AMAZONIAN'S LOVE

PART THREE

by Misty Vixen

DISCLAIMER

While this novella does take place in the same

universe as the Hellcats, it has nothing to do

directly with that series.

Ethan stared at the data scrolling by on the screen before him, sorting through all of it, looking for his opening. There was a lot of data, but at the moment, he wanted to devote as much time and energy to this job as possible. He didn’t want to think. In fact, he hadn’t wanted to think for about two weeks now.

That’s how long it had been since he’d last seen Paige.

There was his opening.

A data packet was being sent in through the security network. He keyed the virus to slot itself into the packet, hollow it out and essentially become it, engulfing its security codes and rough configuration. A couple seconds went by. The packet was scanned through the invisible security screens surrounding the corporate data-cores. It passed through undetected, giving him access. He was here for information and nothing more.

He didn’t want to linger.

Ethan ran a quick search algorithm, like a pulse-wave over the cores, or sonar shot out underwater. A single ping came back: the data he was looking for. He didn’t know what it was, only its ID code. At this point, he didn’t care to know anymore. He was just going through the motions, gathering the data and selling it off.

Sinking his digital hooks into the file, he created a copy and shipped it off to the predetermined address his employers had provided him with. The second he received confirmation that it had been received and it was exactly what they were looking for, Ethan began pulling back out of the data-cores. He slipped out through the security net, closed the hole behind him and shut the program down. He switched to another screen and checked out his account. He was still using the one he’d set up with Paige when they first started working together.

Five thousand credits, fairly small time.

With a sigh, Ethan passed off three thousand of the credits to those that owned his debt, then turned the screen off. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection and turned away, displeased with what he’d seen. He hadn’t shaved pretty much since Paige had left him. He looked pale and sallow, like he had some kind of sickness. His eyes were bloodshot and baggy, although he slept for about twelve hours a day now, sometimes as much as fifteen. He didn’t really like being awake anymore. Ethan stood up.

As he began walking through his squalid apartment, the cheapest one he could find on the planet he and Paige had been on when they’d broken up, he thought about the past two weeks. Though there wasn’t much to think about, honestly. It was like he’d been on autopilot, all motion, no thought needed. He scouted for jobs, any jobs he thought he could do, regardless of the pay. His life was now a void, and he was throwing in pretty much anything he could to try and fill that void. Mainly, he just wanted to kill time.

The idea of paying off his debt was still there, rooted firmly in his mind.

After he’d admitted to Paige that he had loved her, and she had stormed out, furious, leaving him naked and terrified, it was like a tsunami or a supernova had blasted through the entirety of him. Ripped away his feelings, his thoughts, most of his soul, leaving only a tender, battered core of self. Slowly, very slowly, things were coming back online. Basic functions remained. He knew still to feed himself, bathe semi-regularly, how to wheel and deal in the shadowy digital world of the net. The biggest thing was his debt.

So he threw himself at it.

Ethan got back to his bathroom, shucking off clothes and leaving them behind as he walked there, feeling the need for a shower. He finished stripping, turned on the water and got in, letting it wash over him in slow waves.

He knew that there was some kind of basic subroutine at work in his brain, a simple, primal self-preservation instinct that was trying desperately to keep him from doing something stupid. It was this organic subroutine that was choosing dull, time-consuming jobs, because the more and longer he worked, the less amount of time he spent thinking about Paige. Thinking about the seven foot goddess who had utterly shaken his world and once more awoken things in him that he hadn’t even been sure were still there.

He’d decided that he hadn’t been lying or mistaken when he told her that.

He really did love her.

And he missed her more than he thought possible.

Ethan killed the water, realizing that he’d been standing there for a while. He couldn’t remember if he’d washed himself off or not. He smelled his hands. They smelled of soap. Satisfied, he grabbed a towel, dried off and moved back into his bedroom, remembering at least to hang up the towel instead of just dropping it onto the floor.

He dressed, his movements slow and monotonous.

Hunger disturbed his stomach.

Time to eat. Ethan drifted towards the tiny kitchen, which was little more than a mini-fridge, a toaster oven, a sink and a few cabinets that occupied one corner of the room. He felt like he was being led along by undersea currents. A slow search of the kitchen area revealed not much, and what there was didn’t appeal to him.

He couldn’t even work up the strength to heat up any of the freezer meals. Ironically, this is what drove him to leave the apartment and go across the street to the Greek place he’d seen coming in. He’d gone there once so far, on a similar whim last week, and eaten gyros. They weren’t as good as the ones he’d come to love, but they’d gotten the job done then, so it stood to reason that they’d get the job done now. And he was on the first floor, and the place was across the street, so it wasn’t like it was a serious amount of walking.

Heaving another sigh, just wanting to sleep but knowing that he should eat because he hadn’t eaten at all today and for most of yesterday and he was starting to get lightheaded, so he grabbed a hoodie, shrugged into it and left his apartment. As he made his way to the Greek place that he couldn’t remember the name of, Ethan tried telling himself to get the fuck over it. He was a hacker, a businessman first and foremost. He’d spent over half his life getting to where he was, building his knowledge and his abilities.

Why was he letting a lost love fuck it all up?

But it was no use chastising himself. As logical and reasonable as the argument was, as much as it made sense to put aside someone he had been engaged in for little more than a month in favor of something he’d been engaged in for around a decade, he simply couldn’t. Because as much as he liked to think that he was all business, that emotions held little sway over him, it just wasn’t true. It was a false cloak of comfort that he’d been allowed to believe as the hurt of Pink left him faded, left him in a shell of cold professionalism.

But Paige had broken through that shell, and he had let her.

Because the truth of the situation was that he was a pretty emotional person, and he actually placed a high value on having a relationship. It was something he’d always idealized and suspected about himself, but being with Pink had only confirmed that notion. He’d loved her more than anything in his life then, and he thought she’d felt the same way towards him. Until she’d walked out of his life without a single shred of compassion.

When he’d met Paige, he found that he liked a lot about her. It wasn’t just the sex, he’d ultimately determined, but other things. The way they talked, the way it felt when they were just laying there together, the way they connected on the runs. But, perhaps most of all, it was that he’d always felt like an outcast from society, a pariah, and Paige seemed like a pariah, too. And they had connected on some deep, unspoken level over that.

Both of them liked the other for who they were, all superficial bullshit aside.

And he’d fucked that up, and she was gone.

And he was alone again.

Ethan moved into the Greek place and looked around with a kind of automatic gesture. The place was mostly dead, since it was close to ten at night, local time and the sun was gone. There were just a couple of people occupying a corner booth. They looked at him, then looked back to their meals. Something about them pinged his mental radar, but he had no idea what, and he didn’t care right now. He walked up to the counter and put in the order for a pair of gyros, then stood around, checking his Link while he waited.

He didn’t really see the information scrolling over his vision, instead he found himself just staring past it at the bland, pitted, stained wall of the restaurant. What was he going to do? He couldn’t work jobs to pay off his debt forever. Eventually it’d be gone, and then what motivation would he have? He supposed he might have recovered enough from this emotional trauma at that point...though, at that moment, he wasn’t sure recovery was an option.

His food came and he grabbed it and began making his way back to the apartment building. Ethan thought about what would come next. He’d eat and then he’d watch some old comfortable cartoon or movie until he passed out and then he’d wake up after half a day and find another low-paying, tedious, time-consuming job and then he’d do it all over again and again and again. He stepped into his apartment building.

Ethan made it to his front door, then he heard footsteps and sensed someone nearby and his instincts got pinged again.

Something was wrong.

Just as he started to turn around, he heard a soft hiss of compressed air and felt a sharp, cold pain in his neck.

Then darkness began to consume his vision and he seemed to lose control of his muscles and he was plummeting towards the thin, dirty carpet in the poorly lit hallway just outside of his apartment. And then he hit it.

And he was out.

...

Paige was finding it difficult to focus.

Which was dangerous, given what she was doing.

She sat in a cabin aboard a cruise ship, (much like the one she had shared with Ethan a few weeks ago, she tried not to think about that), and stared at nothing in particular, lying on her back, her hands above her, fingers gently moving. What she was actually staring at was a video feed being projected through her Link.

Her fingers had sensors on their tips, and she was using a wireless signal to manipulate a small hovering drone that was currently feeding her a visual and flying through a ventilation shaft. She’d gotten good at controlling these things many years ago, but it had been a while since she’d had to and she was a little rusty. Especially with how distracted she was. In a way, it was extremely embarrassing and she was glad that she was here alone.

She was a professional, a solider, a genetically engineered warrior who had fifteen years combat and espionage experience under her belt.

And she was all hung up on a boy.

It was a disgrace.

There was the entrance she was looking for. Damn, almost missed it. She brought the drone to a halt, turned and slipped through the vent grate. It was tiny, just small enough to fit. If anyone saw it, it would appear as a tiny bug. Paige brought the drone up, skirting the nearest wall, trying to stay out of sight. But it was dark in the room. She boosted the night-vision. Her target had been drinking most of the night and he’d gone to bed with an equally drunk blonde from the bar. Both of them were naked and passed out.

Paige zeroed in.

With some careful maneuvering, she landed the drone on the man’s bare shoulder and set it to work, gathering a blood sample. The tiny needle went in and extended. Not so much as a twitch from the target. Perfect. A few seconds went by. A small green light flashed in her vision from the drone: it had done its job.

She began to navigate it back to her room.

As she did, it unfortunately freed her mind up to focus on the things that were making her miserable. Namely the fact that she’d given in to her more ugly instincts and run away from a problem instead of facing it head on. She’d been panicking, she tried to tell herself...only that was somehow worse. Panic was embarrassing, too.

It had been about two weeks since she’d gotten dressed, gathered her things and walked out. Ethan had tried to contact her several times, but after three days of her solidly ignoring him, (she’d been tempted to change her Link number, but something kept her from doing this, some part that wasn’t willing to give up on this relationship), he’d stopped calling entirely. Somehow, this made her feel even worse.

She’d left the planet straight from the apartment, going to the nearest port and taking the first shuttle out, going anywhere. She didn’t want to think anymore after that. When she’d gotten to the next colony, she’d found a job and got to work. Then another. And another. She’d been taking more risks, working on three or four jobs in a single area before moving on instead of just the one. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was she was doing now that she’d had her debt paid off. Running jobs had been her life for several years now.

So that’s what she was doing.

Paige guided the drone back into her room, which was one level below her target’s room and at the opposite end of the hallway. This job was strange compared to what she normally did, but the extra constraints had kept her busy and thinking of other things besides Ethan. That’s probably what was bothering her the most. He kept creeping back into her thoughts. And it was ridiculous. She hadn’t had a serious relationship for about two years now, and that was the whole point! The relationship wasn’t supposed to be serious!

It was supposed to be simple and easy.

And then he’d fucked it all up.

Why did he have to do that? She remembered him saying that he had to, he had to, he couldn’t keep it inside of him any longer. And she supposed she respected that. It must have been terrifying. Both options must have been terrifying. She knew what it was like to feel a certain way and have to keep it quiet, and that was a really horrible feeling all its own. But, of course, it must have been equally terrifying, or perhaps even far more so, to tell her. Actually, she was sure of that. Because of what might go wrong.

And it had gone wrong. So wrong.

The drone came back to her and Paige sighed softly as she landed it in a small carrying device no larger than a cork. It was made of tough, reinforced, climate-controlled metal. Once it was inside, she made double sure that it had the blood sample it needed. It would be diluted by the alcohol, but they would have to deal with it. Once she was sure, Paige sealed the device and secured it somewhere safe. Then she laid back on the bed.

A part of her, a big part of her, was afraid that she’d made a horrific mistake. It was the part of her that she didn’t want to listen to, the part that kept her working, trying to avoid thinking. Because as much as she regretted running away, (and she could admit that to herself now, she regretted it), she knew it was a safer alternative than staying behind, getting attached, perhaps falling in love herself. Because as bad as she felt right now, she knew that losing a loved one was much, much worse. She didn’t want to go through that again.

It hurt too much.

Paige sighed softly and then stood up. She began pulling her clothes off, heading for the bathroom. She needed a shower. Okay, well, she didn’t need one. She wanted one. Close enough. She stripped naked, turned on the water and got inside. For a long while she simply stood there, trying to clear her head.

It wasn’t working.

She tried to think about what she would do next. The plan was to get off at the next stop, which was a space station orbiting some backwater world that was mostly ocean. She’d meet someone there that would verify the blood sample. Provided everything went smoothly, she would be paid and they would part ways.

And then she would find another job.

But there were other thoughts pushing into her brain, notions whispering in her skull. She wanted to call up Ethan and ask him back. She wanted to go to him and be with him again, connect with him again, hold him again.

But it was too far gone now. She’d run away from him, walked out on him and ignored him for weeks now.

He’d probably found someone else by now.

Paige groaned. She didn’t want to think about that at all. She’d been cheated on before and it was pretty fucking ugly. She didn’t want to go there again. Not that it’d be cheating. She left him. Paige killed the water and dried off. Emerging from the bathroom, Paige came to stand in the middle of the room, looking around uncertainly.

What do to now?

The next stop wasn’t until tomorrow morning, about ten hours away now. The cruiser came packed with about a hundred different restaurants and entertainment outlets, but she honestly didn’t feel like leaving her room right now. She didn’t feel like doing anything. The minor thrill of the job had worn off and now she was just bottoming out, feeling lonely and low. Sighing, she turned off the lights and crawled into bed without putting anything on. She laid there, trying not to think about anything and waiting for sleep.

It took a long time.

...

“We’re good.”

Paige checked her account, then nodded tightly and watched the man stand up and leave the shop. She remained at the booth for another five minutes, finishing her meal before getting up and doing the same. It had all gone really well. The cruise ship had docked right on time. She’d checked out without a problem. From the ship, she’d gone to the prearranged meeting site and passed the blood sample off to the man in question. They’d paid up ten thousand credits for the job. And now she was preparing to leave.

It had all gone off flawlessly.

So why did she have this awful feeling of tense fear in her gut?

There was this looming threat that seemed to throw a shadow over her. Something bad was about to happen. But what?

Paige felt her heart jerk in her chest as her Link vibrated very subtly and a small icon began flashing in her peripheral.

She had a new message.

It was from Ethan.

Why this the bad feeling? What did that mean? Paige hesitated, realized she was standing in people’s way, as she’d been moving along a thoroughfare through the station, and moved over to a bench.

Sitting down, she stared at the message, hesitating for a long time before finally deciding she needed to open it. She didn’t have to respond, but something felt really off about this. Why would he suddenly send her a new message?

It was a video file.

Paige trembled slightly and played it.

The first image that snapped into focus was Ethan’s face. His split lip was bleeding badly, his nose looked broken and one eye was swollen shut. Her veins turned to ice and her gut clenched hard enough to make her double over. A hand suddenly shot out from behind the camera, grabbed Ethan’s chin and roughly pulled him up.

“Come on, smile for your girlfriend,” someone said. “Okay, slut, if you don’t want us to start chopping off pieces of your boyfriend and mailing them to you, we want a million credits and we want them now. Directions to follow. You’ve got twenty four hours.” It looked like Ethan started to say something but the video file cut off.

Paige sat there for maybe ten seconds, trembling, a stew of emotions coursing through her. Fear, fury, horror, anxiety.

Suddenly, it all snapped off, like someone hit the kill switched.

All that remained was cold, resolute determination.

She knew what she had to do. In that instant, it became clear to her that running away didn’t change a single fucking thing. She didn’t know whether or not she loved Ethan, whether or not she was even capable of real love anymore, but she knew for a fact that she did care about him, and if there was anything she could to do save him, to keep evil men from taking him away from her, then she would do everything she possibly could.

She wasn’t losing someone else she cared about.

Not again.

Paige activated an old, old file buried in her Link, one she hadn’t used for ages, one hidden behind several walls of encryption. She keyed in the passwords as the challenges came to her, then she activated what she and the others had simply called The Directory. She hadn’t updated it almost two years now, didn’t even know if the woman she was looking for still had the same number or was even still alive. The Directory held a list of almost every Amazonian woman from the program. The idea was simple.

If you needed help, you called and you asked for it, and the person on the other end would give you that help. Because of the bond shared between all Amazonians.

And she needed help.

Paige selected the name and number from The Directory and called it.

The call was answered shortly after the first ring.

“...Paige?”

“Lucy.”

“Paige, I haven’t heard from you in years.”

“Lucy, I need help. They took someone from me.”

There was the briefest of pauses. “What do you need, Paige?”

...

Ethan felt like utter shit.

He was lying on his back on a bare concrete floor, still leaking blood slowly from a few places, wearing only boxers. He was pretty sure one of his legs was broken, and a few fingers, too. Definitely his nose and he couldn’t see shit out of his right eye. Pretty much everything hurt. He didn’t think it was possible for there to be this much pain at once in a human body. And, unfortunately, it had opened the door to an awful realization.

It could get way worse than this.

He couldn’t move without sending shockwaves of agony throughout his body and, mercifully, he’d stopped crying about ten minutes ago. He wasn’t even embarrassed about that. After the beating he’d received, he felt he’d earned some crying.

Time had lost meaning.

Ethan didn’t know how long it had been, though he didn’t think it’d been terribly long. Maybe a day or two at the most. Probably less than a day. After the attack just outside his apartment, he’d come to a couple of times. Once being dragged somewhere, once riding in a vehicle of some kind, a car, because it bumped and jolted in ways that only wheeled vehicles did. When he woke up for real, he’d been stripped almost naked, bound and tied to a chair. There were several big, tough guys around him. Mercenary types.

They didn’t ask anything, just beat the crap out of him for about ten minutes. And they enjoyed it way too much.

Then they’d recorded him and it became immediately obvious what they were doing: holding him for ransom from Paige. He wanted to tell them not to bother, that she wasn’t coming for him. Why would she? She obviously didn’t love him, didn’t care enough to stay with him or even return his fucking calls.

So now he laid in a bare concrete cell where it was cold and he would start shivering soon and that would make all the pain that much worse, feeling lonely and miserable and sorry for himself. And knowing he was probably going to die.

Because Paige probably wouldn’t bother responding. She was a stone-cold mercenary type and it had been a mistake to fall in love with her. Not that he’d had a choice in the matter. Your emotions didn’t give a shit what you actually wanted, they just did whatever the fuck they wanted. So Ethan laid there and waited to die.

...

As luck would have it, not only was Lucy still alive, still in the business and still stellar at her job, she was also just two systems over. A two hour shuttle ride. Which left twenty two hours. Paige wasn’t feeling particularly lucky right then, though. She looked out the back of the taxi she’d shoved herself into. It was currently navigating the streets of a rainy colony she hadn’t learned the name of. The dismal atmosphere matched her own sour mood. Two hours was too long and she’d found herself thinking of a lot.

None of it she wanted to think about.

All the things that might be being done to Ethan. The fact that he might be dead already. That she might be too late or maybe even force their hand and cause them to kill him by doing this. But she didn’t have a million credits and there was no way she was going to put together that much money in less than a day.

And besides, she had no intention of letting these fuckers keep breathing.

The cab suddenly lurched to a stop outside of a warehouse. Paige frowned, wondering if she’d gotten the right address, but there was a light on in one of the windows and something about this just felt right.

She swiped her thumb over the pad attached to the back of the driver’s seat, crediting him an extra twenty because she’d offered it to him if he drove the whole way there and didn’t talk. He hadn’t said a single word.

Paige got out and closed the door. The taxi drove off. She looked around. There was a row of old, derelict, rundown buildings occupying this side of the street. Warehouses and tenements and factories. It was an ugly place to live.

But Amazonians ended up in weird living situations, it seemed.

Paige walked up to the front door and banged on it a few times. There was a pause, then a buzz and the door swung open with surprising smoothness. Stepping inside, she found herself in a large, open area with about half a dozen brilliant spotlights pointed down at it. The door closed behind her. Paige shielded her eyes.

“Lucy?” she called.

There was about a five second pause, then most of the lights shut off, and she could see the rest of the warehouse. There was a sort of impromptu first story, with several walls thrown up along the wide open space of the warehouse. Out of one of the doors came Lucy. She was smiling brightly. Paige felt an unexpected surge of emotion upon seeing her again and found herself rushing to cross the distance between them.

She embraced her, hugging her tightly, feeling tears stinging her eyes.

“Hello, Paige,” Lucy said quietly, holding her and rubbing her back. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“I’m so sorry I’ve been out of contact,” she said, suddenly desperate to justify herself, to explain why she’d basically cut all of them out of her life. “I-I just, I couldn’t, it was too hard, it hurt too much after what happened.”

“I know,” Lucy replied. “I understand, Paige. It’s all right. You can relax here. This is a safe place.” She held her closer and rocked gently side to side. It was an effort, but Paige kept herself from crying. There wasn’t time to cry, as much as she might suddenly want to. It occurred to her just how long she’d gone without the simple, human connection of someone holding her and telling her it was going to be okay.

She hadn’t realized how much she missed that.

“Tell me what happened, Paige. Tell me what you need from me.”

That got her thinking again. Paige sniffed once, let go of Lucy and wiped her eyes. “I met a boy,” she said, and Lucy smiled. “It got too serious too fast for me, so I...I ran. And someone got ahold of him. I don’t know who or how or why but they beat him within an inch of his life and sent me a video, demanding a million credits.”

Now Lucy was frowning. “I’m so sorry, Paige.” She turned around. “Come on, I’ll help you find the fuckers.”

Paige followed her into the network of rooms that had been cobbled together in the warehouse. The place was messy but not grievously so. Discarded clothes, abandoned takeout cartons, empty cans of soda, all of it lying across several surfaces and sometimes on the floor. Paige and Lucy had gone into the Project Amazon at the same time. They’d become best friends fast and, later, lovers. After several years, they’d kind of drifted apart, staying in touch and visiting from time to time, as their lives took them in different directions.

But there was never any love lost between them.

Apparently even after two years of radio silence.

Lucy was an information expert. Well, Lucy was a lot of things, she had a brain like a supercomputer, but what she seemed to excel at was using data and the net and other dubious sources to track people, places and things down. It had always been her specialty. And Paige would have thought it’d have made her rich.

“What’s with the warehouse?” she asked as they made their way through a living room, a dining room, what looked like an entertainment room and finally into a room that had an enormous desk sporting four different monitors and all manner of gear.

“I like it, it’s got character. Bought all this for just a hundred grand,” Lucy replied, settling into a rolling computer chair large enough to hold her.

“I see...” Well, the girls usually did develop weird tastes.

“Send me the file.”

Paige did, sending it as a message through her Link. Lucy got it, opened it and began studying it. Paige didn’t want to watch it again. She looked away, instead studying her old friend. She’d always thought Lucy was very pretty in a sweet, almost innocent kind of way, though she knew that none of them were innocent anymore. She had a short blonde hair, the most gorgeous brown eyes and what fashion buffs would call a heart-shaped face. She was just a few inches shy of seven feet and had a pretty thin, wiry frame, like Paige.

“What have you been doing?” she asked suddenly.

Lucy glanced over at her, then back at the screen. “Work, mostly. The military kind of hardwired all of us to be busy all the time, I think. So I mostly run a freelance business of tracking, searching and hunting for anyone who’s interested. Well, not anyone, obviously. I do have some standards and morals. I’ve actually been running down missing people in my spare time for free this past year. Kind of my way of giving back to the community.”

“Wow...how many have you found?”

“Just over a hundred. Though mostly it’s...grim. I’d say seven out of every ten turn out to be either dead or they don’t want to come back at all, but at least the people know, you know what I mean?” she asked.

“Yeah, I do. Knowing is important.”

“So...who is this boy of yours, if you don’t mind my asking.”

Paige sighed softly. “His name is Ethan. He...I needed a partner. He’s a hacker. I was finding it difficult to run solo jobs anymore, without a tech on my side. He came highly recommended. After the first mission, we got...close.”

“He seems kinda young...not that I’m judging or anything.”

“He is. Twenty.”

“So what happened?”

“I...did something stupid. After he did something stupid.”

“What did he do that was so stupid?”

“He told me he loved me. And I walked out.”

Lucy stopped what she was doing, turned and stared at Paige.

“...what?” Paige asked uncertainly.

“Paige. I love you. You know that I love you, but holy shit, you’ve kind of turned into an idiot,” Lucy replied.

Paige stared at her, blinking a few times. She’d forgotten how straight up blunt Lucy could be. Well, they were all like that.

“What?” she replied.

“Paige, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of this basic fact, but life sucks. It’s miserable and terrifying and painful. When you find someone worth holding onto, someone who makes you feel good, you hold on to that person. I don’t know how you forgot that.”

“I found that it was...safer, not to love. That way, when something happens, like it always does, it won’t hurt.”

Lucy reached out and placed her hands on Paige’s shoulders, brought her face closer. “I’m going to slap you, my friend. Hiding yourself away is not safer. It’s easier. And we have never taken the easy way out. And you know that. If this boy tells you he loves you and he isn’t a terrible person and you feel something for him in return, you do not run away from him. You embrace him and make him a part of your life so that you can enjoy your life. Because otherwise what’s the fucking point? I’m ashamed of you, Paige.”

She let go of her shoulders, turned away and got back to work.

“I’m sorry,” Paige whispered, realizing that as much as it hurt, Lucy was right. She was right about everything.

How had she forgotten this?

“Don’t tell me, tell him, when you find him. And...sorry if I’m being too harsh. I do love you still Paige. These harsh words are coming from a place of love.” She took a deep breath and let it out, then turned back around and hugged her fiercely. “Now let me work. Go get something to eat, you look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks,” Paige replied, laughing unexpectedly.

Lucy gave her a kiss on the lips. “You can always count on me for the truth. Now go eat.”

Paige lingered a few seconds longer, then she got up and started hunting for the kitchen.

...

There were six hours left.

Paige would only need one of them. Probably less than that. Everything had gone pretty well, all things considered.

Right now, she was stalking through a forest, wearing a full-body combat suit that should hide all signs of life from any scanning technology. She was loaded down with gear: two very powerful, silenced pistols, a silenced sub-machine gun, a combat knife, lots of ammo and a hefty collection of throwing knives.

It had taken Lucy about an hour to track them down. Paige still didn’t know how she did it, though the largest piece of information was the message itself. Lucy had access to certain tracking algorithms that made it easier to trace such messages back to their origins. Lucy got her the precise location, down to the building, including a blueprint. They studied it and planned her route. It was an old, abandoned factory on the world that she and Ethan had last been together. She had a strong feeling that he simply hadn’t left.

After that, Lucy had offered up her gear, and, wanting to save time, Paige had taken her up on it. She’d grabbed the suit and the guns and the knives and promised to pay her back. Lucy had told her it was on the house.

Then she’d offered to come with her.

“Sorry,” Paige had said, “this is something I have to do alone. But thank you.”

So, instead, Lucy got her a ticket on a shuttle that belonged to a company known for its speed. It would get her to where she needed to go in fourteen hours. Paige had thanked her again, given her a hug and a kiss, and then had headed out. She’d made herself sleep on the way there, since she needed to be sharp, and when the shuttle touched down, she’d left the settlement and headed into a forest that made up about half of its perimeter.

The abandoned factory was beyond city limits, deep in the forest.

The sun had fallen.

As before when someone had hurt her friends, she had no compunction about murdering all of them. Maybe it was immoral, but she was beyond caring. Right now, she was in her element, she was moving in for the kill, doing what she’d spent years training for and perfecting. She let herself become an instrument of silent death.

Up ahead, she saw lights.

Paige let the last of her emotions, her thoughts, drain away. It was time to do the run. Not for money but for someone she cared deeply about. She was getting Ethan out of there and taking Lucy’s advice.

Provided he didn’t hate her now.

Paige came up to the perimeter of the structure, which was mostly surrounded by an old blacktop parking lot. She circled it until she found a darker area. There were several lights on in the dirty or sometimes broken windows and she heard voices. She’d had Lucy hack an overhead surveillance satellite for just a little bit and run a scan of the building shortly before her arrival on the planet. There were a baker’s dozen life signs inside.

She took that as a good sign.

Humans tended towards even numbers, so the odd one out had to be Ethan. Or that’s what she was telling herself. Paige moved up through the shadows, quick and silent until she hit the edge of the building. She slid along it until she found a long-ago broken window that had been cleared of glass. Someone else must have been using it as an entrance and exit. Kids or homeless, maybe. Now it would serve her.

Paige climbed inside and checked out the darkened hallway she’d come to. These mercenaries were sloppy. The sad reality was that most of them were. You didn’t need any formal training to become one and she’d guess that at least half of all mercs were just idiots who grabbed a gun and had something to prove.

Paige set to work.

It wasn’t hard, once she let herself get back into that zone, that killing mood. She found them all, one by one, and killed them.

She put a silenced shot through the eye of a man as he stepped out of a room and he dropped to the floor without a sound.

She found two having sex and shot them both through the head before they even knew that she was in the room.

Three more went down, playing cards in a long-abandoned break room.

She threw a knife into a man as he stepped out into the same hallway she was in.

Five minutes went by, then ten, then fifteen.

By the time she reached what passed as the control center for this operation, she’d put down eleven of the assholes, and none of them had been the wiser to her presence. Truly sloppy. They had no idea who they were fucking with. For a brief second, she wondered how these men had gotten their hands on Ethan...then she remembered that, as much as she liked him, the kid’s forte was in the digital world, not the physical one.

They’d probably tranqed him or something.

He was kind of an easy target.

Which made her all the angrier. He didn’t deserve this. The last guy had his feet propped up, tilting back in a chair, watching something on his Link no doubt. Silent as death, Paige pulled out the knife she’d brought, crept up right behind the guy, crouched down and then slipped her hand over his mouth while at the same time slipping the knife over his throat. He froze in her grasp. She leaned in and whispered, “Who ordered this?”

She released her hand over his mouth.

“Who the fuck are you?” he whispered harshly.

“I’m the girl you shouldn’t have fucked with. Now who ordered this?”

“I-I don’t know,” the man whispered. “Please, they didn’t give us any information.”

“Then you’re no use to me.”

“Wait-”

Paige plunged the knife into his neck and felt his blood spray across her hand. He convulsed for several seconds in her grasp, then went slack as the life drained out of him. She’d pull the data from their Links later and feed it to Lucy, to see if she could find out who ordered this job. In the meantime, she needed to find Ethan.

Straightening up, wiping some of the blood off on the dead man’s clothing, Paige turned around and began her hunt.

...

Ethan opened his eyes with a snap as he heard the door to his cell opening.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, but it had been a while. They’d come in and brought him some water and pretty crappy meals twice. And they’d kicked him a few more times for good measure.

They were coming back for something now.

Ethan tried to sit up, but it all hurt too much. It was all he could do to simply raise his head and stare at the door.

As it swung open and light spilled in, he knew he had finally been driven to hallucination by the pain, because he saw a seven foot woman in combat gear standing in the doorway. He saw Paige, staring back at him.

Then she rushed into the room and got down on the floor beside him.

“Oh, Ethan...” she whispered.

“Tell me I’m not hallucinating,” he groaned in response, laying his head carefully back down.

“You’re not hallucinating,” she said, then she reached down and pulled something out of one of her larger pockets. “Hold still, I’m going to give you some morphine. Then I’m going to have to move you,” she murmured.

“Why did you come back?” Ethan asked.

Paige hesitated. “What do you mean why? You were in trouble.”

“I was in trouble when you left me,” he replied, feeling that anger resurface. “I was in a lot of trouble when you walked out on me, Paige.”

She hesitated a bit longer, then she stuck something in his neck. He groaned at the pain, then let out another groan as he felt the morphine immediately begin to go to work. Soothing, numbing warmth began to flow throughout his body.

“I’m sorry, Ethan,” she said quietly. “I fucked up. I will fully admit that I fucked up. I was wrong to walk out. I should have stay there and talked with you.”

“Seriously? I’m not hallucinating from the morphine now, am I?” he asked. He was beginning to feel a little lightheaded.

She laughed softly. “No, Ethan. You aren’t. Now, I’ve killed everyone here. I’m going to pick you up and carry you. I saw they had a makeshift infirmary set up. I need to get you patched up and checked out, to see if you’ve got any internal bleeding. Then we’re leaving this place.” She leaned down and gently picked him up.

He felt like he was floating.

“Where are we going?” he murmured.

“I don’t know yet, just away from here.”

“I need my rig...”

“They robbed you and brought it here.”

“Oh.”

Ethan felt like he was going to sleep now. A lot of things were going through his mind, but they were slow and sluggish, and he didn’t want to think anymore. The pain was gone. And being in Paige’s arms made it feel like the emotional pain was gone too. He had questions for her, lots of them, maybe angry questions.

But for right now, he felt okay.

...

Ethan was out.

She was worried and wouldn’t stop being worried until she got him checked out and somewhere safe. That was one of the problems with living on the underground, it was a lot riskier to go to a hospital. She’d have to find a medic on the underground who could help. If he needed it. If it wasn’t that bad, she could deal with it herself.

Really, it was just a question of getting him out of there and off the planet.

She carried him back through the area to the makeshift infirmary they’d set up in one of the dozens of empty rooms. It wasn’t very well-stocked and she imagined they’d set it up as an emergency means to keep him alive in case they beat him up too bad. Wishing she could kill them again, Paige gently set Ethan down on an examination table and let it run a diagnostic on him to see if he had any internal bleeding or anything else serious that she couldn’t deal with. While that happened, she turned to a laptop they’d left in the room and booted it up. She needed to pull some kind of information out of them and figure out who it was that had come after them, because obviously these morons hadn’t figured this out on their own.

Ten minutes went by. She checked frequently on Ethan. Finally, the scan came back. Setting aside the laptop for now, she moved over and checked it out, frowning at the amount of things that were wrong with him. However, despite all the bruises and cuts and scrapes and blood loss, he was fundamentally okay. He just needed a lot of rest. Well, there were healing accelerators she could get her hands on that would cut down the amount of time it would take to get him back up to one hundred percent.

Although she wanted to get him to a professional to make double sure. Luckily, she knew one or two that would help out.

Paige began tending to his wounds. He’d stopped bleeding some time ago. Frowning, feeling tears again, (such an unfamiliar feeling, had it really been so long?), she broke out a sterilization pad and began gently wiping the blood off his face. Someway through, he woke up, his eyes slowly opening. He looked up at her and smiled.

“What are you doing?” he murmured sleepily.

“I’m cleaning your face,” she replied.

“Is it dirty?”

“Yes, Ethan.”

“When can we go home?”

“Soon.”

She leaned down and carefully kissed him on the lips, then he slipped back into unconsciousness. Paige finished cleaning up him up, then returned her attention to the laptop. It might take a while, but she had to get this information.

...

Ethan came awake in a cool, dim room and had no idea where he was or what the hell was going on. As he laid there, feeling a vague edge of pain all over his body, a rush of memories came to him. He remembered...finishing the job, then being kidnapped. Someone had kicked his ass. More than once. And then...Paige?

“You’re awake.”

He looked over. Paige was standing beside his bed, (he realized he was lying in a bed), and smiling down at him, wearing a robe.

“Hey...wait...where am I? What’s going on?”

“You’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness for about half a day now. I was getting concerned. Try not to worry.” She said down on the bed with him and took his hand. Her hands were warm, soft and comforting.

“What happened?” he asked, his head slowly clearing.

“You remember that you were captured and that I came to rescue you?” she asked.

He nodded slowly, then regretted it, as it sent waves of pain shooting through his head. “Yes, I remember that. Not much else.”

“I got you out of there after checking you out medically, recovering your things, dressing you and snagging some information from the jackasses that took you. I killed all of them. After I got you cleaned up a bit, I managed to get us onto a cruise ship. I paid extra for the crew not to ask any questions and managed to get you here. You’ve been sleeping ever since we took off. We’re about another day away from where we’re going.”

“And where are we going?”

“To see a friend. I want to keep you somewhere safe while you heal and also try to figure out who did this and why and what we’re going to do about it.”

“And what about...us?” he asked.

She bit her lip and looked away for a moment. “I want to be with you,” she said. “I’m sorry I ran away. I panicked.” She hesitated a bit further, then looked into his eyes. “Do you forgive me? Do you still...love me?”

“Yes,” he replied immediately. He felt juvenile and irrational, but hearing her say these things and ask these questions just washed away all the anger he’d been feeling, the loneliness and misery. He supposed this was the other side of love, the good side of it. With seemingly very little effort, Paige had transformed him from miserable to happy again.

“I do love you,” he said.

“Will you take me back?”

“Of course.”

“Even if...I’m not sure that I love you back?” she asked.

He hesitated now, uncertain of how to take that. “You don’t...”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I...I know that I care for you, and I like you, and I want to be with you. I want you in my life and in my bed and just around me. But love is...it’s so big. And it’s been so long since I’ve loved anyone like that, I just...I’m not sure. I need more time.”

He felt relief then and he smiled. “I can handle that,” he replied, gently squeezing her hand. “I can give you time to figure it out.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “That means a lot.” They stared at each other for a bit longer, then her mood seemed to change. She looked up and down the length of his body. “Well, Ethan, you’re going to be out of commission for a while. At least a week, maybe two. And that’s with the healing agents I’m going to be pumping into you. So I’m going to be taking care of you.”

“You don’t have to,” he replied.

“That’s up for debate, since this is my fault. But whether or not I have to, I do know that I want to. I may not yet be sure whether or not I love you, Ethan, but I do know for sure that I really, really like you. And I want to make you feel better.”

“How are you planning on doing this?” he asked.

She grinned and stood up. “I had a couple of ideas...”

He watched as she shrugged out of her robe, revealing her perfect, tall naked body to him. He could feel his body responding, his dick slowly stiffening.

“I, uh, I’m not entirely sure I’m up for sex right now,” he said. “I mean, even with you on top, I think it might be a bit much.”

“I know,” she replied. “Don’t worry, this won’t be too taxing. All you have to do is lay there and relax. I’ll take care of everything.”

She sat down again on the bed and leaned forward. Reaching down, she gently grabbed his hand and brought it up to one of her breasts.

“Oh, Paige, I’ve missed you,” he groaned, feeling its wonderful smooth firmness.

She laughed. “Yeah, I’ll bet you’ve missed me. I bet you’ve missed how good I fuck you,” she replied.

“That’s...pretty high on the list,” he admitted.

“It’s okay. I’ve missed your dick and that fantastic tongue and those amazing fingers of yours and I am so looking forward to regular fuck sessions with you again.”

“Same.”

She let him feel up her tits for a while longer, then she pulled back the blankets. That’s when he realized he was naked. Also that he was in really shit shape. One of his legs was wrapped up in pretty thick bandaging and there were other, smaller bandages all over his body, which was covered with lots of bruising.

“Jeez,” he muttered.

“Don’t worry, Ethan, you’re going to be healed again soon. And I’m not going to let anything else happen to you, I promise. Now...just lay back and relax.”

She got down between his legs and licked up the bottom of his cock, sending a shudder of pleasure through him.

Then she started licking the head of his dick, holding it firmly in her grasp.

“Oh, Paige...” he groaned. “Fuck, it feels so good.”

“You’ve earned it,” she replied.

Then she put his dick in her mouth. The pleasure was immense and immediate, a warm, wet return to blissful rapture. He stared intently at her as she started bobbing her head, and she was staring right back at him, staring directly into his eyes as she sucked his dick. He began moaning even louder, laying there, letting her suck him off. Her mouth was a slice of heaven, an oasis of pure, absolute, raw pleasure.

It was a welcome return.

It was also a welcome release when he started coming about thirty seconds later. He felt guilty for coming so fast, but he couldn’t help it. The pleasure was overwhelming, not just the physical but the emotional pleasure. He was in love with this woman and although she was uncertain about her love for him, she clearly had a lot of very positive feelings for him. Ethan moaned her name loudly, over and over, as he started coming in her mouth.

Paige encircled his cock with her thumb and first two fingers and started jacking him off as she sucked him dry. He moaned as fresh pulses of bliss shoot through him, his dick kicking hard in Paige’s mouth, shooting off fresh volleys of his seed practically down her throat. She kept working his dick even after his orgasm had finished, and then, once she seemed sure that it was empty and he was done, she carefully took it out of her mouth.

“Feel better?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Ethan managed, feeling very relaxed and tired now. “Sorry.”

“About what?” she asked.

“Finishing too soon.”

She laughed. “Trust me, I do not mind sucking cock for shorter amounts of time. And that was about you and your pleasure, so it’s fine.”

“I can do you if you want,” he replied, struggling to sit up.

“Ethan,” Paige said, putting a firm, powerful hand on his shoulder and gently pushing him back down, “I’ll be fine, okay? You can do me later. Right now you need to rest. I’m going to order us some fucking five star room service and we’re going to have a huge meal and at some point, I’m going to have you soak in a hot tub and massage the parts of you that aren’t too sore, and I’ll suck your dick again. How does that sound?”

“That sounds like you’re the best girlfriend in the entire galaxy,” he replied.

She laughed again, a little louder this time. “Good enough for me.”

...

Paige let out a long sigh of relief after she drained about a quarter of the wine bottle in one go.

“Damn, girl, leave some for me!” Lucy said, walking over and grabbing it.

“I fucking need to get shit-faced tonight,” Paige replied.

“I suppose that’s a fair point,” Lucy said. She took a few healthy drinks from the bottle, then passed it back to Paige.

It had been a long fucking three days.

She’d done her best to take care of Ethan on the trip back to Lucy’s planet, all the while giving updates to Lucy as they grew closer. Lucy, in the meantime, had reached out to a local doctor who worked on the underground, who didn’t ask questions, and knew to be there at a certain time. Once they’d arrived, she’d gotten Ethan to Lucy’s warehouse fortress and had fully filled her in on the situation, then had passed whatever data she’d managed to extract from the mercenaries over, hoping for the best.

The doctor had come by later and checked on Ethan with more thorough equipment. His equipment revealed a few fractures in his bones and he injected Ethan with some healing agents that would greatly speed up his recovery and a few bone supplements to help with the mending specifically. He’d then put him into a brief, chemically induced coma for about a day and a half, as the beginning of the healing agents’ work was supposed to be quite painful, and Paige decided that he’d been in enough pain already.

He’d woken up early this morning and had seemed a lot better, though he was very lethargic and had slept most of the day, waking only to go to the bathroom and eat. Right now, he was laying in bed, reading.

“So he’s your boy, huh?” Lucy asked.

“Yep, he’s my boy,” she replied.

“He’s cute.”

“He is, isn’t he?” She was silent for a moment. “Um, thanks...for what you told me. It helped sort of clear my head.”

“It’s apparently one of the things I do best,” Lucy replied, taking a long drink and passing the bottle back. A look came over her face. “You fuck him yet? I mean, since you’ve gotten back.”

“Yeah, we had sex twice today. I rode him both times, carefully, obviously. He felt up for it and it was pretty awesome.”

“I bet...” She hesitated again. Paige thought there was something on her mind.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asked. As she said it, she suddenly wondered where that phrase came from. What even was a penny?

“I...was just wondering...you know what, no, never mind. It’s inappropriate.”

“Come on, when were we ever appropriate?” Paige replied, grinning. She could feel the wine going to work on her, though right now it was just a pleasant buzz, distant and vague, comfortable. Despite what she said, she didn’t really want to get smashed like last time.

Buzzed was nice enough.

“I suppose you have a point. Okay, I’ll take some of my own medicine and just come out and say it. I kinda wanna go back there and ride his dick. I mean, he’s cute and obviously he’s into tall women and you’ve never been afraid of sharing before, if memory serves.”

“No, I’m not afraid of sharing...” She considered it for a long moment. “You know what? I’m okay with it. He’s not going to fall for you and you aren’t going to try and steal him away. This is just two people having a good time, and both of you are very good friends of mine, so I’m okay with it...so long as I get to watch.”

“I forgot how much you like to watch,” Lucy said with a sly grin. She took another long drink and then stood up. “Come on, let’s go tell him the good news.”

...

Ethan glanced over as he saw Paige come into their bedroom. And Lucy was behind her. Both pale women had flushed faces and sly grins.

He wondered what that meant.

“How you doing?” Paige asked, walking over to the bed.

“Pretty good, all things considered. Pain’s not too bad. What are you two up to?” he replied.

“Well...we were just talking, and...well, how would you like Lucy to ride your dick?” Paige asked.

Ethan blinked. “Um...seriously?” he asked, looking between the two of them.

“Seriously,” Lucy replied, and Paige nodded.

“You’re not drunk, are you?” he asked.

“No, Ethan, we’re just a little buzzed. We girls got really close during training and missions and life together, if you hadn’t noticed. We don’t mind sharing. This is just...fun, Ethan. If you don’t want to, it’s okay. But if you do want to, it’s perfectly okay, too. Although if you say yes, I really, really want to watch.”

“I...wow. Um...okay. Yeah, honestly, I’d fucking love that.”

“Figured,” Paige said, taking a seat.

“This is so awesome, I haven’t gotten laid by a dude in like six months,” Lucy said, taking off her shirt. “Girls aren’t nearly as intimidated by me as guys.”

Ethan simply stared at her, captivated. In a way, he felt a little guilty. After the hard time he’d given Paige when she had first hit on him, now it seemed like he was caving in. But that had been different. It had been obvious she was really smashed, whereas here the two of them were barely buzzed, more relaxed than drunk. And Paige made a good point, this was just for fun between some consenting adults.

And, well, he supposed he might be being a little selfish, because yeah, he really did just want to fuck Lucy. He’d never had a girlfriend who was okay with sharing. And Lucy was really, really hot. She was a bit shorter and skinnier than Paige was, not that that was a problem. And he really liked her hair for some reason. She had nice, high, firm breasts and, he saw as she pulled down her shorts and panties, slim, fit thighs.

“You know...” Lucy said suddenly, glancing back over her shoulder. “I think I could actually use a bit of help getting warmed up. I remember a certain someone being very skilled at that particular job, Paige.”

Paige grinned and stood up. “I could help with that,” she looked at Ethan, “if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all,” he replied.

“What a surprise,” Lucy murmured, turning around to fully face Paige, who was also in the process of getting undressed now.

Tonight was turning out to be one fucking awesome night.

Soon, both Amazonian women were fully naked and they came together, embracing and kissing, pressing their lips together and slipping tongues into each others mouths. Ethan felt himself stiffening even more, his dick pulsing with anticipation as he watched these two incredibly tall, incredibly sexy women passionately make out.

Their hands began roaming over each others bodies, groping and massaging and touching everywhere. Then Paige broke away from the kiss and gently started turning Lucy around, who let her do this. Once she was fully facing away, now facing Ethan, staring and smiling at him, Paige slid one hand down the front of her until it was down over her pussy. Lucy moaned as Paige started rubbing her clit.

“I really missed this,” she moaned softly.

“I did, too,” Paige replied, then started kissing her neck.

They kept this up for another couple of minutes, then Paige stopped and stepped back. “Now go fuck my boyfriend,” she said, “but save some for me cause I so want to keep going with this.”

“Not a problem,” Lucy replied.

She gave Paige a lingering kiss, then moved over to Ethan. He was more than ready for the attention she was about to give him. She laid down next to him, her movements cautious and careful, not just due to the size or strength difference between them but also to his recovering injuries. He felt a hell of a lot better than he had even yesterday, but Ethan also knew that he still had some time yet to go before he was fully recovered.

“Hi,” Lucy said, her face very close to his now.

“Hello,” he murmured in reply.

She leaned in and kissed him, while at the same time taking his hand and placing it on one of her breasts. He kissed her passionately, slipping his tongue in and twining it with her own as he groped one of her firm breasts. She reached down, beneath the blanket, and slipped a hand into his boxers. He groaned as she started massaging his cock.

“Someone’s ready to go,” she whispered, her mouth barely an inch from his. “You want me to put it in my mouth?” she asked.

“Yes,” he groaned.

“Thought so.”

She pulled back the blankets, then got down lower and pulled his boxers off, dropping them on the floor. The bed was a big one, it had to be to accommodate both him and Paige, as they’d been sleeping there for several days now, and thus now accommodate both him and Lucy. She got down between his legs and slipped his dick into her mouth without hesitation. He groaned as she started sucking him off, sliding her wonderful wet lips up and down the length of his cock, coating it in a thick film of her saliva.

She didn’t keep it up for very long, as this was meant as a simple appetizer before the main course, and both of them were starving. Lucy got up on top of him, straddling him carefully, grabbed his dick and slid it inside of her perfect, wet pussy.

“Holy fuck, you are tight,” he groaned as she pushed him slowly into her. “And so, so fucking hot.”

“I told you, it’s been a while,” she replied, then she let out a loud moan as she got him all the way inside of her and started bouncing. Ethan groaned, intense pleasure burning through him as he watched his dick disappear into her over and over again. She was so slick and wonderful and wet inside. He reached out and settled his hands on her slim hips. The realization that he was actually fucking another woman, another Amazonian, with his girlfriend watching, was still sinking in. And, of course, the fact that Paige had acknowledged that they were dating, they were boyfriend and girlfriend, was also still settling in his brain.

“Fuck I’m gonna come...” Lucy moaned.

“Fine by me,” he replied. “I’ll help.”

“What-oh fuck!” she cried as he reached down, found her clit and started rubbing it. “Oh holy fuck, yes! Paige you were right!” she moaned.

“Told you,” Paige replied. “He’s good.”

Lucy kept moaning and panting in intense, desperate pleasure, stirring his cock around inside of her as he rubbed her clit until finally something twitched and twisted inside of her. Her pussy got a lot hotter and wetter as the muscles within began to spasm and clench, and a hot spray of liquids escaped her pussy, getting all over his midsection as she came and yelled and moaned. “Oh, Ethan!” she cried. “Oh it feels so good!”

That about did it for him.

Hearing a woman moan his name, let alone a new woman, was kind of like his trigger. It was a button that, once pushed, got him to come kind of fast. He let out a cry of pleasure all his own as his dick kicked hard inside of her and began to shoot his seed into her. He moaned, thrusting up into her with each fresh pulse of pleasure that was released with each spurt of seed. It shot from the tip of his cock and disappeared deep into her.

They both moaned and writhed against each other until they were spent and their climaxes had run their courses.

Carefully, Lucy got up off of him and stood up. She blinked several times and steadied herself, then turned and walked off to their bathroom.

“You okay there?” Paige asked, laughing.

“Fine,” Lucy replied. She began to clean up the mess they’d made. “Just fine. It was a little overwhelming is all. Like I said, it’s actually been quite a while since I’ve gotten laid. I forgot how powerful the orgasm could be.”

“It was pretty powerful,” Ethan said. “You got it everywhere. We’re definitely going to have to wash these sheets.”

“I so don’t regret it,” Lucy replied, finishing up and coming back from the bathroom.

“Same,” Ethan agreed.

“Now, my turn?” Paige asked.

“Yes, you’re turn. Lay your little slutty ass down on the floor and I’ll do you,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, I’m the slut. You’re the one who just rode my boyfriend.”

“You let me! And that doesn’t make a me a slut.”

“No one here said being a slut is a bad thing,” Paige replied.

“That’s a good point. Now lay down and spread your legs.”

Paige did as she was told, laying down on the carpeted floor and spreading wide her legs. Lucy laid down in between them, lying flat on her stomach. She slipped her hands beneath her legs and got a grip on her thighs, then buried her face in Paige’s crotch. The brunette Amazonian threw her head back and moaned as Lucy began eating her out, pleasuring her with lips and tongue in what seemed to be a very skilled fashion.

Ethan could already feel the stirrings of another erection as he watched the two tall, naked women engage in sexual activity. He wondered if he could convince Paige to fuck him. Probably. He watched intently as his girlfriend was eaten out by her good friend, watched as Lucy licked Paige’s pussy over and over again until, after several minutes, she came.

“Ohhhhh, oh yes, oh holy fucking yes!” Paige moaned, falling back flat onto the carpet, her hips jolting violently as Lucy pulled back. He could see the spray of feminine sex juices jetting from her vagina, getting all over her thighs and the carpet. “Oh, Lucy!” she screamed. Both of them stared at the erotic display until Paige was lying flat again, chest heaving and slicked with sweat, making her already perfect tits look impossibly good.

Yeah, he was definitely going to need sex again.

Lucy glanced over at him and took notice of this. “Hey Paige,” she said.

“Yeah?” she asked tiredly, without sitting up.

“Looks like your boy is going to need some attention again.”

Paige propped herself up and looked over at Ethan. “Give me a minute.”

...

“You sure you want to do this?” Lucy asked.

Paige glanced at Ethan, who nodded without hesitation. She looked back at Lucy. “Yes, we’re sure. Do it,” she replied.

Lucy nodded and hit a key on her keyboard.

Although it didn’t look like much, what had just happened was the result of about a week’s worth of work, and would have, ideally, much larger repercussions. While Ethan had been recovering, Lucy and Paige had been hard at work determining who in the hell had ordered this. (Okay, well, Lucy had been the one hard at work, really.) Somehow, through a combination of the data on the mercenary’s Links and whatever info they’d had stored in the computers at the warehouse, Lucy had managed to piece together a profile on who had hired them. The fact that it had taken her a week was a testament to how hard of a job it was.

The fact that she didn’t charge them anything was a testament to how much she cared for them.

The corporation wasn’t a particularly large one and it took a bit of remembering for Paige to realize that she had pulled a job against them about a year ago. She’d stolen some data and sold it to another corp.

Apparently, they’d held a grudge.

Well, that grudge was going to get them destroyed. Lucy and Ethan, working together, had then hacked their corporate archives and their CEO’s personal data-cores and gathered up every single dirty little secret they could find.

And Lucy had just spilled it to every major news outlet in the sector.

There would be investigations of all sorts and very likely the company would fold and the CEOs would do hard time, as well as any employees that had been involved in any of their various scandals. And they wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

“Well, it’s done,” Lucy said, sitting back.

“Now what?” Ethan asked.

“Well, you need a few more days recovery,” Paige replied, “so I’d like to stay here a bit longer, if Lucy doesn’t mind.”

Lucy heaved an over-dramatic sighed. “I suppose I could let you mooch off of me some more.”

“Hey, we’ve both been doing our part to keep you...happy,” Paige replied.

Lucy couldn’t keep herself from grinning. “I suppose that’s true.”

After their first encounter together, both she and Ethan had slept with Lucy several more times. Which had been a lot of fun.

“What about after we leave?” Ethan asked.

Paige considered it for a long moment. “You know what? Let’s decide later.”

“Fine by me,” Ethan said. “As for right now, I’m fucking starving. Think we can order in?”

“God, you two and your fucking fast food!” Lucy cried, standing up and stretching. “Don’t you ever cook anything?”

“Not if I can help it,” Paige replied.

Lucy sighed. “Fine, there’s a great Chinese place that will deliver out here. Let’s start putting together an order.”

Paige couldn’t help but smile and breathe a deep sigh of relief. It was like a great weight had been lifted off of her.

Ethan was safe, her enemies were going down, (well, these enemies at least), and everything was going pretty smoothly.

...

Ethan stepped into his and Paige’s shared bedroom in Lucy’s warehouse and found Paige lying on the bed, reading a tablet. He’d just spent about six solid hours going over his rig and all of his different assets and profiles. He’d been so tired from recovery, (including the ‘recovery’ Paige and Lucy had been contributing,) that he’d gone for almost a week and a half without actually doing any real work. He’d just wanted to relax.

Honestly, he still wanted to, but he knew he couldn’t let at least his debt go any longer. He’d talked with Paige about it and she had been more than willing to give him money from her account to cover the rest of his debt.

Otherwise, he just wanted to crawl back into bed and be lazy.

It had been ages and ages since he’d let himself be lazy for more than two hours at a time.

“Did it go well?” Paige asked, setting the tablet aside as he crawled back into bed with her.

“Yes,” he replied. “Debts cleared. We’ve parted ways. Thank you again.” He moved closer to her beneath the blankets, hugged her tightly and kissed her. “Really, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied. “I was glad to help...now,” she said, her tone and expression changing to something more sultry, “I had a thought.”

“What thought was that?” he replied, eager to see where this was going.

“Well, there was something you’ve never asked me to do, and I was wondering if you might be interested.”

“What’s that?”

“Anal.”

“I am so interested in that,” he replied immediately. “I didn’t ask because...well, I guess I was still so enthralled with just exploring with you that we hadn’t got there yet.”

“Perfect.” She reached over him and grabbed something off their nightstand. “I managed to find this in Lucy’s room.” She held up a bottle of lube. “You wanna get right to it? Cause I’ll be honest, I kind of like it up the ass.”

“Yes, I’d love to get right to it,” he replied.

She grinned and squeezed some lube out into her hand. Ethan quickly shed his clothing so that he was as naked as she was. Paige leaned in and began kissing him while simultaneously reaching down and massaging his cock, rubbing it down with lube. Ethan could feel his cock almost instantly responding, going hard in just a few seconds at her touch and her kiss and her alluring promise. He’d had kind of a weird experience with anal the first time. Pink had let him do it, she’d actually offered...but only when she was really drunk, which was kind of part of where his views of drunk sex had formed.

It just struck him as weird that there were things people would only let happen when they were really, really drunk or otherwise intoxicated, and something felt just wrong about the whole thing. He thought that if you were willing to do it drunk, then you should be willing to do it sober. Otherwise it didn’t seem like you were actually willing to do it.

“Ready?” Paige asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

He’d done anal a few times with some of the prostitutes he’d hired, but it had been a long time and honestly, he’d missed it.

It felt fucking awesome.

They got into position. Paige got up on her hands and knees, spreading her knees out pretty wide so that her ass was low enough for him. Ethan got behind her on his knees, settling one hand on her ass, using the other to guide his cock.

“I don’t know how much experience you’ve had, but you need to go slow. Just ease it in there,” Paige said.

“Okay,” he replied.

He rested the head of his dick up against her ass, then slowly began to push his way inside. She was so incredibly, ridiculously tight and very heated inside. Paige let out a moan, a really loud one, as he got about halfway in.

“You like that?” he asked, settling both hands on her wonderful, pale ass.

“Yes,” she moaned, hanging her head, giving herself to the pleasure.

He pushed in deeper. “I thought you said you ‘kinda’ liked it up the ass. It sounds like you really like it up the ass.”

“I do...” she moaned as he went even deeper. “I’d forgotten how much...oh fuck...”

He kept going until he could comfortably push all the way inside of her tight, Amazonian ass. He gave it a hard smack and she moaned even louder. Ethan started going faster and harder and he looked down, watching his cock go into her ass over and over again. It filled him with intense, burning pleasure that seemed to shoot through his whole body. Part of him wished they had filmed this because it must look really hot.

Paige was also getting extremely loud, like a lot louder than he’d heard her go before. She was pretty much yelling.

“Yes-yes-yes-yes-ohfuckyesi’mcoming!” she shrieked.

And he felt a hot spray of sex juices spray his thighs.

It wasn’t much longer before his climax began and his dick began kicking hard inside of the tight confines of Paige’s ass. He groaned, hunching forward, his hips thrusting forward involuntarily with each new pulse that sent a shockwave of fresh pleasure careening through him, filling him up with warm, pink bliss.

He kept going until his dick was empty, until he’d been completely drained and there was nothing left to give, then he gently pulled his softening cock from her ass and fell back onto the bed. As he did this, she fell forward, burying her face in the pillow.

“Okay,” Lucy said, startling them both. She was standing in the doorway and apparently had been watching them. “If you’re healthy enough to make her scream like that, then you are healthy enough that the two of you can stop squatting here. As much as I do love your company, I am a bit of a loner and I enjoy my isolation.”

“All right, all right, Lucy, we’ll leave tomorrow,” Paige replied weakly.

“Good...not that I don’t really like the two of you.”

“It’s fine,” Ethan said. “Oh man, I need a shower.”

“Me too, you blew like the biggest load in my ass.”

“I’ll leave you two to it. But do not think that either of you are going to be able to leave tomorrow without a goodbye fuck. I expect one from both of you.”

“I will be more than happy to deliver that goodbye fuck,” Ethan said.

“Same,” Paige murmured, she yawned. “Wow, I’m actually pretty tired.”

“Have fun in your shower.” Lucy left them and closed the door.

“Come on,” Ethan said, standing up. “Let’s shower, then we can go to bed.”

Paige nodded and got up off the bed, following him into the bathroom.

...

They decided to go on a vacation.

A real vacation.

After Lucy had pretty much kicked them out, (once they’d both had goodbye sex with her), they’d started walking to the local port, talking about what they wanted to do. But soon they’d fallen into silence and finally, Ethan just came out with it.

“Want to just take a vacation? Like a real one, a month long one?”

“I do.”

“Then let’s just do it.”

So they did. Both of their debts had been paid off and with all the jobs they’d been running during that two week period where they were broken up, combined with whatever money they had left over, was more than enough for a vacation. They thought about it for a little while, and finally settled on renting out a one-bedroom, beachfront condo on a resort planet. It had its own private section of beach and was within walking distance of about thirty different places to eat and hang out. They’d taken the next shuttle there.

And then they’d settled in.

Right now, at this very moment, Paige was staring at the ceiling, awash in a sea of pleasure, still feeling that afterglow of a great orgasm, not really thinking of anything. She was happy and naked and freshly fucked, and all was well.

They’d just had absolutely awesome sex.

“I have a thought,” Ethan said suddenly, but he sounded very hesitant.

“Lay it on me,” Paige replied.

“It’s kind of a big thought.”

She looked over at him. He was laying beside her, equally naked, his skin flushed, sweaty, and he looked nervous.

“It’s okay, I won’t run away again, I promise. Tell me.”

“Okay...after everything that’s happened, I just had this seed of an idea that got planted at some point and has been growing over my recovery...what if we stopped stealing from people and instead started helping people?”

Paige stared at him for a long moment.

Her first instinct was to disagree, but before she opened her mouth, she really thought about it. Why not? For that, she had to think about why she’d gotten into this job in the first place. She hadn’t always been a thief. No, she’d started doing these jobs specifically not long after her loved ones had been killed.

She hadn’t exactly been in the best place when she made that decision.

Paige realized, all at once, that she hadn’t cared who got in her way at the time, and eventually this line of work had simply become routine, and she hadn’t asked questions of herself anymore. She simply did it.

“You’d really be okay with that?” she asked finally.

“Yes,” he replied. “There’s eight dozen other jobs out there I can do. Some of them tedious and boring, some of them fun and actually helpful. We’re both really talented, Paige. We’re skilled and, in our own ways, powerful. We could actually help people.”

“I think you might be right,” she said after a long moment. “I’ll need more time to think it all over, but I think you’re right.”

He smiled, seemingly very relieved. “Good! I figured I’d get this out of the way now rather than later. Thinking things over during a vacation makes sense.”

“I agree...” Paige hesitated, realizing she was thirsty. But fuck she just did not want to get up right now. “Sorry to shift gears but...could you get me a bottle of water?”

“Yeah, sure,” he replied. Ethan leaned in and kissed her on the lips, then got up and headed out of the bedroom.

There was something else that Paige was thinking about, a seed of her own that had been planted the moment Ethan had told her that he loved her. Their conversation had sort of sparked something in her head, something that was coming to the surface. It seemed confused and uncertain, but powerful nonetheless.

“Here you go, babe,” Ethan said, coming back into the room, getting back into bed and handing the bottle of water over to her.

As she took it, suddenly, Paige understood everything.

She stared at the bottle of water, her thoughts racing, then she looked over at Ethan, as it all dawned on her.

She had forgotten what love was.

Paige had known love throughout her life. She had been in love before, and she had been loved before. And when life had ripped that away from her, she had been numb for a long time. She’d been trying to rediscover what love meant to her and that was why she had been so unsure and uncertain, so hesitant to tell Ethan that she loved him back.

All the pieces were there, it had been a matter of fitting them into place.

Love wasn’t huge, grand, sweeping gestures. It wasn’t the big things. It wasn’t blowing a huge load of credits or having sex every single day. Sure, those things could all come from a place of love, but that wasn’t the core of it.

Love was the little things.

That’s what had sparked her. Love was the simple, day-to-day niceties, like going and grabbing a bottle of water for your lover because they were too tired or too lazy to do it themselves or taking care of the laundry because you knew that they hated dealing with laundry but you didn’t mind it too much or going to buy groceries when your partner was too busy. Love was going out for soup at three in the morning because your lover was sick and couldn’t sleep. Love was a lot of things, to be sure, to a lot different people.

But to Paige, this was the foundation of love.

And she knew that Ethan was someone worth loving, someone she was already in love with. She just hadn’t admitted it to herself yet.

Paige set aside the bottle of water and turned to look fully at him.

“Ethan...” she said softly.

“Yes?” he replied.

She smiled. “I love you.”

A smile split his face and he leaned in quickly, wrapping her in a tight hug, holding her close to him. “I love you, too, Paige.”

Other Erotic Series by Misty Vixen

If you enjoyed this part and intend to keep reading but want to save some money, you can buy The Complete Trilogy right here.

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Jared is a former mercenary with a specialty in technology. He quit the life after almost getting murdered. But that was over a year ago and just lately he’s found himself wondering if he shouldn’t go back to that life. By chance, two mercenaries who are looking to form their own crew bump into him and need a technician. When he agrees to join them, he quickly learns that they, and the other mercenaries they end up hiring, are interested in more than just his skill at repair. A Science Fiction themed erotica series.

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Hi, I'm the author. I'm no one special. I live somewhere in the US and, (obviously), I love writing erotica!

After some thought, I've come to realize that three things seem to set me apart from all the other ten million erotica authors out there.

The first is that I tend to write from the perspective of regular, average twenty-something men. After hearing about all the billionaires and NAVY Seals and cowboys, I figured maybe it was time to hear from someone a bit more...real. Someone people could relate to.

The second thing that sticks out is that while I've come across tons of erotica about hot babes being slammed by monsters, (werewolves, vampires, even dinosaurs and BIGFOOT for fuck's sake!), there wasn't much out there about regular dudes banging hot monster chicks. And they need love too, right?

The final thing that I didn't even realize at first and I've since tried to cultivate because I believe in it is that I'm all about sexual equality. I'm not really here to condemn or kink-shame anyone, but I just like the idea of consent, sexual respect and both parties getting what they want out of the sexual encounter. (Or I guess I should say all parties, depending on how many people are fucking at once!)

If you like my work and want to get in touch with me, there are a few ways that can be done.

First, here's my Twitter.

Also, here's my blog.

Finally, you can e-mail me directly at mistyvixen@outlook.com

I love hearing from people and I try to keep all of these up-to-date.

Thank you for reading this, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!

-Misty

AMAZONIAN'S LOVE: PART THREE. Copyright © by Misty Vixen. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entire coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.