"He really loves you," Chakotay said to B'Elanna, wiping the sweat from their workout off his face. "You know that, don't you?"

"It's not like he's ever actually said it," she answered in mild complaint. "Besides, how do you know? Since when does Tom Paris confide in you?"

Chakotay grinned at her. "He doesn't, but I can tell."

"Maybe."

"What's the problem?"

She sighed and sat back against a holographic rock, grabbing for her water bottle. Chakotay took a drink from his own, and appeared content to wait. She wanted to talk, and it was clear he knew that. B'Elanna felt perversely tempted to test his legendary patience. Besides, she still had to get her breath back.

Chakotay usually joined her twice a week to work out, and when he was there she pushed herself harder. No complaints, though. It was the only time they had to just be friends together. He was trying to be a friend right now.

Her patience did not outlive his. "Did you know Tom was bisexual?" she said suddenly.

"And?"

She glared at him, but took his meaning. Who wasn't at least partly bi? Harry, she answered herself. Still, she had started this, and she had to go on. "Some people are more bisexual than others."

"Meaning?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you? He misses men."

Chakotay looked thoughtful, and in a serious voice asked, "Well what does he miss? Giving blow jobs, getting fucked? I mean if it was just an ass to fuck there's always y-- Ouch!"

His teasing words were cut off by a violent flick from her rolled up towel. As Chakotay bent to rub the sore spot on his bare calf, B'Elanna thought with pleasure that the red mark would likely turn into a nasty bruise.

"Come on, B'Elanna. This is me, remember?"

She sighed again, marginally sorry for her childish response, but only marginally. Chakotay knew her better than anyone, just as she knew him. If she could talk with any one person, it was her former captain.

"He misses being fucked."

"There are ways around that. Can't you replicate -- "

"Yes," she interrupted, "we've got one of those, but it's not exactly my favorite thing to do. And it isn't exactly the same for him."

He looked at her with mock seriousness. "Then you didn't get the right model. There are designs that stimulate both -- " He broke off, laughing. She had flicked her towel at him again, but he deftly caught it.

"How do you know about this stuff?"

"As acting counselor I need to deal with any situation that might... arise."

His dark eyes gleamed under the tattoo with the wicked humor that the rest of the crew never saw. This was the face of the man who had gleefully over-ruled Harry Kim's request to not have to work with Seven of Nine. Not that Harry had seen the irrepressible grin Chakotay had worn when he told the story to B'Elanna.

They had laughed over Harry's discomfort, but she wasn't in the mood to laugh about Tom. She had something else in mind.

"I'm just afraid I'm not going to be enough for him."

"Don't give me that. If he gets both from you, why would he go anywhere else?" Chakotay looked at her intensely, and she dropped her eyes to the floor. "What's really the problem?"

Sometimes she hated that he could see through her so well.

"This is me," he prompted again. "What's on your mind?"

"It's not that I don't like doing... that. I mean, we did get one of those good ones and I do kind of like being in charge, but..." She trailed off, then blurted out, "I'd really like to watch." It wasn't the complete truth, but it was close enough.

To her relief he didn't laugh. To her infinite relief he answered her seriously. "Does he know that?"

"No."

"Hmm. Have you talked to Harry?"

"About a threesome? I don't think so. Harry's phase is without modulation. He's one of those few that are strictly hetero."

"Are you asking me?"

"No!" she answered, aware that she had spoken too quickly.

He looked at her, expressionless. "That's good, because I don't think I'd be his first choice."

Suddenly bold, she smirked, "Would he be yours?"

He looked at her speculatively. "What's the right answer?"

"I'm just trying to figure out your type, that's all."

"Right." His lips twitched before he answered her. "I tend to like my women small and fiesty, and my men tall and fair."

"Ah." She rose, unwilling to be sure of his meaning, and started toward the door. "Well, I have to get going."

"Date with Tom?"

"Dinner in his quarters in an hour." She rubbed the back of her neck, hesitant to step through the open door. There was maybe one more thing to say.

"But you're not asking right?" he said.

To anyone else his expression would seem blank, but she could see past it to the interest she'd sparked. She answered with a shrug, "About joining us for dinner?"

She let the words hang as she stepped through the door, and hid her smile by blotting her face with the towel. She had enough credits for a second bottle of wine tonight, and she hoped she was going to need it.

"Well, that was fun," Tom said as the door closed behind Chakotay's broad back. "I had no idea he was so funny."

They were clearing the table, and B'Elanna carried the empty wine bottle and a pile of plates to the reclamation unit. "Well, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I wasn't sure you were ever going to relax."

"I was disappointed when you said he might be coming. After all, you hadn't asked me, and he's not exactly my first choice to spend an evening with."

Tom's voice was right behind her, and she ignored his second remark. "Disappointed?" she asked putting her burden into the waste chute.

"I'd hoped to have my way with you this evening."

"It's early yet," she answered, and bent her neck slightly in invitation. His hands slipped around her waist, and she leaned back into his embrace. "So no more jealous displays from you?"

"Me? Jealous? Of Chakotay?" His questions were punctuated by soft kisses down her neck.

She bent slightly away from him. "The only time you ask me about my workouts is on the days you know he's there, too," she pointed out.

Tom pulled her close again and rested his chin on the top of her head. "I do not."

"Yes, you do. He's my best friend, Tom. Don't be jealous of him."

He nuzzled her hair and drawled, "Yes, ma'am," in a gentle tease.

"Besides, he's fun when he's out of uniform, isn't he?" She snuggled back against her lover, trailing one hand across the fair hair on his arms.

"I've seen him out of uniform before, but tonight was the first time I've seen him actually act like he's off duty." Tom chuckled softly into her hair. "Now I know he's got your low-brow sense of humor. He does a really good Neelix," Tom added almost thoughtfully.

B'Elanna smiled to herself as she reached up to ruffle his hair in encouragement. Tom's hand followed, slid up her side and reach to cup the breast under her upraised arm. His fingers unerringly found her nipple, for all that it was hidden under three layers of fabric.

She let out a small sigh as his free hand caressed her torso before settling on her hip. Despite her pleasure at his touch, part of her mind was wondering what Chakotay was thinking.

He had joined them for dinner bearing a bottle of wine, and proceeded to charm Tom without ever looking like he was -- What? Being charming on purpose? She knew Chakotay well enough to think that although he was relaxed and fully himself, that must have been what he was doing. He seemed to have decided to play her game, but in his typical fashion he was going to play it deeper than she would.

Okay. She could do that. In the mean time, she could lay some groundwork of her own.

She covered Tom's hands with hers, encouraging him to give her breast a final squeeze before she turned in his arms. He kissed her without a word. It was the kiss B'Elanna had learned to read as, "I'm getting very interested, and we need to stop this now or go make love." She had no intention of stopping. She stepped closer, pulling him in with a hand at the small of his back. Her fingers dipped over the curve of his buttocks, and she pressed her mouth up harder into his.

He broke the kiss with a soft bite on her lower lip. "Shall we go to bed?"

"Mmmm," she murmured her assent, and led him toward the back of his quarters, shrugging off her open jacket. He stopped her from pulling off the long tunic she wore underneath, and instead turned her around. He reached under her shirt for the draw string to her loose trousers. They dropped easily.

Tom's hand reached down and his fingers slid up the back of her thigh. He paused when they reached bare contours, and she could feel him smile into the kiss at her lack of underwear.

He stood up, holding her by the arms and slowly pressed her toward the bed, following her with his kisses when her knees touched the edge of the mattress. He urged her downward, enticing her to yield with his mouth. He kissed his way down her throat, lightly, teasingly, until he mouthed at her breasts through the covering of tunic and camisole.

As if this were an intended distraction, he slowly slid her tunic up, baring her stomach. His lips followed his hand, and B'Elanna sighed and gasped as he alternately kissed and nipped at her abdomen. She had never been interested in the extremes of Klingon sex, with its broken collarbones as legitimate foreplay, but she did love this kind of sharp intensity.

Tom knew just how to get and keep her attention. He didn't pause in his offerings to her skin as he positioned himself between her legs, then licked across from one hip bone to the other, then blew gently. A new trick. She liked it.

As she recovered from the sensation, she felt his hands spread her legs and his thumbs gently opening her, holding aside the sparse hair. She knew what would come next, but still it made her gasp as his tongue ran flat down along the hood that covered her most sensitive flesh before dipping its tip in to taste her.

That was his opening move, and he followed it with careful strokes that avoided direct stimulation while making her crave it. Once he had said that he licked the alphabet, but it was no language she could ever recognize, perhaps because she could never concentrate while he was teasing, cajoling her with his tongue, taking his time and trying to make her beg for him to just --

There. Tom slid his tongue down, broad and flat, from the top again, but this time the tip of his tongue probed a bit and found the bundle of nerve endings beneath the fold of skin. Then he sent rippling waves against her flesh, increasing his pace as her breathing quickened.

She found herself holding her breath, closer to orgasm than she wanted to be, than she should be at this point. B'Elanna reached down and pushed gently at Tom's head, and he stopped his assault momentarily. Before pulling away, he dipped deep, drinking the essence of her, and when he rose to kiss her, she savored the scent of her on his cheeks, the shared taste of her in his mouth. Sex for Klingons relied as much on chemical sensation as tactile.

"What would you like?" he murmured.

What she wanted was him inside her now, but that wasn't the plan. "You, naked, and on your back."

"Mmm. Sure." He turned and sat next to her, unbuttoning his shirt. B'Elanna sat up and pulled the rest of her clothing over her head in one swift motion, and before Tom could shrug off his open shirt, she leaned and licked across one nipple. She smiled to herself at the sharp intake of breath, at the way his flesh tightened beneath her tongue. One thing she loved about him was that he was an amazingly responsive man.

She moved across his chest, lightly nosing her way through the hair, inhaling his scent. His hand found her head, cradling it, his shirt forgotten as she spent a few moments licking, teasing, gently biting. When she had him gasping, she sat up.

His shirt was dispensed with, and as he stood to relieve himself of his trousers her eyes locked on the diagonal line extending toward his hip. He slid the pants down to reveal dark briefs straining to hold the flesh within. She leaned forward, deft fingers under the waist band freeing him, releasing the strong scent of his desire, a scent she craved.

His hand on her shoulder lent him balance as he stepped out from the shed clothing. Before he could decide what to do, B'Elanna grabbed his hips and bent forward to capture his hard length in her mouth. He moaned softly and she was disappointed. She wanted more gasping out of him.

Tom's hands descended to her hair, cupped her chin lightly as she used her lips and tongue to full advantage, her fingers ruffling the reddish curls that were matted from his clothing. Some judicious reading both of books and of her lover's responses taught her to do more than just suck and rub. She teased him, alternating licking and kissing and taking him as deep as she could, until he gently pushed her away. She stopped, then buried her nose in one hip joint, gathering his musk deep in her lungs.

She looked up at him and he used his kiss to push her back once more. A sharp, near bite to her nipples distracted her from his maneuverings to stretch her lengthwise on the bed. B'Elanna let him move her, but when he started to position himself between her legs she flipped him over, grinning down fiercely into his widened eyes.

"You didn't ask," she admonished.

"You're not ready?"

She moved her hips, sliding wetness along his shaft, enjoying the sensation but not letting him enter her. "Oh, I'm ready."

He flexed his hips beneath her, tried to reach to guide himself into her opening, but she wriggled away.

"But that's not what I want." To his questioning look, she answered, "I'm hungry."

With those words she moved quickly to kneel beside him, descending again to take him in her mouth. This time he tasted of her also, and she licked with relish, breathing deeply. Her own pheromones were doing their magic, creating the feedback loop of excitement that gave Klingon women their reputation.

His length and weight filled her mouth, and she consumed him, caressed him, for several minutes. She had not been lying. She was hungry for this, hungry for the taste and smell of him, the way her mouth stretched gently around him, the sweetness that she tasted every now and again at the back of her throat. Idly, she wondered whether Chakotay was bigger or smaller than Tom. She didn't have much to compare him to, but she liked that she could take nearly all of him in her mouth, yet he felt large in her hand.

B'Elanna stopped when Tom's hips began moving, returning to his lips for a kiss that treated her tongue to the kind of attention she had been lavishing on him. It was a kiss full of promise and demand, and Tom pressed her thighs, wanting her to bring her hips to his mouth, but she resisted. She let their mouths linger together for only a few short moments before turning her attention to his nipples.

She sucked the closest one, worried it back into tightness, then moved to the other. She was not surprised when he took her free hand and guided it to the abandoned nub. A quick glance told her he was fully relaxed, eyes closed, and lips slightly parted. B'Elanna let him enjoy the sensations as she moved back and forth, varying fingers and mouth, until she moved back between his legs.

This time he gasped.

She sucked him long enough, loosely enough, to leave a slick coating of saliva. Then she took him lightly between her fingers, stroking with just the tips as she shifted, lips returning to his chest. She licked across his swell of muscle, until she found her target.

Tom moaned as her tongue circled his nipple. This combination was his favorite, and she planned to work it.

She teased him for the next ten minutes, bringing him close with firmer strokes, using her mouth to give more lubricating saliva, backing off to focus entirely on his heaving chest. She pulled him back from the edge at least three times before deciding to release him. She paused, lazily nibbling and lightly touching, while thinking over her options of how to make him come. She loved to watch him in orgasm, whether it was the expression on his face as she felt him pumping inside her, or the way she could see the thick pearls of fluid fountaining out of him. She decided against either of these.

She was hungry.

B'Elanna moved, took him in mouth and hand and brought him off in a very few strokes, feeling the pulse of his orgasm in her hand, his hands clutching at her back, the way the end of his cock bucked in her mouth, the sweet-then-bitter taste as she swallowed. His groans were near shouting, and this pleased her. All the time spent bringing him near then backing off had been worth it. She slid her mouth slowly off him as he shuddered, loved the sharp intake of breath when she licked the last drop from his tip. At last she snuggled up beside him.

It was several minutes before Tom took the hand from his forehead and reached over to caress her face. "Wow."

"Glad you liked it."

"That was -- wow." He paused a few more moments, calmed himself, before turning toward her and kissing her brow ridges. "What about you?" he asked, trailing his hand down her hip.

She had to do this right. She rolled onto her back, and parted her thighs enough to invite his hand. He dipped in, found evidence of her desire, and offered her his fingers to lick. B'Elanna felt her pulse quicken with the flavor and scent, and her hips rose seeking sensation and welcoming his hand again. "I want something special."

"Mmm. After what you just gave me, you can have anything you want." He punctuated his promise with a kiss and a finger questing inside her.

"Tell me a story."

Tom's eyebrows shot up and he froze. "A story?"

"I want to hear," she started, then pressed up against his hand. "Something sexy."

"Sexy." His voice was nearly flat. "I'm not sure I can do that." His fingers had ceased their motions and she writhed a bit in protest.

"What if you told me about the first time you were with a man?"

He looked at her archly. "I was twelve and a half, and we raced to see who could shoot first."

"Not that kind of thing. How about the first time you had a man inside you? Was it good?"

His smile was both wry and rueful, his eyes momentarily very far away. "Yeah. Yeah, it was. You want to hear about that?"

"In graphic detail."

"How graphic?"

There had always been a diffidence of words between them, words for parts, words for actions. There was even no word for the device she attached to her hips to please him that way. Just words like 'it' and 'taste' and 'inside'. They had served well enough, but they would no longer be sufficient. She reached out, wrapping her fingers around his softening penis, feeling the stickiness of dried saliva and semen.

"What is this?"

He looked at her, and to her surprise he blushed furiously, withdrew his hand from the intimate caress. "You know what it is."

"What are you going to call it when you tell me the story? 'My "it?"'" B'Elanna arched her eyebrows. "It's your cock, Tom," she said in the same tones she might use to say, "That's a hyper spanner."

She lay back again with her eyes closed, stretching luxuriously as she guided his hand back between her legs. With a small smile and a growl in her voice she said, "You're going to tell me about the first time you had a cock in your ass, and you have no idea what that's going to do to me."

There was a pause of several seconds as he lay tense and motionless beside her. To her relief he laughed softly, wry and faraway-sounding. She didn't open her eyes, afraid that if she looked at him he'd revert to reluctance. His fingers began their slow dance again, and he took a nipple in his mouth, teasing it, then sucking in as much of her breast as he could. She'd thought he was stalling for time, but now she knew that the situation was turning him on as well.

The pull of his mouth became too strong, and she wanted his mouth to be talking. She admonished him with a gentle, "Take it easy. That's attached." He was slow to loose his hold on her, but his lips let her go with a final pull that made her gasp in pleasure more than discomfort. Finally he lay beside her, his face close to her shoulder where he planted a kiss.

"You asked about the first one," Tom began. "He was a year ahead of me in school. We were sort-of-friends. You know, the kind that you do the same school-related stuff with me, but didn't hang out other than that. At least, not until I found out his dad collected twentieth century firearms.

"He wasn't the kind of person I'd ordinarily cultivate. He was one of those manipulative types that adults can never see through. I guess he was so good at it that he saw through me right away."

This wasn't what B'Elanna had been expecting. "You had sex with him so you could play with his guns?" She tried not to make the question sound harsh or amused, but she failed.

"Other way around," Tom answered, kissing her shoulder again. "He let me play with his guns so he could have sex with me. Are you going to let me tell this? I've never tried to do this before, you know."

"Sorry." She reached down, met his fingers and encouraged them back into motion.

"Anyway, he was always pretty direct, and one day at school he handed me a padd, saying, 'You look like the horny type.' It was full of pornography, and I must have turned bright red, but I stuffed it into my bag anyway."

B'Elanna smiled, hoping he wasn't looking at her. This was more like it.

"When I looked at the padd later, and behind a locked door, it was full of hard-core images, the kind I never dared download for fear my dad would catch me. It's funny now, but at the time I only wondered how he got them.

"There were pictures of men and women in just about every possible combination -- together, separate, some I'd barely thought of. The one image in that entire stack of smut that got to me the most, the one I... got off over time and again, was a beautiful--" Tom paused momentarily, took in a breath and continued, "Cock. Just a torso and a cock, with one hand around the base of it, aiming it slightly toward a mouth. A man's mouth. The mouth was open, and I could see the tongue and saliva and..."

Tom trailed off breathing deeply. "Do you really want to hear this?" he finally asked.

"Oh yes." she sighed breathily. She was close, too close for talking.

"I had never seen anything like it," Tom continued quickly, as if to pause longer would make him shy again. "Nothing was left to the imagination in any of it, except that one image. Oh I liked all the rest of it, and it showed things I'd never even imagined, but I kept coming back to that one picture with the waiting mouth, the offered cock, that moment between."

He paused again, and B'Elanna half-smiled, remembering a similar picture she had once found. She had liked it, too, but she'd liked buried cocks better.

"At lunch a few days later he brought it up," Tom finally continued, "asked me what I thought."

"I didn't realize at the time what he was after. I was only fifteen, and all I could say was, 'Wow.' But he pushed it, and I dodged and asked him where he got it. He said his dad had purged the files, and he'd scavenged them before final core dump. He kept asking me which one I liked best.

"I lied, and told him the thing I liked second best: The ones with a woman and two guys. It had most of the configurations you might imagine. Some were more that I'd ever imagined, and it ended with an scene of both men inside her. She seemed to like it," Tom added almost wistfully.

The mental image filled B'Elanna's mind, but she made it into her and Tom and -- And Chakotay. She hadn't let herself think that way, but she had hopes. There might be more possibilities with Chakotay than seeing and smelling Tom with a man inside him. Tom's fingers made her nearly vibrate as she tried to figure out who would be where doing what. Tom started talking again.

"I told him that I liked the threesome and he said --" Tom's voice changed, taking on a nearly childish accent as he quoted, "'Yeah, that was hot. It's hard to find a girl who'll let you at her tits, though, much less a tasty whore who'd take on two like that.'"

The image of her with both men shattered in her mind. "'Tasty whore?!'"

"Thought that would get to you, but that's really how he talked." The bed shook with his silent laughter. "You sure you want to hear more?"

"Does it get better?" she growled, not liking the break in mood, but pleased that he seemed more relaxed.

"Yes. Better and worse," he answered. "Towards the end of the week he invited me out to his house to go shooting those antique weapons and swim in his pool. I don't remember much of the day, but the guns were fun. It was loud, and much more 'umph' than a phaser.

"Eventually we went swimming, and at some point we started wrestling. I lost and, we both went over to the side of the pool, and I found I was studiously ignoring the fact that he probably had a hard-on. I wasn't sure, and maybe I didn't want to know. But then he started talking about the padd he'd given me. I didn't want to talk about it. I mean, at fifteen I was too old to be jerking off with another guy, right?"

"I wouldn't know," she purred. This was more like it, thinking about Tom stroking himself over that picture. Young and lean and hard.

"Anyway," Tom continued, his awkwardness returning, "he just flat out asked me what I thought about the scenes with just two guys, and did I ever want to try it.

"I said no, but, I don't know. He pushed it, and curiosity and teenage hormones got the best of me. Eventually I was on my back, naked in his bed. Scared." Tom stopped talking for a minute.

The pressure against B'Elanna's thigh resolved itself into Tom's cock, hard again. He must be getting off on this, she realized with a surge of heat. She reached for it and felt his breath quicken with her tentative strokes. A few shifts, and they lay almost at right angles, she slightly twisted with one leg over his hip, Tom on his side. He reached around to guide himself and slipped in without resistance. It was much better now, having him inside her while she listened.

He filled her, but she was so wet she almost couldn't feel his movements, just the stretch of his presence. Good, but not quite enough. She took his hand, guided it back to the place where their flesh met, and sighed, "Go on."

She hoped that Tom knew she meant both his attentions and his story. She was rewarded with a gentle friction and with his words. They both kept her complete attention. "He started at my feet, crawled up the bed, hands on either side of me until he straddled my chest. It was at about that moment it sunk in that this was really going to happen. It was the sight of a cock so close, and in the wrong direction. The slit was dripping."

B'Elanna was very still, hardly breathing, riding a knife edge as she waited to see what Tom would say next.

"That was the wildest part -- it just dripped on my chest, and then he said, 'I want you to taste it.' And I... I wanted it." His voice dropped low, as if in some way both ashamed and stirred by the admission.

"I opened my mouth." Tom paused again and took a breath, steeling himself, trying to say it and to keep moving at the same time. He had to know how close she was; he knew her well by now.

"I opened my mouth, like I was one of the people in that image that turned me on so much. His hand grabbed the back of my head, and then..."

She didn't hear what he said next. She gripped him by the hip and the knee, grinding down on his cock and his hand, waves spreading from her center in electric cascades down her legs to where her toes were curled hard as fists. Her mouth opened with a groan that stretched and pulsed with every wave that passed through her. Tom held on, let her ride him in utter abandon until the shudders stopped and a few deep gasps quieted her.

She opened her eyes to find him smiling gently at her. "Wow," he commented. "Are you going to want to hear any more?"

"All of it," she growled, her involuntary spasm making him gasp. "Just give me a minute." After a few breaths she writhed suggestively against him. "I'm back. Tell me how it tasted."

"Like this," he answered, scooping his fingers, gathering moisture from where his cock was buried in her and offering his fingers to her to lick.

She opened her mouth, her nostrils flaring as she took in the scent and the chemical messengers, and she sucked eagerly, tongue extracting every bit and exploring for more between his fingers. A demanding moan escaped her, and she pulled him deeper with her heel against his thigh.

"The taste is the same," Tom whispered, returning his hand to caress her again.

"The taste surprised me. It was not what I expected. I mean, I'd tasted my own cum, but this didn't have any of the bitter aftertaste." His words started to rush together, and she was as excited by him overcoming his diffidence as by the image of the adolescent Tom Paris raising sticky fingers to his lips.

"Eventually I found out that --" He paused, then retreated into the technical word -- "pre-ejaculate tastes like a woman. Like a woman when she's coming. Only there's less of it on a man. It's thicker, more concentrated."

He fell silent, and she let him brood for a moment, but only a short one. "Tom, you left off with your tongue on the end of his cock." She opened her eyes to find his closed and his brow furrowed. "More, please?"

"More story, or more of this?" he asked, pulling back and plunging slowly back into her, like a hard thrust in slow motion.

She cried out when he ground in, nearly bone to bone, as deep as he'd ever been, and held still. "You don't... you don't have to talk any more if you don't want to. Not if you're going to do that instead."

"I don't know, but I'm getting used to this story telling thing." He plunged slowly into her once more. "Will you come for me again?"

She nodded, a shiver running through her. He hadn't used any euphemisms, and hearing him say it, ask her to come, pushed her part of the way toward complying already. "If you keep doing that I won't have a choice."

"You ready?" he asked, and then picked up his story, rocking slowly inside her, fingers and breathless words matching the rhythm. "He held my head up, and slid his cock into my mouth. I couldn't take more than a few inches before it stopped at the back of my throat. I remember him just looking at me. I was, uh, unskilled," he said, and B'Elanna could hear a tone of amusement in his voice and choice of words, but it didn't keep her from vividly imagining the scene.

Tom went on, "And I guess it wasn't enough. He seemed to like watching, though, seeing his cock in someone's mouth, but he wanted more."

B'Elanna couldn't wait to hear what 'more' was. More intense than the first, the heat rose, grabbed her, and sent her bucking. Tom's hand pressed flat, and she ground against him unheedingly as she cried out.

Before she completely recovered herself, she felt Tom's hand leave her, and opened her eyes to find him tasting his own fingers, licking the bright sheen from them.

"My turn," he said, sucking in one long digit, looking at her. She thought he had to know that she was seeing something different in his mouth, the way his lips moved sensuously over his skin. This was the man she had always suspected was under all those careful non-words. Lovemaking had always been good between them, but he had always been somewhat cautious with her. She didn't want care and caution anymore.

She looked at him directly, took in a deep breath and said, "So then what?"

He drew the finger slowly out of his mouth. "So he asked me flat out if he could fuck me."

A jolt went straight through her and she involuntarily clamped down on the cock inside her. Tom had never said 'fuck' except in extreme anger, but she knew he did it deliberately now, testing her reactions. He wasn't moving, wasn't touching her, but instead lay still.

"And you said yes?" Her breath was short. She moved against him once, but he didn't respond.

"No. He had to talk me into it, promise me he'd be careful. He said he'd read about how to do it right the first time. I still said no."

"Why?"

"I was young and mostly scared. I also thought if he did that and I liked it that I'd be locked in to it, that girls could tell and then I'd never get to find out what they were like. Stupid things. Weren't you scared your first time?" he asked softly, reaching out to trace a slick finger around her nipple.

"Yeah," she admitted, concentrating on his touch and trying not to to remember that awkward and unpleasant experience.

"So how did you get from a scared first timer to this?" His whole hand cupped her breast, finger and thumb pinching the nipple hard, the way she liked it.

"This?" she asked, annoyed and aroused both. "What's this? If you call me a 'tasty whore' I will hurt you."

"B'Elanna, relax," he said, trailing his fingers down her stomach. "You like sex. You try things, and now I've learned that you like stories." He pulled out of her, and before she could complain he settled himself between her thighs, re-entered her unaided. "Stories about me with a cock in my ass," he finished.

She drew a rapid breath, prompted by his words, his voice actually speaking them, and the images they conjured. She wrapped her legs around his and looked up at him. He was on his elbows above her, smiling with an almost evil glint in his eyes.

"So tell me about it," she breathed, hips rising to meet his, pulling sensation from him. She also wanted to make him come, as if the next orgasm was a sort of competition. "How did he get you to say yes?"

"He didn't take no for an answer. He rolled me over and slid a finger in. I don't remember details after that, just that he was slow and careful at first, and he didn't have the best sense of rhythm." Tom stopped to kiss her, then pushed himself up on his hands. "Guys have to learn to do this," he said, looking down to where their bodies were joined and demonstrating their familiar and effective cadence with deep thrusts.

B'Elanna remembered her first inept boy and the bitter disappointment that drove her back to the solace of her own hand for years. But this was so much better, and Tom was so good. She raised her legs up over his hips, answering his rhythm, and asked, "You liked it? Even if he wasn't good?"

"When he finally stopped being careful, I was ready for it, and he just. Pounded. Me. Into. The mattress." Tom's shoulders tensed and his head curled in toward his chest. B'Elanna was breathing with him, moaned with him until he froze, thrust, and froze again. She could feel every pulse as he came inside her, felt his aftershocks as he collapsed gently onto her chest.

But she was frustrated. One more, so close. "Please?"

Tom knew what she wanted, and without raising his torso, he moved his hips in small motions against her. She clung to him, barely breathing, and in a few short moments the muscles deep inside her clamped down with a third, sharp orgasm. It was not waves, but a nearly painful spike of sensation that brought tears to her eyes and a single long convulsion. Tom gasped at the pressure, but didn't withdraw until her near paralysis passed. He was so good to her, she thought. So good.

Tom lay on his back, arm inviting her to lie against him. She couldn't move for a few minutes, but finally cuddled close, kissed his cheek, and said, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For the story."

He laughed sleepily. "I think we both liked it."

She lay next to him, wondering if all this time Tom had been careful with words not out of shyness but because he thought he might offend her. If he only knew what was on the padds she had stashed in her quarters under her socks.

Only when she got up to wash did her thoughts return to her strategy. She'd almost forgotten why she asked for the story, once Tom started talking. She knew she was not the subtle type, and wondered how long it would be before Tom figured out what she was trying to arrange. If just hearing him talk about it made her come that hard and fast, seeing it and smelling it would probably shred her.

After tonight, she almost wondered whether it would be better just to ask him.

She could imagine herself saying casually over breakfast, "So, Tom, what do you think about taking Chakotay to bed with us?" He'd probably spit his coffee -- not at the idea of another man, but that it would be the commander. No, better to let Chakotay handle that part. After tonight she wasn't afraid he would be scared by the idea in general, but Chakotay would have to do the actual seduction. He'd made a good first impression at dinner.

That process might be as fun to watch as the hoped-for conclusion, she thought, before joining Tom in sleep.

The next four weeks were the best and most frustrating she could remember. Chakotay joined them for dinner twice a week or so, but only on days when she mentioned it. She never asked directly, but if she indicated she was meeting Tom after a workout, he would be there, bearing wine. Tom was getting used to him, and even seemed to look forward to Chakotay's presence.

The process was slow for her taste, but she left it in Chakotay's hands. In the mean time, it was as if she'd unlocked something in Tom. Thank the random powers that all was well with the engines, she thought. She hadn't been this distractable in years.

Earlier that day she had been in the middle of writing an engineering report, identical to yesterday's engineering report, when her mind had suddenly filled with images, part memory, part immediate fantasy, mixed and confused, bringing the heat to her belly and raising the hairs along her arms.

"Tell me again - how did it feel when you tasted his cock? Tell me Tom..."

And Tom groaning as he slid into her, and speaking in harsh, gasping sentences. "He was dripping into my mouth. He tasted of salt. Sweet and salty..." Each utterance punctuated by a hard, corkscrewing thrust of his hips, and B'Elanna felt her muscles contract with each stroke. She was so close...

"I didn't think it would taste good. I remember how hot his cock was. Hot and hard and -- Oh, god."

B'Elanna could feel his breath on her neck as he strained within her, and the image of his mouth stretched around another man's cock sent her spiraling over the edge...

"Lieutenant?"

The voice jerked her back into her desk chair, ready to yell at whoever had walked into her office unannounced. She looked up with reproach on her lips to find Chakotay staring speculatively at her from the doorway.

He glanced at her computer screen to see what she'd been working on, then back to her face, which she could feel was flushed with remembered desire and embarrassment combined. "I guess I should look forward to reading this report?"

She glared up at him. "It'll be just like yesterday's."

"And did yesterday's report have you all hot and bothered?" His lips suppressed a smile.

"Chakotay!"

He did not relent in his teasing. "How does Tom keep up with you if normal engine parameters can get you going? Now I know why you love your work."

B'Elanna reached for a padd to throw, then gave in to laughing with him.

"I just stopped by to see whether you wanted to work out tonight."

"I can't. Tom and I have a date. He says it's been a year since that shuttle accident where we were stuck in EVA suits." She shrugged. "He called it an anniversary dinner."

"Didn't know he was the romantic type. Any special plans?"

"Nothing firm."

"At least not yet." His expression was wicked, and she groaned. She'd walked right into that one.

"Does Janeway know you think like this?" she asked with a scowl that couldn't contain her humor.

The public Chakotay face appeared for a minute as he answered, "No, ma'am." Then he smiled again, and added, "She sets up some real howlers, and they're ha-- difficult to pass up."

B'Elanna closed her eyes and chuckled.

"Have a good time tonight. See you tomorrow," he said and left the office.

She watched his back and thought suddenly that he really needed more friends than just her, someone else he could relax with. Not Janeway, she thought. She'd probably never appreciate his humor. Maybe she should suggest to Tom that he take Chakotay on one of his driving programs. Or something.

Or something.

Her mind filled with images of Tom with his mechanic's suit around his ankles, bent over the car engine with Chakotay rutting deep in his ass, and the thought made her breath short. She had to put it out of her mind with effort. A glance at the chronometer confirmed that it was late enough to leave, and she stalked out of engineering.

"My god you're beautiful," Tom breathed, standing aside to let her in.

His message had simply requested formal wear, but she had chosen something that would also get his attention. Walking from her quarters to his had been torture for fear of being seen like this. The dress was cut low in the back, dipping deep enough to show her spine ridges and the two dimples above her buttocks if she took off the filmy shawl. The front was more overtly modest, but what it didn't show it suggested. It had thin straps, bare arms, and was made of a deep maroon fabric. It suited her.

Tom wore black, which wasn't his color, but a pearl grey shirt shot with blue relieved the somberness. The coat was cut close and the trousers wide, but the combination seemed to work. When her eyes moved from him to the room, she gasped in surprise.

There were candles everywhere, and rather than a formal dinner there were trays of small finger foods arranged so that nourishment was never far away, even in the bedroom. She looked around, marvelling at the transformation of the utilitarian starship quarters.

"You like?" he whispered into her hair.

"It's wonderful, Tom." She walked into the room and nibbled at a small sandwich.

"Can I get you a drink?"

"Whatever you're having."

"No intoxicants tonight," he said. "I'm on duty very early tomorrow."

"That's all right."

He brought back two long-stemmed glasses from the replicator containing a fruit drink that wasn't too sweet. They clinked in silent toast and took a sip.

"Music," he said to the air, and something he had pre-programmed began to play, something that had both rhythm and a lush sound. He took her glass and set it aside, then pulled her to him. "Shall we dance?"

"I don't know how, you know that." B'Elanna was suddenly irritated.

He didn't rise to the bait, but bent toward her ear and said, "I thought we always found a rhythm."

His voice was low, and it shot through her, dispersing her annoyance. "Not standing up."

"Only because of the height differential," he teased back.

He had her swaying with the music, and she didn't fight him. B'Elanna let him lead her, managed to avoid his feet, and decided that dancing wasn't so bad after all. He held her close, her head resting on the smooth fabric of his jacket, his hand on the bare small of her back.

He smelled clean, with a faint tang of the new sweat of excitement. She had never quite lost the arousal of her afternoon reverie, and her own scent was just detectable. The song came to an end, and before another could start she pulled away.

"Now we dance my way," she said, and led him to the bed, dropping the shawl behind her.

For the first time in weeks they made love with no words but those of endearment and encouragement. It was as if she needed to assure herself that what they had before was still there, that she didn't need the images of Tom with a man to bring her to fulfillment. She let a few thoughts stray in that direction, but in the end he was enough, and he proved it to her twice before succumbing himself, both crying aloud their joy in each other.

A few sleepy moments later Tom asked, "Are you hungry?"

"Mmm-hmm. What was that sandwich thing?"

"Believe it or not, it's a Neelix creation, but I replicated the stuffed mushrooms."

She sat up, "Where'd you put my drink?"

"I'll get it."

"And the sandwiches."

"Yep," he agreed, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

Before Tom had gone two steps, the comm system chirped. "Chakotay to Paris."

I'm going to kill him, thought B'Elanna.

"Paris here. Go ahead," he sighed.

"Tom, I was looking over the duty roster, and this seems like a good time to give the more junior pilots some conn time. If it's all right with you, I'm taking you off shift tomorrow morning."

Tom swallowed his surprise. "That'll be fine, sir."

"You'll still be expected in sick bay for beta shift."

"Understood. Anything else, Commander?"

"Actually yes. Enter code Chakotay alpha seven click into your replicator, with my compliments."

"Aye, sir. And thank you."

"Chakotay out."

Tom looked at B'Elanna with raised eyebrows.

"I don't know what that code is either," she said, "but it looks like we get to sleep in tomorrow. I'm off duty."

"Nice guy," Tom said, padding over to the replicator and entering the code.

He lifted the product that appeared, whistled, and said, "Very nice guy. Champagne."

It was somewhere toward the end of the bottle. They had eaten to contentment, and drunk with pleasure, talking a little, and laughing much. Tom lay on his stomach next to her, propped on his elbows and alternating between sipping his wine and kissing her nipple. Each caress became more intense, until he was using his teeth and tongue -- biting, sucking, and licking.

"If you keep that up, we'll have to make love again," she warned.

"That would be the idea."

"Give me a minute." B'Elanna got up and headed for the bathroom. She used the time for her necessary ablutions, but then looked for 'it'. It was black and gleaming, designed to attach easily, using the same technology as medical devices. Apart from her it was almost hard to tell what it was for, but it fit inside and over her, leaving the jutting twenty centimeters of ebony cock curving up from her hips.

Tom looked over as she emerged, his eyes widening then closing as he took a deep breath. "You don't have to do that."

She slid beside him in the bed, rubbing against him so that the sensations transfered to movement inside her. "I want to, but you're going to have to help."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," she said reasonably, "it's been months since I did this, and maybe I've forgotten how." He didn't answer, and she looked him in the eye. "I want to fuck you, Tom. Just like that first guy did. But you're going to have to remember and tell me what to do."

He groaned at her words, flushed and breathing hard, but he said. "It's all a blur."

"You can remember for me." She began stroking his ass with one hand. "Did he really just roll you over and stick a finger in, like you said?"

Tom buried his face in the pillow for a moment, then turned enough to free his mouth. "He tried to, but it was tight and dry, and he said he had to find something to slick me up." She mirrored his words with action, pressing her finger against the tight muscle, then reaching to where they kept the tube of lubricant.

"Tell me everything, Tom. Tell me what you felt."

"He pulled me up on my knees, and spread my legs, then squeezed the lube on my ass. It was cold--" He paused to gasp as B'Elanna let the fluid drop onto his skin, unwarmed. "But then he started working it around, like he was too nervous to to actually put a finger in me."

She moved her finger in circles, pressing and releasing until he spoke again. His cock bobbed beneath his stomach with the tease, and she thought she'd have to remember to do this again.

"Finally he put it in, and it felt so weird. Wrong and maybe right at the same time, like it didn't belong there, but I wanted it anyway. It didn't hurt exactly, but..."

He trailed off as she slid one thin finger inside, moving it gently, feeling him spasm around even a welcome invader. Once again she waited for him to guide her.

"The second one hurt." He drew in a breath as she added a finger. "But not for long." Tom pushed back against her hand now, and she probed a bit, to see whether she could find his prostate. "Yes!" he hissed. "He did that, and then I knew I really wanted it."

"Do you want it now?"

"Please."

She withdrew her fingers, and squeezed more lubricant on them. Even the act of rubbing it on the black appliance transferred sensation to her deepest places, pushed on her clitoris in just the right way. When she knelt behind him, she was ready, but this was always the hardest moment for her.

"Do it fast," he said. "That's what he did."

Usually she wanted to close her eyes and shove, but she never could before. She would placed the head of 'it' -- her own cock, in her mind's eye -- against his entrance and pull back on his hips as she pressed forward. The sight of it entering him slowly was always fascinating, affecting her so as to overcome the uncomfortable pressure that she felt. She always feared to hurt him. She wanted to fuck him. This time she took him at his word.

With one swift thrust she was buried deep, and Tom's cry was strangely satisfying. "Was he like that?"

"Yes."

"Then what? Oh yes, I remember. No sense of rhythm." She began to move her hips slowly, using her own sensations as a gauge. If she were touching herself, she would start gently, randomly. She imagined herself as that boy, fucking for perhaps the first time, trying not to hurt Tom, but really caring only for his own sensation. She let the image play through her mind, slowly following the vision's instructions, until suddenly she felt like an adolescent, inexperienced and overwhelmed and plunging toward release.

Tom's groans of orgasm brought her momentarily back to herself. He was now flat on the bed, and she holding herself up on straightened arms, pushing hard for her own sensations. Pounding him into the mattress, she realized. Pounding him into the mattress. Oh god. The thought ran through her mind like a mantra, pushing her over the edge

She lay on his back afterward, catching her breath. "You okay?" she managed to ask.

"Okay," he sighed, reaching up blindly to stroke her head.

"It's not like another man, though, is it?"

She could hear his wry tones. "Well, they don't end up with their breasts against my back the same way."

She wiggled on him a bit, laughing softly, but he drew a breath in discomfort.

"You okay?" she asked again.

"Out, please. Now."

She moved slowly, sliding her whole body down his torso, then kneeling back on her heels. There were smears of red that stood out alarmingly from the few traces of brown marring the dark curve jutting out from her hips. She took it off and set it carefully on the floor, feeling that she may have been too hard on him.

Laying next to him, her face close to his, she said, "I hurt you. You're bleeding."

"It's not that bad," he dismissed, then added wryly, "and it's an accurate recreation."

"Do you want me to get a regenerator?"

"Maybe in a minute." Tom rolled and wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you."

"For what?"

He didn't answer, only kissed her gently in response.

B'Elanna untangled herself, and undertook the unpleasant chore of washing up, the blood still disturbing her. She brought the regenerator with her from the bathroom, and knelt beside him, pushing him back on his stomach and spreading his butt cheeks. As she played the field over his anus she wondered if this was a good time to ask him about Chakotay. Before she could answer herself, the question was out.

"Tom? Is it really like being with a man when I do that?" Some of their former diffidence returned in her words.

He sighed as she shut off the device. "Not quite. No. But I like it, B'Elanna, when it's you."

"But you still miss men."

"Are we about to have an argument?" he asked suspiciously.

"No. I just wanted to tell you that if you found a man you wanted to be with, it might be okay with me."

He rolled over and sat up, his face a bare mask over an odd combination of apprehension and hope. "'Might be okay'? How might it be okay?"

She took a deep breath, looking at the regenerator rather than at Tom. "Well, if it were someone who wouldn't mind me being there, too."

His face became carefully neutral. "That's not the longest list."

She smiled to let him know that this was not dangerous ground. "I know, but there might be a few. Too bad Harry's so straight."

Tom was still suspicious. "Care to tell me who's on that list?"

"Tom! I've never made one," she said, feigning innocence.

"Uh huh." He clearly didn't believe her.

She found her wine and a final canape, eating and sipping as if food and champagne were the only things on her mind.

"Chakotay."

She raised her eyebrows. "That could be a possibility. I wonder if he likes men?"

"No, I mean you've been cooking this up with Chakotay for weeks."

"Cooking up what?" The liquid from the mushroom absorbed her attention, and she licked it off her fingers.

Tom simply looked at her, closed his face, and rolled over.

She could get nothing from him. B'Elanna got up and put out all the candles, but when she lay down next to him, he tensed. After a minute she rose and found her dress, quietly angry, but whether with him or with herself, she wasn't sure.

The program had just increased to level three when she heard the door slide open. B'Elanna didn't turn to look; she was busy with two holographic opponents, her foot landing squarely in the abdomen of one. A familiar brown hand pulled the other away, landing a punch on its ugly jaw. Chakotay's voice ordered, "Computer, increase parameters for two combatants."

The next half hour was sweat and effort. They worked through level five before B'Elanna called a halt. As they had done so often before, they sat drinking water and catching their breath, but now there was a tension that told her he was annoyed with her. It was two days since the disaster in Tom's quarters, and B'Elanna was still stung, barely admitting how embarrassed she was at fouling things up. She had promised herself she'd leave things in Chakotay's hands, and the instant Tom had rolled away from her, she knew she should have listened to herself. Now Chakotay was mad at her, too.

"Rumor has it Tom's not talking to you," Chakotay said.

"Rumor is right."

He sighed, puffed really, and asked, "So what happened? Did I pick a bad champagne?"

"No." B'Elanna smiled in spite of herself at his mild joke. "I brought up the idea of having another man in bed with us, and he jumped to the conclusion that you and I were scheming."

There was a long pause before Chakotay asked, "Scheming. You and I?"

"Well, sort of. Aren't we? I dropped the hint and you seem to have picked it up."

He fixed her with a glance she couldn't read. "Now that I think of it, you never asked me. You've never asked me to dinner either, but you don't seem to mind when I show up."

"So what's your point?" She was mad as only those in the wrong can be.

"Ever since you so carefully didn't ask me to come to bed with you two, I've been wondering whether to try and make it happen." His lips twitched. "I couldn't tell if Tom was interested."

"You could get him interested, couldn't you? You've certainly done your best to be charming." She was defensive and sarcastic.

"I did, B'Elanna, but not as some kind of scheme. He and I had never had an easy relationship before. You're both good company, and I liked spending time with you." Chakotay's expression changed, answering her sarcasm. "But you broke the cardinal rule for these kinds of games."

"Which is?"

He stood up and looked down at her. "'Make him think it was his idea.'"

He walked out of the holodeck, and she was left wondering which 'him' he meant.

She'd finally cornered Tom, if only to find out whether they were through. At least he had said that he'd talk to her when he cooled off. It had been five days -- five days of distant professional courtesy. Now she had a way to find out whether Chakotay had fared any better.

She felt a bit guilty, but she couldn't stop herself. It had been simple to bypass security and set up a program to record audio whenever Tom and Chakotay were alone together and off duty. She didn't think she could hide a video file as easily, and now was the payoff, she hoped. A coded alert told her that a recording was waiting for her, and she left a late dinner in the mess hall to go back to her quarters and bring up the recording.

"Holodeck one, nineteen hundred hours, forty two minutes," announced the computer. "Program running: Grease Monkey."

At first all she could hear were muted clankings, a soft curse, and muffled footsteps. Then Tom said, "Commander."

B'Elanna thought Chakotay must be wearing his uniform.

"Call me Chakotay, Tom. We're both off duty at the moment."

"What brings you here, 'Chakotay?'" Tom asked, suspicion barely veiled.

"Actually, I've always been curious about this program of yours. Internal combustion engines powered so much of the transportation of early technological culture. But they seem so archaic and... dirty."

She could imagine him looking at Tom in that grease-covered jumpsuit he wore in his holographic garage. The fantasy of last week sprung to her mind again, the jumpsuit pooled on the floor and Tom bent over, and she wished she'd dared video. What kind of look had gone with Chakotay's too formal opening?

Tom answered, "That's not why you're here."

Annoyance? Suppressed lust? B'Elanna wished she could see.

"Why else?"

There were several seconds of silence, and Tom's voice finally said, "Well, if you're here you can hold the light for me."

She let the rest of the recording play out, but there was little more than a discussion of tool names and Tom's patient explanation of why a hyper spanner wouldn't work. "You have to feel it on these babies. You can't just set a valve by programming in so many units of torque on a bolt. It has to be eased in."

'Eased in.' She'd give anything to know what Tom's eyes were doing as he said it.

At last they were interrupted by the next group scheduled for holodeck time. There was a clanking as Tom packed up his tools. "Thanks for the help." Then almost hesitantly he asked, "Beer, Commander?"

"Maybe next time? Duty calls again. I've got a stack of reports to get back to tonight.

"Next time," Tom agreed, more sureness in his voice.

"Thanks for the break from duty, Tom."

A short pause, then, "Any time, Chakotay."

The recording ended, and B'Elanna sat staring at the console. After a moment she leaned forward and tapped in the commands to erase her spying program. Something seemed to have passed between them, for all that she couldn't tell exactly what it was. Let Tom cool off, she told herself and let Chakotay handle it.

In the mean time, it had been five days, and she was frustrated. She went to her sock drawer, and pulled out the padds she hadn't looked at in months. There they were: The classic "Vulcan Love Slave"; the very Klingon "Warrior Women and the Pit of Pain"; the modern S&M classic "His Beloved Pet," which featured a famous Starfleet captain and Q; and the pure male smut of "Planet of Desire". There were some half dozen others, and all configurations she might want were there, mostly men on men. She looked at them, then put them away, slamming the drawer closed.

Sure she missed Tom in bed, but mostly she just missed him. He somehow managed to indulge her moods without letting her get away with much, and he could make her hear what no one else would dare tell her. B'Elanna knew suddenly that she should have trusted Tom enough to do this directly, that she shouldn't have played this game.

But no. Tom wouldn't have gone for it, because he didn't know Chakotay then.

It was late. She looked at her bed and then at the door, and finally checked to see whether a holodeck was free. Once was available, and she walked out, exercise clothes in hand.

To her surprise, Tom sat with her at breakfast.

She glanced up, then down at her plate. "Hi."

"Hi," he answered, then took deep interest in his food.

B'Elanna could feel herself getting angry, wondering how he could just expect things to pop right back into normal. Trying to veil her sarcasm, she said, "So, am I forgiven?"

She couldn't read his expression when he looked up. He took two more bites before answering. "Probation."

She slammed down her glass, sending a purple juice everywhere. Before she could yell in her wounded pride, he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Joke."

"Bad one," she muttered, wiping at the spill and ignoring the looks she'd gotten from nearby tables.

"Maybe," he admitted, "but don't ever do something like that to me again."

"What, try to find you something you miss? Help you two make friends?" She was still defensive, grasping at anything that might soften him, or justify her to him.

His expression changed to one of consideration. It didn't seem to have occurred to him that she might have thought she was doing something good for him. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'Oh.'" She ventured a small smile. "So, did it work?"

Tom spoke to his food at first. "Yes, I have a new friend." Then he moved only his eyes, meeting her glance from underneath his brow. "And yes, I want him."

B'Elanna's breath became shallow. "With me there?"

"With you there. I wouldn't have it any other way." He put down his fork and reached for her hand, a flush rising on his face as he repeated, "I wouldn't have it any other way. We have to be on duty in a few minutes. Want to meet for lunch?"

He didn't mean food, and she knew it. "My quarters or yours?"

"Yours," he answered. "Twelve fifteen?"

"They only thing that could keep me away is a warp core breach."

"Good. Now let's talk about something else until I can stand up and walk out of here."

She was already naked on the bed when he got there, her hand dipped down and moving in slow circles. He stripped and pounced, breath escaping them both as he slid inside.

"So," he said, picking up their breakfast conversation, "are you just going to watch or do you want to play, too?"

She had brought herself close before he even got there, and with him stroking inside her, talking was difficult. "Play, too."

"How long have you had the hots for Chakotay?"

"Don't. Have hots for you and Chakotay."

"Greedy insatiable Klingon." He kissed her on the nose. "How will you want us?"

"Want to see," she breathed.

"I thought you wanted to play, too?"

"See, smell, taste, feel. Everything."

"'Everything?' Your turn to talk, B'Elanna. What is everything?"

She pulled herself together to make words coherent enough to tell him her fantasies. Each phrase matched their rhythm. "Watch him fuck you. See you taste him. Suck him with you. Have you both."

His breath was in her ear. "Both at once? How?"

"Mouth and here." She had no word, using the rise of her hips to give meaning. For all that she had pushed him, she had no word yet for her own sex. "Or both inside. Or one here and one in my ass."

Tom hooked her leg suddenly, and rolled to bring her on top. "Have you ever done that? Had someone in your ass?"

She pushed up so that she could look at him, riding him slowly now. She shook her head, not facing the whole truth. It had happened once, and she had hated it. Now she wondered if it could be good, and if anyone could make it good, it was Tom. He had never even hinted at it before, and she had not asked.

"But you want it?" He squeezed the globes of her buttocks, pulling and stretching, give her the hints of a sensation more pleasurable than her memories.

They were both breathless with the idea, and he reached up to caress her face before sliding a finger in between her lips. She sucked it in, obeying his softly voiced command to get it wet. When he was satisfied, he pulled her down on top of him and reached for her ass.

He worked the moistened finger in with a gentle rhythm, and she tried to relax, thinking of all the descriptions in her padd collection. Then she stopped thinking. Each set of frictions and pressures amplified the other, and the heat and buzz of orgasm rose quickly. The familiar pleasure was deeped, darkened with the added sensation, and she ground down and back until the explosion ripped down her legs and up her spine, intense and almost frightening.

It wrung her out completely, and when Tom started again she pushed his hand away. The sensation of his finger retreating was a small relief, and her nostrils flared with the tang of her own bowels. She couldn't take much more, and she sat up, rocking her hips in a way that would bring Tom over.

He grabbed her legs, controlling her and shortening the strokes as his body curled forward. She could smell the subtle changes, the sweat, and her own scent -- all strangely unaffecting because she had been so deeply satisfied. With a groan Tom released into her. She watched his face, with its brows drawn and mouth open, until he relaxed, and then she lay down and licked at the salt on his neck.

"I love you," she whispered.

His arms closed around her, and his lips caught hers. The kisses were soft, and eventually he broke off to pull her tight again. "B'Elanna," he breathed.

She let herself be satisfied with that, and slid off to curl up next to him.

It took more than determination for B'Elanna to walk into Chakotay's office. She had an excuse in hand -- a padd containing an energy use report -- but her real reason for seeking him out made her tense with an apprehension she would never admit as fear.

Fear he would say yes, and fear he would say no. Tom suggested she ask him to dinner, and that she make it clear why.

Chakotay glanced at the padd before setting it aside. "Anything else, Lieutenant?"

"Actually, yes. A dinner invitation."

"You're asking?"

"I'm asking."

"Just dinner, or is there a pilot on the dessert menu?" For all his words were joking, she couldn't quite read him. B'Elanna tried to keep her tones even, and risked only one word. "Maybe."

Despite the subject of conversation, Chakotay stayed behind his desk, his arms resting neutrally in front of him. "So do I approach this as a one-time thing, or can I expect a steady diet?"

B'Elanna's eyes widened, and she turned toward the view port to gather her thoughts. In all these weeks she hadn't really considered beyond the immediacy of her desires, and of sharing those desires with Tom. Chakotay had at first seemed amenable, and not much inclined to deep discussions.

Now, on the eve of it, he wanted to talk. She could have cheerfully beamed him into the warp core.

He was behind her now, looking over her shoulder at their reflection against the stars. "Why me, B'Elanna?"

She closed her eyes. The answers were painful for several reasons, and she'd have preferred not to give them. But this was Chakotay, and nothing but the whole truth would do.

"Do you remember about four years ago when that alien with psionic technology trapped us all in delusions?"

"The Bothari. Kes was the only one who managed to fight him."

"Yes. What was your delusion?"

"Why do you ask?"

"'You show me yours,' I guess," she said, meeting his eyes in the reflection. "What was it?"

"I asked first. Why me?"

It was painful remembering her early infatuation, and revealing it was hard. It took her two tries, and she couldn't look up. "It was... It was you. You wanted me to escape the ship with you, and I knew it was the alien, but I gave in, and we made love. It was so hard to look at you, the real you, afterwards. And remember."

She finally looked up. "And yours?" she asked, fearing she knew the answer.

His eyes held hers as he answered, "Fucking Tom. Bending him over and nailing him in the turbolift and taking revenge for him betraying the Maquis. An anger fuck. A punishment fuck. A 'wipe that smirk off his face' fuck."

Her body shivered with the image and with Chakotay's scent, which changed as he talked, telling her of agitation and desire. She tried to put her responses aside, and as she did so, she had a sudden realization. She turned to face him. "That's why you stopped riding Tom so hard. You'd gotten it out of your system, and then you felt guilty for something you hadn't really done."

This time Chakotay dropped his eyes. "Yes."

"I don't get this. That was four years ago. Why would you go along with me if that memory was only going to make you back out?"

He walked away from her to lean against his desk, as if needing distance. "I thought you were courting me -- both of you, but with you in the lead. But when I would have dinner with you, I wasn't getting any signals from Tom. Then you told me Tom had gotten mad because he thought you and I were setting him up. That's when I was sure it was all only your idea."

"What difference does that make? We both want you now."

"I can't believe you would consider me a night's entertainment."

She was angry. He was right. She had no answer for him.

"You were always so young, B'Elanna, but not any more. And after dealing with that alien's delusions I had to see Tom for who he is. He's a pain in the ass, but there are some things I admire about him, and you two are good together. You're both important to me. I don't want to hurt your relationship by wanting more from you than you're willing to give, by wanting to be more to you than a fuck toy."

B'Elanna thought the speech was pure Chakotay -- direct, sincere, and devastating. Now she realized how they had been operating on completely different assumptions. He filled the silence with the question she was finally asking herself.

"Do you really know what you want from this? Because I know what I want, and if you just want a third party, I suggest the holodeck." Chakotay's voice was an odd mix of distance and warmth.

Finally B'Elanna understood what she had been risking: her relationship with Tom, and her friendship with Chakotay. The complexities of real life never came up in her pornography collection. What she wanted was everything, or at least to try. "Come for dinner tonight, Chakotay, and consider it a date."

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly, and he nodded.

"Tom, he's coming for dinner." They were walking in the corridor and had to be somewhat circumspect. Tom knew who 'he' was.

"So you're willing to try it?"

"Try what?"

"The dating thing. Us seeing him."

Tom was a jump ahead of her. She'd been planning how to ask him how he felt about something more than just sex with Chakotay, but it seemed he had the same questions about her.

"Try me again? You've thought about this already?"

"B'Elanna, when I asked him last week about the two of you setting me up, he told me how he thought the two of us were setting him up."

Damn. She should have kept her spy program going. "So in revenge, the two of you set me up when you suggested I ask him to dinner?"

"Yep."

"I'm sensing a pattern here."

"That's why you're such a good engineer. My quarters, nineteen-thirty?"

"It's... a date."

Dinner had been surprisingly normal, but this time Tom opened a second bottle of wine. As he refilled their glasses he said, "Now everybody gets to answer the question, 'What do you want?'"

Chakotay swallowed. "Who goes first?"

Tom gave the bottle a twist to catch the last drop over B'Elanna's glass. "I'll volunteer."

He sat back, tasted the wine, and regarded the glass in his hand.

"As much as I want you both right now, B'Elanna is more important. I want you to think of us as us --" He tipped his glass to indicate a line between himself and B'Elanna " -- dating you."

"I understand that, as long as you mean it the way I think you do," Chakotay said. "I want both of you." The emphasis on 'want' gave his meaning. "But I also want both of you here like this. Friends and more."

"I think that could work."

B'Elanna stared at them, the two men with their eyes locked over the table, having this reasonable and adult-sounding conversation. But something in their air belied the words. Without moving they were circling each other, not looking for a fight, but still looking for some kind of opening. She took two gulps of wine and set her glass down noisily enough to break the stare.

"No one's asked what I want."

"So answer." Tom looked at her, not even glancing toward Chakotay.

She stood up, reached out and pulled each of them to their feet. She drew the two men together in front of her and raised Tom's hand to Chakotay's face.

"I want what you want, and I want you to kiss him." She looked from one to the other, not caring which one thought he was 'you'. They gazed at her for a moment, the focussed on each other.

Tom's hand cupped behind Chakotay's ear, and they leaned in. When their lips met, B'Elanna felt a surge of heat, tainted by an unexpected and confused jealously. She wished she were the one being kissed by either of them.

The disappointment did not keep her from enjoying the sight of their lips meeting once, twice, and again. She would have been hard pressed to say who gave and who took when their mouths opened and their tongues met.

They stood touching only at the lips and where Tom's hand gripped Chakotay's hair until Chakotay reached up and took Tom's head in a strong caress. Yet they seemed hesitant to touch elsewhere, and B'Elanna took advantage of their stance to wrap her arms around Tom from behind, unfastening his shirt. She pulled his hand out of Chakotay's hair long enough to slide the sleeve off, then let her hands trail down Tom's flanks and up to tease across his nipples.

He gave no sign, but she could smell the effect. They were both hard, both moving toward raw lust. She walked behind Chakotay, found his shirt's tabs angling down one side of his chest, and ran her fingers under the fastenings He was broader than Tom, filling her arms more as she reached up under the cloth to feel his bare skin for the first time as a lover.

He was smoother than Tom, too, with only the few hairs between his pectorals to relieve the satin of his skin. B'Elanna caressed Chakotay's nipples hesitantly, unsure of what he would like. He did like it, giving the lightest of moans and dropping his hands so that she could remove his shirt.

This time Chakotay reached for Tom's waist, running one hand around to the small of Tom's back, the other caressing up through the reddish curls of chest hair. He broke the kiss and looked at Tom with an expression B'Elanna had never seen. It was smoky and intense, and she wanted that gaze turned on her.

She moved up next to them, reaching for their shoulders. Tom looked, bent to kiss her, and as their lips met she felt Chakotay's hand slide down her back ridges, stopping just short of her buttocks. When Tom broke the kiss, he nosed her face toward Chakotay.

Full lips caught hers with a strength that was not demanding. Chakotay's kiss held all the passion she had dreamed it would, but it was different from her imaginings. In her dreams years ago she had surrendered to him, but he was asking her now to match him, not to give to him. It was the kiss of an equal, full of both desire and respect.

Years ago it would have overwhelmed her, but now she answered him, almost smiling as the phrase 'man to man' went through her mind. A caress from Tom prompted her to pull away, and she slid her hands up from their shoulder to their heads, urging them together again.

They kissed, and knowing what Tom was feeling made B'Elanna's jealousy evaporate. She slipped away from them and stepped behind Tom again, reaching now with a distracting rub across his stomach for the fasting of his pants. They opened under her touch and required little encouragement to pool at his feet. Tom had already stepped out of his shoes -- when? -- and at a touch he picked up his feet to let her pull the clothes away.

She pulled down his shorts without standing, peeling them around Tom's erection and tossing them aside. Chakotay's hand was resting on Tom's arm, the brown skin warm against the pale. B'Elanna took the hand and guided it down to Tom's hip, waiting to see whether it would reach forward or back.

Instead Chakotay squeezed, Tom's skin turning white and red beneath the strong fingers.

B'Elanna knelt beside them and looked up to see Tom biting gently down the line of Chakotay's jaw. The brown hand on Tom's hip moved, splaying fingers over the abdomen, under the arc of erect flesh without touching it. Tom was kissing and licking down Chakotay's neck now, and finally was rewarded by a firm grasp on the base of his cock, the touch then sliding up to grip the shaft.

The sight made B'Elanna glad she was already on her knees, because it would have made her drop. As it was she found herself leaning forward as if drawn into the space between them, taking the head of Tom's cock in her mouth. She slid her lips down until they met Chakotay's thumb and forefinger.

When she drew back, his hand followed and within a few tentative strokes they established a rhythm. Her saliva slicked Chakotay's hand, and within a few minutes B'Elanna pulled back to replace her mouth with her own hand. She looked up to see the two men with their foreheads touching. Tom's face was flushed and she could tell he was close to coming. Chakotay's eyes were open and looked down at her and at Tom's cock in their hands with a look of heat and need.

It was not only his own need he spoke of silently -- the straining fabric of his pants told that -- but a need to give this pleasure to Tom, she thought, or at least a need to see him come.

Tom opened his eyes for the barest instant, seeing only his own cock and the mismatched hands forming the wet tunnel he was hunching into. He groaned and came, shooting two bright sticky streams that landed on Chakotay's bare chest, leaving three more to fountain over B'Elanna's fingers.

Tom could barely stand, and Chakotay held him up for a moment before grabbing a napkin from the table. B'Elanna took it and cleaned their hands, then stood and led Tom toward the bed. She lay him down and straightened up to find Chakotay behind her. His arms slipped caressingly over her shoulders and around her waist. The rough sound of skin on fabric pointed up that she was the only one still fully clothed.

She shuddered at the feel of Chakotay's lips on her cheek, at the sight of Tom watching under half-lidded eyes. Mostly Tom watched Chakotay, not meeting her glance but concentrating on the man behind her. She shivered, leaning and feeling the length of Chakotay's cock against her lower back, and drew his hand up under her shirt.

Her encouragement was well taken, and within a few seconds he was exploring her nipples. Chakotay pulled the shirt over her head, tossed it aside, and wasted no time in returning to cup her breasts. She felt displayed before Tom now, and he took advantage, sitting up and leaning forward to capture a nipple in his mouth. She looked down, seeing a large brown hand presenting her breast to Tom's face. The sight mesmerized her, and the sensations were new and nearly too much.

Tom ran his hands up the light cloth of her pants and reached around her. His hands turned, and she could tell he was touching Chakotay, exploring the bare stomach and sides. The sensation and scent threatened to overwhelm her, and as much as she loved being between them, there was something she wanted more. Something she knew they wanted more.

With a few protests from her lovers, B'Elanna slipped out of their embrace and sat next to Tom on the bed. Almost shyly she reached for the fastening of Chakotay's pants. Tom got in her way, leaning forward to lave the abdomen before him with lips and tongue, half rising to reach the chest and nipples.

She waited, breath deepening, until Tom's caressing hand slid a finger under Chakotay's waistband. B'Elanna reached between the two men, loosening the pants and sliding them down. Chakotay wore nothing underneath.

The scent hit her before she looked up from the task of getting the trousers off his feet. Then she looked. Where Tom had an even shaft with the perfect tulip of a circumcised head, Chakotay's cock was a slightly tapered rod, with a maroon head emerging from the dusky foreskin. On the head grew a gleaming bead.

She and Tom had to be thinking about the same thing as the bead grew and began to slip under its own weight. B'Elanna held her breath as Tom leaned forward, caught it with his tongue, and tasted.

The sight sent through her a surging need for sensation and she reached to rub herself through the fabric of her trousers. The touch, and the display of Tom's mouth on Chakotay's cock, running his tongue under the foreskin and leaning forward to swallow the shaft -- it pushed her into a state on the edge of orgasm.

When Chakotay's hand reached to caress Tom's face and touch where mouth wrapped around shaft, she lost control. B'Elanna bucked against her whole hand, bringing about an unsatisfying explosion that only left her wanting more. Her eyes locked on Tom's mouth, sexier than she ever imagined, wrapped around Chakotay's thick length.

She moved to join them, leaning in to lick at the base of the shaft when Tom pulled back. When he realized she was there he freed his mouth to kiss her. Their lips met just centimeters from the dark head, and they moved to include it. Eventually their lips parted enough that they held Chakotay's cock between their mouths. Chakotay seemed unable to stay passive, and began to rock his hips while his hands tangled in both their hair. B'Elanna's tongue met Tom's on the underside of the shaft, and she opened her eyes enough to see Tom looking hazily at her.

She pulled away, sliding to take the head of Chakotay's cock in her mouth, savoring the small taste of clear fluid on her tongue before trying to see how much of him she could swallow. He was bigger than Tom, and she took only a bit more than half. The slide of the foreskin under her lips was as strange as the muskier scent. Very male, he was, but very different from Tom.

She felt hands on her head -- Chakotay's -- and then her lips met Tom's fingers where they wrapped around the cock that stretched her mouth. Chakotay started to thrust in earnest, but she didn't want him to come yet, and not that way.

She pushed herself free and sat back further on the bed, out of Chakotay's reach. "Come lie down," she said, tugging Tom's shoulder. He lay obediently back on the pillows, and Chakotay followed him down, kissing and biting gently on Tom's lower lip before rasping his tongue down from jaw to neck. B'Elanna watched as the full lips began to kiss and suck at one of Tom's nipples.

Tom lay passively, but B'Elanna could read the pleasure on his face. She caressed Chakotay's head, loving the feel of his brush cut under her fingers, and he paused and looked up. His gaze had all the heat she had seen before, and she shuddered, then groaned when Chakotay swooped forward to kiss her in the air above Tom's chest. The kiss was full of promise, but promise deferred.

B'Elanna understood, and encouraged him with a touch to return his attention to Tom. Chakotay moved back to worry at a nipple and nose through the chest hair with the air of someone who was waiting for the next thing. Tom was looking at her, and she knew he had watched them kiss. She touched her lips to his, and their hands met, twining through Chakotay's hair.

They both pushed gently at Chakotay's head and he moved down, sliding his face down Tom's abdomen until he met with the soft length of Tom's penis. He took it into his mouth momentarily, then nosed down to the scrotum, sucking each of the balls in turn.

Tom was clearly enjoying it. B'Elanna ran her fingers around Tom's nipples as she watched. Chakotay knelt between Tom's legs, licking and sucking, tasting all of the available flesh, and although the flesh did not appear to respond, Tom's pleasure was evident in the noises he made.

Chakotay pushed Tom's legs up and burrowed deeper. B'Elanna couldn't see what he was doing, but Tom's muscles tensed. Chakotay pulled back, looked at Tom speculatively, then pushed to encourage Tom to roll over.

B'Elanna moved as Tom rolled, trying not to interfere. This was one man loving another, and she wanted to see it. This was her best friend making love to her lover, and it touched her deeply. This was sexy as hell.

She expected Chakotay to look for the lubricant, but his attention was all on Tom's upraised ass. He spent a few moments kneading it with both hands, running his fingers up over Tom's back and down his legs. Finally he parted the cheeks and bent forward.

Tom tensed again at what could only be Chakotay's tongue. B'Elanna couldn't see his face, so she slid down the bed so that she could watch. Chakotay leaned back as if to show her, licking down toward Tom's hanging balls, then back up to swirl around the anus. Then the tongue stiffened into a probe and pushed at the center of the muscle.

B'Elanna couldn't see anything more; Chakotay's head was in the way. She reached out to touch Tom, but decided not to distract him. His whispers of "Oh God" told her that the tongue in his ass was either doing things that Tom had never felt before or that he loved but hadn't felt for a long time.

Chakotay knelt back after a long moment, and flipped the now-boneless pale body over. He glanced up, and B'Elanna answered his unspoken request by reaching for the lubricant. She opened it, and squeezed some onto Chakotay's outstretched fingers. His eyes caught hers as if asking, and she nodded to say that she was as ready for this as he was.

Chakotay smeared his own cock, and B'Elanna couldn't take her eyes off it. He was less businesslike than he might have been, giving himself pleasure in the process, and the sight of Chakotay stroking himself made her want him inside her now.

When she looked at Tom, he seemed to be wanting the same thing. His eyes were glued to the hand pumping over engorged flesh, his face flushed, and he raised his legs in invitation. B'Elanna squeezed lubricant on her own fingers, and dipped down to prepare Tom for the stud displaying himself before them. It was the role Chakotay seemed to have assumed, rolling the tight foreskin under his fingers for their enjoyment as much as his. There was a wanton streak in him that she had only barely suspected.

She answered the brazeness, looking from one to the other as she worked one finger, then a second into Tom. Tom's eyes opened wide, then closed, giving in. Chakotay's eyes didn't meet hers. It was his turn to watch, and he stilled his hand as B'Elanna added a third slick finger. Chakotay was bigger that their toy, and she wanted this to feel good and not hurt. It took a few moments until the muscle relaxed around her, and when she felt he could take it she put all four fingers inside him. She had never done that before, and she shivered at the feel of Tom bearing down on her and helping force them in. Despite Tom's sharp intake of breath, he took it with only a little effort, and she decided he was ready.

As she removed her hand Chakotay leaned forward, supporting himself on either side of Tom. Tom's feet and legs rested naturally on the broad shoulders above him, and his eyes were half-lidded and dark with anticipation. The position lifted Tom's ass, but Chakotay made no move to take it. He bent instead to kiss. B'Elanna couldn't stand it, and reached between them, placing the head of Chakotay's thick cock at Tom's entrance, stroking and feeling its bulk in her hand as she tried to encourage him.

Then she positioned herself to watch.

Chakotay's hips bore down, and the head of his cock began to open Tom. The tension of the ring of muscle pushed the foreskin back and squeezed the flesh, deforming it a bit in a way that never happened with "it." She watched fascinated as Chakotay pressed in. She glanced at his face and his expression could be read as discomfort or pleasure, she wasn't sure. Perhaps it was both. Tom must feel tight to him.

When she looked at Tom, all she saw was intensity. He was holding his breath, eyes closed against the pain, she thought. Yet he raised his hips, encouraging, and his hands dug into Chakotay's back. She had never taken him in this position, never used her tongue the way Chakotay had. Tom was in thrall to sensation, penetration, and lost to her in this moment.

Chakotay paused, eyes turned to the place where their bodies met. With a groan he plunged in the rest of the way, then bent to meet Tom's lips again.

B'Elanna reached between her legs, pressing through the damp fabric of her pants, lubricant and her own fluids commingling in the cloth. She didn't want to bring herself off, but she craved sensation, something to match what she was seeing the two men share in the kiss. The sight of them locked together, tongues meeting, not only excited her but also made her feel as if part of her shifted. She knew that this was different from anything she could ever have given Tom.

That certainty deepened when Chakotay began to move, his muscles flexing with every stroke, the cheeks of his ass dimpling as he plunged in. The first thrusts were unsure, but he soon started a more steady rhythm. Soon there was sweat on both of them, freeing a pungent musk that filled her senses. This was athletic and male and everything she had hoped for.

Tom's cock seemed to lengthen with each thrust, twitching sideways then slowly up until it stood out, fully erect. Chakotay noticed and smiled. Tom opened his eyes finally, glancing at B'Elanna as if for reassurance. There was no room for her to kiss him easily, so she tried with her eyes to tell him that she wanted this for him, that she loved watching him be taken. She ran her moistened fingers under his nose, as if to give him proof. His nostrils flared, and he let go of Chakotay to touch her face briefly before looking up at the face smiling ferally above his own. They kissed again, sloppy and hungrily -- a kiss made as much of teeth and tongue as of lip.

When the kiss broke, Chakotay began to pump in earnest, flexing his abdomen up with every outward stroke. Tom was soon lost again, a small noise accompanying each thrust and withdrawl. Tom's balls were pulled tight now, and she could see better where the thick rod stretched the opening. The sliding of the shaft was only a small part of what B'Elanna had wanted to see. It was the flexing of muscles, the expressions on Tom's face and the reactions of his body, of Chakotay's body, that threatened to overwhelm her.

Chakotay was straining, trembling, his every muscle standing out as he thrusted. His eyes caught B'Elanna's and then looked down at Tom's erection. The message was clear.

She reached between them, gathering more slick lubricant from Tom's ass. She let her fingers touch Chakotay's cock as it slid in and out in the abbreviated strokes he was making to accommodate her hand. It was strange and wonderful to feel their connection.

She did not linger, though she wanted to. Chakotay seemed to be holding back as if waiting for Tom, and she could not deny his need. She found a place for her arm, took Tom's smooth shaft in her wet hand, and was rewarded by a double groan as Chakotay sank in deeply again.

They set the pace, and she timed her strokes to Chakotay's as best she could. Tom wrapped his hand over hers, not demanding but encouraging, and when he came he convulsed, curling into an arc that tightened with every accumulating measure of semen, but he was utterly silent.

Chakotay was not quiet, and voiced his pleasure with a deep rumble. His face in orgasm was unguarded, a mix of grateful and unbelieving pleasure under the sheen of sweat and other signs of effort. B'Elanna wondered whether he always looked like that.

She could not tear her eyes away as they panted, eyes locked. They were agonizingly beautiful, and completely spent. At last Chakotay withdrew slowly, untangled himself, and knelt back to catch his breath.

Then B'Elanna rose to get a towel, returning to wipe the thick smears from Tom's chest. Almost diffidently she reached down with the cloth to where liquid leaked out of Tom's open ass. She was overwhelmed, and it made her shy. It had been everything she'd wanted, and now she was left with two satisfied men who smelled enticingly of sex. There remained her own yearning, aching need. Now that they were not occupied with each other she was hesitant to touch herself, yet desire burned, fueled by the musk that came in with every breath. It froze her, the hand with the towel still under Tom's ass.

"B'Elanna?"

"Please?" was all she could say, her voice deep and throaty in her ears.

Tom sat up and tossed the towel aside, noticing finally the dark patch made by her own desire and the slick lubricant that had been on her hand. He reached for the side seam where her pants were fastened, opened them and slid them down over her hips, then pulled her on to the bed to thread them over her feet.

He pushed her, pulled her, and got her lengthwise next to him before he bent to kiss her hard. His hand rubbed firmly down her stomach before dipping in, at least two fingers opening her. She bucked against him, and squealed in protest when he moved his hand away.

Her objection was stilled by the feel of an unfamiliar mouth covering her entire sex and sucking. It was an odd sensation, nearly painful, but then Chakotay's mouth moved over her clitoris and began to treat it like a little cock.

Tom brought his fingers to her lips and she tasted herself, her pheromones sending a pulse through her that amplified each sensation. The pull at her clitoris was almost too much, and she was torn between the need to pull away and the desire to buck forward.

She moaned her frustration to Tom, biting a little too hard on one of his fingers.

"I know what you need, B'Elanna." Tom said softly. He shifted down, his hand raising her leg and reaching around. He slipped a finger into her, but it wasn't enough. "Help me out here," he said to Chakotay.

B'Elanna felt Chakotay shift between her legs, and then she gasped as three thick fingers replaced Tom's slender one. The mouth returned to her most sensitive place, but the intensity was now balanced by the feeling of being stretched and caressed from inside.

Tom kissed her briefly, then bent to her breasts, sucking hard. She felt each pull at her nipples echoed below, and within a very few seconds the wave rose up and hit. She existed only where the two mouths pleasured her, neither letting go as she writhed under them. Three more times the waves overtook her, and she was barely aware of her own cries.

As Tom began to rub at her other entrance, a fifth wave began, and then everything faded. Her last thought was that she really shouldn't forget to breathe.

B'Elanna came to consciousness with two men wrapped around her.

"She's awake." Chakotay, softly, and close to her right ear.

"Though we'd killed you for a minute there." Tom at her left, teasing.

She sighed. "If I'm dead, Sto'Vo'Kor is even better than Mother said."

"We'll you've been a very good girl," Tom said. "You deserve heaven."

"I thought Sto'Vo'Kor was for those who died honorably in battle," Chakotay said lazily. "She didn't put up much of a fight."

"Oh, you just issued her a challenge, you know."

The chuckle was soft in her ear. "Good."

B'Elanna smiled to herself and finally opened her eyes. It was wonderful to lie here. She imagined them all as being in the space after "The End" of the smut stories, sated and happy, and thinking already toward the next time.

"How long was I out?"

"A while."

"About an hour."

She untangled herself enough to roll over and prop herself on her elbows between them. Which to kiss first? She picked Chakotay, who met her with a warm kiss that held all the intimacy of their friendship with an added spice of satisfied lust. When she turned to Tom, he reached for her head, kissed her deeply and thoroughly.

She heard in his kiss the words he had never said, and when he let her go she nuzzled her cheek against his and whispered, "Me, too." She reared back, then darted to plant a kiss on Chakotay's cheek, which still smelled of her. "Who wants a shower before we go to sleep?"

"I can't stay," Chakotay said. "I'm on early duty tomorrow."

"You're sure?" Tom sounded resigned. B'Elanna realized there must have been some conversation while she was unconscious, and wondered if she would be able to get the details out of Tom later.

"I make up the schedules, Ensign. I'm sure."

B'Elanna poked Chakotay. "He means about not sleeping with us."

Chakotay returned the poke playfully, but said, "That'll have to wait. Some other time." She knew it had been decided while she was out.

"Other times. More times. Many times." B'Elanna alternated kissing between them.

Chakotay chuckled. "Insatiable Klingon."

"That's what he says."

"He's right. Every now and then. Occasionally."

Tom protested. "Only occasionally?"

"Sometimes." B'Elanna answered as if admitting to it grudgingly.

"Now I know what I can look forward to," Tom sighed. "Two against one."

Chakotay grinned. "B'Elanna didn't seem to mind it. You didn't look like you minded it a little while ago."

"True. And I can look forward to it?" Tom slid his head closer to Chakotay's, asking, and Chakotay moved in to answer wordlessly, meeting him under B'Elanna's head. She joined the kiss in an awkward three-way convergence of mouths, and they were laughing by the time it was over.

"On that note," Chakotay said, getting up and looking for his trousers. "I've slept alone for a long time," he began, as if by way of explanation, sitting on the bed to pull his pants on. "Long enough that I don't think I'd get much actual sleeping done here."

"Next time, don't schedule yourself for early bridge duty." Tom's peevishness was mostly humor, and Chakotay smiled as he bent to kiss him. He caught B'Elanna's lips briefly, too, then rose.

B'Elanna didn't want him to leave, and looked for any delaying tactic. "No shower? If you pass anyone in the corridor, they'll know what you've been doing and they'll wonder who with."

Chakotay retrieved his shirt, and slipped it on. "I think ship's morale could use a good juicy rumor," he dead panned. Then a smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Besides, who would dare to ask me?"

The End

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