Take Two Read online

  “Wait a minute!” Blakely grabbed the narrow shoulders and turned the man around, forcing a confrontation. “What are you talking about?” He gestured to Sadie’s limp form lying cold and quiet on the exam table. “She’s gonna be fine, go on, say it. I wanna hear you say she’s gonna be fine.”

  “Blake…” He felt a strong hand grip his arm and Holt’s sorrow and certainty flowed through him. “She’s dying, partner,” Holt said.

  “I’m sorry,” the Medi-tech said again, blinking watery brown eyes rapidly. “But I’ve seen many, many daemon attacks. I wish I could help her, but there’s no known cure. Once the victim loses consciousness, well…My best advice it to take her somewhere and make her comfortable. It won’t be long.” He left, shutting the door behind him, leaving them in the room that smelled of alcohol and death.

  “Nonono,” Blakely was shaking his head, vaguely aware of Holt’s arm around his shoulders, trying to comfort. “She can’t die, I won’t let her.”

  “You can’t help it. Nobody can.” Holt’s voice was rough with unshed tears. “Look at me, partner, you think I don’t feel the same way? What happened to her—she was trying to save me. She came at that thing with a pocket knife when it grabbed me. Your little shardi—the one you keep to open wine units, you know? She must have gotten it from your pack before she followed us.”

  For the first time Blakely registered that Sadie was wearing his clothes, an old shirt and a pair of sweatpants he wore on days off. Her slender, pale form swam in the oversized clothing and he suddenly remembered the bundle of new clothes he had gotten from Sheila for her to wear that lay in a glitzy ball of fabric at his feet. He had wanted to surprise her, to make up for not taking her along. She’d never wear them now.

  “Fuck,” he muttered brokenly, pulling away from Holt as the misery ate at his soul. He felt her going, felt her slipping away and knew his partner was right, there was nothing he could do about it.

  “I’m so Goddess-damned sorry, Blake,” Holt muttered hoarsely. “I know how you felt about her. I…I was beginning to feel the same way, I guess.” The familiar sapphire eyes were bright and the blond man’s chiseled features were twisted with the same agony Blakely felt inside himself. For the first time, though, sharing the grief didn’t make it less.

  “You know the worst part?” Blakely turned from his partner to stroke the honey soft hair away from her pale cheeks.

  “The worst part is that I don’t just feel it in here,” he pointed to his chest. “I feel it in here, too,” he pressed a palm to the back of his neck. “I feel her dyin’ like I’d feel you dyin’ partner. Feel like a part of me is goin’ with her.” He cupped the cool, lovely face in his hand, remembering how her cheeks had flushed with desire and fear the first time they pinned her between them. Remembering the heat that had flowed like a cord binding her to him and Holt. She should have been the one. He had been certain she was and despite Holt’s doubt he knew she would come around and accept them for what they were. Would agree to join with them and make them complete. “Just wish there was somethin’ we could do,” he whispered, stroking her cheek. “Oh, Sadie…”

  “Wait a minute, partner.” Holt’s voice had a funny sound to it that made him look up at the sapphire eyes that were narrowed in concentration. There was a tiny tickle in the back of his brain, something like hope.

  “What? What are you thinking?” He grabbed Holt’s shoulders and all but shook the taller man. “Tell me, Holt, what?”

  “It’s a long shot, but…Remember how we healed her hand?”

  Blake’s hopes deflated. “You think I didn’t think of that? That was a little cut on her hand, Holt. This is life or death. Probably death.” His shoulders slumped.

  “But what you said, about feeling her inside, feeling her die. Blake, I do, too. I feel her, too, in here.” Holt pressed the back of his neck the same way the dark detective had a moment before. “I think it’s the start of a bond, Blake. Not a strong one, not yet since we haven’t actually…you know. But it’s there, inside us, waiting to grow. If we can feel her the way we feel each other then maybe we can heal her. Come on…”

  12

  “She’s so cold,” Blakely said worriedly as he laid the precious bundle gently on the king-sized gelafoam bed back in their ship.

  “First thing to do is warm her up,” Holt said with more conviction than he felt. He wasn’t sure if what they were about to try was going to work or not. He only knew they had to try. What he had told Blakely in the Medi-tech’s station was no lie; he was beginning to feel for Sadie, too. No, say what you mean, Holt, he told himself sternly. I’m beginning to love her. But Goddess, how can I help it?

  He kept reliving that horrific moment when Xavier had pushed him into the roiling blackness, feeling the cold-iron bands of the daemon’s tentacles wrap around him and realizing, too late, that he had seriously underestimated its strength. He should have known better; Snuggly had tried to warn him. The daemon had been feeding off of Xavier’s pain and shame and hatred for weeks, growing stronger and stronger from the intoxicating brew of extreme emotion. And Holt had simply walked into the room and put his back to it, ignoring it, as he always had in the past.

  The back room of The Slice had always been a convenient place to conduct private conversations without fear of being overheard because of the daemon’s presence on one side of it. Holt and Blakely had used it before knowing that if you just ignored the malevolent hunger that pervaded the room’s atmosphere and the itch of ravenous red eyes on the back of your neck you’d be fine. Only this time it had been different. It wasn’t until the daemon wrapped him in its ice-cold coils immobilizing his arms before he could go for his blaster that Holt realized he had made a mistake. Probably the last mistake he would ever make.

  He knew that Blakely would feel his danger through the T-link and come for him, but by the time he got to the back room of The Slice it would almost certainly be all over. He’d had time for a last thought, Sorry, partner, and then that double row of razor teeth descended over his throat and knew this was it…

  Then someone had been beside him in the darkness, shouting his name in a clear, high voice. Blake? But it couldn’t be. He knew instinctively through their link that his partner was still only halfway there, fighting the crowds desperately to get to him. Then there was the odd sensation of another presence in the link, faint at first and then growing stronger; there was an indefinably feminine flavor to it…Sadie! He’d realized it about the same time he saw her honey-colored hair whip past his face as she plunged the pitifully inadequate shardi-knife into the daemon’s bulk.

  The daemon had howled, a soul-ripping noise that Holt heard inside his head rather than through his ears, and turned, full of inhuman rage on Sadie. The moment it caught a taste of her fear it dropped him in favor of the sweeter meat. Holt had been surprised and dismayed, but Sadie was scared to death, and terror was a much tastier emotion than shock.

  She was terrified and yet she had come after him into the daemon’s lair armed only with Blakely’s old pocket knife and a determination to save him or die trying. No one else in the whole Solar System—hell, the whole galaxy—would have done that for him. No one but his partner, Blakely, the other half of his soul. And now Holt was wondering if he would have to count his soul in pieces of three instead of halves in the near future. If we can just pull her through this, he told himself grimly.

  “Help me undress her,” he directed Blakely. The dark, curly haired detective nodded shortly and they began stripping the sweatpants and shirt off her slender form. Her skin, Holt thought, was creamy white—too white with the unnatural pallor caused by the daemon’s venom coursing through her system. Somehow they had to neutralize the effects of the daemon’s bite and bring her back.

  “Now what?” Blakely asked, a look of worry still filling his indigo eyes.

  “Now we get undressed too and lay on either side of her,” Holt directed, hoping he was doing the right thing.

  “Holt,” Bl
akely objected even as he stripped off his jacket and shirt and shoved down the ragged work pants. “We’re not gonna…not gonna do her now, are we? I mean look at her, she’s barely breathing.”

  “No, not unless there’s no other way,” Holt said, pulling off his own clothing as fast as he could. Sadie’s respiration was shallower by the minute, as Blakely had pointed out; there was no time to lose. “First we’ll warm her up, then we’ll worry about what to do.” He got into bed with her, facing the beautiful, still face, and gathered her into his arms, pressing his naked warmth against her cool flesh. Blakely climbed in on the other side and cuddled close to her back, throwing muscular arms around both Sadie and his partner.

  “Come back to us, Sadie,” Holt heard him whispering in a low, urgent voice. “Come back, baby, we need you…”

  “Sadie,” he whispered himself, looking down at her sweet face so still on the pillow before him. Despite the fact that her body was beginning to warm he could still feel her life-force ebbing away through the weak, barely there bond they had formed with her. Would it be enough to bring her back? Only if they strengthened it somehow, Holt decided. This wasn’t the time or the place to bond fully, to form a Life-bond—they would need Sadie’s complete cooperation and willingness to be penetrated by them both for that to occur—but there were other ways to strengthen the fledgling bond. Gently, he bent his head and began to press his lips to her cheeks, laying delicate kisses over the golden fans of her eyelashes and the arch of her brows. “Kiss her…touch her,” he whispered to his partner before going back to work, covering her beautiful face in light, butterfly kisses.

  Holt felt Blakely’s hands moving over Sadie’s sides and his own, caressing, touching, trying to convey a love so deep it couldn’t be put into words. He waited anxiously for the T-link to open between them, to widen to a river of pleasure that would carry them all away, but it didn’t happen. Sadie was silent and cold in their arms. They were still losing her. No, not yet…you can’t go yet. Not when Blakely and I have finally found you. Not when I’m just beginning to love you the way he does.

  “Sadie, please,” he begged softly. Then, acting on an impulse he couldn’t explain, he dipped his head and took her soft, pliant mouth with his own. Covering the sweet pink lips, he forced his way inside, pressing his tongue in to caress hers, giving her the kiss of life the only way he knew how…

  Sadie took a soft, shuddering breath and he felt her stir in his arms. Encouraged, he kissed her again, feeling the flesh that had been as still and cold as marble begin to warm and awaken against him, between him and his partner. “Sadie…Sadie,” he murmured her name like a prayer between kisses. Her eyelids fluttered open at last and Holt looked into the honey-amber depths to see confusion and pain.

  “What…?” The question formed slowly and whisper-soft on her lips.

  “Hush,” Holt said tenderly, tilting her chin to kiss the terrible necklace of bites the daemon had left on her pale throat. He could feel the T-link beginning to stir between them and he knew Blakely was feeling it, too. Just a little more, he thought. He knew just what to do now.

  Rolling her unresisting body over so that she was lying on her back between them, Holt caressed the ripe mounds of her full, naked breasts and leaned down to suck one berry-colored nipple into his mouth. On her other side, Blakely did the same, petting the silky skin of her arms and sides as he nursed at the tender pink bud beside his partner.

  “Oh,” Sadie breathed, and Holt at last felt the link begin to open between them, pouring sweet fire through their veins as the electrical charge of their physical joining took over. He heard her gasp, felt her arch her back to press her sensitive breasts upward and get more of the hot wet suction of their mouths on her flesh.

  She was healing now, coming back to them, he knew it…could feel it through the strengthening bond that had formed between the three of them. Holt drew back for a moment and watched in fascination as Blakely’s curly, dark head hovered over Sadie’s breasts, watched his partner suck first one and then the other sweet, ripe nipple into his sensual mouth while Sadie moaned and gasped beneath him. Then he knew he had to taste her.

  As Blakely continued to suck and nip her aching buds, Holt slipped down the bed to her silky thighs and caressed them apart. They opened willingly, even eagerly for him and he could see how badly she needed him. The soft, pouting lips of her pussy were slick with desire and swollen with need and her feminine, musky fragrance was strong in the air. Holt thought it was the most beautiful perfume he had ever smelled and he lowered his head eagerly to plant a soft, open-mouthed kiss on her pouting lips. Sadie cried out at the press of his mouth and bucked up eagerly, needfully, to meet him.

  Blakely stopped sucking her nipples for a moment to look back at him and Holt could see lust and love mingled in his partner’s indigo eyes. “Taste her, Holt,” Blakely muttered hoarsely. “Eat her sweet pussy, babe. ’S what she needs.” Sadie cried out in wordless agreement and Holt nodded, bending his head back between her fragrant thighs as Blakely went back to her breasts.

  Using his thumbs, he spread the swollen pink lips of her pussy open to reveal the tender nub of her clit that he knew was aching with desire. He could feel Sadie’s pleasure in the back of his mind the same way he could feel Blakely’s, could feel her emotions almost as clearly as his partner’s now that the T-link was wide open between them. But not as open as it could be, he thought, bending his head and licking firmly over the ripe pink bud at the center of her pussy, causing Sadie to arch her back almost violently and cry out in desperate pleasure.

  No, a complete opening of the link could only take place when he and Blakely penetrated her at the same time. As he kissed her sweet pussy, sucking her clit into his mouth and savoring her juices on his tongue, Holt allowed himself to imagine thrusting into her, pulling her onto his cock as Blakely did the same. He pushed his tongue deeply inside her tight channel, holding her thighs spread wide with his large hands to open her up for his assault. As she cried and begged and moaned he imagined her crying for a different reason, a deeper pleasure. Sadie would be pinned between them, both thick cocks thrust into her, spearing her sweet, submissive body as they fucked their way into each other’s souls.

  “Coming…Oh, Goddess…coming, I’m coming!” It was Sadie’s sweet voice filling his ears like music. She bucked under his tongue and Holt held on and rode it out, tasting the fresh, sweet wetness of her orgasm, watching as Blakely did the same, continuing to suck and nip her heaving breasts and nipples. He knew without looking that the deadly necklace of bite-marks had faded from her throat and the daemon’s poison coursing through her system had been neutralized. She was healed. She had come back to them. The bond between them, although nowhere near as strong as the T-link between Blakely and himself, had still been strong enough to save her.

  And it was getting stronger every time they touched.

  13

  Sadie came back from dreams of icy blackness to the soft warmth of someone’s mouth on hers. She realized, with a start, that someone was kissing her, was opening her lips and pouring love and need and want and hunger into her mouth. Even before her eyes fluttered open she knew it was Holt, could feel him in the back of her mind like a brilliant golden light—his wants, his needs, his desires.

  Large warm hands caressed her from behind and she realized Blakely was there, too, petting her, touching her, loving her back to life. Don’t leave us, he was whispering softly into the bare skin of her neck as he kissed and sucked and licked. And she felt him, too, lodged in her mind like a warm, comforting weight, with his love for her like a solid thing, a rope she could hold onto with both hands and pull herself back from the darkness.

  Pressed between them she was frightened at first, but then the warm, electrical glow began to flow between them and she was caught up in the pleasure they were giving her, the healing bliss they were pouring into her body with their hands and mouths.

  Looking down she could see Blakely’s dark, curly head li
cking and nipping her sensitive breasts, laving their creamy swells with his tongue before sucking her hard pink nipples into that sensual mouth. She could feel the heat of his long, hard cock pressing against her thigh, and she knew that they were all naked, but she couldn’t make herself care.

  Further down, Holt was spreading her legs and pressing his face between her thighs, spreading the lips of her sex to open her wide for his hot tongue. Sadie cried out as she felt him lick her clit and then suck it into his mouth, drawing magical figure eights over the sensitive bud until she thought she might go crazy. His golden head moving between her legs while Blakely’s darker one still hovered over her breasts seemed to Sadie to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen or felt. Light and Dark, a study of contrasts, she was being devoured from both ends by her lovers and she was loving every minute of it as the warm, electrical energy flowed through and around them all.

  At last, when Holt pressed his tongue inside her, fucking her rhythmically while Blakely sucked her nipples with a fierce passion, Sadie felt herself beginning to tilt over the edge toward orgasm. Not wanting this beautiful dream to end, she clung to the edge of sanity as long as she could before the dual sensations of both hot, male mouths on her body drove her completely over the cliff and she fell crying into pleasure.

  Goddess…so good, so good… she thought, laying spent and quiet on the bed, her eyes closed tiredly in post-orgasmic bliss. After a while she felt both large, male bodies lay down, one on either side of her and she knew Holt and Blakely were there to protect her and pleasure her. To love her forever…