The BLTS Archive - The House of Troi by Orlando (ajfgdm@globalnet.co.uk) --- Warning: Candid language and explicit sex. If this, and/or totally fictitious Klingon words, offends -- turn back now. Disclaimer: Paramount owns Star Trek. I merely change money in its temple. Okay to post on BLTS, archive at AC. --- Standing at the foot of the old bed, Deanna Troi watched the two men sprawled naked across it in sleep. They looked like a couple of Corinthian pillars brought down in a storm: substantial, solid and weather-beaten. There was barely enough room for them both, even on the magnificent old four-poster. Will was on his back, as boneless as butter. A dark bruise stained his ribs. Another arched above his eye. It was he, for all that his physique couldn't match that of his companion, who had predictably commandeered most of the bed's available space. He looked so very pleased with himself that Deanna was tempted to probe his shallow, morning slumber. She smiled when she saw his erection unfurling against his hip. She stepped forward and ran her fingernail along the sole of the foot draped over the edge of the counterpane. He murmured something she couldn't catch, but didn't wake. Worf was still where she had left him, on his stomach, his face jabbed into the snowy lace of an antique pillow. His quiet snores disturbed the fine old lace on their outward exhalation. She couldn't really read his unconscious mind at all: it was just a jumble of disjointed and jarring aggressions. Perhaps she was just more familiar with the landscape of Will's sleeping mind. She watched Worf sleep for another moment, then let her gaze go where it wanted. It travelled the length of his sharp spine to the steep jut of his backside. Worf, Deanna had to admit, had the most magnificent ass in creation. /Sorry, Will./ She glanced at him, in playful remorse. /That's okay./ Startled, Deanna felt her eyes widen. She hadn't been expecting a response! She hadn't realised she'd been sending! Humans occasionally wondered if they had inadvertently verbalised what should have safely remained just a thought. Betazoids periodically committed the same social faux pas in the telepathic realm. She smiled contritely at Will. Blurry blue eyes, barely more than slits, were watching her. His face was smiling an un-focused, schoolboy smirk. He wasn't offended. He hitched himself up onto his elbows, casually flexing the shoulders Deanna greatly admired. /I kinda like it, myself/ he laughed. Deanna flicked her attention to his erection. Obligingly, its owner slowly parted his thighs. Deanna's eyes travelled the length of him. He was all hair and solid, packed muscles. His hips were heavy, his thighs dark and powerful. His belly rose and rapidly fell under the erection leaning back across it like shadow across a sundial. She touched him, catching his eye as she did so. He gazed back at her with blatant desire. /Imzadi. Let me make love to you, Imzadi./ She took his hand, lacing his fingers with hers, and pulled him from the bed. It creaked as they left it and Will glanced over his shoulder. Worf snorted something and moved into the place Will had vacated. He opened a single, belligerent eye. "Be *gone*! Or, be *silent*!" Will grinned. He bent and pushed his lips against Deanna's ear. "Sometimes, I think the only defense I have against him is that I out-rank him." /On the bridge, maybe,/ Deanna agreed. Will's eyes widened. He grinned and followed her into her bathroom. --- The faucet was filling the tub with a steady, warm gush. The bath stood in the centre of the en-suite's pale mygate floor on massive precious-metal claws modelled on an impression of the mythical Betazoid hawk. A floor to ceiling window, its top arched like an eyebrow lifted in disdain, looked out over the manicured parklands surrounding the Troi Chateau. Will stood at the window, one arm raised to push back the emerald brocade curtain. He looked out at the crisp morning grass. In the distance, he could see the heavy bows of thick, old Betazoid oaks against the gunmetal grey veil of morning sky. A faint peppery scent drifted damply through the single open window pane. "I have always loved it here." "Only when Mother wasn't around," Deanna reminded. "She scared me a little," Will admitted. He laughed. "What am I saying? She scared me a lot!" "She doesn't scare you any more?" "I understand her better now." Will's fingers trailed introspective patterns in the condensation already clinging to the old windowpane. "I understand what she needed. What she couldn't find. I'm more sympathetic." "I've been luckier," Deanna agreed. "And I am grateful," she added, pleased that her acknowledgement lifted the temporary dip in Will's good humour as she'd intended it to. She stood across the Revivalist-style bathroom. She could see Will's reflection a dozen times in the glassy cool gloss of the ornately mirrored walls. She appreciated him. Physically, he wasn't as powerful as Worf, or his body as well-defined, but that was just biology, a differentiation of the species, age. Time had left sentimental reminders of her days with him in his beard and chest hair. She'd added a little to his girth and made his skin coarser than once it had been. But, she'd only sweetened what she'd found, and matured it. He was still a confident man: in his body, in his abilities. He wore his sexuality like comfortable clothes. Those around him accepted the way he was, his life-style, his preferences, his availability, or they didn't. He didn't really care. He never really had. /You still have a delicious ass, Imzadi./ "You have plans for it?" Will asked, turning from the window. "Maybe," Deanna demurred, enjoying the way his erection still aimed at his heart. She turned off the bath taps. The vast old tub was filled to the brim; scented and spiced waters spilling over its curling edge. When they slipped into its warmth, they sent more water lapping to the floor. Will leaned forward. He kissed her. Deanna's hands went to his hips. She straddled him and sheathed him. They moaned in unison, marvelling at, appreciating as they always had, the snug tailoring of the fit. Will spread his arms across the back of the bath and idly tilted his hips. "I love you. I have always loved you. I *will* always love you." "You know, Will, that's the problem with our relationship. I can never get you to verbalise your emotions." Will's laughter travelled the length of him, and did amazing things to her. His mouth would not let her go and Deanna knew that *this* was what he wanted: a moment of shared appreciation, gentle intimacy. His body together with hers. However much he thought he wasn't, he was still a little jealous. He still found her difficult to share. She met his tongue. She could taste herself on its slick heat. She could taste Worf at the back of his throat. She felt a pulse of passion throb in her belly. She closed her eyes. She hugged him and Will took up a languid, easy pace. /Thank you, Imzadi./ Will held her tighter and Deanna remembered how this had almost gone so very wrong. --- "Say something," Deanna had asked, finally, because she couldn't read him beyond the chaos of the chaos. It had sounded to both of them more like a plea than a request. Will had just stood looking across at her and Deanna had taken a step back from the flash flood of febrile, livid anger and resentment spewing out of him. He was a dam wall and she had just breached him. She bit her lip and filled her lungs. Her heart hammered and the breath she had taken, as stifling and dense as volcanic ash, did nothing to steady her. Will took a step forward. A crazy, half-crazed smile hitched up the left side of his face like he'd been snagged on a meat hook. Deanna had never seen him look so dangerous, so ghastly. He frightened her: the expression crystallized in his eyes, the utter fury boiling in him both frightened her. Unconsciously, Deanna retreated another pace. She must not have adequately expressed herself! He could not have heard what she had said. She could not have said what he must have heard! She tried to re-phrase. "Oh, I *understand*, " Will interrupted, his voice like razor blades. "I just need you to ask me. Again. In plain English. Just so there can be no mistake." His hands, gripping the PADD, were white like snowballs. "So that when I leave this room and go abuse my authority to get you, or him, transferred off the _Enterprise_, I will be able to explain to Picard precisely why his first officer is in flagrant breach of the Uniform Code!" Deanna found the words, but she could not summon them to pass her lips. She closed her eyes. Will was bleeding. His anger was a defense mechanism. He wanted to strike her. He wanted to break her. And when he had done that, he wanted to slaughter his Klingon friend. Or have his Klingon friend slaughter him. At that moment, it didn't matter which. He felt sick, Deanna knew. She was ashamed that she was responsible for what she recognised to be tears clustering in the corners of his eyes. "Deanna -- " his voice quivered across the grey darkness of his cabin like a toxic vapor. "Deanna, *how* can you ask me this?" "Will -- " "I have wanted you -- For years I have wanted to be with you again. Now you ask me this? You want me to to chaperon your love-making while you consummate your relationship with Worf! Jesus, Imzadi, what do you want for a wedding gift? My castration?" --- "Please, Will -- " "You are asking me to stand -- where? -- at the bottom of your bed? Is that where you want me to be while he brutalises you and fucks you? You are asking me to stand there and watch him make you bleed? You want me to be there to stop him if it looks as if he is going to cause you real harm? Jesus Christ, Deanna, what do you think I am? I would rather *die* than live through that!" /Imzadi!/ She flashed the thought at him. She forced it into his consciousness. It brought him to a standstill. "That isn't what I asked, Will!" "Then you had better ask again. Fast. Because right now I am about to forget that I'm a civilised man. I'm about to do something to you that even Worf would balk at!" "I want you, Will! I want to be your lover again! I want a relationship. With you. With you both." Will looked away. "That isn't what you said, Deanna." "It's what I meant, Will. I need you. I need you in my mind, Imzadi. I need you inside my body. I can't let you go. I don't want to let you go. I want what you give me emotionally. I miss your mind, Imzadi. And I want it back." "What you *really* want is Will Riker to be there to hold your hand and Worf to be there to fuck you into the floor!" "I'm Betazoid, Will. You have *always* known what that means." "Right now, it seems that your being Betazoid means I get to buy you candy, take you dancing on the weekends and *he* gets to make love with you. Call me parochial, Imzadi, but even *I* don't want you that much!" "I love you. I am in love with you." "What about Worf? Does he know you're here? Does he know what you are asking me?" "Yes." The succinctness of her reply, its honesty, the contradiction to his expectations, seemed to deflate him. Will sank into the chair from which he'd risen to answer her arrival at his door. "And after you have addressed this domestic arrangement, the two of you will be doing what? Picking out flatware and wedding stationery?" Deanna took a step towards him. She took another. She watched him watch her approach. "Why are you being so damn indignant, Will? Why are you acting so damned outraged? It wouldn't be the first time that you and Worf have found yourselves in the same bed. It wouldn't be the first time you will have found yourselves and a woman in the same bed." "That's different! THIS IS DIFFERENT!" "Why?" Deanna demanded. "Why is it different? Because *I* would having sex with two men? Because *I* would be sharing *myself*? Because we would have to create a *relationship*? One that goes beyond the bedroom? One that satisfies and fulfils all three of us? Is this just too adult a concept for you, Commander Riker?" "Oh, you still know all the right buttons to press, Deanna." "Why would it be *so* different, Will?" "Because I love you! Because I am in love with you! Because I need you. Because I need you enough to be --" abruptly, his anger ran out of fuel, "-- whatever the damn Betazoid word is for whatever the hell this is that you are proposing!" "Imzadi. That's the word you're looking for." "And Worf? Is *he* Imzadi to you too?" "That shouldn't be important to you. My relationship with Worf should not affect ours. They are separate, just as yours and his is separate. At least, they are emotionally. Anything else, we can discuss when our blood-pressure is more normal." "I can't walk into this blindfolded, Deanna. I need to know more." "I don't have all the answers. I haven't even asked *myself* all the questions. It didn't seem worth it, until I asked you the only question that really mattered." Will smiled, softly. Deanna could still feel his anger, but at least it was now evaporating from his belly. "You knew I'd agree, didn't you?" he asked. He was almost rueful. "You knew before you even walked through the damn door what my answer would be?" "I *hoped*, Imzadi. I just *hoped*." --- "You kept it!" Will was smiling so brightly, it warmed Deanna far more than the geriatric hot-water heating system that wheezed under bathroom's floor. He leaned forward to press his lips against her. He pursed them and blew a gentle sirocco across her tingling mons. For someone who'd had only a passing, and generally reluctant, familiarity with the concept of shaving over the years, Will wielded a razor with almost as much finesse as he did relish. Deanna had received less attentive service in some of Betazed's most prestigious salons. She told him so, but her barber was too busy tracing his tongue's tip around the silhouette of the tiny rose tattooed on her Venus to pay attention. Deanna shivered at the sensation of his whiskers scraping against her new nudity. It had been so long since they'd indulged in this game for young lovers that Deanna was acutely aware of the passing years. Then she remembered with whom those years had been largely spent, and was glad she had taken that decision those decades ago. She was glad she had weathered that stormy night in his quarters. She was glad he was her lover. She was glad she shared him with Worf, and vice-versa, and all the other combinations and convolutions with which the various commentators of their relationship felt fit to judge it fraught. "I," Beverly Crusher had once declared, settling back on the chateau's terrace to enjoy the Betazoid sunshine, "do *not* envy you your domestic arrangements, Deanna." Deanna had leaned forward in her lounger and peered over the bezel of her sunglasses at her friend. "Actually, Beverly, you do. And, let us not forget, I am empathic, so I *should* know." Will was kissing her with an enthusiasm almost equal to that of his previous topiary. Deanna wiggled against him. He always came home to her from his mistress frigid space. He always returned to her bed from his occasional, half-hearted, half-curious, half-obligatory dalliances in others. "Of course I did, Will. It reminds me of you." Will kissed pink petals. "It's exquisite, Imzadi." "That's what you told the tattooist." Will's laughter joined her own. His eyes sparkled with such a mischievous brilliance that it reminded Deanna of the kid he'd once been. "*He* thought I meant his workmanship!" As he began to gently eat her folds, Deanna remembered how Will had held her while the Orion had worked. She remembered his rapt attention to the artist's derma-quill. She remembered lying there, a pillow under her backside, her legs splayed, her cropped pussy pushed up under his palm like a breakfast muffin, and sensing absolutely nothing; hearing absolutely nothing; seeing absolutely nothing but Will's blistering desire. She was feeling something similar now. He kissed her deeply, on his knees, a towel snagged around his lips. He inhaled. He lifted her legs so that her heels balanced on the very edge of the sink's cool brocade edge. He pressed her ankles together and her knees back against her shoulders exposing her: vaginally, anally. For a long time he just knelt there in worship. "I dream about this. The way you look. The way you smell. Some nights, I can even taste you." Deanna pressed her spine against the emerald tiles at her back. They were cold against her flesh, like Will's tongue darting into her. He pulled back. He tilted his face to look up at her. He laughed. He was thinking something cruel, she could tell. "My God, Deanna, the last time I saw anything this bald, I was talking to Jean-Luc!" She kicked him, but she was laughing too. Her laughter turned to a gasp in her throat. He was rubbing her. His fingers massaged cool satin shaving foam into her Venus. She could smell the dark, dense aroma of candalla wood. He slipped the nozzle between her folds and pumped the dispenser. He filled her with delicious, fragrant cream. His fingertips grazed her clitoris. Deanna closed her eyes. Will brushed her bottom. She held her breath, and although they both wanted him to, Will didn't go any deeper. That territory was Worf's. Deanna shared it with Worf. Her mind, her pussy, she shared with Will. Their arrangements still stood, and remained largely honoured by all parties. Will just lightly kissed her, and left well alone. He must have been able to tell by her reaction what she wanted, because Will slipped his hands underneath her, lowered her legs, picked her up from the sink's edge and carried her back to their bedroom. Worf was awake and waiting. --- Worf watched them enter. He was kneeling on her dishevelled bed like Neptune risen from the depths, and Deanna was delighted to find he seemed to be very, very angry. She had always read his lust as anger, and often wondered if it felt the same to him. Worf's mane swung across his shoulders. He was barking at her from across the bed. "Cha' Ruk! Cha' Ruk! DaNghtha! QuaaH!" He reached out and snatched her from Will's arms. "_Dream of the Fire_ . Karatok," Will murmured in Deanna's ear as she was tugged away from him. He shrugged, devilishly. "In case you were wondering." "I wasn't." Worf leaned over her. His coarse grey hair felt good where it scraped her nipples. They felt as swollen and succulent as strawberries. The lips of her pussy ached. With nothing to stem its flow, a sticky slick of Will's shaving foam was sliding down her thighs. "Cha' Ruk! Quaa' Ruk!" Worf's canines pressed into her cheek. "Nghtha! QuaaH! Nugh'KatagH!" He broke the skin. "Cha' Ruk! Quaa' Ruk! Nghtha! QuaaH! Nugh' KatagH!" Deanna growled. She reached behind her head and flung the vase she found there, across the room. She hoped, vaguely, distantly, without much real concern, that it wasn't anything she was fond of. She heard it crash against the far wall. "It's okay," Will whispered, as if he'd taken up mind-reading in the months he'd been away. "It's the one you h--" "Enough talk!" Without warning or ceremony, Worf flipped her onto her belly. She felt Will's hands between her thighs. His fingers slipped into her. He bathed in her wetness. He persuaded her thighs to part. "Show Will your honey, Honey." He lifted her knees, opened them, and when they were as wide as he could get them, he showered their backs with kisses. Deanna enjoyed the contrast of his attention to detail against Worf's single-minded intentions. Worf's teeth punctured the skin on her bottom. He made her sting. He bit her again. His hand twisted in her hair and yanked back her head. His hand, in the small of her back, left her spine no option but to bend. Deanna arched her back, aware dimly that Will was under her. She opened her eyes to look down at him. Will was holding her. He would never let her fall. He lay on his back in the deep crimson quilts and rosy pillows of their bed and smiled slightly. He looked her in the eyes and Deanna recognised the stain of his distaste. He wanted to stop this. He needed to protect her from Worf's attentions. He couldn't, and she didn't want him to. "Baby," Will crooned. "Baby. Babybaby...." His hands gripped her hips, his fingers spread across her backside. He had handfuls of flesh. He was parting her for Worf. This aroused him. He wanted this to happen. Deanna wanted him to see this happen, to be a part of it. He had been away from home for so long that he had forgotten how good the three of them were. Together they were intoxicating. She stretched. It hurt. It hurt. It felt good to hurt while Will was carolling his lullaby that it was okay, she was his Baby, Baby, Baby and he would hold her, and kiss her, and help her. Her knees were bent, resting on his hips, his legs held her up. Her hands had purchase on his shoulders. She arched her back, thinking, wickedly, that he made the most delightful furniture! Will leaned forward. He trapped her nipples in his teeth. "Furniture, Baby? Baby...?" He smacked her ass in playful outrage. She wasn't his Imzadi now. That was something they didn't share. That was something he had never been able to bring himself to share in the communal bed. She could feel his erection pressed against her. He was hot, glossy. She could feel the dry heat at her back and Worf's ridged breast plate pressed into her spine. He jabbed himself against her anus. He grunted, unimpressed by the way her muscle thought it could keep him out. Deanna gasped. Will's stealthy application of lubrication in the bathroom earlier hadn't been enough, and Worf was insistent. He withdrew. His tongue swabbed the blood his biting had made on her buttocks. He spat into her ass. "Relax," Will murmured. She was sweating. Worf wouldn't wait. His hand jerked her hair. "Submit!" She squeezed her eyes closed. Will's fingertips skimmed her clitoris. "Relax Baby. C'mon, Deanna. You want him. You want him inside your ass. You want him in your ass, Baby. You want him to hurt you. I want to see it, Baby. I want to see him hurting you. C'mon, Deanna. Show me what you do when I'm not here to see you. Give Will a show, Baby." She clenched her hands against Will's shoulders. His fingers pried her open. Worf penetrated. Heat erupted in the small of her back. Worf levered his weight against her. The head of his cock flared inside her, and Deanna knew that the muscle of her ass couldn't flex wide enough to get him out even if she wanted to. Will kissed her. "Baby's ass was made for this." Maybe, but it was hurting so damn much! "Stop! Please!" Worf pressed deeper. /Will!/ He was alert. /Give me the signal word, Deanna. If you need Worf to stop, tell him the signal word./ Worf thrust again. She felt lost between his hips and thighs. She felt splintered and insignificant, impaled, invaded. She opened her mind to him and knew these were the last things he wanted her to feel; the last things; the most opposite. She relaxed. She felt Will's concern abate. Worf thrust again. She almost didn't notice Will's hands become his. He lifted her. She took Will into her cunt. She could feel them. Both of her boys inside her. When they moved, one nudged the other. It hurt. It was a good hurt. "Baby. Open your eyes, Baby. Babybabybaby." She opened her eyes. Will's were millimetres from her own. He took advantage of the proximity of her lips to steal a kiss. Worf's massive hips thrust. He buried himself in her ass. Will bucked. Worf's teeth held onto her shoulder. She could feel her blood hot on her own skin. But it wasn't as hot as the men inside her. Nothing could be that damn hot! She was stretched as wide as she was ever going to get. /Let it go, Baby,/ Will's mind murmured at her. /Let it go. Let it go for me. Wet me, Deanna. Wet me. Will wants you to piss all over him, Sweetheart./ She did. She soaked him. In return, he soaked her. He spilled himself. He groaned, spent. /Jesus! Where'd my fucking stamina go?/ Deanna didn't know. She didn't care. She couldn't think. Worf was inside her. He was deep inside her. He was silent. He was always silent. Will was the one who talked. Will was the one who coaxed. Will was the one who laughed. Will was the one who wove a wicked and wonderful narrative, and invariably ended up bloodied and bruised because Worf would only tolerate his dirty mouth for so long. "Fuck him, Baby. Drain him. Fuck him. C'mon, Baby, fuck him. Do to his body what you do to my mind. C'mon, you know you want everything he has. You have a Klingon warrior in your ass, Deanna. Do you know how few people know how *good* that feels...?" She didn't hear any more. She couldn't hear a damn thing. Worf's roar howled around them like a suicide plunging from a cliff. He pulled out, sharply. She felt him spurt the rest of himself across her shoulders, up her back. She could smell him in her hair. She could smell herself on Will. She could smell Will on her. She fell forward. She felt Will's tongue again. It was cool after Worf's heat. He was burrowing into her ass, cleaning her out. He lapped at her anus. He slipped to her cunt. He caught her clitoris in his teeth and terrorised it. /I'm in your ass, De. I have your clit in my mouth. My tongue is going back up your ass. It's taking my cum with it. It's going to go to war with Worf's in your ass. And then, I'm going to --" He didn't because she snapped her thighs tightly around his face. She orgasmed. She orgasmed. She orgasmed. She collapsed back. Worf held her. Her nipples throbbed. His coarse fingers nipped them. His other hand buried itself back in her vagina for it to contract in satisfied pulses around him. He stroked her hair. "Deanna." Deanna drifted gently down to planet Betazed. She opened her eyes. Worf's brow ridge filled the horizon. His dark eyes had mellowed. "You are a stimulating mate. Thank you." She would have said, "my pleasure" -- because, really, it had been -- but she couldn't remember enough words to make a sentence. Worf's arms became Will's. Their possessiveness embraced her. They slept for hours. --- Deanna awoke to a bed empty but for a sheath of long-stemmed roses bleeding across her pillow, and the distinctive tang of love-making. The card attached to the roses, signed only with an ambivalent "W", did little to indicate their sender. She turned it over. She smiled at Will's exuberant handwriting and his only semi-earnest message: She found him at the far end of the wide kitchen. He'd finished refitting it on his last shore-leave -- the hard, old-fashioned way: without replicators and vac-formed appliances. It had taken him two years to complete the cabinets alone. He rarely came home and when he did, his time was frequently fleeting. Worf, less than interested, and an irregular visitor himself, had left him to it. The kitchen was regarded as Will's and she and Worf considered him utterly welcome to it! Will was seated at his old rustic-style dinner table, a carafe of coffee at his elbow, PADDs scattered across the rich red wood like gaming chips. Whatever he was reading had absorbed him. He was light years away from Betazed here in his substitute ready room. He was worried. He scrubbed his whiskers -- an idiosyncrasy that hadn't left him in over thirty years. Deanna saw there were used dishes in the sink, and the aroma of recent cooking. That only ever happened when Will was home. This was the first time she'd seem him in proper daylight since his unannounced arrival late the previous afternoon, and she thought he was looking well. He wore his maturity, the lines in his face, the grey in his hair and whiskers, like an award, something he'd earned. He viewed his age as a celebration of the life he'd lived, not something he needed to endure until its ending. Deanna recognised Jean-Luc Picard's influence in that way of thinking. It was a legacy of characteristic insight, and Will had happily inherited it -- along with Starfleet's flagship. He had noticed her arrival. He came to barefoot feet wearing ragged, ancient blue jeans and a sweatshirt indicating he was (once had been -- decades ago) a player on the Academy Parrises Squares squad. He looked as if his back had never felt the weight of a uniform in a life he'd chosen to squander instead on driftwood beaches. He grinned like a sixteen year old. "That was *some* homecoming, Imzadi." "I thought it might remind you to come home more often. I'm thinking of tying a label around your neck. " "As if I stay away because I want to." "Of course you want to, Will. You love Starfleet more than you love me." She kissed him. She had always shared him with his uniform. They had each mastered the hard-learned art of compromise over the years. "I didn't think you would come." "I love you, Deanna. I have always hoped to share this important time in your life with you. I wanted to be here for you. Help satisfy you. I took leave the day I got your call." He sounded insulted and Deanna could sense that he was approaching about as angry as she had felt him in a long time. She had gone unexpectedly into Phase nine days ago. She had called him the day after. That meant Will's journey to get here had taken him eight days of travel. She apologised, and Will calmed. "I don't have long, Deanna. This thing with the Tholians --. They just won't take 'no' for an answer. The _Enterprise_ has to be at the border to meet them, so I have to be there." Will's thumb rubbed the new skin on her cheek. He kissed her face, and Deanna watched him, feeling the cloud cross his mind. "What's wrong, Imzadi?" "I still have a problem with the pain. What he does to you. The way he does it to you." "Worf doesn't do anything "to me", Will." This was an old argument, one worn so smooth over the years of repetition that they barely recognised it as real contention. "And," Deanna pointed out, "it never seems to bother you at the time. Quite the contrary." Will smiled in self-deprecation. His eyes were dark. "It makes me hot. Worf hurting you makes me hot. It always has. I guess I still have a problem with that, too." "When do you have to leave?" "Are you asking me to?" "No, Will, I'm asking how long you can stay." "Twelve hours." Will masked his remorse by stepping closer. "Hungry?" he asked. "Does this thing make you hungry as well as horny? Can I fix you breakfast?" Deanna seated herself in the chair he'd left. She watched him heating croissants, brewing coffee, squeezing oranges, scooping preserves from their jars and ladling them into tiny breakfast tubs. He lay fat rashers of bacon in a sizzling black skillet and stepped back from their hissing. He tossed a cooking cloth over his shoulder, turned and smiled at her. After a moment, he looked away. "Jella-Ra is taking paternity leave." He said it as if he hadn't spent eight days rehearsing it, so naturally, that was exactly the way it sounded: eight days old. "He's carrying again." "Who for this time?" Deanna asked, as if this was the first time she'd had to steel herself against the subtle pressure of his forthcoming statement. "His brother." "I'll never understand Ifixxians!" "He carries for eleven months, Deanna. I need a counselor to cover his leave. Someone with experience in the Border Wars. Someone who isn't going to start reminding me about all the crap in the Nechayev Initiative." Deanna watched him. For moments as brief as snowflakes, she was tempted. It would span the duration of her Phase. She would be able to spend time with Will -- real, boring, everyday time they never had. Time in which she could become weary of him; frustrated by his habits; tired of his routines. These were the things that would happen if she lived with him on his starship. She told herself that these were the things that would happen if she ran away to be with him on his starship. She told herself these lies every day. She knew the real reason she could not be with him. She did not want to be there to see him finally run out of life. It would happen to him just as it had happened to Picard before him; Garratt before him; Harriman prior to her and Kirk before that. Captains of starships named _Enterprise_ were not generally given the opportunity to enjoy a wise and productive old age. Perhaps they were blessed instead with inexhaustible youth. "I'm 63 years old," Will said from across the kitchen. "I'm not Klingon. I'm never going to be 16 again," he paused, a knowing, conspiratorial, smile in his voice, "or the gardener's boy. But I can still give you what you need, Imzadi. I can still make love to you when you want me. I can still fuck you all night." Will Riker had always known the difference and Deanna Troi had always adored him for it. As he was waiting for her answer, Will was cracking powder-blue eggs one-handed into hot oil. He wiped his hand against his thigh far too casually to be indifferent to her answer. "I already have a job, Will." Will smiled -- as if he'd never asked the question before; as if he'd never before heard the answer; as if the familiarity of the rebuff took the astringent from its sting. "I don't suppose many people can say they see more of the president than they do of their own husband." His tone was artificially light. "I can," Deanna said. "And I enjoy being able to." She leaned forward on the chair. Uncrossing her legs, she planted her feet squarely shoulder-width apart on the stone floor. Her wrap fell open. Will's eyes took in the blush that he and Worf had left on her intimate places. "Worf," Deanna said, "has been called back to the Homeworld. I don't think they can run the Empire without him." She ran a finger around the neck of her wrap. She allowed it to fall open until it swagged in a crescent under her nipples. A smile decorated Will's face. He licked his lips. "I know," he said with a nonchalance that pretended he'd forgotten about her empathy. "I caught up with him before he left." Deanna smiled into his glittering eyes. "So I heard." She thought he wasn't really very different, right at that moment, from being 16 years old and her gardener's apprentice. As Deanna watched, he shifted his stance to assist in her observation. He opened his worn fly and unhooked the broken clasp at his waist. Underneath, he was naked and beautifully withered from recent use. He was in the prime of his life, and for all his previous self-critiquing, Will was enjoying himself demonstrating it as the soft mound of his cock began to disturb the frayed stitching between his thighs. One night was not enough. One lifetime was not enough. However much she got of him, it would never be enough, so, Deanna resigned herself to the belief that whatever she did get, it was a bonus and she was happy to receive it. Sometimes she even believed it. "I'm hungry, Imzadi." "I take it we have left coffee and croissant country?" "You. I want you. I need you. Feed me, Imzadi." Will turned off the hissing hob, tossed away his chequered cooking cloth, dumped his skillet in the sink, took a final slurp of coffee, told his PADDs to save and encrypt to his voice command, then, finally, picked her up. Deanna covered his mouth. She met his tongue. She wrapped her legs around his waist and drummed her heels against his backside. She wanted to eat him. She ripped the shirt from his back. She needed him. Inside her. Now. She bit him. Hard. She'd forgotten he wasn't Worf until she tasted the difference. "I gave up fucking on tables when I made captain," Will said, by-passing his surrogate desk and heading for the stairs. Half way up them, he paused. "What?" Deanna demanded. "What!?" If he didn't start moving, she was going to rape him on the staircase. The scarlet carpets were old, hand-woven, priceless. He'd better start moving before she stopped caring! "You know, Imzadi, after you, facing off with the Tholians is going to be a day at the beach!" Deanna panted into his ear. "It's curious you should say that." "Why's that?" They had reached the bedroom. She shed her robe and dragged Will's denims down to his hips. It was as far as they needed to go. She encased him. Will groaned. Deanna drove herself down. She leaned forward. "Well, because, before he finally managed to escape, Worf said exactly the same thing about facing the Klingon High Council!" --- The End