Tymber Dalton - Out of Bight, Out of Mind

The happiness that they were once again a whole family.

“Life is short,” he said, his voice choking up a little. “Too damn short. So to family. And to friends who are every bit as good as family,” he said with a nod toward the K-2 crew. “And to never, ever giving up hope. Crew first.”

They all repeated it. “Crew first.”

He leaned in and kissed her after they drank to the toast. Nuzzling his forehead against hers, she felt more than just love flowing from him at that moment.

He was as horny as she was. For that matter, so were Caph and Ford.

They made it through dinner without ripping their clothes off in front of Donna and her men. But from emotions Emi felt from that foursome, they wouldn’t be dawdling long at the dinner table either.

When Emi and her men returned to the room, she started ripping her clothes off as soon as she stepped through the door. She enjoyed the identical looks of pleased shock her men wore as she bounced, naked, onto the center of the bed.

“Come and get me.”

They swarmed her, eager tongues and fingers and the feeling of their passion filling her senses like a drug. One thing she would always be thankful for, she realized that either her empath senses were now far stronger than they ever had been before, or she’d become more skilled at using them. But it was hotter than hell feeling how badly her men wanted her.

Caph somehow managed to shuck his pants and underwear first, even though he still wore his shirt. His cock easily slid home into her well-lubricated pussy as Aaron and Ford still struggled to get naked.

“Hey,” Aaron playfully complained. “That’s no fair. He’s still got his shirt on.”

She held on for the wild ride as Caph slammed his cock into her, each thrust driving her up the bed until he finally came.

She clung to him, breathless and even more horny than before.

“You all right, babe?”

She loved that he’d finally put aside his timidity regarding her. He knew she wasn’t going to break. “No. I didn’t come.”

“Aww. Sorry. Here, let me make it better.”

She let out a squeal of laughter as he threw her legs over his shoulder and went to town. Her squeals soon turned to moans of pleasure as Aaron and Ford each latched onto a nipple and began sucking.

And when she came, she thought the top of her head would come off.

Caph sat up, a pleased look on his face. Then Aaron shoved him over, making him fall onto his side. “Move it. Horny captain coming through.”

“And coming,” Emi joked.

By the time they finished fucking each other exhausted an hour later, Emi was ready to fall asleep. Sated, happy, and even better, tendrils of her husbands’ love for her still flowing through her, she drifted off into a happy, dreamless sleep.

Two days later, Emi and her men took an air transport to Montana, where they rented a car and drove. The quiet hillside overlooked the valley where the city of Bozeman lay below. Emi didn’t need to stop at the office to know where to go. Her feet knew the way.

From memory.

The men hovered behind her in silence, following her through the rows of grave markers until she stopped in the shade of a silver maple tree. A small, engraved granite marker with two notations side by side, with different birthdates…

And the same date of death.

Dr. Jasper Hypatia, and Dr. Melinda Ellingham Hypatia — Beloved parents.

Emi dropped to her knees in front of the markers and set the small vase of daisies and marigolds in a notch on the bottom of the marker. She kissed her fingers and first touched her mother’s name, then her father’s.

The men stood alert, but respecting her need to do this despite them wanting to hover and comfort her.

“It was raining the day of the funeral,” she softly said after several minutes of nothing but the sounds of birds and the wind to break the quiet. “The headmistress of the school brought me. She was really nice. Mrs. Attwater.” Emi ran her hands up and down her arms against the crisp chill in the air. “She let me stay as long as I wanted. She didn’t try to rush me to leave when it finished. A lot of people showed up. They were well known in their field.”

She sniffled, the memories flowing faster, harder, the dam completely gone. “I sat here in a rain poncho while Mrs. A stood under the tree with an umbrella. I didn’t want to use the umbrella she brought for me. Several of their colleagues offered to let me come stay with them, but I told them no thanks.

“When it was late and I was ready to go, Mrs. Attwater drove me down into Bozeman so I could see the house one more time.” She laughed. “I remember when we first moved there when I was little, I wanted to paint it pink. Mom and Dad told me we couldn’t do that, but they let me paint my bedroom pink.”

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back so the breeze could dry the tears on her cheeks. “I loved it here when I was a kid. It was a great place to grow up.” She let out a sad sigh. “You know, I really miss my garden.”

Aaron stepped forward and gently rested a hand on her shoulder. “We can move here, if you want, babe. Get a house and a garden. Whatever you want.”

She smiled without opening her eyes and patted his hand. “I meant the hydro lab. I want to go back to the Bight now and get on with our lives.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “Okay.”

“Go ahead to the car. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She waited until she sensed rather than heard the men walk away. Then she removed a small bronze vial from her coat pocket. Choking back tears, she used her fingers to pull back a small section of sod at the base of the marker, until she reached bare dirt. There, she dug a small indentation in the dirt.

Carefully, she twisted the top off the vial and gently tapped the ashes into the small depression she’d made. Then she covered it, put the sod back in place, and pressed her fingers over it. “Take good care of Grandma and Grandpa,” she whispered. “Tell them I love them.”

With excitement and trepidation, Emi sat at her console on the bridge and watched as the hover lifts slowly moved the Tamora Bight from the hangar to the launchpad. There was something comfortingly familiar about the feelings washing over her from her men. Their pleasure and excitement over returning to space, combined with their contentment that their family was not only complete again, but expanded with the presence of Yanna and Pabo on board.

“It is a very slow process,” Yanna noted as he looked out into the distance where the heavy tugs awaited them on the launchpad were visible through heat shimmers rising off the pavement. “It did not take this long to lift from Mars.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said. “Gravity, atmosphere, and population densities.”

Next to them, another set of hover lifts were being set up to begin the process to move the Kendall Kant .

I wonder if Donna feels like this before a lift.

“I can’t wait to get the hell off this rock,” Emi said. It wasn’t until she realized Aaron, Caph, and Ford were looking at her with smiles that she said, “What?”

Caph leaned over from his station at the console and kissed her. “I never thought I’d ever hear you say that again. Damn, is that good.”

After two days at the orbiting hub, they headed out for Mars for resupply before their next assignment. Their first evening away from the hub, Emi sought out Ford on the bridge, where he had night watch. Without a word, he held his arms open to her and helped her snuggle into the command chair with him. She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes as she felt him wrap his arms securely around her.