When the daisy chain fell still, the men breathing heavy and spent, Emi broke into applause.
“I could make a mint selling tickets to watch that,” she teased.
Aaron arched an eyebrow at her. “Oh, really?”
She nodded. “I can’t imagine I’m the only woman out there who enjoys watching hot guys doing each other.”
“Who says we want to be watched?” Aaron asked. “Not to mention, I suspect you wouldn’t want to share us.”
“That’s true. I am pretty selfish. I want my three hunks to myself. I don’t ever plan on sharing you with anyone else.”
Chapter Three
Emi wouldn’t let the guys see her costume, either. She grabbed the garment bag, which she’d hidden in a storage locker in the hold, and headed out that afternoon to meet up with her friends. Along with Sophie and Donna, she holed herself up in Donna’s room after they kicked out the men of the K-2. Donna needed help lacing her gorgeous brocade corset, which completed her old-Earth can-can dancer costume. Sophie had gone with an old pirate wench standard.
The other two women gave Emi approving thumbs-up to her short, tight white dress and red fishnet stockings. A push-up bra gave her extra cleavage, exposed by the low buttons of the dress. If she bent over, however, the short skirt would ride up her ass and show her red G-string. A pair of red-and-white platform-heeled boots, and a red-and-white hat, finished the ensemble.
They didn’t know what their men had planned for their costumes. None of the men had told their women about their plans. The women would meet them at the party, which was being held by the head DSMC officer at the base, and surprise each other.
Sophie turned and studied her reflection in the mirror. “I have a feeling I won’t be getting much sleep tonight,” she said with a smile.
Donna grinned. “Hell, I hope I won’t be getting any sleep tonight.”
“I still have a hard time picturing your grunts as lovable,” Emi teased Donna.
“I know. They’re like one of those candies with the hard, crunchy outside and a gooey inside.” Donna blotted her lipstick on a tissue. “Very gooey. Especially when you add heat.” She grinned.
Sophie rose to the bait. “Dare I ask what kind of heat?”
Donna lifted her layers of skirt to reveal she wasn’t wearing any underwear beneath her garter belt. “I like to keep my guys up on their toes.”
“It won’t be their toes that’ll be up,” Emi snarked. “Not when they realize you’re going commando. You’ll be lucky if they don’t pull you into a dark corner and bend you over a table.”
“Maybe that’s my plan.”
They arrived at the party a little later than the time they’d intended to meet their men. Standing in the darkened foyer of the banquet hall where the party was being held, they peered into the main room, trying to find their men.
“Where the heck are they?” Donna muttered.
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I’m more concerned about where the bar is.”
“Didn’t you have enough fun the other night?” Emi asked. “I know I, for one, was pretty hungover.”
Sophie grinned. “Yeah, but a wise doctor once prescribed a heaping dose of fun for Halloween parties.”
“What doctor?” Donna asked.
Sophie winked. “Me.” She headed into the crowded hall. Donna and Emi shrugged and followed her. Sophie made her way through the crowds of people with Donna and Emi trailing in her wake before the crowd could close up again and separate them. Emi wasn’t looking forward to getting separated from her girlfriends if she couldn’t find her men.
And so far, she’d seen neither hide nor hair of her men.
Hell, she’d settle for sticking around with the men of the other two crews, just to have familiar faces close by. She knew she wasn’t in any danger, but it was difficult for her to close out all the emotions of the celebrating partygoers, most of them already lubricated by copious amounts of alcohol.
It didn’t help that her bar fight experience in the sim wouldn’t leave her mind, when two unchipped men from another ship nearly raped her.
Just because it turned out not to be a real experience didn’t mean it left her mind.
Sophie found the bar. “Oh, goodie. Open bar.” She turned to Donna and Emi. “Join me?”
Donna grinned. “Hell, yeah. Give me whatever my girlfriend’s having. What about you, Emi?”
Emi sighed. “Make it three.” She couldn’t make out any familiar shapes among the people dancing in the darkened room. She tried to look for Caph’s large form, but many people wore costumes with either large hats or entire heads that added to their height, making that effort futile.
She’d started to turn back toward the bar, where Donna and Sophie were ogling the half-naked bartender dressed as an old Earth gladiator, when someone grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the dance floor, spinning her quickly out of sight amongst the throngs of other dancers. She couldn’t make out a face behind dark, full mask hidden beneath a cowl, but she also knew from her empathic senses it wasn’t one of her men.
Before she could object, the man spoke.
“Emi, it’s me, Rob.”
She relaxed a little and let Rob Elloy lead her around the crowded dance floor. “What’s going on? Where’s Aaron, Caph, and Ford?”
“They’re around here somewhere. I wanted a moment alone with you.”
“Why?”
“I know I said this before in front of your men, but I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“You didn’t have to abduct me from the bar.”
“Please, this is hard enough for me.”
She felt that much from him and shut up so he could talk.
He spoke low and quickly, barely audible above the music and noise of the raucous crowd. “I’m sorry for what happened in the sim. I don’t know why I acted like that. Why we acted like that. But I’m the captain, so I’m ultimately responsible. And I know we hurt your feelings about what we said about your body.”
She tensed. “You’re right. You did.”
“You are a beautiful woman, and your men are very lucky to have you. I’ve discovered a lot in a very short amount of time with Donna. We’re learning how to loosen up and not take ourselves so seriously. And again, I want to thank you for that. If it hadn’t been for you, she wouldn’t have joined the DSMC and we wouldn’t have met her. The three of us never realized how miserable we were, and how self-centered and assholish we’d become over the years. I just wanted you to know you did make a difference for us, even if indirectly. You’re also a damn fine doctor. Look at the way you handled the Aroykin colony mission. And I promise you, if you or the guys ever need backup, we’ll be the first in line volunteering to be there for all of you.”
“Thank you, Rob. I appreciate that. It takes a big man to admit when he screwed up. And I promise you this, if you and your guys ever hurt Donna, there’s no place in this universe you’ll be able to hide from me. Got it?”
He laughed. “Loud and clear. I promise we’d die to make her happy.” He ended their dance, paused, and kissed her hand before bowing and then disappearing into the crowd. Emi hadn’t held a grudge against the men of the Braynow Gaston the way she had against the K-2 crew only because Graymard had admitted to Emi that’d he’d deliberately manipulated their responses in the sim to make it appear they’d made fun of Aaron, Caph, and Ford, when in reality they hadn’t.
The sneaky bastard had stacked the deck to help her want to get to know the Tamora Bight’s crew better in hopes she’d give them more of a chance than other prospects had. In retrospect, Emi wouldn’t complain about the results.