“You're welcome to mine. That okay with you, Morgan?”
“Definitely. Let's go. Mac? We'll keep in touch, let you know how we're doing.”
He nodded and watched them leave. Soft fingers wrapped around his wrist. Comforting him with her touch, Lizzie stared up at him with tears in her eyes. “Mac? They'll be okay. I really believe that. And Zianne does, too. She's resting. That's all. She wants to save all the energy she can for tonight, in case she's needed.”
“Thanks, Liz.” He let out a deep breath, checked briefly to see that Zianne still slept, and covered Lizzie's hand with his. “You gonna be okay in here on your own? Can you finish out your shift, just in case someone needs the energy?” She nodded, blinking back tears. Mac glanced at Dink, who stood quietly beside him. “Well, Dink? How would you like to go interview a few Nyrians?”
Dink's grin spread slowly across his face. “You mean that? Shit, man. Why are we hanging out here?” He leaned over and kissed Lizzie full on the lips. “Sorry, Liz. You just got beat out by a whole passel of aliens.”
She sighed dramatically with one hand over her heart. “Mac. You never said he was so fickle!”
He shouldn't feel like smiling, but he did. For some damned reason, in spite of the danger, he had the weirdest feeling things were going to be just fine. “Sorry, Liz. He is. I should have warned you.” Then, sobering for a moment, he brushed his hand over her smooth hair, feeling the narrow threads of the mesh cap hooking her to the array. “Anything happens, you need us for anything at all, don't hesitate to call.”
“Gotcha.”
Mac leaned over and kissed her. Not to be outdone, Dink planted another big kiss on her as well, one she appeared to return with a bit more enthusiasm than she'd shown Mac. Still, when Mac matched her thumbs-up as he and Dink left the dream shack, she was smiling at both of them.
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Finn opened the door to his cabin. It actually looked pretty clean, with the crap off the floor and the blankets pulled up on the bed to cover the pillows. He hadn't actually made the thing, but considering how it had looked by the time Duran and Tara had left after their last visit, he was just glad the bedding wasn't in piles on the floor.
“Coffee?” He glanced at the others. “Stiff drink, maybe?”
Morgan laughed. “That might help, but then I wouldn't be worth shit later.” He flopped down on the couch. “I'll pass.”
“Gotcha.” Finn glanced at Duran and Bolt and swept a hand out. “Take a seat and tell us what we need to do.”
Bolt hitched one hip against the back of the couch while Duran sat in the chair beside it. They gazed briefly at one another. Finn was sure there was a hell of a lot of communication in that brief connection. Duran leaned forward, looping his big hands over his knees.
“You've watched how we give up our corporeal bodies and return to the molecular level, which is our true energy form, before we depart, and you've seen the same thing in reverse when we arrive. You have this ability, just as we do, though your form is not pure energy like ours. But, it's close enough. It's also something that we didn't realize at first was possible. It was Nattoch who first discovered that your brains are capable of giving the same instructions to your cells that ours do. It was when he met Cameron. Since then, all of us have looked for the ability as we've met each of you. We know now that not all humans can disassemble. We've checked out others hereâthe security people, the one who cooks, her mateânone of them have the ability. But for whatever reason, all of you on Mac's team do. We think it is somehow tied to your telepathic ability. We're not really sure, but it's merely a matter of your learning how to access that part of your mind and essentially flipping on the switch.”
Bolt interrupted. “Duran and I have tried to figure out the easiest and safest method of doing this. If you can disassemble and then meld with our energy forms, we believe we can carry you locked within our individual energy fields to the Gar ship.”
“Our minds are locked on to the ship as our home, just as we've learned to lock on to your minds through the array to find our way here.” Duran glanced at Bolt again and shrugged. “It seems complicated, but it's really quite simple once we access that part of your brain.”
“Okay.” Morgan looked at Finn with one eyebrow almost comically raised. “So how do you plan to go about finding that switch?”
Duran and Bolt exchanged glances once again. Both of them burst out laughing. “Sex,” Duran said. “How else?”
“Duh.” Finn rolled his eyes. “What was I thinking?” It made sense, though. Sexual energy empowered Nyrians. It was how they'd connected in the first place.
Duran stood and slipped out of his loose pants. He kicked them aside with one foot, perfectly comfortable with nudity in his human form. He was already hard, his cock rising high and proud against his flat belly. He lightly stroked his erection, as if the touch was an afterthought.
“Finn? Do you want to go first?”
“Not a problem.” And if there was, it was probably too late to complain.
Duran nodded. “Okay. I'm going to take you in the superior position. I want you to link minds with me. Dampen all your defenses so that I have full access to who you are, how you think. Everything that makes you the man you are must be open to me. Total subjugation of self. Can you do that?”
Finn looked at the tall, strong male he'd known for only a couple of days, and wondered if he could give up that much of himself. He was just getting used to the whole guy-on-guy thing, but his answer came in less than a heartbeat. Of course he could. He could do anything if it meant saving Duran and Tara and all the others. Wasn't that what this was all about? With nothing more than a shrug of his shoulders, he unsnapped his jeans. The zipper sounded uncomfortably loud, and he wondered if Morgan and Bolt were going to be screwing while he and Duran were doing the same thing, but Morgan just sat there on the couch waiting, with his steady gaze fastened on every move Finn made.
He should have felt embarrassed with such close scrutiny from a guy he was only beginning to think of as a friend, but arousal spiked hard and fast as he kicked off his moccasins, slid the denim pants down his legs, and then dropped his shirt on the floor beside his pants.
Without thinking beyond the immediate act of undressing, he shoved his knit boxers off and stepped out of them. His hand automatically went to his dick and he stroked the hard shaft. Only vaguely aware of Morgan and Bolt's avid attention, Finn slicked his hand up and down the full length of his cock, rolling the foreskin over the sensitive tip, reveling in the pulse of blood through heavy veins and the tender ache in his balls as they tightened and pulled up close between his legs.
He studied Duran's thick penis, the way it thrust up against the man's belly, and he thought of that first night, when Duran and Tara had come to Finn's cabin and told him they'd chosen him. Of all the people here, they'd connected with his mind and wanted him as their conduit.
Duran had been more reticent then and Tara had taken the lead, but it appeared the Nyrian was stronger than Finn had first realized, or maybe it was just that he felt more confident in this role. He was the leader, the one teaching Finn, but there was something about the obvious power in Duran's body language now that Finn found extremely arousing. He'd never thought of himself as a submissive type, but he realized he didn't mind submitting to his Nyrian lover.
As the thought crossed his mind, his dick seemed to stretch and swell within his grasp. For Duran. For the one who had chosen him. Emotion washed over him in a powerful wave. The idea still choked him up, the fact someone had chosen him specifically for the man he was. It reminded him just how needy he'd been. How much he still needed.
Duran stepped close and rested his hand on Finn's shoulder. Forced him to make eye contact with the power of his own steady gaze. “We need each other, Finn. All of us need each other. Not just for the survival of my people, but for you and your people here as well. Each of us has a need to be loved, to be wanted for no other reason than who we are. What we are. Look how much we've learned already, that our differences are not nearly as great as those things that make us the same.”
Finn could only nod in agreement. He didn't try to speak, afraid his voice would crack, that his nerve would fail. He'd never been good at emotions, never been successful with any relationships because he flat-out hadn't wanted them.
He wanted this. Wanted Duran and Tara, wanted the connection with the rest of Mac's dream team. And most of all, he wanted everything to turn out the way they hoped.
Damn but he didn't want to screw up. That possibility scared the crap out of him. He'd not been all that good at following through on things, but . . .
“It's okay.” Duran stepped even closer. He placed both his hands on Finn's shoulders and stared at him. Duran's brilliant blue eyes bored into his. Took charge of Finn's fears. “When we make loveâand that is what we'll be doing. Not sex to find mere gratification, but lovemaking to reach a connection only lovers can find, one so deep, so intensely personal, that we will meld as one. You and me, Finn. Just the two of us. Let me in. I want to fill your body, your mind, and your heart. Can you do that?”
Finn nodded, caught in the deep, hypnotic blue of Duran's eyes, the perfect curve of his lips, the warmth of his hands. Morgan and Bolt might still be in the room, but they didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the connection to Duran.
“Where do you want me?”
“Here.” Duran ran his fingers over the high back of the leather chair. “Spread your legs, lean over the top. Place your hands on the arms of the chair, your chest close against the cushion. I want you comfortable and yet you must feel totally submissive to me, something that is not in your nature.”
Wondering how Duran had picked up on that little personality trait so quickly, Finn nodded, leaned over the back of the chair and flattened his palms against the thick arms. The soft leather felt warm against his belly. The tip of his erection gently brushed the sleek leather back. Duran knelt behind him and spread Finn's legs farther apart until his toes barely connected with the floor. He felt vulnerable. Helpless, and so damned horny he could barely breathe. Cool air wafted across his hot testicles and his arousal spiked another notch.
Self-consciously, he raised his head and realized he looked directly at Morgan and Bolt. At some point, Bolt had moved from his seat on the arm of the couch and now sat beside Morgan. Both of them were naked. Both highly aroused.
Finn hadn't noticed when they'd undressed, but their clothes lay in a pile on the floor. Now they sat close, each one stroking the other's cock, both of them watching Finn.
He groaned softly, his own desperate need growing on the need of the others.
“Hold that position.”
Finn glanced over his shoulder as Duran walked into the bedroom and quickly returned with the tube of lubricant Finn had taken from the supply room. Amazing what a guy could find in that big pantry, but leave it to Mac to prepare for everything, though one thing Finn certainly hadn't counted on when he took this job was the fact he'd be getting fucked in the ass. That definitely hadn't been on this het-boy's radar.
What an idiot he'd been. He rested his cheek against the leather cushion, almost bent double over the chair's back, and let his thoughts wander over the last couple of days while Duran spent some quality time working lubricant in and around his butt. He'd never had a clue how sensitive that area was. Not once had he imagined he'd ever have sex with a man.
Now he welcomed it. Dreamed of Duran taking him as much as he loved fantasizing about dominating Duran, though he'd definitely want to talk about this with Duran later. He knew that it wasn't really about domination or submission, at least not what passed between the two of them. It was about sharing, about connecting. About feeling so close to another man that their deepest emotions were shared.
The tube clattered to the table beside his chair and Duran ran his big hands over Finn's flanks, up his sides, along his ribs to his underarms. Down his back, trailing fingers along his spine, and back again, where he grasped his shoulders and gently dug thick fingers into taut muscles.
He repeated the same words, over and over again. “You are mine, Finn. Relax your body. Open your body to me. Open your mind.” His voice maintained a soft and soothing, hypnotic cadence. “Open your body to me. Open your mind. You are mine, Finn. Your heart is mine, your body is mine. You are mine.”
He leaned even closer and his warm breath tickled Finn's shoulder. A chill ran over his spine as he felt the broad head of Duran's penis brush lightly against his thigh. Just a touch. Nothing more, but Duran's hands continued retracing the same pathway, his breath warm against Finn's shoulder, his voice uttering the same soothing words.
“You are mine, Finn. Open to me. Let me in.”
He spread his fingers across Finn's lower back, gently stroking down over his buttocks, up again, pausing at the dip in Finn's spine just below his waist, trailing along the crease between his cheeks and on to stroke the insides of his thighs. Finn groaned and spread his legs farther apart. He felt Duran kneeling between his thighs, the broad shoulders pushing them apart even more.