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SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Nemo

After just a few hours of sleep on the plane, they were off on another thirteen-hour flight that got them to Sri Lanka to pick up Cerberus and the rest of his supplies. Upon arrival at a private airstrip at Bandaranaike International Airport, the group exited the plane, Nemo’s hand on Gem’s back, and he saw Cerberus stiffen involuntarily.

“You got something going with Cerberus?” he asked in a voice only she could hear.

“No. Why?”

“He saw us, and he went military-straight.”

She paused, and he could see her formulating a careful response. “When I first met him, we were together a lot. I thought… maybe… I might see if there was something between us. We tried, but I just couldn’t seem to let go enough to be romantically attached. ”

“He clearly still feels something for you.”

“If he does, it’s more of a sibling kind of thing.” She looked up at him. “You should know that I did share with him that I’d been involved with someone, and it hadn’t ended well, either the first time we’d been together or the second time. He’s very perceptive, and it’s likely he picked up on there being something between us when he saw us over the video chat. He probably figured out that someone was you. He won’t say anything, though.”

“No one likes to lose, tiny. This feels like more than sibling affection.”

“I guarantee it’s not. Even if it were, he knows it’s never going to happen between us. His interests are a bit more… varied. Last I knew, he had his partners stashed away in Barbados.”

He looked at her quizzically, then he got it. “Partners? As in plural?”

Gem nodded. “Yes. Last I knew, he had two women living with him. I adore him, but I don’t share.”

After an hour to load up supplies and grab some food, it was another seven hours until they landed in Mozambique. Everyone was exhausted and grumpy after two days of straight flying, but it was better for them to all be together to do the last- minute planning before they arrived.

They landed in Vilanculos, a popular seaside city for tourists, and traveled a short ten minutes to a house they had rented. It was large enough to house all of them, had a pool, and was just a walk across the street to the ocean. They were a couple of women short of looking like they were an honest group of friends on vacation. But most of them didn’t plan to be out and about in more than pairings or small groups, if at all, and they weren’t going to be at the house much in a day or two. Or at least, that was the plan.

When they arrived at the house, everyone paired up and took over their rooms, some with the intention of napping. Others began taking over the common areas.

Midas immediately began to set up his computer base on the dining room table. He claimed he didn’t sleep much anyway, and given his sugar intake, it wasn’t really a surprise. Nemo knew that much of his lack of sleep had to do with the conditioning from their big boss, who had Midas going almost nonstop. When Midas did sleep, he slept hard, and it took nothing short of a bomb blast to wake him up.

Cerberus took over the kitchen table to set up his workshop area. Waters gave a shout down the hallway not to blow them all up in the process, to which Cerberus merely grunted.

Suddenly, Steel was back in the room. “I’m going to pick up food. Hopefully, that’s enough time because I need a shower and about twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep.” A quizzical look from Nemo brought out the reason he was really leaving. “Waters is on the phone with Kubrick, and I’m not intruding on the phone sex,” he grumbled.

Demon came down the hall in his short-sleeved wetsuit and flip-flops. “And TB is texting Flame, so I’m heading out to the beach.” He made a stop in the kitchen, his cupped hand popping up to his mouth, then reaching for his bottled water on the counter.

“Another sexting session?” Nemo filled in.

Disgruntled, Demon replied, “You’d think he’d just call her, but no. All out of some weird nostalgia for how they met.”

“At least you can’t hear them if they’re sexting.”

“No, but I might see something I don’t want to see, especially if they suddenly get too worked up.”

“Same here,” Steel added.

Nemo decided to poke at Demon to see if things there had calmed down at all. “You’re not calling Cherry? ”

Demon ignored the comment and headed out the door to find somewhere to rent a board.

“Was it something I said?” Nemo asked Steel teasingly.

Steel picked up one of the sets of jeep keys. “He did call her. She sent him to voicemail.”

“Eww. Ouch.” Nemo grimaced. “Cock-blocked by the cell phone.”

“You’re mean,” Gem said as she came down the stairs, Scheherazade alongside her.

Nemo almost combusted. She was wearing her little denim skirt again, but above it, she had on possibly the tiniest bikini top imaginable. Granted, she was small up top, but he was still caveman enough that he didn’t want anyone seeing her in it.

“How is making an observation mean?”

“It’s hard enough knowing you’re into someone, but they’re not into you. You don’t have to rub it in that she’s not interested.”

“Oh, she’s interested,” Steel corrected. “They just have shit to work through.”

“You mean he has shit to work through. I doubt those were ibuprofen he was popping just now,” she huffed out.

“Nah, tiny, they likely were. When we’re on a project, he doesn’t take that shit.”

“He shouldn’t take it at all,” she grumbled. One look at Steel, and she huffed again. “I don’t care. It’s a crutch, and if he’d quit, he’d feel better.”

She headed back to the pool deck, Nemo’s eyes following her ass the whole way. He really wanted to sleep right now, but he supposed he could do that out at the pool just as easily as in the room. He watched her spread out onto a lounge chair while Scheherazade sniffed the perimeter.

“Hang out for five minutes while I change?” he asked Steel. “ These two are balls-deep in their work. I want someone watching her at all times.”

Steel nodded.

Nemo raced up the stairs, threw on board shorts and a T-shirt, then padded back downstairs and out onto the deck with a wave of dismissal to Steel.

The dog was in a position of watchfulness at the foot of Gem’s chair. Nemo smiled. Scheherazade had taken an instant liking to the girl and spent most of her time following Gem around, even though Nemo hadn’t directly ordered her to. He stood behind Gem’s chair, gazing straight down at her head, then down the path of her cleavage to the front-closure top.

“I can hear you thinking, burglar boy,” she murmured, her voice sleepy as if she’d been dozing already.

He walked around the chair and sat sideways on the one next to hers. “You’re going to burn.”

Eyes still closed, she waved his comment away. “It’ll make me look more touristy. But if it makes you feel better, I put sunscreen on while I was upstairs.”

“Damn. I didn’t get to help,” he complained.

“If you helped, I wouldn’t be down here. I’d still be up there. Probably naked. Then again, my understanding is you don’t have sex in beds ever, so maybe I’d still be down here,” she teased.

Nemo leaned back in the chair. “Nope. Not since Valencia.”

He heard her head turn, so he turned his as well. Her head was pulled up from the chairback, and her eyes were open in her surprised look again.

“Even when I was a teenager, it was always somewhere odd, though not necessarily public. That was more of a post-Valencia thing.”

“You’ve never had sex in a bed with anyone except me? ”

He turned his head back to look out at the pool, then closed his eyes as if settling in to nap himself. “Too intimate.”

The silence was long, but he didn’t hear her shift back to her relaxed position. Finally, he turned back toward her. “What?” he asked.

“But it wasn’t too intimate with me?”

Is that hope in her voice?

He returned to his napping position, eyes closed, and answered as nonchalantly as he could, “Tiny, I have strange habits, I know. But I knew you were special the moment you fell into my arms. It seemed wrong, for some reason, to do that with anyone else.”

The deck was silent for several minutes. Then, he heard her get up from her chair and the rustle of clothing as she shimmied out of her skirt. He looked through the barely open slits of his eyes as she took the few steps to the pool’s edge. Mentally, he groaned as his dick took notice of her svelte body before she dove into the water.

The bottom of the bikini is worse than the top. Fucking thing ties around her hips, and her ass is barely covered, with her cheeks just teasing out at the legs. Not an opportune time for a hard-on. But do I give a shit? No. Am I going to take advantage of that? Hell yes.

He rose from the chair, shucked his T-shirt, and dropped it on the chair, then followed her into the pool. When he came up from the short dive, she was at the far end, where the water cut off at five feet. He hated shallow pools, but today… he might like them a little more.

His arms cut through the water until he came up to her feet. Her neck was curved over the edge of the pool, and her body floated out to the center. She gave no sign that she knew he was there, but if she didn’t, she would know in a second. Gently taking hold of her ankles, he spread her legs to either side of him. Moving his hands up to her knees, he bent them and wrapped them around his waist, pressing up against her so that she was trapped upright along the pool wall.

“We should be napping.”

“Mmm hmm,” was all she said.

“You’re going to be tired tomorrow.”

“Quite possibly.”

“You don’t care, do you?”

“Zero fucks given.”

He moved impossibly closer, wrapping one arm around her waist, the other anchoring on the pool’s edge. “Put one arm around my neck, sugar cat, and hold onto the pool deck with the other. Lock your ankles behind my back.”

Her eyes opened, the pupils dilated with the barest ring of blue around them. He thought she was going to refuse, but then suddenly, he felt her knees grip around him a little tighter, her ankles crossing at his back, and her fingertips reaching behind her to grab the pool’s edge. He let go of the pool deck now that she was anchored by her own hold, and he dropped his arm beneath the water. His mouth found hers, his tongue sliding between her lips on the gasp she uttered as, under the water, his thumb slipped beneath the material where it covered her bare mound. Unerringly, he found her clit and placed barely there pressure on the button, lazily rubbing in circles.

“Nemo, someone could see,” she whispered, ending the kiss but speaking against his lips.

He bent his head at an angle to kiss her neck just below where her jaw came up under her ear lobe. “All anyone watching can see is me kissing you.”

“But it’s you,” she hissed, tilting her head farther to give him better access.

“Yup, so they’ll wonder. But they can’t see, so they won’t know for sure.”

His mouth traveled down her neck to her shoulder, and then he kissed a path across her clavicle to the hollow of her throat.

“Can you be quiet, sugar cat?” he murmured against her skin. His thumb continued its lazy circles. Without warning, his four fingers slid along her pussy, rubbing back and forth at the same lazy pace. “If I slide my fingers inside you, will you be able to keep from moaning?”

“I-I-I don’t know,” she replied honestly, her breath hitching.

He continued to stroke her under the water, continued to circle her clit, his lips on hers, his tongue slipping inside as she panted. Inside her mouth, he stroked her tongue with his, mimicking what his cock would do inside her.

He felt her hips start chasing his fingers, a sure sign that her pleasure was building. Carrying through on his threat, he slid his two middle fingers in between her lower lips and into her channel. Inside, she was just as wet as on the outside—only the consistency of that wetness changed. She whimpered softly, her eyes pleading with him.

“You want me to stop? If you want me to, I will. I’ll take you upstairs and get you off there, but I’d rather not move. This feels too good.”

“No, don’t move.”

He smiled as he brought his mouth back to hers. “Then you can’t move your hips. You gotta stay still. Let me control this. I promise I’ve got you.” He traced her teeth with the tip of his tongue and licked at the insides of her cheeks, then repeated.

She whimpered, her frustration building, but she stopped her movements.

“Good kitty,” he whispered back, then covered her mouth with his again.

He lowered himself slightly in the water so that his shoulders wouldn’t be seen moving. They were far enough away from the doorway and off to the side so no one could see them without physically going to the far side of the patio door or coming out onto the deck. He’d hear the latter, and he wasn’t really worried about his friends catching a show. If they did see them, they’d move away. But he didn’t want Gem to feel self-conscious. He wanted her mindless to everything but him like she was right now.

Nemo curled his fingers up inside her to touch the top wall, lazily stroking the rough patch of flesh. He didn’t want her going off on him like she had in the beach hut. Well… he wouldn’t mind. There was enough chlorine in the water to kill anything that wasn’t water, but he knew that would freak her out. So he put just enough pressure there to make it feel good but not enough to cause her to release in a gush.

Her whimpering became a little more frantic, and the fingers attached to the arm around his neck began to dig her short little nails into his skin. He pulled his mouth away from hers just enough to talk to her. “You ready, sugar cat? You ready to give it up to me?”

“Yess,” she hissed, her eyes going closed, her head tilting back.

“Nuh-uh. Look back at me. I want you to give up that orgasm to me.”

“Take it,” she whimpered.

“No, my liefie , I need you to relax and let it happen. This is a gift from you to me. Head up. Eyes on me.”

When she tilted her head up, he pressed his lips to hers, and while the pressure stayed the same, he took pity on her and moved his hand a little faster. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and she pressed her forehead to his. A high-pitched, muffled shriek let him know he’d hit just the right spot. He felt her entire body tighten. Moments later, a muffled moan passed from her mouth to his as she relaxed .

He stroked her slowly through the aftermath, then slid his fingers from inside her bikini and wrapped his arm around her tightly, just like the other arm had held her through their play. Her head moved to rest on his shoulder, both arms curving around them.

“Feel better?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied quietly. “But I’m guessing you don’t.” She bucked her hips into his, rubbing slightly against his hard cock.

“I’m okay. You can make it up to me upstairs. Gonna need to wash off all this chlorine anyway. Ready to go in?”

“No.”

Nemo chuckled. “Well, you can’t stay out here. You’ll fry in the sun. Can’t have that cute little nose all red and peeling. Besides that, you’ll shrivel up like a prune, and you’re already tiny. Can’t have you getting any smaller.”

She giggled sleepily and made a move to get out of his embrace.

“Nope, I’ve got you.”

He untangled from her arms and legs, then turned his back to her. “Piggyback time.”

That drew a snort from her, but she wrapped around him anyway. “I remember how this went the last time.”

He knew his smile was from ear to ear as he turned to look at her over his shoulder where her chin rested. “Yes, but you’re a little less leery this time around.”

Chin propped on his shoulder, she hummed her response. “Still leery. Just not fighting it right now.”

I’ll take it.

He worked his way through the pool to the shallower end, then climbed up the stairs with her still wrapped around him like a monkey. Leaving their things on the chairs, he slid the patio door open, stopped long enough for her to close it after they passed through, and then made his way to the stairs.

Nemo called out, “Scheherazade, bly .” The dog immediately padded over to Midas and lay at his feet.

Without looking up, Midas reached down to scratch the dog’s head, and he called out, “Steel’s on his way back with food. Dinner in two hours. You want me to bring it upstairs?”

“Thanks, big bro, that would be great. Need to catch a nap.”

“I’ll bet,” he mumbled. “God was right. Nothing is ever going to be the same. Kubrick tainted us all.”

Nemo grinned, then climbed the stairs. Once up in their room, he noticed that the guys had left him and Gem with the primary bedroom, which had its own attached bathroom. He made a mental note to order everyone their own private order of NikNaks as a thank you.

He headed into the bathroom, opened the shower door, and turned on the water. Setting Gem down on the floor, he quickly dropped his board shorts. “I figure you’ve got two minutes for that water to be at its best temperature. Just how good are you, sugar cat?”

She grinned, dropping to her knees on the floor. “Oh, I’m the best, burglar boy.”

She made her cutoff time with ten seconds to spare.