Free A Solid Core of Alpha by Amy Lane Page B

and Molly matched him kink for kink. C.J. loved them both and really loved being along for the ride, but he was pretty sure this was the last time he would be invited into their bed.
    They were starting to look at each other that way. That totally exclusive, “I want you and nobody else but you, even in bed, even forever” kind of way that Cassie had aimed at her husband, Marshall, about six seconds after she met him. C.J. knew the signs. At twenty-nine, he’d seen enough of his friends start to settle down—not all of them, not by a long shot, but it was getting to be that time. People stopped wanting a flavor of the month in bed and started wanting a flavor of a lifetime, or at least five years of a first-time marriage contract to see if “forever” was in the cards.
    C.J. hadn’t met anyone, man or woman, who had made him want to check that out yet, but then, he’d thought Jensen would be fucking around forever after they broke up too.
    Apparently not. C.J. would miss the guy (and the really hot women who liked to accompany him in bed), but it sure was nice to see him this happy. A little part of him wondered if maybe he couldn’t be happy that way too. But not today. Today, he put on his shades and hoped to catch a couple of Zs on the eight-hour trip between the planet and the station.
    “Hey, good-lookin’, you been having some fun planetside?”
    C.J. suppressed a groan, but he liked Julio, so he pulled the shades down and gave the stocky, muscular man who came to sit next to him a lazy grin. “Hey, Jules, didn’t know you were going up this trip too.”
    “Yeah, well, apparently there’s some n th level holo-shit going on in this shuttle. They’ve been scanning it since it made contact, and we’re talking shit like no one has ever seen on this ship.” Julio shook his head. “I don’t know how he did it, man. He’s like, my age, and he’s done shit my old teacher ain’t never heard of.”
    C.J. laughed a little, intrigued. “I know, man. It’s like, what am I doing with my life, right?”
    Julio turned sly, round brown eyes in C.J.’s direction. “I know what you’re doing with your life. Jensen still a big-cocked monster?”
    Happy sigh. “Ooohhhhh yeah!”
    Julio laughed a little more. “He still with Molly?”
    “Yeah. I think maybe their playing days are about over though, you know? They’re getting that… that vibe. That….”
    “That ‘I don’t care how good-looking you are, this bed is about to become exclusive’ vibe?” Julio laughed, and C.J. met dancing eyes over his sunglasses.
    “I take it you’ve felt that vibe too?” Well, Jensen’s bed was pretty big for a reason. Julio was normally not C.J.’s type otherwise—a little too broad-shouldered, a little older than C.J. liked them, and a little too perceptive and shrewd. C.J. liked less analyzing and more fucking in his sex, but that didn’t mean Julio wasn’t damned good-looking for a man in his late forties, and they’d had fun together the last time they’d been down planetside.
    Of course, anyone in Jensen and Molly’s bed was bound to have fun, right?
    Julio nodded emphatically. “Oh, yeah. Well, it’s to be expected. That boy’s had his share and my share and your share, and three times what your sister could have had. It really is time to settle down.”
    C.J. sighed. “Yeah, I was just thinking that. Seems like everyone’s doing it.” Suddenly his gaze narrowed. “How come you never did?”
    Julio—the guy who could shrink your head, repair your holo-hard drive, and then fuck you into the ground after hours—suddenly looked very young and very sad. “Who says I didn’t?” he said softly.
    C.J.’s mouth fell into a little “O.” “Who…?”
    “Her name was Susanna, and space is a very dangerous place.”
    Wow. Of all the stupid things. C.J. had never even seen the gruff holo-tech with a woman (besides Molly in a threesome, that is), much less someone who looked like the love of his