Dalton, Tymber - Bightmares [Deep Space Mission Corps 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Dr. Emilia Hypatia stared at the front vid screens as Earth slowly slid away, the New Phoenix desert shrinking beneath them as their altitude increased.

She swallowed hard, her stomach a bundle of nerves. The simulator experience hadn’t prepared her for this. Not at all. Three hours after the actual lift process had started, her initial excitement to be heading into space for the first time waned, and she felt…

Sick.

Literally.

Caph started to say something, but she didn’t hear him. She was too busy bolting for the bridge head. As she knelt beside the bowl and retched, she sensed Caph’s large, comforting presence push inside the tiny room with her. His hands gently gathered her hair at the nape of her neck to keep it out of her way.

“It’s okay, sweetie. You’ll get over it soon.”

She shook her head, her eyes tightly squeezed shut as another round of nausea hit. Thank the gods for the crew compatibility chips. Besides guaranteeing fidelity amongst the crew and protecting against forced sexual situations, they also acted as foolproof birth control.

Otherwise, Emi might suspect something else. Especially considering how much time she’d spent in bed with one or more of her men over the past several months.

“How is she?” Ford’s voice drifted to them from his place at the console.

She felt Caph lean away from her, outside the door. “She’ll be okay in a minute. You know how it is.”

Emi tightly gripped the toilet and held on. Even through her nausea, she sensed Caph and the other men knew exactly why she felt sick. “What’s wrong with me?” she managed, spitting into the bowl.

She heard water run, and then Caph pressed a wet washcloth against her hand. She took it and wiped her face.

“Nerves, along with a heaping dose of space sickness. It’ll pass. Some people are way more sensitive than others to it. Since you’re an empath, it makes sense it’d hit you really hard.”

“I didn’t feel like this in the simulation.” She’d felt a lot of things in the original simulation, a surprise two-hour session when she first applied for a position with the Deep Space Mission Corps. All four of them went through it, making them think they’d spent a year together instead of two hours inside a sim unit. She knew a little about space sickness but had never experienced it before.

Because in real life, she’d never been in space.

Caph tenderly stroked her shoulders with his large hands. While the tallest, largest, and beefiest of the three men, he wasn’t muscle-bound. His broad shoulders and chest tapered into a narrow waist and gorgeously tight ass. Even bigger than his body was his fragile, sensitive heart.

“You can’t sim this, baby. I felt sick for a week my first time out. It’s something to do with the grav plate system, I think. Some people don’t get sick at all, some people fight it for a couple of weeks. You’ll be okay once you adjust to it.”

She felt Aaron’s presence, and then heard his voice outside the head door. “I made her some ginger tea, Caph.”

“Thanks, Aar.” Caph helped her stand. She washed her face before rinsing her mouth and spitting again. When the lift process had started a few hours earlier, she’d eagerly anticipated leaving Earth for the first time, spending a minimum of five years on this vessel—and a whole lifetime with her men.

Her husbands.

She turned to Caph. His brilliant green eyes pierced her. “You all right, Emi?”

“I’ll be okay.” Another bout of nausea threatened. “I don’t think I’ll stray too far from a head, though.”

Caph stepped out and let her move past him. She gratefully took the offered steaming mug of tea from Aaron. His deep brown eyes studied her, his gaze full of concern.

“You sure you’re okay, Em?”

She sipped. He’d added just enough sugar to cut the bitterness. “I’ll live. I’ll go to sick bay and do a little self-medicating.”

Ford snorted from his seat at the console. “Good luck with that, sugar. Usually the anti-nausea meds don’t work against space sickness.”

She frowned. Okay, so admittedly she hadn’t researched space medicine very thoroughly. Dr. Graymard had told her not to worry about it. He’d said what little she needed to know in addition to her already extensive Earth-based knowledge, she could easily bone up on during their mission. She’d been too busy focusing on learning her non-medical duties on board the enormous ship.

Not to mention she’d been very busy boinking her brains out.

“Why don’t the anti-nausea meds work?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re the doc.” His blue eyes playfully twinkled. A few inches taller than her own five-seven, Ford stood the shortest and slimmest of the three men. Dark hair, trimly built, and athletically muscled, his movements possessed a svelte, catlike grace.

He was also their resident motormouth.

She glared at him while taking another sip of tea. “You’re a smart-ass, Ford.”

“You should know. You’ve examined it.”

She rolled her eyes as Caph laughed. Even Aaron smiled. “That’s enough, Ford,” Aaron said. “Don’t bust her balls too much on her first lift. If I remember correctly, you spent a lot of time hugging the head on our very first trip off this rock.”

Ford snorted. “Don’t remind me.”

Aaron gently guided her to her console seat. “Sit here for a minute while you finish that. It’ll help. It’s a natural anti-nausea remedy.”

Her stomach did feel marginally better. “Why didn’t you guys warn me about this?”

Caph shrugged his massive shoulders. “Sorry, babe. Didn’t think about it. We’ve been doing this for twenty years, remember? It’s old hat to us. I haven’t felt space sick in a long time.”

Ford turned from his console. “After you finish that tea, I’ll go put you to bed.”

“Sorry, no offense, but I don’t think I’m in the mood.” Her stomach took another dangerous lurch, barely righting itself in time. “In fact, I know I’m not.”

Ford rolled his eyes and smiled. “Honey, I didn’t say I would
take
you to bed, did I? I said
put
you to bed. I’ve got an awesome chicken soup recipe that will help keep your tummy settled.”

The very thought of eating nearly made her puke again. “I’m not sure I can tolerate that right now.”

“You can’t keep dry heaving. You have to put something in there to come back up. Dry heaves are the worst. Trust me on this one.”

Aaron settled into his command seat. “It’s okay, Em. We’ll let you know before we get to the orbital hub so you can see it.”

Even Caph nodded. “It’s okay, babe. Go rest and settle your stomach.”

All three sets of eyes were trained on her. She felt their overwhelming concern for her comfort, another benefit of her empath training. “All right. As long as you promise to come get me. I feel bad I’m wimping out on you.”

Ford stood and stretched, tightening his shirt along his abs and setting off a flurry of activity in her lower belly that had nothing to do with her stomach. Damn, he was a good-looking man. All of them could dampen her panties with just a sultry stare or a playful wink.

“You’re not wimping out on us, babe,” Ford said. “This is your first lift, your very first trip off this or any other rock. It’s natural you don’t feel good. I don’t care how long it felt like in the sim, some things can’t be duplicated.”

She finished her tea and let Ford walk her back to their shared crew quarters. He helped her settle in bed and gently took her left wrist in his hand.

“Let me try something.” His long fingers gently pinched a pressure point below her wrist, between the two large tendons. After a few minutes, Emi felt her stomach marginally settle.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“That’s helping.”

He nodded as he reached for her other wrist and did the same thing. Another five minutes later, the worst of her nausea abated. “Better?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“It won’t last. You can do it yourself.” He smiled, his eyes twinkling. “It’s always more fun to have help, though. Kind of like sex.” He leaned in and kissed her. “I’ll go make you some soup.”

Of the three men, Ford naturally assumed the role of sensitive caretaker. He’d taken the lead in nursing Aaron back to health years ago when he almost died from his injuries. Whether it was easing Aaron through the stressful times, making Caph laugh, or having an almost psychic emotional connection of his own with Emi despite his lack of empath skills, he made sure they were all taken care of.

Emi closed her eyes and tried to relax as her stomach rolled. The nausea returned with a vengeance. When Ford returned, he found her bent over the toilet in their cabin head.

He sighed. “Oh, sweetie.” He knelt beside her and held her hair. When she finished retching, he helped her to her shaky feet and kept a steadying arm around her while she rinsed and spit. Then back to bed, where he settled in with her and repeated the acupressure on her wrists. Once her stomach settled again, he helped her sit up and held her left wrist while she ate with her right hand.

The soup did help. “My own special recipe,” he proudly said. “Including fresh ginger.”

Aaron came to check on her an hour later. “How’s our patient?”

Ford was sitting up in their jumbo-sized shared bed, with Emi propped against his chest. He applied pressure to her wrists, trying to keep her stomach settled. “She’ll live.”

“Can I have more of that soup?”

Ford kissed her temple. “Of course you can. Maybe Cap’ll heat it up for you so I don’t have to get up and leave you. I left the container in the fridge.”

“I’ll go get it,” Aaron said.

“Thanks, guys.”

Aaron smiled and stroked her cheek. “Hey, you always take damn good care of us. It’s time we return the favor.”

Emi let Ford’s fingers work their stomach-calming magic. She couldn’t believe how different her life was now from less than a year ago. Following her graduation from medical school at the top of her class as an Alpha-ranked healer, class two empath, and with a psychology degree to boot, she’d applied to the DSMC on a lark. Alone in the world, with her parents dead and no home to go to, it seemed like a feasible plan.

The five-year commitment and her medical degrees would net her a huge return bonus. She hadn’t counted on falling in love with the three-man crew of the
Tamora Bight
. The men had been shipmates, crew, friends, and lovers for nearly twenty years. They had bonded crew status as a result of a tragic betrayal years earlier, which had resulted in the death of the woman they’d loved. They’d transferred to the DSMC from the Merchant Marines and suffered through an ego-crushing crew pairing process to find a fourth crew member, a female medical officer who would accept their situation.

That’s when they met Emi. Not only did Emi appreciate the deep, loving bond the men had, she desperately wanted to be a part of it. To have a family again. By the end of the sim session, Emi had fallen as deeply in love with the men as they had with her. The men didn’t just make her part of their bonded crew status—they legally married her before leaving Earth.

Now their journey to space had started for real.

Aaron returned with her soup and a mug of ginger tea a few minutes later. “Here you go, sweetheart.”

She gratefully sipped at the soup, feeling her stomach marginally calm. “If this is the worst I have to suffer during our time together, I’ll gladly take it.”

Ford laughed. “Let’s hope so, babe.”