward Lucas and draping her lovely leg over Talbot’s hip. “I want you both. I’m finally
ready to have two males.”

  “We are ready to bond with you.” Lucas’ tone came out low, heavy.

  Kenna may be the expert in rituals, and Lucas may have the book smarts behind him, but he knew plenty of how life on Mersenne worked. The fact she was willing and wanting do this with him was a gift he could never squander. As Lucas said, it was a bond, a lifetime bond and once more he took on the position of the vertex. While his arousal was at an all-time high, he also couldn’t take from them something they would never get back. “I am honored, and I want you more than anything, but tonight, we are going to enjoy each other instead, let’s learn each other before we bond.” Without giving them a chance to protest or talk him or themselves into something they weren’t ready for, he pushed Kenna back and gave her a deep kiss while pulling Lucas closer.

  He guided Lucas to take over her mouth while he slid his lips down her neck, chest and finally kissed her breasts, taking each one of her nipples into his mouth, alternating between kissing, sucking and nipping at the sensitive peak.

  Beneath them, she squirmed and Lucas took his hand and guided his fingers between her legs.

  Yes, Talbot had heard about Mersennean females, but once his fingers entered her wet channel, coupled by Lucas doing the same in his own adjacent spot, he nearly lost it right there.

  “Oh, oh.” Again, she turned to her side and moved with them.

  “She needs more for fulfillment.” Lucas removed his fingers and entered her.

  Talbot groaned as he felt Lucas fill her. He had to resist and not give in.

  “Go as deep as you can.” As Lucas thrust into her, he reached over and took hold of his erection, once more stroking him in the same yet opposing rhythm to which he drove into Kenna.

  “Talbot!” Suddenly Kenna took hold of his wrist and she rippled around his fingers.

  Her orgasm came on fast, and he longed for the release she experienced, yet loved the fact he could bring her there.

  “Yes.” Lucas rammed into her and stayed in place. The throbs of his release resonating through his fingers.

  Kenna held Talbot in place as a second climax hit her, this time around Lucas. “Don’t move!” She tensed and suddenly both her channels pulsed in time causing her to arch her back and yell out.