Free A Solid Core of Alpha by Amy Lane

like a coward.
    Alpha’s mouth covered his, mashed against his until he tasted his own blood. “I think you’re lying.”
    Anderson opened his eyes in real fear. This was Alpha, defying what was best for Anderson. Or was he? Alpha grinned, his mouth hard and uncompromising, and went to kiss Anderson again. This time, the kiss was soft, gentle, sweet, and Anderson closed his eyes in longing.
    He longed that Alpha would be done with him quickly and that the wounds would heal soon.

Part 2: C.J.
    Chapter 5
    A Collective Voice
     
     
    C.J.’ S monitor was going off unmercifully. He groaned, stretched his nude body, and clambered over Jensen’s sheets, and the five zillion multi-colored pillows on his gi-fucking-normous bed, and then over Jensen’s girlfriend, and then, finally, over Jensen himself, who was, unbelievably, still stroking himself hard, practically in his sleep.
    “Jensen!”
    “God, really?”
    “Jensen, you asshole, if you’re awake enough to beat off, give me my fucking monitor!”
    “But we’re not done fucking!”
    Oh, wonderful. He could make dirty puns in his sleep too.
    “Jesus, you really are an asshole, you know that?” C.J. draped himself over the end of the bed, and over Jensen too, and went hunting for his pants in the puddle of discarded clothing at the bottom.
    “I thought my asshole was the part of me you liked the best!” Jensen feigned hurt, and he also used his opportunity to grope C.J.’s bare bottom as it presented itself. C.J. was busy looking for the monitor—and he enjoyed the touch very much, especially when Jensen found his… oh, yes… his balls… and then a thumb, sliding along his crease—
    “Got it!” he cried in triumph, just when that clever, clever thumb found its way home. C.J. groaned, and for a whole second—long enough for Jensen to trickle a little lube down there and massage with some serious intent—he contemplated not answering this call.
    The monitor buzzed again. It was Cassidy. Her ringtone was undeniable, because he’d programmed the monitor to play an old Terran song about having ninety-nine troubles, “but a bitch ain’t one.”
    Cassie loved that song. She liked to say she was the one bitch who was still trouble, and he liked to tell her that he had plenty of women, and more than a few men, who’d like to say the same thing.
    “Dammit, Cassidy, am I or am I not planetside?” he snapped into the monitor. One of the perks of having a sister who was also your boss was that you got to be a total bear to her when she woke you up when you were down on the planet enjoying some hard-earned leave.
    “You’re gonna want to be here for this one, Cyril,” she said, and he grimaced. God, he hated his given name.
    “What, another ship full of fools who tried to get too close to that nebula cluster?” Once a year there was always someone—somebody who thought that they could brave the time-space-reality-warp of the Ariadne quadrant, complete with the madness that accompanied it. C.J., junior engineer and specialist for all weirdness space related, was particularly good at figuring out what mechanical problems were just wear and tear and what stuff was seriously bizarre—like the time-space parasite that liked to slip between the molecules of the ship’s hull, scuttle along the wiring, and then make its way to the frontal lobe of the passengers and mess with the neural cluster there that humans used to regulate reality.
    C.J. was good at the little mechanical details; in fact, he loved them. The big hairy psychological shit, he left that to his sister, who, in turn, would hand over the worst cases to Jensen. But the small human-engineering interfaces that frequently got fucked up in outer space? That shit was C.J.’s bread and butter.
    He liked that stuff. He liked the people who came with it. Everyone had a story, and he could listen to them all. And the best part was, most of that shit? Most of it was easily dealt with. A little radiation to