by Joey W. Hill
When Marcie heard Lucas shift, she knew he was already aware that she’d left and was likely going to head out there, but Marcie turned over in Ben’s arms and lifted up a little to look over Ben’s shoulder at her sister’s husband. Ben’s eyes opened the moment she moved, so she laid her hand on his muscled biceps as she drew Lucas’s attention.
“With both your permissions,” she said softly. “I’d like to go to her first. Help with a little ‘after’ aftercare?”
Lucas’s gray eyes warmed and Ben stroked a hand over her back, tugging the ends of her loose hair. “End protocol, brat. We’ll be out in a bit. Go be with your sister, if Lucas is okay with it.”
Lucas nodded, though his eyes tracked Cass, probably taking in ten levels of what was going on with her that Marcie would need a closer evaluation to pick up. But that was okay. That was his job, after all.
Marcie found another robe, feeling Ben’s eyes on her as she wrapped it around herself. She sent him a soft smile before she combed her hair back from her face and padded out to the terrace. Cass was now seated on one of the cushioned patio sofas. She’d turned around and had her arms layered on the back, her legs folded and tucked under her, feet bare as she studied the French Quarter lights. Her hair was loosely tied on her shoulders, the planes of her face soft and yet pensive.
She looked merely thoughtful, not stressed, which was good. Yet with the bare feet and the multi-layered expression, she reminded Marcie of how she’d found her sister one night when Cass was fifteen. Mom had been drugged half out of her mind most of the day, Dad MIA as usual. Cass had been sitting at a window seat in the darkened kitchen at midnight, staring out into the night. Marcie, restless, had come down with the excuse of needing water, but really needing that reassurance that someone was there, watching out for them. They’d all done it in different ways, using Cass as the hub around which their uncertain family wheel turned.
Nate had slept in Cass’s bed more often than not, something she was sure he remembered but she’d never tease him about. She’d tease him about plenty of things, now that he thought he was so grown up, but not that. Marcie would come in from a babysitting job, and he’d be sacked out and curled up like a puppy in the comforter while Cass was at her bedroom desk, still typing away at school work or one of the endless administrative jobs she did until she landed the internship with Pickard. That was when things had gotten better, more stable, but it still took Nate quite a while before he could sleep a full night in his room without visual confirmation that Cass wasn’t going to disappear sometime in the middle of it, the way Dad did pretty much his entire life, and Mom would do right in front of your eyes with a pill bottle.
Marcie slid onto the sofa beside her, taking the same backward-facing pose, her hip and shoulder companionably against hers. “These are the thickest, softest robes I’ve felt in my entire life. Are we sure they didn’t murder some animal to make these?
“Only a lot of cotton.” Cass dipped her head, smiling a little as Marcie brushed her nose against her cheek affectionately. “You used to do that when you were younger.”
“I remember.”
Cass nodded, her eyes returning to the skyline. “Remember when Lucas and I went to adopt our two cats? I saw a kitten doing that to its mother, and the volunteer told me rubbing faces together is sort of the universal way for the thumb-less to show affection.”
“Maybe not just the thumb-less. Sometimes those animal instincts are closer to how we need to express things than the human way. Like tonight?” Marcie gave her the gentle prod, knowing it might be the root of the pensiveness.
“Yes. Maybe.”
“Did you enjoy all of it?”
“Yes.” Cass gave her a lopsided smile. “Obviously. But during, it’s so easy to get lost in it. I surfaced with the typical ‘okay, am I going to hell for this’ followed by ‘should I have encouraged this, with my little sister involved’...”
Before Marcie could say anything, Cass lifted a finger. “The oil, the stimulation, opened me up to deeper instincts and understandings. Instincts as real and true as the protective ones I took on and accepted fully when you were growing up. And I saw it for what it was, between you two, though I still can’t describe it. I didn’t watch you and Ben at the wedding afterparty, you know. But I guess you, Ben and Lucas have known I’ve wondered, and it’s festered a little bit, the worry, staying unresolved. Thank you for helping me resolve it once and for all tonight.”
She met Marcie’s gaze. “My younger sister is a beautiful, amazing grown woman, able to make her own decisions. This is a part of your soul I don’t fully understand, which makes me even less qualified to make the call about it. So…I realized I can enjoy tonight for exactly what it was. An erotic adventure that exemplifies the love and trust we have in our husbands and that they have in us.”
“Well, yeah. Duh. But God, that sounds so…corporate. Exemplifies.”
Cass chuckled. “I assume you have a better way of saying it?”
Marcie pursed her lips. “How about a really fucking awesome time that makes us grateful we’re married to two of the hottest Doms and most amazing men on the planet? Who we should never tell that we feel that way, because they’re already in the top 1% of the world’s most arrogant males.”
“That works, too.” Cass sobered, considering her. The robe had slid off Marcie’s shoulder, and Cass ran a light fingertip over one of the belt marks on her shoulder blade. “When you and he started that, it was the only time tonight I had a true moment of trepidation, a desire to call things to a halt. I made myself hold my tongue, and hold you, and what I felt from you, saw in your eyes…as I said, I don’t understand it entirely, but I don’t have to understand it to know it works for you both. That you need to experience it as much as he needs to do it. I perhaps didn’t really know that until tonight…or realize I could stop thinking that it was my fault you were like that.”
Marcie tried not to flinch at the word choice, but she didn’t mask it fast enough. Cass shook her head hastily, laying her hand on her sister’s. “No, honey. I’m sorry. That’s not what it sounds like. I didn’t expect that of myself, that I would…” She stopped and began again. “Let me step back and try to explain it a little better.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do.” Cass said it firmly, holding Marcie’s gaze. “I am a submissive, far more deeply than I ever realized. Lucas helped me uncover that. Yet I forgot how easy it is for a comfort zone to become a judgment boundary. As long as those around me were in that same comfort zone, like Savannah, I thought I was the height of self-righteous tolerance: ‘oh, Dominance and submission are totally healthy and okay’ and ‘why doesn’t the rest of the world understand’? Yet in dealing with what you and Ben have, I have been pushed out of that comfort zone. My thinking that ‘it’s my fault that you’re like that’ was resting on the belief that you two take things too far together.”
She gripped Marcie’s hand. “But tonight I was able to realize what you and Ben have…it’s beautiful, wild. Untamed and unleashed at a level that isn’t better or worse than what Lucas and I have. Just a different tree in the Garden of Eden. No matter how it was planted or grown, it was meant to be.”
When she gave Marcie a searching look, Marcie could see Cass was worrying that her misstep had offended her sister deeply. She could reassure her on that, because Cass had spoken simply and from the heart. She wasn’t Pickard’s top negotiator because she could bullshit; she was the best because she got to the heart of a problem, whether it was her own or someone else’s, laid it out to solve it, and brought everyone back to the table.
She gripped Cass’s hand with both of hers. “You are the best sister ever,” she said fiercely. “Even if you still won’t loan me your shoes.”
“You’re far too rambunctious. You’d get a wild hair to go do cartwheels in a park, or chase down a pickpocket on Canal Street and scratch the heels to pieces in the sidewalk cracks.” Cass nudged her, then became serious
again. “I guess some part of me thought you endured a certain level of it because of your love for one another. Then I realized he’s your safety net. When he stopped, you didn’t want to stop.”
Marcie bit her lip. “Yeah. He makes sure I don’t get swept away in my head past the point of no return. And I want to say something to you, in the same spirit of what you just said to me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Marcie took a breath. “We grew up in such uncertainty. Cass, you were Wonder Woman, you know that? You and Gal Gadot, you could have been twins. You have nothing to worry about, or regret, and I mean that. It pisses all of us off when you think you’re at fault for anything that happened during that time. You not only did the very best you could in the circumstances, you fucking blew away all expectations. All of us bear wounds from growing up with Mom and Dad like that, knowing what it took out of you, out of all of us.”
She nudged her sister. “Some of what’s in me, the need for pain, it’s like an absolution of sorts, a need to purge this build-up of anxiety that comes from knowing exactly what the dark side of the world looks like because we were there. We came so close to tipping right off the edge into the abyss itself, so many times. I don’t consider myself any more broken than anyone else and, unlike a lot of people, I’ve chosen paths in my life that even me out. And that part of me, it meshes with his so perfectly. If there is such a thing as soul mates, we’re it.” She glanced over her shoulder into the darkened room. “Honestly? I’m not sure I’d survive losing him, now that I have him.”
Cass pursed her lips. “So we’re not the only ones who’ve thought about what you mean to each other, and the consequences if…”
Marcie’s countenance clouded.
“Yeah. I know the police academy thing is flying in the face of that. But I think that’s how we have to live. On that edge, daring it to cut us. We can’t live without each other, but we can’t live safe. That’s no life at all. So we figure it out as we go.”
“Okay.” Cass slid an arm around her and Marcie returned the favor, so the sisters twined around one another. “If I never said it, I was so glad to have your help while we were growing up. You could be a pain-in-the-ass teenager sometimes, but on the whole you were the best backup I could have had.”
“I love you, sis.” Marcie pressed her temple to her sister’s as they looked out at the skyline. “And I know in a lot of people’s minds, this is kind of a freaky, twisted way to spend a family evening together, but honestly, I had a blast. I liked sharing it with you.” She gave Cass a quick grin. “It’s a one-timer I don’t need to do it again, but I’m glad we did it.”
“Me too.” Cass dropped her voice to a whisper, giving her a conspiratorial wink. “And if you ever tell him, I’ll tear all your hair out by the roots, but that Dom of yours is fucking scary. Because he has a way of making a woman go along with anything, no matter how crazy.”
“I know. He’s awesome. But whoa on the scary side of Lucas. Who knew that was hiding under the cool and unassuming accountant persona? Well, okay, I did sense it, but seeing it full blown?” Marcie shivered. “Far better than even my fantasies, and those were scorching hot.”
“You’ve reached your quota of fantasies about my husband.” Cass tugged her hair. “It’s bad enough I have to deal with Dana’s. The girl has no filter.”
“God bless her. You should hear Rachel when she gets going. She’s worse. You know we are totally going to get the award for best share at the next monthly get-together.”
The two women nestled together in familial companionship, falling into affectionate silence, broken pleasantly when Lucas joined them. They saw with mutual appreciation that he’d eschewed the fluffy robe, instead pulling on a pair of old and faded jeans he’d apparently brought with him.
“You ladies broke the bro code,” he complained. “You left Ben and I in the same bed, no barrier between us. Naked. He’s trying to spoon with me in his sleep.” He gave a mock shudder. “If he sneezed I might have gotten impaled.”
“If you weren’t so pretty, I wouldn’t have thought you were Marcie in my sleep,” Ben defended himself, coming out of the shadows almost on his heels. He was also wearing his jeans, in his usual low-slung, top-button open way, doubling the aesthetic pleasure of the two women. On top of that, he was carrying a bottle of wine to pass around.
“He never sleeps that deeply,” Marcie said, even knowing Lucas was joking. He was as aware as she was that Ben slept so lightly it was as if he lived in an active war zone. He was getting better about it, but some instincts, just as she’d told Cass, were hard to leave behind. The open warmth in Ben’s eyes as they landed on her told her a lot of bad things were getting easier to push off to the side of the road. Or they didn’t snap as close to his heels as they once had.
The things she and Cass had talked about were still close enough to the surface she wasn’t surprised to see her older sister rise from the sofa, go to Ben and, with only a quick hesitation, put her arms around him. Drawing him down into her embrace, she held him tightly. Marcie didn’t know what she said to him, but Ben set aside the wine and glasses to smile and return the gesture. When he put his cheek to hers, a serious expression crossed his face as he answered her. “Always. But I’m glad you feel it for sure now.”
Then, breaking the moment, he winked at Lucas. “You’ll have to indulge me.” Dropping his hands to take a firm two-grip hold of Cass’s generous backside through the robe, he lifted her up against his body, giving her a warm kiss before dropping her gently back to her feet.
“That’s your final indulgence of the night,” Lucas warned. “Give me back my wife before I cut off your dick with pruning shears and Marcie feeds it to the pigeons.”
Ben snorted. “You’ll wear yourselves out. You don’t cut a major branch with pruning shears. You go for a chainsaw.”
“I’m sure I can find one.”
While he was talking, Marcie had left the couch to select a chocolate out of the fruit basket on the glass table. As she moved around Lucas, she stopped short, feeling a spurt of shock, followed by some wry humor. “Looks like you bedded a tiger, brother-in-law,” she observed, reaching out and running a fingertip over his back. Winking at Cass, she leaned forward and put her lips on one of the marks. As Lucas lifted a hand to cup her jaw, he tipped his head back to toss her an amused look. It had enough reproving heat to give her a thrill. She shot a playful look at her sister. “Just to get back at Ben,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” was Cass’s only response, along with a lifted hand in a claw shape. “There’s other, softer skin these nails can mark.”
Marcie winked but left Lucas, pressing his shoulder fondly before crossing the terrace. “I’ll grab the first aid kit so we can touch those up.”
“They’re fine,” Lucas said.
Marcie backpedaled, popping the chocolate in her mouth. When she ran butt-first into Ben, she rubbed her hips playfully against his groin before pivoting and escaping his mock grab.
“Nope, sorry. We subs are very particular about the care of our Masters. Just as overbearing about it as they are about taking care of us.”
Cass returned to the terrace couch with a smile. Though she tried to see the marks Marcie had noticed, Lucas captured her hand and drew her down beside him. Propping his back against the sofa arm, he wrapped his arms around her while she drew her knees up, tucking the robe demurely around her thighs. “Should I say I’m sorry?” she asked. If Marcie had been startled, she was a little worried.
“Only if you want me to get out that oil again and have me do it all over again.” He squeezed her. “You were breathtaking, sweetheart.”
Marcie returned as Ben took a seat on the other end of the couch, close enough to reach out and grip Cass’s toes affectionately before he settled back. She noticed his eyes didn’t leave Marcie as her sister used peroxide with sterilized pads to clean the scratches on Lucas’s back. Cass suspected her sister was returning those lingering looks just as often over Luc
as’s shoulder. When she applied the cool antibiotic spray as a finishing touch, Lucas made an appealing little shiver against Cass’s back.
Cass would have tended to her husband herself, but he seemed pretty determined to keep her right where she was, her hips in the cradle between his thighs, his arm around her waist.
When Marcie went to put the first aid supplies away, Ben offered Cass a cookie from the plate he’d retrieved from the room service cart. By the time she split it with Lucas and accepted a glass of wine, Marcie had returned. She and Ben adopted a mirror pose on the couch with Lucas and Cass, thanks to Ben resting his back against the opposite sofa arm. As Marcie nestled in front of him, he stretched an arm along the back cushion, letting her rest her head on his biceps. Cass watched him feed Marcie a bite of cookie and brush the crumbs from her lips with his thumb, her hand coming up to circle and caress his wrist.
Though she and Lucas had reached a deeper level tonight, she expected Marcie and Ben were covering some good ground too. The evening was a good breather from the tension they’d been dealing with about Marcie’s career choice. As Cass studied them, she thought any session between Dom and sub could turn into that kind of gift, resolving problems and leading to so many other, even more wonderful, things.
“So…” Her younger sister gave her a sparkling look of mischief that immediately made Cass wary. “While I might not get to see the two of you explore new ground in such a firsthand way again, I’m sure you’ll bring the deets to the tell-all on girls’ night.”
“Only if her Master says that’s okay,” Lucas said in a mock stern tone. “Nosy woman-child.”
“Hey, monthly girls’ night is a Dom-command-free zone.” Marcie sniffed. “Believe me, the chance to be totally honest with one another and commiserate has saved some of your lives, more than once.”
Ben’s arm tightened around his wife. As he slid his lips along her neck, Cass noticed Marcie’s toes curl into the cushion in reaction to the caress. “Behave, brat,” he murmured.