Braided Lives (10 page)
"No. It's okay. I know I should be into the focus training thing but there are days…"
"If you're strapping my arm to my chest, exactly how am I supposed to get my paperwork done this afternoon?
Or for that matter, go to the bathroom," Danny complained.
"I'm sure you'll figure something out." Peter spent another couple minutes working on Danny before giving him the pain killer.
Jennifer retreated to a nearby chair, and watched as Peter put Danny's arm in a sling that was then subsequently bound to his body with a separate pair of straps.
"I hate the way this stuff makes me feel," said Danny.
"It's that or the pain," commented Peter. Danny gave him a resigned glare. Peter ignored him, and turned to face Jennifer. "Keep an eye on him. He's liable to be pretty looped from the meds. I'll work on undoing the damage later. In the meantime he's just going to have to deal with it."
"I have a question," Jennifer said, mystified by Peter's obvious and implicit trust in her to deal with his cranky patient.
"Shoot," replied Peter.
"What makes you think I'm going to be any good at babysitting him?"
"He pissed you off. You decked him. Today you obviously brow beat him enough to make him come here to the infirmary. It's not like I don't think he's going to be an absolute pain in the ass the rest of the afternoon, but if push comes to shove I think he'll back down if you tell him he's doing something stupid. If he doesn't,
I'm
going to give him an attitude adjustment." Peter gave Jennifer a little evil grin.
"I'm not deaf, you know," groused Danny.
"Good. I gotta go. I'll probably be stuck in meetings the rest of the afternoon. I want both of you to meet me in my quarters at five. We'll figure out something dinner-wise. Maybe I'll cook." With that, Peter left.
***
Blissfully, the only other person in the room was Jennifer. She was sitting in a chair with a pad in her lap, drawing something. He wondered momentarily what it was she was sketching, then tried to return his focus back the computer.
"You know, if you dictate, I can type. I won't set any speed records but I do have two hands," Jennifer said.
Danny considered the concept for a minute. "Yeah, that might be a good idea. The one-handed thing is driving me crazy." They rearranged the chairs so that she was in front of his desk and he was beside her, gazing over her shoulder. "Open the one forwarded from Bottman, it looks like an assignment request."
"What's an assignment request?"
"It has to do with me deciding if and who to send out on a job. The other government agencies and military tend to view Division P as a sort of last ditch desperation plea. Most of them consider us a bunch of serious crackpots, so sometimes the requests for assistance that we get are pretty bizarre. Bottman usually weeds out the really whacked ones; the rest get fielded to me or Steve Milbourne. He handles roughly the western half of the U.S. and I handle the eastern half.
Overseas ops usually get dumped in my lap, too."
"Interesting. Obviously, you spend some time in the field, too."
"Yeah, that part has its good and bad points." Danny made a gesture at the sling.
Jennifer gave him a rueful smile.
They spent the next hour hacking through the e-mail before meds, exhaustion and the aftermath of the previous couple of days all began to catch up with Danny. Jennifer's shoulder looked like an awfully inviting place to rest, so he leaned his head sideways onto her shoulder and closed his eyes.
"Danny? You're not going to pass out on me, are you? 'Cause there's no way I can pick you up off the floor," asked Jennifer. He could feel the wash of her concern.
"Pass out, no. Fall asleep, maybe," admitted Danny.
"Maybe I should shoo you in the direction of your quarters, and tuck you in bed."
"Peter's place. He claimed he might cook dinner."
God, she smelled good. Danny rolled his head so that his face was not quite buried against her collar bone.
Jennifer smelled faintly of something sweet and fruity and feminine. It was delicious in a sort of comforting way and he thought falling asleep with his face pressed into the softness of her breasts and Peter's lithe muscular body spooned against his back would be a died and gone to heaven moment.
Then he felt Jennifer flinch just a little. Shit. Here he was practically stoned out of his mind on meds, daydreaming of some version of a three-way and forgetting that the woman involved could see the mental image as clearly as if he was the one drawing the picture. She cleared her throat a little before she spoke.
"Maybe you ought to get Peter's opinion on that concept. Inviting me to have dinner with the two of you is just a little bit different from inviting me to share your bed," she said.
"Ask him. I know you two shared a moment when he was stressing over me getting shot." Oh, there was a hint of guilty pleasure from her when he said that. "And we got pretty close that night on the beach. Anyway, right at the moment I'm more interested in the sleep part regarding us and bed, than anything else." Danny let his head droop a little more heavily against her shoulder.
***
Her thoughts fiddled with the visual she had seen in Danny's head, and the idea.
Ménage a trois
was a risqué idea. She was enough of an adult to know that the porn industry fueled the fantasy of one man and two women, but two guys and one woman? Okay, that was a little different. The added information that she knew both the guys were into each other, seemed to add another twist.
Would any woman do? Was it just the idea of sharing a sex partner that floated Danny's boat? Except the image had
not
really been about sex. It was about sleep and comfort.
"That's quite a handful of ideas," said Peter, squatting down beside her chair.
She jerked, startled, having not heard him come into the apartment. "It's freakin' rude to go poking around inside other people's heads."
Peter smiled at her. "It's what we do. Anyway, my intention was to scope out how Danny's doing and your line of thought kind of grabbed my attention."
"It wasn't my thought. Okay, that's not exactly what I meant. Danny's the one who was thinking about being in bed between you and me… and I'm really digging a deep hole here aren't I?" Jennifer stared at the ceiling in acute embarrassment.
Peter tipped her face back down with a finger on her chin. "It's cute when you're flustered."
"Gee, thanks," she said.
He wrapped his fingers around her hand. "So why was Danny entertaining ideas of the three of us?"
"He was tired and hurting and feeling like crap, and I guess it just popped into his head as one of those 'geez wouldn't that be awesome' random thoughts. Listen it's just daydreamy sort of shit. I wouldn't get between you two."
He pressed two fingers against her lips. "Did you ever stop to think we might like the concept of you between us?" he asked.
Jennifer was sure her eyes must have bugged a little.
"Danny and I have a thing. You were right about that, we've been avoiding the fact that it goes way deeper than just sex. How much deeper, we're still working that out. But you fit into this picture, too. You have this…
unconventional approach that makes us both face up to ideas we tend to avoid."
"Unconventional? Usually I get accused of being hot-tempered, flaky and non-P.C." Jennifer replied.
"I like you just the way you are." Peter stood up and put a knee between her legs against the chair cushion.
He leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her mouth. It surprised her. Maybe Danny was right in suggesting that Peter didn't have a problem with sharing. "I'm going to check on Danny. Feel free to go hunt through my kitchen and see if you have any bright ideas regarding dinner."
***
Peter laid his hand gently on Danny's chest and let his senses explore. There was pain, inflammation around the nerves near the wound and some overall exhaustion. Not great, but nothing critical. Peter sent a soft surge of energy into his lover's body and damped down the pain.
Beneath his hand, he felt Danny relax a little deeper into sleep. All right, that would do for a few minutes, though eventually he was going to have to wake Danny up and herd him off to bed.
Peter walked into the narrow galley kitchen. Jennifer was peering into the refrigerator.
"I think you said something about volunteering to cook?" she said.
"I will. I'm just bad at trying to decide what to fix."
"Wimp," she replied.
Peter gave a snort of laughter. "You in the mood for spaghetti?" he asked. "I have some sauce in the cupboard."
"I suppose. Stuff out of a jar never lives up to the hype."
"With a name like Sebastiano, I'm guessing there's some heavy-carb, rib-sticking food in your background."
"Oh yeah, if Mom was in the mood it was homemade ravioli and marinara sauce with Italian sausage in it.
And garlic knots with enough garlic to smell them a block away. Oh man, now I'm hungry."
"Do you cook?" Peter asked.
"Well, enough not to starve."
***
He was enjoying the conversation and Jennifer's presence.
"I absolutely suck at making pie crusts. My mother can make them without rubbing two brain cells together, and they're awesome. Mine tend to come out soggy and gummy," Jennifer said.
"Note on the calendar. Do not ask Jen to bring pies on Thanksgiving unless she buys them." Peter drew in the air with his finger. "And you," he pointed a finger at Danny. "Unless you're doing an imitation of a preschooler doing the pee-pee dance, you are busted."
He reached across the table and curled his fingers around Danny's wrist. Danny felt the flood of warmth creeping up his arm soothing the pain. "Time to get back to what I put off this afternoon. Bed."
"Guess that's my cue to leave," said Jennifer.
"Don't," said Danny. He glanced at Peter for back up.
"Stay. I wasn't planning on jumping him, at least not tonight," Peter said. "It would be nice to have you hang around."
"Um…" Jennifer seemed awfully hesitant.
"Please," Danny pleaded.
In the bedroom, Danny endured having the restraining sling stripped off along with his shirt. Peter turned the radio on low in the background as Danny lay down. He crooked a finger at Jennifer and beckoned her to sit where he could lay his head in her lap. Peter sat cross-legged at Danny's side so he could have direct access to Danny's injury.
Danny took Jennifer's hand in his and rubbed his thumb across her palm, that intimate little psi gesture that touched a hand chakra.. He was tired and but for Peter's ministrations would probably be hurting, and still he wanted her. Having her this close was really nice.
She was very still. He bumped his mind gently against her shielding, seeking an entrance. She was hesitant, only gradually letting him in. He could feel her conflict, curiosity banging heads with a conservative guilt. He sucked on her fingertips and breathed against her palm. He was playing, wondering if he could stir up the flame that had flared between them that night on the beach.
His own shielding down, he noticed the warm energy of Peter's healing change tone. There was a hint of arousal from him running as an undercurrent.
"Dan, babe, you're being a distraction," said Peter.
"You're making me have second thoughts about not jumping you."
Danny raised an eyebrow, "Babe?" he said incredulously.
"You have a problem with that?"
"I don't think I've had anybody call me babe since I was about fifteen," replied Danny.
This sparked giggles from Jennifer. Danny turned his head and closed his teeth on the front of Jennifer's shirt, pulling it up. She was still laughing as he reached his free arm back and dragged her down to sprawl on the bed beside him. Her head was near his thigh and his arm was under her hips. Her legs had wiggled in the opposite direction and hung halfway off the bed. He closed his teeth on the curve of her behind, just hard enough that she had to feel the pressure through her jeans. She let out a squeal. He hauled her body up on top of his, turning his head to duck his face under her squirming legs. This put her face damn near level with his crotch and his head between her thighs. He bit down on her inner thigh, exhaling against the thick fabric.
"No!" she squealed in between giggles.
"Really?" he asked, giving her a chance to call their playful wrestling match off if she was actually too uncomfortable with the idea.
She paused for about one full second, before saying,
"Do not stop." She paid him back by nipping at his now hard cock. He let out a groan.
"You know I'm feeling distinctly left out of this,"
groused Peter.
"Lay on top of her, we'll make a girl sandwich. Oh God, fuck, Jen, you're torturing me!" Danny moaned.
She was rubbing and biting him through his slacks and he felt like he was about thirty seconds from just flat out blowing his load. Peter's hand slipped between Danny's chin and Jen's spread legs, pressing up between her thighs. Danny snickered a little at the sudden increase of tension in Jen's body.
