by Sarina Wilde
Chapter Nineteen
“George’s detective friend is here,” Liam called from down the hall of the big house. A moment later, Greer heard the crunch of gravel outside and Liam’s stride on the wooden floors. He dropped a kiss on her cheek.
“If you’ll get the door, I’ll bring some iced tea and snacks out,” Greer replied, deftly arranging a tray. Chas nabbed it before she could pick it up.
“I got this.” He grinned at her and followed Liam out the door.
As Greer wiped the counter, she glanced out the window over the sink. Rich walked next to Liam. Shorter and broader, he was fairly nondescript. Greer supposed that was a good quality for a private detective to possess. After folding the dishrag over the edge of the sink, she joined them.
They gathered in chairs near the pool, drinks in hand. Greer hoped Rich’s research backed her up. Liam sat next to her. He was tense. Greer couldn’t blame him. What they would hear could be the key that set him and Chas free. Her gaze switched to Wyatt. Most important of all, it would keep Wyatt in an atmosphere where people loved him, where he wasn’t an afterthought or an object to be manipulated. She hooked her arm around Liam’s elbow and squeezed.
Her dad introduced Rich to everyone. They talked some about Liam’s addition to the Children’s Museum, then Rich got down to business.
“It really took very little time at all,” Rich said with a smile lighting his tanned face. “Once I determined they’d both gone to UK, I cross-referenced activities and it was right there in front of me. Both belonged to the same sorority. Sure, they weren’t together the entire time, but they overlapped by a year, so I made a couple more phone calls.”
“So we can show they would have known each other?” Chas verified.
“Better than that. Julie was Samantha Marlowe’s big sister, so they have more than just a passing acquaintance.”
Liam and Chas both nodded. Greer knew the two of them had belonged to fraternities in college. Greer had been so attached to Markus and her circle of longtime friends, she’d never gotten involved in that aspect of college life.
“About the only thing closer would be actual siblings,” Chas remarked. Greer’s dad clapped Chas on the back.
“This is very good news. I suspect we can make the harassment suit disappear before it gets off the ground.”
Liam grinned. “Then let’s celebrate. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could do with a cold beer, a big burger, and great music.”
The brunt of the evening crowd had yet to arrive, and it wasn’t late enough yet for the band to have started. As Greer glanced that way she saw the musicians moving around and setting up. For right now, the patio area was filled with just the hum of conversations and the buzz of insects in the nearby trees. Greer had always loved the restaurant’s laid-back atmosphere.
She lifted her gaze to the river. Even on a Sunday, there was a barge moving downstream, piled high with coal. From this distance, it looked like it moved at no more than a crawl, but Greer knew firsthand how deceptive that was.
She pulled her gaze from the river to focus on Liam. “Your mom’s gotten a booster seat for Wyatt,” he said.
She shook her head. “Right, sorry.”
“You all right?”
She nodded.
Conversation stayed pretty general until the waitress had distributed drinks. Greer set a handful of colored pipe cleaners in front of Wyatt and showed him how to bend them. As soon as he was occupied with the activity, she turned her attention to the conversation.
“Who’s playing?” she asked.
“The Pranksters,” Chas replied. “Local guys. They’ve got a pretty solid following around the area. Classic rock. You’ll like them.”
Wyatt tugged on her shirt. Greer glanced at him.
“I’na see the boats,” he whispered.
Greer glanced at the riverfront and swallowed. She pressed her lips together. She could do this. As she pushed back her chair, Liam frowned.
“I can take him,” he murmured.
“No. It’s okay. I’ve got this.” She smiled at everyone around the table. “Wyatt and I are going to walk by the boats.” When her mother started to rise, Greer waved her back. “We’re good.”
They moved to the side where the creek branched off from the river. It was a busy time with plenty of boaters starting to come in after a day on the river. While a lot of them were headed farther upstream to marinas located along the creek, a fair number were beginning to fill the slots to get boatside service from the restaurant. Already, there were spots where boats were tied two and three deep.
This was one of the busiest spots along the river between the traffic going up and down the creek and boats jockeying to dock. All of it was made more complicated by another barge lumbering past and sending a wake out that rocked the boats from side to side.
Greer could look at the noise and the laughter coming from them now without more than a feeling of nostalgia. Markus and the times they’d shared would always be a part of her, but it no longer engendered any feeling of panic. She glanced up the slope to where the afternoon sun dappled the area surrounding Liam and Chas while they sat talking to Rich and her parents. She had two men who loved her. Together, the three of them formed a unit that felt complete. Society might not view it as the norm, but it worked for the three of them, and it worked for Wyatt.
His whimper and sudden duck behind her leg was the only warning she had before Julie Carle’s taut, angry face was right there in front of her. Where the hell had she come from? Before she could really even comprehend the thought, Julie was yelling at her.
“This is all your fault! Do you have any idea how mortified my family was to have the police at our door?” She leaned around Greer. “Come with Mommy, Wyatt.”
“No.” He clutched his teddy bear with one little hand.
“Leave him alone,” Greer said at the same time.
Julie glared at her with blue eyes made even bluer by being bloodshot. She was drunk. Greer stepped between Julie and Wyatt, but it was as though every dictate of society had fallen from Julie. She shoved Greer out of the way and made a grab for her son. With a shriek of fright, Wyatt jerked away. His little sneakers caught in a crack in the sidewalk and he stumbled backward.
Julie stood as though turned to stone, but made no effort to grab him as his teddy bear flew up into the air and Wyatt went the opposite direction, over the bank and into the water. Greer fought for balance and raced forward, shoving Julie out of the way. All around them shouts had erupted, but she heard it only as dim background noise. Focused solely on Wyatt, Greer didn’t even hesitate and jumped in after him. She knew this river all too well. It would be easy to get caught in a current or snagged on something underwater, even easier to get pulled in between the boats bumping and jostling around the dock.
The tepid river water closed over her head for a moment before she surfaced, frantically looking for Wyatt. Holy hell! The choppy waves were pushing him right in between two monstrous cruisers. She had to get to him before he was crushed to death. For just an instant, the murky water, the smell of fuel and the pull of the waves made her flash back to the last time she’d been in these waters. The screams she heard now weren’t her own, though, and the tightness in her chest eased.
Wyatt.
She opened her eyes and kicked strongly toward him. He was thrashing and panicked and she knew she ran a risk of being pulled under by him, even as small as he was. Just as she reached him, someone extended a boat hook to her. She grabbed it with one arm as she snatched Wyatt toward her. He clutched around her neck, choking her, while he coughed and gagged between hysterical sobs.
“You’re choking me!” She released the boat hook so she had a free hand to get him to loosen his hold. As she struggled to shift him to where he was safe and she could maneuver, she opened her eyes to see the hull of a boat pushing them toward the stone retaining wall. It would slam them and Wyatt’s head against it if she didn’t do something.
“Greer!” Liam’s hoarse growl from above her snapped her eyelids open. “Grab hold!”
His arm was there, and like a lifeline, she snagged it. Her gaze met his steady, determined stare, and the panic that had once again threatened dissipated. As he pulled her up, other arms—Chas’—grasped Wyatt’s rigid little body and peeled him away from her as Liam hauled her from the river. Pandemonium encircled them, from boaters gawking on the decks of their vessels to other bystanders. In the distance, sirens whined.
She lay back on the concrete, not really conscious of what Liam was saying, her mind more able to take in what she saw. Chas expertly checked over Wyatt. Someone draped a towel across his shivering shoulders, while someone else thrust his beloved teddy bear back into his hand. A towel was extended to her too. Liam took it and draped it over her.
What particularly drew her attention was the sight of her father and Rich, both grim-faced, with a hysterical Julie Carle firmly grasped between them. A dull buzz in her head kept getting louder. She was going to faint. She twisted her head, looking at Liam. He stroked a wet lock of hair off her forehead.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” he murmured. As quiet as they were, his words still penetrated the fog of her waning consciousness and the noise around them.
“I know.”
“Greer. Look at me.” Chas squatted in front of her. She focused on him, seeing his frown. “Put your head between your knees, sweetie. An ambulance will be here in just a couple minutes.”
“No hospital,” she mumbled.
His hand stroked her wet hair. “I’ll be with you the whole time. Your shoulder’s bleeding and we need some x-rays.”
Greer sucked in a deep breath. This wasn’t like before. It would be okay.
In what seemed like no time at all, paramedics were next to her. Chas was giving them information, and she was being lifted onto a stretcher. As he promised, Chas was right there with her. Nerves made her teeth chatter. Someone covered her with a warm blanket.
“Wyatt?” she asked.
Chas squeezed her hand as they began moving toward the ambulance’s flashing lights.
“Liam’s bringing him. We’re going to check him out too.”
The stretcher shifted and lifted, jostling her just a bit as they rolled it inside the truck. Chas had released her hand and Greer’s breathing started to speed up. The doors slammed shut. A young, uniformed man wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm. Greer ignored his reassuring smile, twisting her head and only relaxing when she looked once again into Chas’ smiling blue eyes.
“Relax, sweetie. You got this, and I’m right here.” He held her hand, his thumb stroking the back of it. Greer closed her eyes, concentrating on his touch and keeping her breathing slow and steady.
Having one of St. Mark’s surgeons at her side certainly speeded up the whole emergency room process. As he promised, Chas stayed with her, only leaving her side when Liam entered the cubicle with Wyatt in his arms. The little boy was already dressed in dry clothes, Teddy once more clutched by a foot.
“Wyatt wanted to bring you his teddy bear,” Liam told her, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Greer glanced at Wyatt. “Don’t you need it?”
Wyatt shook his head. “I have you. You can hold Teddy and press his foot.”
Greer smiled at him. “In case I’m scared?”
Wyatt nodded just as Chas joined them. Greer looked at all three of them. “I have my own heroes, Wyatt. You, Chas and your daddy.”
Chas smiled at her. “You’ll be happy to know, you don’t have a concussion and other than the scrapes, your shoulder’s fine. What do you say to getting busted out of here and going home?”
“Home with the three men I love is the best idea I’ve heard.”
Epilogue
“That’s it, Chas,” Liam said, adjusting his camera. “Shift your right hand just beneath her belly and keep that left one across her breasts.”
As the camera clicked, Chas whispered in Greer’s ear, “If he doesn’t hurry, he may end up snapping pictures of me fucking you instead of posing with you.”
She giggled. Chas’ eyes drifted shut with pleasure at the sound. Beneath his hand, he felt a movement inside her baby bump.
“Hmm…our daughter’s getting impatient too.”
“Chas!” Liam snapped. “Hold still.”
“I can’t do much about my twitching cock, dude. You have him nestled in against her ass and you know how much he likes that particular place.”
She giggled again. “Why do you guys always talk about your dicks like they’re people?”
Liam lowered the camera and stared at her deadpan. “Because we’re best friends. In fact, mine’s feeling a little lonely.”
“Then stop snapping pictures and join us,” Chas said with a grin.
“Right here in the studio?” Greer asked.
“Well hell, he made this big bed in here for us to pose on. We might as well see if it will work for other things too.” He let his hand slide to the soft flesh of her pussy. As his fingers slipped along her moist, puffy folds, he groaned. Liam had set the camera to one side and was hurriedly shucking his clothes, his expression sexed up and ready to play. Greer purred. There was no other way to describe it.
“Remind me to thank your parents again for taking Wyatt for the weekend,” Liam murmured as he scooted across the bed. After cupping Chas’ jaw in his palm, he leaned down and kissed him deeply. Chas moaned, inserting a finger deep inside Greer, mimicking the motions of his tongue in Liam’s mouth.
Greer scooted back. “Fuck him, Liam. I want pictures too. We can both work on sculptures. Mine will be Men in Love.”
Chas grinned at her. “Anything for art. How do you want us to pose?”
“A lot like he had us, except I want his right hand on your cock.”
Liam laughed. “I’m so onboard with that, but you’d better hurry, because I plan on having my dick in his ass in less than five minutes.”
As Greer snapped her pictures, Chas watched her. She’d blossomed over the last six months, not only her pregnancy, but her self-confidence with them and with Wyatt. Liam was happier too. After the accident at the restaurant, Julie was out of Wyatt’s life. Free from that tension, Liam laughed more. Since their wedding, he had shown a lot more willingness to let himself go to the point he’d allow Chas to fuck him more often, though he still preferred top, and that suited Chas just fine.
“Put the camera down,” Chas growled at Greer. “Liam has his cock pushing up my ass, and I’d like to do the same to you.”
She tossed the compact digital onto the nearby table and knelt in front of him. “Let me suck you first.”
Chas laughed. “I’ll never say no to that.”
About Sarina Wilde
Sarina is a multi-published erotic romance author who firmly believes love is a matter of heart not gender. She lives in central North Carolina with her husband, son and an array of pets that range from a lizard to horses.
When she’s not reading or writing, you’ll find her with a camera and her favorite subjects – her pets and people.
Sarina welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Sarina Wilde
Spare Dick
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Bare Bottom Girl
ISBN 9781419990557
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Bare Bottom Girl Copyright © 2014 Sarina Wilde
Edited by Briana St. James
Cover design by Er
in Dameron-HIll
Cover photography by PeriodImages.com, Christa Eder, subbotina
Electronic book publication June 2014
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