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Everything was perfect.

Except for the shouting match she had with Jayne before he, Mal, and Zoe left for planetside. And except for whatever was mucking up the environmental systems and turning the whole of Serenity into a sauna. Kaylee would fix both problems later.

Right now, here in Simon’s room, everything was perfect. He had stopped rubbing her feet, stopped laughing, and locked eyes with her. His hand had moved with a purpose over her bare ankle and started a painfully slow trip up her leg. Both had stopped breathing. And right now, she was the one needing fixing.

Their lips met and she pulled him on top of her. His hands lost all direction in the sea of clutching need, but now she had enough purpose for both of them, and between frantic kisses she was working to shed their clothing – first undoing, then pulling, then ripping.

Simon’s grip tightened on her arms, and he pushed her back to the bed. Suddenly he stopped and studied her through bright eyes. Her jumpsuit was down to her waist now, her chest bare, and her amber hair splayed across white sheets and slender shoulders. Steady hands landed on those shoulders, pulling her arms away from her sides, and slid down over smooth pink skin - impossibly slowly, impossibly lightly – traveling over her floating ribs, shifting as she breathed, then circling under the warm mounds of her breasts.

His fingers traced around each, circling patterns across flushed, rosy skin. It was too gentle, too light. Her dry mouth worked silently in desperation, but the torture was unrelenting. Just intricate, tingling patterns racing across her breasts dotted with lightning flashes of pleasure when he brushed across her firm peaks. He’s done this before.

After an endless blissful torment, one hand slid down over her stomach and into the depths of her jumpsuit... over her thigh …across her mound to the other thigh as her hips arched.

The stillness of the room’s soft glow was broken by an involuntary moan as Kaylee’s core pleaded for his touch.

A second pleading moan followed it, like an echo, from across the room.

"River?" Simon’s hands shot back to his shirt and raced to fasten buttons.

Kaylee blinked, and her mind swam back to the here and now. Simon’s sister was slumped in the doorway.

His face turned a blazing scarlet.

Simon rose and bolted through the door, still buttoning his shirt. The rapture on River’s face quickly disappeared, and she rose as well with mournful eyes, feebly reaching a hand toward him as he brushed past.

---

"It don’t make sense." Kaylee peered into a maze of metal connections, glazed eyes half-seeing beneath still-mussed hair. "Should be coolin’ down by now."

Her face shined with black smudges and perspiration in the heat. She ran the back of her hand over her forehead and looked again. She was just seeing metal. All linking up. All humming, all perfect, all throbbing with life. Her hand wiped at the back of her slick neck and slid across her collarbone.

After a few seconds of quiet but strangely pleasant contemplation, Kaylee realized her hand was exploring beneath her jumpsuit. "Gorram it, Simon!"

With a frustrated sigh, she turned and marched toward the hallway. If she couldn’t fix one thing, she’d fix something else.

---

Inara walked into her shuttle and relaxed her façade, let her heart fill with the ache that always boiled in the depths of her dark eyes. The yearning that consumed her life shifted day by day, sometimes a need for his life, sometimes a need for his heart. Today, as was often the case lately, she just wanted him. She ached for him.

As she walked through the door, she moved past a face. There was someone here waiting.

She spun to see River near the entrance. The girl’s face trembled beneath strands of dark hair, and her gaze was fixed on Inara.

"River?" Inara said softly, her eyebrows knotting in confusion. "What are you..."

The girl moved toward her, trembling more than ever. "I... need," said a shaky voice. There was something predatory about her.

The companion took a half-step back, and the other girl slowed her advance, raising her arms as if to calm a frightened quarry. "You need too," River said, her voice breathy but a bit steadier. "It called to me."

Inara opened her mouth to protest but found no words. Instead she found only herself, watching, frozen, as River closed the distance.

Soon Inara’s vision was filled with trembling eyes and ivory skin. River brushed raven hair and hungry lips across the nape of her neck. "Please," the girl whispered into the sensitive skin, sending chills up Inara’s neck. "We can make the ache stop." Her quivering mouth lowered again, and her lips closed widely on her throbbing pulse.

The companion’s eyes rolled back, and she was lost in a sudden daze.

Was this really happening? The only reality was the heat of River’s skin on hers, the frighteningly primal desire that spiked with every sensation.

River’s eyes lifted to hers again. Everything shook.

Neither seemed to move, but inches became breaths, and their lips touched. Inara felt her mouth open, and she sank into the girl’s smooth velvety kiss. And she needed to not need.

---

Kaylee threw herself face down onto Jayne’s bunk, kicking her sweaty clothes to her ankles and leaving it at that. She pressed her nose into his bed and filled her head with him. Her hands flew roughly across her skin, cupping her breasts and slipping between her legs. God, she needed this. And a hell of a lot more.

Guns fell from the wall as Kaylee’s knees spread across the bunk and she thrust shamelessly into her touch.

---

River’s eyes closed and her mouth opened in a whining exhale as Inara’s expert hand found its target and stoked the fires burning inside her. The companion’s thumb circled the girl’s inner lips, and feminine fingertips followed it, brushing up over the surface.

She was lying on her side on the bed, facing a sitting Inara. Both were soaked with passion and perspiration. The companion had one of River’s sinewy legs pinned to her chest, holding her open, and one hand at the base of River’s spine, holding her dress up and her body in place as she continued her manipulations of the girl’s womanhood.

Inara’s lips suckled on River’s suspended ankle as her fingers slid into the girl’s trough. River’s sweat-covered body bucked and thrashed, but the companion’s embrace was a vice. An immense heat built between them, hotter every second.

Inara’s fingers slipped deeper inside the girl’s center as her thumb slid over her hard nub, her mouth moving up to her toes, running her rose-petal lips over each.

Another whine was muted as River’s teeth clinched on a silk pillow.

---

"Well now," Jayne said.

Kaylee turned and looked over her back, panting through an open mouth, to see Jayne at the foot of his bunk watching her with steel blue eyes. She quickly squirmed off the bed, but her clothes were still wrapped around her ankles and she tumbled awkwardly onto the floor.

"Wanna help me out here?" she pleaded.

Strong hands hooked under her armpits and lifted her into the air. He slammed her against the wall and quickly brought her boots over his head, her bound ankles settling at the small of his back.

With two quick motions, he freed his throbbing manhood and lowered her to the tip.

Then he stopped and looked at her. And waited.

Serenity hummed at her back.

"Please," she whispered, her arms around his neck.

A forward movement, and he was in her to the hilt. Both buckled.

She rushed toward his lips.

---

Inara grunted in surprise as River grabbed her hair and pulled her head backward. No kissing on the mouth.

River was on top of her, kissing her neck roughly and slamming her fingers into Inara. Pink lips found the dark skin of her breast, her teeth brushing the tip. The companion moaned deeply, her back arching higher with growing need.

River pulled her hand away and slowed her touch. "Not yet," she said.

---

Kaylee was crazed with desire, near tears. But Jayne held her backside in the air and tortured her with a pulsing pace.

After long seconds he impaled her, their deep moans mingling. Then he stopped again as she cried and pleaded.

She lowered her mouth, lip quivering, to his cheek. His breath was ragged against her.

"Please," she begged, her eyes moist. "Please. I... I love you, Jayne."

And she captured his mouth with hers. He slammed into her again, and she was instantly on the brink.

---

River’s body and mind were both ablaze. Sweaty skin slid together, mingling, building heat. Her head spun with incense. Hands clutched at every intimate place. She was filled with ringing moans and gasps, thrusting, touching, needing, and rising and rising and rising.

"Christmas... is... coming," she groaned.

She bent forward and captured Inara’s mouth with hers.

---

Kaylee tangled her hands in Jayne’s hair and convulsed into him, spilling over the edge with a scream that shook in waves as she spasmed.

Inara moaned her captain’s name and gave way, her nails and feet clenching at River’s back.

Jayne kept thrusting through his grunting peak as his knees went limp, sliding them down the wall until they were tangled on the floor, his hips still working.

River felt everything. Everyone. It all exploded inside her, and her small body was seized by a ‘verse-shaking release...

...and then she tumbled into blackness.

---

Inara came to her senses.

River’s limp body was on top of her. Passed out. The companion carefully rolled her to a pillow, black hair stuck to her slick face.

What the hell had she just done? It was like she had been dreaming... There was a promise, some sort of freedom. But the ache was still here.

The ache. River had known just what to say. Inara had been used.

The companion’s hand went to her mouth as she fought back tears. Mal was right. She was just a whore. And Mal’s the one who made her that way.

---

Kaylee pulled her clothes on, facing the door. She couldn’t look at Jayne right now, not after what she’d said. How could she tell him she was just using him?

Silence hung heavy behind her. He was waiting. She had to say something.

"Jayne… this don’t change things. Sometimes it just ain’t as simple as how you feel about..." Her lips tightened, and she started over. "Okay, say I do feel the way I said-"

She was cut off by the sound of a snore.

With a grin, she made her way out the door. Jayne grunted once, rolled onto his side, and started snoring again, pants still at his knees.

---

"...and you ain’t fixed the nothin’ in the meantime," Mal blustered, wiping sweat from his forehead.

Kaylee just smiled, removing a panel to expose a maze of metal tubes.

"And don’t go thinkin’ that’s the only job you got," he continued. "I got a long list of fixin’ that needs to..." Her beaming smile stopped him in mid-rant. "Why exactly are you so ruttin’ happy about all o’ this?"

She reached into the tubes and turned a knob, and the ship began to cool down.

"Had a good day," Kaylee smiled.

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