“I do wish you two would sit down and watch from over there,” she said testily.
They retreated a short distance.
“The flesh is burning,” Legion pointed out.
Anya ground her teeth. “It isn’t burning. It’s cooking.” After pouring a small amount of oil into the empty skillet and giving it a few moments to heat, she tossed the vegetables in and sprinkled seasoning over them. Legion and Zavier, she discovered when she lifted the edge of the steak to determine whether or not it had cooked long enough to flip it, had moved to stand on either side of her again.
Deciding to ignore them, she focused on tending the food. “Plate,” she ordered when she’d flipped the steak. When neither of them moved, she glanced at Legion. “Three plates. In the cabinet there. You’ll need to wash them.”
He moved to the cabinet she’d pointed out and removed three plates, staring at them frowningly. She pointed to the sink. “They’ve been sitting there gathering dust for years. You’ll need to wash them—like we washed ourselves last night,” she added.
There was an advantage, she thought ruefully, to having intelligence. Nothing in her world, obviously, was the least familiar to them, but they grasped everything so quickly that it was hardly even noticeable that it wasn’t something they already knew. She tried to imagine anyone she knew who hadn’t grown up as she had adjusting so quickly but doubted many of them could manage it—even assuming they didn’t balk outright at attempting it.
She certainly couldn’t imagine Laine, or any of the other men on the station with her, washing a dish. Shoving food into the reconstituter and then dropping the empty container in the recycler seemed to be the limit of their knowledge or experience in kitchen duties and as much as they wanted to know.
The dishes were not only clean when he returned with them, they were dry. She decided not to ask him how he’d managed that. Taking the plates, she used a fork to spear the first steak and dropped it on the top plate, then tossed another steak into the skillet and stirred the vegetables. Deciding they’d browned enough, she lowered the heat and placed a lid on top to let them steam.
“I like this smell,” Zavier commented after a time. “It appeals.”
Pleased, Anya chuckled and threw him a smile. “Does it? It tastes pretty much the way it smells, so that’s always a good thing—when the smell appeals.”
When she’d taken up the second steak and tossed the third on, she spooned a heap of the vegetables onto each plate and moved the plates to the table. Grabbing knives and forks from a drawer, she washed them at the sink and then returned to the table and carved off a small portion of each steak for herself. “There’ll be more when the other steak is done, but I’m famished. I can’t wait for it.”
They settled in the chairs on either side of her, watched her for a few moments as she cut a bite sized piece of meat and popped it into her mouth and then followed suit. As hungry as she was, she watched them surreptitiously as they tried first the steak and then the vegetables. It was hard to tell from their expressions whether they liked it or not. She thought they weren’t entirely sure themselves. She discovered, however, when she’d gotten up to tend the last steak, that they’d cleaned their plates and were eyeing hers with interest.
After dividing the remaining steak into three portions, she passed them around and then gave them most of the remaining vegetables.
“You said you didn’t actually have to eat,” she murmured questioningly when she’d settled again.
“We enjoy eating,” Zavier qualified, “as we enjoy all things the vessel allows us. This is why we maintain the body. But it is actually far more efficient to simply take in the energy we need to maintain both.”
Anya frowned, confused, then abruptly recalled the mysterious drain on the power on the space platform and glanced at Legion sharply. “You were pulling the power.”
He flicked a speculative glance at her. “The void through which I had traveled so long had little to offer by way of sustenance.”
Anya digested that in silence, but it didn’t take long to realize that he had to have been near ‘starving’ when he’d arrived. If they usually pulled energy from around them and it wasn’t ordinarily noticeable, then that was the only explanation she could think of for the very noticeable power drain. He’d been badly in need.
Did that also account for his efforts to ‘persuade’ the crew, she wondered? The efforts that had led to such a disaster? He hadn’t admitted it, but he must have been very weak, and vulnerable. Maybe he’d realized that they could kill him if he didn’t use what he had to convince them not to?
He didn’t want her to know he’d been weak and it wasn’t because he thought she presented any threat to him anymore. Maybe he was just wary of allowing any potential enemy to know that, regardless of how powerful he seemed, he had weaknesses, but she thought it was far more likely that it was his pride. No man—human man—wanted to appear weak to a woman they were interested in.
And maybe her opinion of him mattered, at least a little?
It gave her a little thrill to think that might be so, and disturbed her at the same time that she should be so pleased about it.
“Why do you always refer to ‘the body’ as if it isn’t a part of you?” she asked instead of pursuing the other interesting subject.
Zavier, she discovered, was studying her assessingly. “We do not need it to exist. It contains us … and constrains us because it is almost as fragile as your own. Mine, of course, is less so than the body that Legion is so fond of, but still it requires a good deal of upkeep to maintain it.”
Legion glared at him. “That outer wrap you use is unappealing and it is not that much more resilient than mine.”
“It appeals to me,” Zavier retorted, obviously irritated.
“But does it appeal to Anya?” Legion asked pointedly, smiling at Zavier in a way that Anya could only consider very provoking.
She met their gazes as they turned to her. “Oh no! You’re not dragging me into your argument!”
Legion looked surprised and more than a little displeased. “It is not an argument.”
“Yet!”
“Then you do not find it pleasing?” Zavier said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
Anya gaped at him. “It takes a little getting used to,” she finally admitted, reluctantly, “but that’s not to say it isn’t appealing … in its own way, just different. And, of course you’re both very handsome.”
Legion and Zavier both glared at her. “Because we look the same.”
“Well, you certainly don’t act the same!” she said testily. “You’re as different in personality as anyone else. You both look just like your father! I don’t know why you have a problem looking like each other!”
“You thought that I was Legion when I first came to you,” Zavier pointed out grimly.
Anya gaped at him. “That’s completely unfair! You did that deliberately—tricked me on purpose—so you needn’t take exception to it now. Besides, I wasn’t expecting anyone but Legion because I didn’t know about you. I did notice, immediately, that you didn’t act anything like Legion. I just couldn’t figure out why you were so different.”
She got up from the table abruptly. “I see you seemed to enjoy the food,” she added nervously, grabbing up the empty plates and heading for the sink.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or more unnerved when they got up and left instead of following her as they had before.
“Remember! You promised not to do any of those scary things anymore!” she called after them a little hopefully.
It only took a few minutes to clean up. When she’d finished, she debated whether to go after them and see what they were up to. Finally, her alarm overrode her reluctance and she went outside and looked around. Frowning when she saw no sign of either of them, trying to convince herself they hadn’t removed their battle to a distance to keep her from knowing about it, she moved around the house.
As soon as
she reached the side that faced the barn, she heard them—or rather meaty thuds and crashes that she knew couldn’t be anything else but the two of them pounding away at each other as they had the first time she’d seen them fighting when they’d, apparently, run out of enough energy to blast away at each other with that.
She had the feeling when she peered in at them that the argument they’d begun in the kitchen had just escalated into physical violence. Legion had just popped—Legion in the mouth with one balled fist. Zavier had obviously decided to discard the ‘wrap’ as Legion had referred to it and had assumed his natural form and she couldn’t, for the life of her figure out which was which.
They weren’t going to be happy about that, she thought uneasily, wondering if she should just tiptoe away and let them resolve their issues with their fists if that was what they were determined to do.
On the other hand, they hadn’t resolved a damned thing and they’d obviously been going at one another fairly regularly since they were children.
She didn’t particularly want to watch them trying to pulverize each other, but after a moment, she went inside without making any attempt to be quiet and sat down as calmly as she could.
One of them noticed her immediately. His inattention to his opponent earned him a fist in the eye. He stumbled back a few steps, uttered a snarl of rage and launched himself at his brother.
Her stomach tied itself in knots, but she did her best to preserve a front of nothing more than mild interest until they’d worn themselves out and dropped tiredly to the floor of the barn.
“Who won?” she asked, drawing both men’s attention.
They studied her with almost identical expressions of annoyance.
Ignoring the uneasiness in her stomach, she shook her head at them. “For such marvelously intelligent men, this is the most incredibly stupid thing to do! Come on inside and get cleaned up and I’ll put something on those cuts and bruises.”
The two men exchanged a look.
“We have no need,” Legion said stiffly. “We are capable of mending the bodies ourselves.”
Anya glared at them, planting her fists on her hips. “But you won’t. You’ll suffer through it just like us ‘lesser beings’ do, endure the pain until it heals naturally … and maybe, then pounding on each other every time you’re angry won’t hold quite as much appeal!”
She was actually surprised when they did.
They hit a snag at the shower.
Grabbing Zavier’s hand, she led him down the hallway to the other bath and left him to his own devises. She was certain she’d correctly identified him when she heard a yelp from the direction of the shower. Biting her lip to keep from laughing, she went back into the bathroom and showed him how to adjust the temperature of the water.
“Will you bathe me as you did Legion?”
Anya studied him for a moment and realized the question wasn’t merely an attempt at seduction. It was a demand to know if he could expect equal attention and maybe a little reluctance to admit he didn’t actually know how everything worked. Discarding her clothes, she took his hand and drew him into the shower with her.
Her anger dissipated as she soaped the wash cloth. “Neither of you seems to have grasped that I don’t like to see you hurting one another,” she said quietly as she lifted the soapy cloth and began to carefully wash his battered chest. He sucked in a hissing breath as she swiped the cloth across one deeply reddened pec. She glanced up at him apologetically and felt her breath catch at the look in his eyes.
There was yearning there, but it went beyond desire.
Her throat closed as the image of him as a child filled her mind. He’s used anger to mask the hurt, confusion, and fear he’d felt at being abandoned to fend for himself. She supposed they both had, using one another to try to keep all the emotions at bay that they didn’t know how to deal with. Anger was easy, primal, she supposed, even in their race, and striking out a way to expel the hurt.
It seemed equally obvious that the pain was as fresh now as ever, or maybe they’d just fallen into the habit of clashing over every little thing and saw no reason to change?
“Why does it matter to you?” he asked finally. “You cannot feel the pain we inflict upon one another.”
“You’re wrong. I can,” she said quietly. “Maybe not the way you do, but it still makes me hurt.”
A look of cunning entered his eyes. “If it is so important to you, you can soothe the hurt by giving me pleasure instead.”
Anya couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t think it’s going to be as easy to soothe it as you seem to think,” she murmured, reaching up to rub a finger lightly along his swollen lip.
Pain flickered across his features and was firmly tamped. Smiling inwardly, Anya returned her attention to bathing him. She hesitated when she reached his genitals, but instead of leaving that part for him to wash himself as she had with Legion the night before, she lightly brushed the cloth over him and then dropped the cloth to the floor of the shower. Holding his gaze, she used her soapy hands to stroke his cock and his testicles.
He stiffened all over at her touch, his member leaping instantly, and very gratifyingly, to life. Sucking in a ragged breath, he moved closer, grasped a handful her hair and dragged her head back. Without regard for his injured lip, he covered her mouth in hungry assault, stroked his tongue boldly across hers and then sucked on hers ravenously when she replied in kind.
Her skin prickled all over with stinging sensation, the muscles low in her belly tightening in anticipation. Reaching between them, he stroked her genitals as she stroked his, parting the lips of her sex and exploring her with a hand that trembled notably with eagerness. It made her own desire spike.
She dragged in a shuddering breath as he broke the kiss, pushing her back against the shower wall as he sucked at the sensitive skin along her throat and finally grabbed her and hoisted her upward, capturing the peak of one breast in almost the same motion. She wrapped her legs around his waist to support herself as he did, locking her ankles together, and coiled her arms around his shoulders.
Her head swam with the heated, intoxicating fumes of desire swirling in her mind, her head dropping back weakly as he pulled her away from the shower wall. Briefly, a complete sense of disorientation engulfed her as a second mouth settled over hers, but she realized Legion had joined them even as she felt his heat at her back.
It was the most wildly exciting thing she’d ever felt in her life, to feel the tug of a mouth at her breast and the deeply satisfying penetration of her mouth at the same time. She lifted one arm from Zavier and looped it around Legion’s shoulders, returning his kiss with fervor. He pushed Zavier from her breast, cupped it in his hand, and began massaging it.
Zavier moved to her other breast.
In a moment, Legion broke from her lips, bent her back over his arm and suckled the breast he’d been kneading with his hand.
Liquid fire was pouring through her so fast and from so many different directions at once that Anya lost touch with everything but the focus of pleasure, clinging weakly to them both while she struggled to catch her breath. She was more than ready for it when Zavier shifted her weight and thrust inside of her, feeling her body quake in its first minor eruption almost before he’d completely claimed her desire slickened passage with his thick member.
He pulled her more fully against him once he’d burrowed to the hilt inside of her and she felt the stroke of Legion’s hand on her buttock, and then his fingers parting her cleft. His first, tentative penetration stung enough to make her jerk in pain. Easing the pressure instantly, he stroked the abused bud lightly with the tip of his finger, soothing the sting and then pressed into her again, that time without discomfort, but with a pleasurable sense of fullness that equaled the gratification she’d felt when Zavier filled her.
Holding her snugly between them, they began to move, slowly at first and then with more surety as they achieved the rhythm they needed, moved more fluidly together. Her secon
d climax was harder and longer in duration. She moaned, clung to Zavier as it thundered through her. It sent them over the edge and they began to pound into her with a fevered need that sent her spiraling dizzily upward toward release again.
Legion stiffened abruptly, drove as deeply inside of her as he could and uttered a choked growl of satisfaction as he spilled his seed into her. She groaned, trembled as she felt him reach his crisis and then felt herself pitched from the precipice again even as a deep groan vibrated from Zavier’s chest. He tightened his arms around her almost crushingly as Legion withdrew from her and stepped back, hammering into her a half dozen more times. Ecstasy splintered her. She sucked in a sharp breath that edged a scream as bliss exploded through her in wracking waves, only vaguely aware of Zavier’s shattering release.
He held her tightly for many moments after the weakening waves had begun to subside and finally nudged her chin up and kissed her gustily on the mouth. “That was worth the heart attack I nearly had, minotez,” he murmured teasingly against her throat.
She thought he was teasing. She lifted her head to look at him questioningly, smiling back at him when she saw that his eyes were dancing with humor.
Legion slipped his arms around her. Pulling her from Zavier’s arms, he settled her on her feet, then turned her in his embrace and kissed her deeply. She was almost too wobbly legged and weak to stand on her own when he released her.
Flicking a tentative smile at him, she took up the soap and washcloth again and washed Zavier’s back while Legion toyed with her ass and hit at washing hers, chuckling when they shuffled around to reverse positions. “I think the other shower might be bigger.”
Legion scanned the shower where they stood. “It is not. It only seemed so because only you and I were in it before.”
She sent him a searching look and glanced at Zavier. Relief filled her when she saw that Legion hadn’t intended to give offense and Zavier hadn’t taken it.
“We will need a larger shower,” Zavier agreed.
Lords of Mayhem Page 18
