by Jess Bentley
“Willllll,” she groans as I thrust a little faster, pulling all the way out, then plunging all the way back in.
Cass mimics the same movement, fisting himself from base to tip. He is thinking about the wet length of her pussy too, I am sure.
With a grin, he gives me a glance, then shifts suddenly underneath her, as though he just came up with something new. As he moves, I hold her steady for whatever he has planned.
When his lips close around her clit, I make sure to pump her even harder. She yelps in surprise at this new barrage of fucking, and it spurs me on even more. With Cass eating her pussy and me fucking her from behind, she is all ours.
My balls clench as I drive deeper, releasing my love right in the middle of her body. She falls forward slightly, pinning Cass underneath her as he continues to suckle her clit. When she comes, she breaks out in a satiny, luxurious sweat that covers her entire back. I watch her writhe underneath me, barely holding onto consciousness as this vision unfolds. Cass comes too, shooting his load in an arc that lands at the top of his bare belly.
We all land in a pile of limbs and heavy breathing, spent in the most glorious way.
Chapter 21
Libby
Mona picks up on the second ring.
“Hey, stranger!” she sings into the phone.
I have to admit that I am really happy to hear her voice.
“Hey yourself,” I answer back. I know I am supposed to be mad at her, but all of that seems sort of far away now.
“Are you still in witness protection? Any news from the enemy?”
“Oh, I don’t know… Sometimes it all seems silly, you know? But other times, I remember that he seemed pretty serious when he said he was going to rat me out.”
“Yeah, well, he’s known for running his mouth. He’s a character.”
A character. That seems like an understatement. But I just let it go.
“Yeah, so, I miss your face!” I admit openly. “What’s new? Is Carson still around?”
She huffs in frustration. “He’s moving, can you believe that? He got a permanent post.”
“Oh no, that’s awful!” I pout sympathetically. “Is it far? Can you visit or something? What are you going to do?”
“Shit, I don’t know, Libby,” she groans.
To my surprise, I think I hear real emotion in her voice. First I find out he is real, now I find out she actually cares about him? Will wonders never cease?
“I mean, if it’s worth it?”
I hear her shaking her head. I can practically see the vision of her curls moving in my mind’s eye.
“God help me, it actually might be worth it, Libby. Christ. What have I gotten myself into?”
“A relationship, by the sounds of it,” I quip.
“Ugh, that sounds awful!”
“Ha! Go figure! After all those lectures on how to get a man, you actually got one!”
“Yeah, very funny, Libby-love. You’re one to talk, miss thing. One day, a relationship is going to find you too. It’s practically unavoidable!”
I can’t say anything. I bite my lips closed.
“Yeah, well…” She sighs, letting her voice trail away. “What are you going to do. So, you really haven’t been home, huh? What is the plan?”
“Well, actually, that’s why I was calling,” I start, trying to figure out the fastest way to explain everything to her. But really, there is only one way.
“Okay, go on,” she prods gently.
“Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything, babycakes.”
“Can you check on the house? Just walk around to make sure everything is okay. You have a key.”
“Oh, sure! Of course. No problem.”
“And… um, can you maybe pick me up a couple things? My laptop? Kind of an overnight bag situation?”
The line goes quiet while she thinks this over.
“And then…”
I take a deep breath. “And then can you maybe bring it here? To where I am? To me?”
“Hell yes!” she agrees immediately. “I literally thought you were never going to ask! Just text the address and I will be there in two shakes!”
“You’re really the best, you know that, Mona?”
“Pshhhht. Well, of course I am,” she sniffs. “I will see you in just a bit!”
Summoning the red button to disconnect the call, I cringe. Was that enough?
That is all I should say for now. I could prepare her, but why? The look of surprise on her face is going to be amazing.
When the doorbell rings, Will gives me a cautious stare from where he stands in the kitchen, arranging freshly baked cookies on a plate. I know it sounds cheesy, but I assumed the cookies would convince them this was a good idea too.
Cass just shrugs with his cheeks full, less cautious than Will, it seems.
The door swings open, and she gives me a giant, enthusiastic grin before leaping across the threshold and crushing me in a hug.
“Girl! Liberty Jane! You’re alive!”
“Only for a few more minutes until you crack my spine,” I grunt, barely.
She sets me down gingerly, plucking a strand of hair off my forehead while giving me a motherly once-over. Her eyes narrow suspiciously.
“Are you skinny? Have you been eating? You look different.”
“I assure you that I have been eating. In fact, I baked cookies! Come on inside.”
“Well, yeah, sweetie!” she coos affectionately. “Why don’t you show me around your witness relo—”
She steps into the living room, then pulls up short.
“Oh, hello, I didn’t see you there,” she explains, pushing her hair back with her palms nervously.
“Mona, this is Will.”
Will walks forward, extending a hand in a brief, polite handshake.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he says in that formal, sexy voice of his.
I’ve heard it a thousand times, but it still thrills me to my core.
“Oh, please do call me Mona,” she titters in her polite, Southern way.
“And this is Cass,” I continue.
Cass crosses the room from the other direction, also shaking her hand.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he murmurs.
“Well, my goodness!” she exclaims, literally fanning herself with her fingers.
She shakes his hand, but turns to me in confusion and a little bit of alarm. Then she turns back to the guys and give them each a terse once-over, then turns back to me.
“This is where you’ve been,” she declares.
It’s not a question. It is the opening remarks of her personal style of investigative reporting. Cass, Will, and I stand still as she begins to walk a path around the perimeter of the room, her eyes darting from surface to surface as she assembles the evidence into a narrative on the fly.
“This is a nice place,” she announces.
Will begins to thank her, but I stop him with the palm of my hand. She will get to him soon enough.
“Nice place… Books. Sofa. No art. No band posters.”
“What is she doing?” Cass whispers theatrically.
“Reading the room,” I answer simply.
Her hips sway as she saunters into the kitchen, pausing to open drawers and cabinet doors, finally the refrigerator where she stands for a full fifteen seconds.
“You guys are military.”
“Big deal. She got that from the military-issue lettuce crisper,” Will jokes nervously.
Actually, she probably got that from the sparse sense of organization and the townhouse’s proximity to the base, but I don’t want to blow her act.
Plucking a cookie off the pile, she nibbles a corner thoughtfully and glances at the three of us, then away. She sees the bathroom door and brightens.
A lot of information is contained in the bathroom.
We all just wait as she makes her inspection and then she comes out, stomping to stand right in front of me. Her eyes flash with a combination of
emotions I don’t fully understand. Is she angry? Outraged? What?
“You know what I’m going to say,” she says accusingly.
Oh. That. I can see it in her eyes.
Freak.
Her eyebrows arch in perfect parentheses.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she challenges.
I cross my arms. Over my head, Will and Cass exchange looks.
“See? I’m not wrong,” she finishes, finally breaking into a smirk. “Oh, Lordy, what is your father going to say, Liberty Jane?”
“Yes, Liberty Jane?” Cass repeats with laughter in his voice.
Mona points viciously at him. “You are not allowed to call her that. That is just for family.”
“Yes ma’am,” he answers obediently.
“That’s right,” she sniffs, tilting her head to stare at me again. “So, you’re okay? You sure?”
“Never better,” I shrug, feeling my insides get lighter. She approves. I can tell.
“Well, that’s really what’s important.”
I feel Will and Cass relax next to me. They know they had gotten the seal of approval too.
“I ordered us pizza,” I suggest. “Should be here any minute. Can you stay?”
She reaches out to fuss at the corner of my dress, plucking it for no reason.
“Of course I will, honey,” she coos. “I want to talk to your gentlemen, anyway.”
Will crosses his arms. He is a gentleman, but he’s also impatient.
“Actually, we want to talk to you too,” he says.
She nods slowly as though she knew it was coming. I want to giggle. I love her Southern wisdom act. It is one of my favorite things that she does.
The pizza arrives shortly, and we all gather around the table to take slices on small plates. I notice the guys are not eating like a pack of rabid dogs as usual, in honor of our company.
Mona keeps an eye on both of them, continuing to check them out even though the charade of her initial entrance is completed. She really does care about me, and I’m sure this is blowing her mind more than a little bit.
“When is your dad getting back?” she asks.
I wrap a string of melted cheese around a fresh slice of pizza before dropping it on my plate.
“Just a couple of days,” I answer. “I will call him tomorrow.”
She looks around the table, then around the room in general.
“And then what? You’re going home?”
“We couldn’t leave her alone after a credible threat,” Will explains. “If anything happened to her, we would never have been able to explain that to the colonel.”
“Make sense, I suppose,” she nods.
Cass scowls briefly. “Well, do you have different information? How credible is a threat from Ty?”
She stiffens. The guys both see it, and I do too.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” she admits.
“Have you been back to work?” I ask. “Has he… said anything?”
“About you? Not really. I have your ID, and I left it in your laptop case. Honestly, I don’t think that you will hear from him. And if he knew who you were, you would definitely not hear from him. He’s just a coward with a big mouth.”
Will refuses to stop looking at her.
“And that’s all? Is there more?”
“No, I… Well, it just made me think,” she admits. “Maybe it’s not a good environment. For anybody. For me.”
“Did something happen?” I ask carefully.
“What? Oh, no! Well, not to me. Not exactly. But you know how it is. You talk yourself into things. You make a decision that seems right at the time. Suddenly it’s three years in and you’re still working for a guy with a mullet and seven missing teeth, you know what I mean?”
“Time does fly,” I smile sympathetically.
Everybody makes choices, comes the voice in my mind.
I know that there is more that she can tell me, but she won’t say anything in front of Will and Cass. Maybe later, when we are alone. Maybe then I’ll get the rest of the story.
And maybe not. Maybe the story ends without me knowing anything.
“To tell you the truth, I thought you were being a little bit of a drama queen,” she shrugs.
“It wasn’t up to her,” Will replies simply.
“Okay, well then maybe you are the drama queen!” she scoffs, but then her attitude slowly changes. “Then after a while I saw it all with fresh eyes. The girls. The drugs. And days going by, as they do.”
She sighs sadly, as though counting to herself all the days that have gone by.
“Oh!” she barks suddenly, holding her hands up. “And I almost forgot! I got your money, too!”
“Wait, what?” I gasp. “Are you kidding me? That’s amazing! How much?”
She pauses, grinning. “Three hundred and forty dollars, sweet cheeks.”
“Oh my God!”
Patting my hand, her eyes sparkle. “Worth every penny, Libby-love! You worked your ass off for that money. Is it enough? Can you get to New York?”
Cass sits up straight. “New York? What’s this about?”
I exchange looks with Will, remembering that I had a conversation with him, but not with Cass.
“Oh, it’s just… Well, I’ve been saving up money. For a nursing residency. In New York. But I don’t have it all.”
“But you could,” Will interrupts with a kind smile.
Shyly, I shake my head. “No, I still need like four hundred bucks. I still need to convince my father. I still need… well, a lot.”
Cass stares at me intensely.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, reaching out to his hand on the table. “I wasn’t keeping it from you. It just didn’t come up.”
He shakes his head. “No, that is not what I meant. It’s okay,” he explains. “It’s just that I thought you knew—but no. You just had your own New York thing.”
“What?” Will interrupts. “You thought she knew what?”
“About New York,” Cass replies, confused. “Wait, do you know about New York too? How did you hear about that?”
Will holds up a hand, and I catch Mona’s eye. She is wide-eyed and delighted by the strange, mirror image theatrics unfolding in front of her.
“How did I hear about what? That doesn’t make any sense. How did you hear about New York, Cass?”
“By email, how else?”
“Well that is how I heard about it too! That and a phone call from the head of the history department—”
“History department? What are you talking about? The National Guard doesn’t even have a history department at Fort Hood.”
“National Guard? Who said anything about the National Guard?”
By now, Mona and I are both racked with laughter. We can see it, even if they can’t.
“Okay, okay, okay, what is going on here?” Cass says, annoyed. “Will, are you talking about my job offer from the National Guard?”
“No… I’m talking about my job offer from the history department at Fort Hood.”
“Those are the same place.”
Will begins to smile. “Yeah, but they are two different job offers.”
Cass shakes his head in disbelief. “Are you shitting me? Do you know how long I’ve been sitting on this, trying to figure out how to talk to you about it?”
“I don’t know… about a month?” Will answers, shrugging.
Mona pulls a face. “Sounds like you guys got some weird twinsy hoodoo going on. What are the odds?”
Will scrubs his face with the heel of his hand, shaking his head in disbelief. “Man, I should’ve figured it was going to be something like this. We made it a lot harder than it needed to be.”
“Probably won’t be the last time,” Cass says.
All I can do is smile. That was one of the funniest things I think I ever saw. I’m so glad Mona was here to witness it, because nobody would ever believe it.
“So all you need to do, Libby, is figure out h
ow you’re going to get to your residency, right?”
I take a breath, peering into Will’s gaze, seeing myself in his green eyes. He holds me steady, plain and earnest, telling me something silently that I would never ask him out loud.
Cass reaches out and slides his fingers underneath my palm so he can grasp my hand lightly in his.
“Well?” he asks softly. “What do you think?”
My head is spinning. What do I think? It’s hard to say. I know that words get in the way, though.
When I let them fall away, the answer is clear. The path is forward. And it leads to New York.
Chapter 22
Libby
Weirdly, knowing that we are all stepping forward together makes the next couple of days sort of strange. Sort of spotlighted, as though everything we are doing has an expiration date.
No, not an expiration date. But a big “to be continued” sign underneath it.
At some point we all agreed to sleep in Will’s bed together. Not in words, just silently, the way we seem to agree to most things. Every night, we have fallen together on the same king-size mattress, usually sleeping after an hour or so of vigorous, energetic exercise.
Today though, it’s a little different. It’s real. It is, apparently, a thing.
Tomorrow I need to go home and explain my choices to my father. Right now it seems inevitable. He will accept it. Something has changed in me; some kind of childish shield has cracked away. Now I know the decision is mine to make, and he will naturally understand.
Cass removes his T-shirt slowly, watching me from his corner of the bed as I slip out of my floral dress and fold it neatly on the dresser. Mona brought me some nightgowns and if he weren’t already staring at me, I would definitely slip away to the bathroom to put one on. That is something Mona taught me: the allure of nightwear. It seemed kind of pointless to me, but she explained that the point of nightwear was to be removed by your special fella, as she called him at the time.
I would like to do that. I will save it for another time.
Will comes in, closing the door behind him. He smiles at me broadly, his cheeks creasing.
“Now, that is what I like to see,” he announces, his eyes skating over my naked body.
I lean back against the dresser, fixing him in a challenging stare.