Okay, I’m finally on the home stretch of Like A Fine Wine 4. I’m hoping to have it wrapped up before the end of the month, but my mental state has been unfortunately very unpredictable the past few weeks. Either way, here is the preview.
If you want to see Chapters 01 & 02, check out my Patreon.
Jack came awake slowly, aware that someone was talking.
“...no, it’ll be fine...yes, I promise.” A sigh. “Lyra, it’s a guarantee...yes, I already asked him, he really likes you...oh my God, Lyra, stop it! You’re being ridiculous...no, he’s asleep right now...yes, it’ll be-okay, good. Just...I promise, you’ll have a great time.”
Elizabeth was whispering, but Jack was getting the impression that she didn’t have a great concept of what whispering actually meant.
When he heard the very soft chime of a radio being turned off, he asked, “What was that all about?”
Elizabeth jumped slightly, then sighed heavily. “You were awake.”
“You woke me,” he murmured, fully opening his eyes and rolling over. She was sitting on the side of the bed, naked, looking pretty great, even just from the back.
Well, especially from the back.
“Sorry,” she said. “Lyra. She’s nervous about sleeping with you.”
“She shouldn’t be,” he replied, then yawned and sat up. Stretching, he popped his neck, then his back, rolled his shoulders.
Elizabeth had gone hard on him last night.
“I agree, but Lyra’s just...an anxious woman. I think she knows it’ll be fine, anxiety is just reflexive for her at this point.”
“Could it be she doesn’t want to? I don’t want to make her uncomfortable…”
Elizabeth smiled. “Trust me, she wants to. We’ve...spoken. More than once. She really wants to. And she’s going to. She’s just...never been good with this kind of thing. She’s awkward. But she’s, well, prepared for it.”
“Prepared how? You say that with some significance,” he replied, intrigued.
“You’ll see.”
“Oh. All right.” He smiled and slid closer to her back, reaching around and cupping her huge, pale breasts in his hands while beginning to kiss the back of her neck.
She gasped softly and shuddered, then groaned. He paused. It sounded like an unhappy groan. Reaching up, she pulled his hands gently from her breasts. “Not right now.”
“Why?!” he moaned, falling back onto the bed, exasperated and horny but not prepared to actually argue with her if she was saying no.
“Trust me, I want to. Badly. In fact, I intend to go have sex with Riley or Sylvia soon…”
“What the fuck!?”
“You need to put a moratorium on sex until you hook up with Lyra,” Elizabeth said firmly. She stood and began pulling on her workout clothes.
“What is it with you women and these fucking moratoriums?” he growled.
“Hey, have we been wrong?” she shot back, turning to look at him.
He sighed heavily. “No. The sex is better if I wait for it. Just...it’s frustrating! Especially after all the fucking we’ve been doing.”
She smiled and reached down and patted his leg. “I promise I’ll make it up to you after you’ve hooked up with Lyra. Just think of the threesomes we’ll have.”
“When will she hook up with me? I’ll be honest, I can wait, but not that long.”
“You are such a fucking addict.”
“Oh like you aren’t. And come on! I’m around six insanely attractive women, five of whom are highly sexual and fucking me every day for weeks now.”
“Fair enough,” she said, relenting. “Today. I’m confident it will be today. Let’s go workout and get our shower in so we can have our morning meeting. I believe Maureen has some information for us regarding our next course of action.”
He just grunted and got up.
As Jack began his morning routine, first pissing and then brushing his teeth and then pulling on his own workout attire, he thought about the recent past.
It had been three days since Riley had come rescued them from the canyon. Although it hadn’t been as harrowing, (mostly), as the last two times they’d gotten themselves into a bad situation, Jack was pretty happy to just relax with Elizabeth and fuck her brains out as often as she’d let him. And that was mostly what they had done: fucked, slept, worked out a few times, and had pleasant meals. They helped with the cosmetic repairs but there was even less of a sense of urgency at getting them done than there had been before, that is to say hardly any. If anything, Maureen seemed keen on them slowing it down for the moment.
He was getting the impression that she was enjoying the working vacation and the downtime, possibly more than she realized she would, and wanted to extend it. He knew how she felt. This place was nice, the work was nice, the people were nice, obviously. Although more and more recently he was feeling that sort of itch that he’d lost over his last year of service. The call of adventure. Jack was realizing now more than ever that he’d been depressed, and depression was...many things. But in his case it had been a sort of blanket.
It had blanked out or muted most of his other emotions.
Namely: his enjoyment of going to new places, seeing new things, meeting new people and, maybe most of all, doing crazy or exciting shit.
The canyon and the scorpions had been frightening and dangerous, but also very exciting.
He was surprised to realize that he wanted more.
Maybe not more super extreme life-threatening stuff, but more adventure.
Jack finished dressing for the workout and joined Elizabeth in their gym. It was tough focusing, because oh good lord did she look so good and he wanted her so fucking bad, but he managed to get through the workout with too much difficulty. He finally went back to his own quarters and showered alone. He’d had a lot of sex with Elizabeth recently, and he had the idea neither of them intended to stop anytime soon.
Well, besides the pause she’d put on their sex life.
As he got dressed, he heard her and Riley shouting in sexual ecstasy and groaned. It was crazy how much he wanted to run in there and join them, or even just go hop in bed with any of the others. They’d almost certainly agree to it...although maybe they wouldn’t. Elizabeth seemed intent on her assertion that Lyra would jump him soon, and if she thought so, certainly all the others would, too. And they’d probably agree with her assessment that he should stop fucking until she was ready to take her clothes off with him.
How fucking ridiculous it was that being able to practically constantly satisfy his lust had done nothing to sate it.
It just made it worse.
Although it was probably good for the women, given there were six of them and one of him. They had each other, for sure, but they also had brought him along for a reason. And he fully intended to fulfill that reason to the best of his ability.
Promising himself that sex with Lyra was going to be stellar when it happened, and worth the wait, Jack finished dressing and headed for breakfast.
Everyone but Elizabeth and Riley were already around the table, eating. Lyra looked up as soon as he came in and immediately looked back down at her food.
She had still been awkward as hell around him.
Hopefully that would end today.
He grabbed his meal and sat down. Digging in, as he was hungry, he didn’t get a chance to talk before Elizabeth and Riley finally came in.
“Took you long enough,” Maureen said.
“We were busy,” Riley replied flippantly.
“Mmm-hmm. I’m ready to talk about our situation,” Maureen said.
Elizabeth and Riley quickly grabbed their own meals and joined them at the table. Maureen immediately shifted into what he had come to recognize as her business mode. It must be one of the places she flourished: leading a meeting or just talking to a group of people in general. He thought she was a natural at it, but she also had decades of experience by now.
“So, we’ve been discussing finding new contracts for awhile now. Since we all agreed that we would enjoy it, I have found what I believe to be a fair compromise between our various wants. Some of us want to hang around here, continue working on the outpost at our leisure, and do an occasional job here or there, some of us...want something a bit more.”
“Fucking adrenaline junkie,” Riley muttered with a smirk, looking at Elizabeth.
“Give me a break. How many times have you fucked in public?” she shot back.
“Focus,” Maureen said, and both women fell silent. “So I’ve picked up a few additional contracts in this region that we can complete at our leisure, and I’ve also managed to locate a small cluster of them in a region far to the north of here. Based on all the available evidence, I believe it would make the most sense for Jack, Elizabeth, and Lyra to take the shuttle, and the rover, and use the shuttle as a mobile base. How do you feel about this?”
“I’m game,” Elizabeth replied immediately.
“Yeah, me too,” Jack agreed.
They looked at Lyra, who squirmed under their gazes. “I...uh…” She seemed to steel herself suddenly and looked up, her glowing white eyes focusing on them. “Yes. I want to do this.”
“Good!” Maureen replied, looking genuinely pleased. “I’ve found you three contracts. The first is to recover data from a downed atmospheric probe. The second is to grab the inventory and perform a visual inspection of a rental storage facility. The third one is a bit grimmer: recovering any available data, and corpses, from a failed colony. But I figured you’d appreciate the opportunity, given it will offer closure, potentially, to several families.”
“I’m always up for that,” Elizabeth said.
“So, we’re all in agreement then?” Maureen asked, looking around the table. Jack, Elizabeth, and Lyra all confirmed that they were ready and willing to do this. “Excellent. I will download all the relevant data to the three of you and when you’re ready, you can begin the process of packing for the trip and preparing the shuttle.”
“I’d like your help with that, Riley,” Lyra said.
“Can do,” Riley replied.
“And I’d like you to eyeball the medical crap, Sylvia,” Elizabeth said.
“Obviously. You three would be in a lot of trouble otherwise,” Sylvia replied with a smirk.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh.”
Jack glanced at Lyra. He noticed her looking at him, but as soon as his eyes met hers, she immediately looked back down at her food.
This was going to be interesting.
…
It took longer than he assumed it would to get ready.
Or maybe that was just his perception. Jack was getting antsy, and not just because he was horny and none of them would have sex with him even if he asked. They all did indeed agree with Elizabeth’s philosophy of waiting, as he had casually broached the topic with all four of the other women, and they had promptly shut him down. Though he could tell they felt bad for him. He thought Riley came close to trying to jump him.
No, there was another reason he was anxious.
Lyra.
Of all the women he had been with, she was the most intimidating. Although that could simply be the fact that she was the only one he hadn’t seen naked or been intimate with yet. In their own way, they had all been intimidating, some a lot more than others. Riley and Anya were casual and sexual enough that whatever anxiety he’d felt had pretty quickly been put at ease. Maureen and, to a lesser extent, Sylvia really exuded that ‘mature cougar’ persona that was not unlike a teacher or a boss. They just had an air of authority.
And, obviously, Elizabeth had produced worry in him. Honestly, she still did. But even with Elizabeth he had a connection there with the shared history of being a Marine. They got each other on a level none of the others quite did.
But Lyra was just…
Different, somehow.
She seemed apart from the group, in her own class, maybe. He wasn’t sure what it was about her. She was confident, or, at the very least, he had seen flashes of confidence from her. When it came to technical expertise she was one of the most competent and confident women he’d encountered. And over the past few weeks, when they’d been talking off and on, she’d seemed to relax and open up to him. Then she’d snapped back shut again, right when she’d seen that picture he’d taken. He still wasn’t sure what to make of that.
As he prepared for the coming trip, Jack resolved to talk to her on the flight out there. She’d be piloting, but autopilot would handle almost all of the actual flight, and Elizabeth would probably be happy if they got things sorted out between them.
So he prepared. He took a look over his suit of armor and his weapons, bringing his pistol, the assault rifle he’d grown a bit fond of over the past several weeks, and a short-barreled shotgun that packed quite a punch. After running into the scorpions, he wanted something that had more of a kick. Something that could fucking demolish a monster with the pull of a trigger, but that didn’t actually explode. It took almost two hours to disassemble, clean, inspect, and reassemble all that gear, but it helped calm him and pass the time.
He packed the armor carefully in one crate, and placed the rifle and shotgun in a long gun case with a padded interior, then loaded up on magazines and shells. He also snagged a dozen grenades, mostly fragmentation, with a few high explosives for good measure, and secured them as well. After that he packed himself half a dozen changes of uniforms and underclothes, and an extra set of boots, just in case, and finally made sure that his photography editing software and all his photos were still synced to his suit’s database, as well as the library of digital books he’d been slowly working his way through.
As he finished all this up, Elizabeth came into his room.
“Done packing?” she asked.
“Yeah, how’s it going out there?” he replied.
“I’ve packed mine and Lyra’s armor and arsenals, and I just got done checking over our emergency medical stash. It all looks good. I figured you’d want to pack your own arsenal and I thought I’d do a little inspection.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, a small smile on her face, “you wouldn’t take offense to that, would you?”
“Please, be my guest,” he replied, sweeping a hand towards his bed, where all his gear was packed up in crates.
She walked over and opened up the gun case, studying the contents.
“Of course,” he said, getting up behind her and settling his hands on her big ass, “I might like to do an inspection of my own.”
He felt a tremor run through her body. “You know we can’t do anything now. For Lyra’s sake,” she murmured quietly, like she was having a hard time focusing.
He couldn’t help but smile. “I didn’t say anything about ‘doing anything’,” he replied, and ran his hands slowly around to her broad hips. She began to say something, but he slid one hand forward and rested it on her crotch, between her thick thighs.
“You were saying?” he asked.
She exhaled sharply and shuddered again. “We should stop,” she whispered.
“You want me to? I will. Just say the word,” he replied, his hands hesitating.
She paused for several long seconds. “...no,” she murmured.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
“Don’t stop, you fucker!” she snapped.
He laughed and brought his hands up, cupping her breasts, feeling them through the fabric of her uniform. She was breathing more heavily now. Jack began running his fingers over her nipples, which he could feel even more through the fabric, and her breath caught. He was hard as a rock now and knew this was a stupid idea because all this lust had nowhere to go and the only thing this was doing was building up useless horniness and making both of them risk saying ‘fuck it’ and fucking like crazy. Elizabeth had a lot of discipline, but did she have enough?
“Jack…” she whispered.
“Yeah?” he murmured.
“Maybe we could...just do it once.”
Apparently not. Interesting. Not that he could talk, he was ready to pull his cock out and go to town on her, but he was admittedly impressed with himself that he turned her on enough to get her to give in.
“Maybe,” he said. Then he stopped, knowing that if he didn’t stop right now, he wouldn’t stop. Neither of them would. “No.” He took a step back and heard her exhale sharply. “We shouldn’t. Lyra’s going to want my full attention.”
Elizabeth growled and stood facing away from him for a moment, rigid and ramrod straight. Then she turned around. “If you knew that, why the fuck did you get me going?” she growled, somewhere between frustrated, aroused, and actually angry.
“I guess I wanted to see if you’d actually be willing to,” he admitted.
She sighed. “You are a fuck, you know that?”
“Can you blame me? I mean, come on, even you can recognize the ego boost of knowing that you have the capacity to turn on someone who’s not just really fucking attractive but really fucking badass so much that they can’t help but give in.”
She stared at him for another long moment, then issued a sharp laugh and shook her head. “Yeah, fine. I’ll give you that.”
“Well, I imagine you’ll want to go use Riley to get off now,” he said.
“I want to but...no. You know what? I’m going to save it, too. After Lyra’s had you, I get you and I’m not fucking letting go until I’m done with you tonight, understand?”
“...what does that mean, exactly?”
“I guess you’ll find out,” she replied with a coy smirk, and she walked out of his room.
Well, great. What had he gotten himself into, exactly?
…
After another few hours of double-checking their gear and finishing running maintenance on the shuttle and the rover, as they were bringing both, and finally attaching one of the two huge converted cargo containers, they were done.
From how Elizabeth explained it, the two massive cargo containers they had brought down could be slung under the wings of the shuttle, and would act basically like expansions. Functionally speaking, they were survival shelters, though they had been decked out, obviously, given the nature of the trip. One of them would be able to handle the three of them without too much trouble, in terms of space. A lot of stuff folded up into the walls or ceiling.
Finally, after a lunch break and one more round of checking everything out, they were off. Lyra settled into the cockpit and ran through the pre-flight checklist while Jack and Elizabeth took a seat in the seating compartment and buckled up. After fifteen minutes, they were off, rising into the air, aiming north, and shooting off into the horizon.
“You should go talk with Lyra,” Elizabeth said.
“You think so?” he replied.
“Yeah. I think she wants to talk, but she doesn’t quite want to initiate it. Plus, she’s most comfortable in the cockpit, I think. Give her time and keep things calm, but be direct with her, and you’ll both do fine,” Elizabeth said.
He nodded, unbuckled, and stood up. Behind Elizabeth’s head he could see the landscape disappearing beneath them as they rose to a suitable height. He opened up the door to the cockpit and stood in the door.
“Hi, Lyra,” he said, and she jumped slightly, turning to look at him in her seat. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Can I join you?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’m on autopilot now.”
As he came in and closed the door behind him, she turned the seat around and looked at him. Her glowing white gaze seemed intense.
Okay, he thought, slow, calm, but direct.
“Lyra,” he said, “I wanted to discuss, uh...well, our intended sexual interaction.”
“Okay,” she replied, nodding. “I want to talk about it. I’m sorry I haven’t, you know, said anything. Or done anything. And that I’ve been so weird.”
“It’s really fine,” he said, he looked around, suddenly wanting to sit.
Lyra seemed to pick up on that immediately. “Sorry, it’s just the one chair...we could both sit on the floor,” she suggested.
“If you’d be comfortable with that.”
She nodded and stood, then sat down with her back to a console to his left. He moved to the right and sat down opposite her.
“I’ve sat on enough floors in my life,” she said.
“Me too.” He paused. “The first thing I want to get across is that I’m not upset, or irritated, in any way. I’m still completely comfortable with going at whatever pace you want to set, and I’m also comfortable if you’ve decided you don’t want to do it. I don’t want you to feel pressured in any way. Okay?”
She smiled. “I really appreciate that. I’m still certain that it’s a yes from my end. Honestly, I promised myself I was finally going to directly talk about this with you on the way out here, so I’m glad you came in. So...I want to have sex with you. Tonight. Honestly, I want to have sex with you as soon as we land and get everything set up. I want to fuck you like two or three times. I want to suck your dick and taste you. I want to fucking ride you like crazy and squirt all over you. I want-” she paused, breathing more heavily now, then laughed softly. “Well, let’s just say that I want a lot of things tonight. And from now on.”
“Great,” he replied. Already, he had a hard-on just thinking about fucking her tight little brains out. She looked fantastic, sitting there with one leg stretched out, the other drawn up, one elbow resting on the raised knee, an awkward smile on her pale face. “I was curious…”
“Yeah?”
“I guess two things. The first is: do you have a specific reason for being so hesitant? Second, why did you like...lose the ability to look at me or really talk to me after I showed you that picture I’d taken?” he asked.
She laughed quietly and looked away for a few seconds. “Sorry...I just…” She looked down at the floor now and sighed. “Where to begin?” Her eyes came back up. “I’m awkward. I’m sure you’ve heard the word a lot from the others when they’re talking about me. And they’re right. I don’t think I’ve very good at social interactions, most other people make me feel weird and nervous and anxious. I’ve gotten way better at it over the decades, but for whatever reason I’m stuck with it. Sex is...weird. For me. For two reasons. Well, I guess three, one of which we just covered. The second is my family and society. Probably no surprise, but xenians are weirdly conservative about sex. Especially interspecies sex.
“And, lo and behold, I was into other species. Like a lot. And bisexual. But the other problem that’s cropped up over the past twenty years or so is that my sexdrive has dropped off a lot. I think some of it is just my personality and the way I live my life, but I know it’s a thing that can happen to a lot of xenians. Humans too, from what I’ve heard. I mean, I’ve had sex and relationships before, casual and a couple more serious ones, but ultimately it all fell away and I kind of just focused on my job.” She frowned, momentarily becoming lost in thought.
“I’m sorry,” he replied, not sure what else to say.
She shook her head, focusing on him again. “No, it’s fine, really. I was happy with it. I am honestly. I love taking things apart, fixing things. I’ll be happy to go on doing it for another half century and beyond. But anyway, about your other question. It boils down to: I really like you. I haven’t been attracted to someone like you in a long time. Like, thirty years or more. When we met, it woke up my lust, though it was still subdued. When I went on this trip, I knew exactly what I was in for, and that I’d want to enjoy it. So I got some supplements. Basically, they kickstart xenians female sexdrives. I’ve been taking them in tiny doses over the past week or so, as I kept putting it off. But that day I realized you’re actually into taking pictures…
“It was a triple threat. First, I was already super into you. Second, I had just doubled my dosage that day. Three, and this is the big one: I am so into creative types. Some people go for strength, some for looks, some for wit, I just...fucking love creative type guys. And girls. Writers, artists...photographers. That picture evoked an emotional response, an intense one, and that’s basically like a mainline of lust. It was...overwhelming. It kind of freaked me out, how much I wanted you. I almost propositioned you to fuck me literally right then and there on the table.”
He laughed. “My God, would they have loved that.”
She laughed as well. “Yeah, they would have. I didn’t though, because I was kind of intimidated by the sheer magnitude of how horny I was. I told myself I needed time to sort it out, which was convenient, because you and Elizabeth were clearly very busy with each other. So...that’s it. My biggest turn-on is artistic people, especially ones who are really good at it or…” she paused, reconsidering. “I guess not necessarily that they’re really good at it, but more that they care about it. You can look at it or read it or experience it and just feel how much the person cared. And that’s what I felt about you. And, well, I was already so into you that it just intensified it so much. So yes, that’s why I kind of regressed and acted so weird.”
“I guess...good for me?” Jack replied uncertainly, making her laugh again.
“Yeah, good for you,” she agreed. She paused, studying him for a long moment, like she was trying to weigh something, if she should tell him or not, or maybe what words to use. Finally, she seemed to decide to plunge forward. “So, um, I want to make sure we’re absolutely on the same page here. Because I’ve come to learn that I’m bad at social cues, especially across cultural boundaries. I want to fuck you. Really bad. And I intend to. Within the next few hours. Like, soon. Do you feel basically the same way about me?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Unequivocally.”
She let out something that was part nervous laugh, part sigh of relief. “Oh good. I’m glad. Also, I’ve done all the research and there’s no reason not to, uh...you know, we don’t have to, um-we can go bareback.”
“That’s good to know,” he replied, trying not to smile.
He thought he was awkward, but Lyra was on a different level. She looked at him for another moment longer, then abruptly got up. “I should keep watch over the cockpit. Just in case. Um...I’ll talk more about this after we land and get set up.”
“Okay, Lyra,” he replied, getting up. He paused. “Can I kiss you on the cheek?”
She was silent for a second. “Yes,” she murmured.
He walked over and kissed her on the cheek, and saw a tremor run through her. “I’m really looking forward to our time together.”
She exhaled sharply. “Me too.”
He walked out of the cockpit, closing the door behind him, and sat back down across from Elizabeth.
“How’d it go?” she asked as he buckled back in.
“Pretty well,” he replied.