Page 73 of Too Many Beds
It takes a moment for Lucas to realize that’ll require pulling his pants down. Suddenly dealing with the mounting arousal seems a fine option—not because he’s opposed to Creek seeinghim in his underclothes, but rather, he’d like that to happen for a reason other than jabbing a needle into his ass.
“Will it burn?” is the only thing he can think to ask.
Amusement shows in the arch of Creek’s brow. “Depends on your pain tolerance. Assume the position?”
Laughing far more robustly than the almost-joke deserves, Lucas unfastens his pants and slides them down to his knees with no preamble. He wonders how muscular Poe’s thighs are compared to his generous ones, tanned from the last visited planet’s nearest star, but not toned.
Creek pulls on a pair of gloves. “No latex allergy?” Lucas shakes his head. “Any previous vaccine reactions?” Another negative. “Do you?—”
“You like taking care of people,” Lucas blurts.
Creek balks. “I,” he begins, then stalls.
“I bet you act like an ass because you’re too busy making sure everyone else is safe and comfortable,” Lucas says, thinking back to his conversation with Ranger over breakfast; Creek creating a meal plan to combat Ranger’s food sensitivity. “That’s sweet. You’re sweet, and it’s not even a secret. You just show it in a diff?—”
Lucas doesn’t expect Creek to place a hand over his mouth, cutting off his speech. His palm is warm beneath the powdery latex, and his olive-toned cheeks have gone rosy; the tips of his ears might as well be on fire for how they redden.
“Thank you for your assessment, Captain,” Creek says in a strangled voice. “I’m going to administer your shot now.”
Oh, right. Lucas said all that with his pants down. Wonderful.
Mercifully, when Creek removes his hand Lucas manages to not follow his babble up with a comment about the nimble fingers that wipe a section of his skin with an alcohol swab. He waves to dry the alcohol before pinching his thigh and skillfully slipping the needle inside. Lucas is apathetic to needles, butwatching the concentration on Creek’s face as he applies steady pressure to the plunger until the full dose is inside him feels… intimate, somehow.
Especially the tender way he massages the area after withdrawing the needle and disposing of it. Lucas fancies the idea of something else of Creek’s inside him—something warmer, sans latex—but saves his dignity by shoving his thumb between his teeth and biting down hard.
He doesn’t expect Creek to notice. He doesn’t expect Creek to gently take his wrist and pull his thumb free. Creek’s fingers are slightly sweaty from being inside the glove, but it’s the most tender brush of skin-on-skin Lucas has felt since boarding theHephaestus.
“How long have you all been up here?”
Creek sighs. “The original timeline was fifteen months, but it’s been nearly eighteen.”
Lucas sucks his teeth. That’s longer than any duration he’s gone without sex; as a rather amorous person, he can’t imagine not being able to seek intimacy from anyone in his surroundings. No wonder they’re so touchy-feely with one another.
Shifting in what looks a bit like discomfort, but not entirely, Creek withdraws his touch. “Do you need help getting to wherever you’re going next?”
Though Lucas misses the contact fiercely, he forces himself to bevery brave, to smile like an adult and say, “Actually, if you can send directions around the ship to my mobile comm, I think I’ll be alright. I’d like to check on Andi before lunch.”
With a nod, Creek says, “I’ll have Poe handle it.”
And, while he does end up being fine navigating the ship on his own, especially with the drug smothering the aphrodisiac’s effects, Lucas regrets being brave very, very much.
At the start of the night cycle, Lucas sleeps fine. Mostly. Some weird dreams, then he wakes up at an ungodly hour soaked in sweat and needing to piss like crazy. After handling that, he notices Andi’s bunk empty. Lucas shoots them a quick text, but queues up the directions to the bridge immediately after.
Tim’s in his bunk, snoring behind the curtain. He’d been there already by the time the rest of the crew arrived after dinner, but Andi hadn’t been. Oliver had caught Lucas’s eyes before putting plugs in his ears, then tipped his head in the direction of Tim’s bunk. Lucas laughed quietly, then crawled into Oliver’s bunk and rolled around in his deliciously cool sheets like a happy puppy.
Now, though, bestie should be asleep. Obsessing over work is something Andi does often, so Lucas steals a sheet from Oliver’s bed—with only a little bit of shame—and wraps it around himself before sneaking out of the cabin. Without anyone around to judge him, Lucas doesn’t hold back from gliding down the halls, taking advantage of the partial-gravity to see how far he can jump before landing on slippered feet.
He only stops when a shadow falls across the entrance to the bridge, and he faces off with an amused-looking Andi.
“Having fun?”
Lucas grins. “Yes. You?”
Their expression turns dour. “Not in the least. The whole algo for the navigation system is fucked: there was some bug in the code for a recent update, and it borked the whole thing. And because this is a company ship, I can’t just fix the code myself. We have to hack it, because otherwise they’re stuck waiting for a shuttle to come out with a manual update key.” Andi sucks ina deep breath. “Right now, I’m trying to patch in a map from our navigation system, except since it’s all automatic, we have to reprogram?—”
He holds up a hand. “Andi, my love, my best best bestbestfriend in the whole universe, it’s time to?—”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”