Embracing the Fall

by Lainey Reese

  She had to plop her bottom on the floor and yank and tug to get the stubborn things off. Cami didn’t mind though, Z hadn’t stopped what she was doing and Evan had continued to stare at her like she was Aphrodite, in spite of the fact that she was in a fight with her footwear.

  “Come here.” Evan reached a hand out to her and widened his legs as soon as the last boot hit the floor. Cami crawled forward eagerly and Z made room for her. This was new for them, going down on him at the same time. They had each done this for him before over these last weeks, but never together.

  Z tilted her head to the side and her lips slid down that long column of flesh, so Cami leaned forward and wrapped hers around the bulbous head. The sound Evan made was a deep guttural growl and it lit a fire inside of her. She sucked and swirled her tongue as she braced one hand on Z’s shoulder and reached out the other to cup and fondle his sack. When her friend came up, Cami turned her own head to the side so Z could have a turn at nuzzling that fat crest and slid her lips down the shaft this time.

  They went back and forth like that for a long while, trading who got to pleasure the shaft with who got to pleasure the head, while both of them ran their hands over him constantly. Evan had excellent control, but everyone had a breaking point and he was fast approaching his.

  Cami trembled as he fisted a hand in each of their hair and he brought them both to the sides of his cock so their noses were bumping and their lips were meshing together around him. He held them there like that as he groaned and his hips started to thrust between their sucking, drooling mouths. “Fuck! Oh girls, so fucking good. Christ Almighty, so fucking good.” Then, with every muscle locked, his shouts rang out in the room as Evan came in a rush of heat that splashed in white hot streams over them both. Cami felt a hot trail coursing down her cheek and saw an identical one on Z’s; more erupted from him as the two of them continued to lick and suck and moan.

  Two nights later, Evan tripped on a landmine. He was at the girls’ apartment and Ziporah was making dinner while he was in the living room with his brat. Cami was playful tonight, he was pleased to see. She’d been more and more playful and bratty the longer they were together and he loved to see her blossoming like this. The polite and soft-spoken shy little girl was a distant memory; in her place was a sweet brat that he found irresistible. She was currently hiding the remote behind her back and refusing to change the channel from her ridiculous vampire show.

  “I’m not gonna tell you again, brat,” Evan said with his hands braced on the back of the couch. He’d chased her around it three times already and though her giggles filled his heart with joy, enough was enough. “I’m watching football and that’s the end of it. Now hand over the remote.” Her lips parted and he could see her remember at the last minute not to stick out her tongue. “Yeah, you know what will happen if you poke that thing out at me.” She smiled big and bright and more of that heartwarming laugh flowed forth.

  “I bet you wish I would,” she taunted, her little tail end shaking back and forth to add emphasis to her already sassy words. “But you’re not gonna get that lucky tonight. And we wanna watch Buffy. So no, Sir. Take that.” With a mock roar, Evan bolted over the back of the couch and was after her. She turned with a delightful squeal to run for the hall and Evan reached out to grasp her by the arm. His aim was just a hair off and what he caught was the edge of her blouse instead. The thin material gave with a resounding rip.

  The world turned upside down in the flash of a moment. His playful, sweet, innocent brat went cold with terror and her giggling squeals turned into the torturous screams of the damned. Dimly, he heard a surprised shout from the kitchen and the clang of pots hitting the floor from Z, as Cami swung out in blind fury and backpedaled into a wall.

  Evan reached for her with both arms, trying to draw her in so he could calm her down but that only seemed to make it worse. Her body arched back violently in an effort to escape him and the crack of her head hitting the plaster was as loud as a gunshot. Evan’s gut turned to a cold, hard ball of ice.

  Ziporah was there now, so even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, Evan opened his arms and stepped back.

  “Shhh, it’s okay baby. Shhh now, it’s okay. I’m here, I got you. Shhh.” Both women were crying as Z eased them to the floor. Cami lay flat on her back with her head and shoulders cradled in Z’s arms as her body jerked like she was having seizures. Evan wanted to kill someone once Cami started talking. All Cami could say was, “He hurt me. He hurt me, Z. He hurt me.”

  “I know baby,” Z whispered, cupping her friend’s face and pressing it close to her own heaving chest. “I know he did. But it’s over. That was a long time ago. Come back to us now, Cam. Come back to me.”

  Evan crouched down and braced his elbows on his knees. He watched helplessly as the two women flailed in the trauma of their past. He didn’t dare touch either of them while in the grips of this flashback and though necessary, the restraint was a wound on his heart.

  His legs had started to go numb when Cami finally passed the worst of it and curled into a ball on her side around Ziporah. “Okay, there she is. There’s my girl.” Z tightened her hold on Cami and kissed her repeatedly. On her head and cheek and temple, wherever she could reach. “There you are, my sweet Cam.” With one last kiss to Cami’s sweat dampened hair, Z nuzzled her cheek against the matted curls and turned to look at Evan.

  Those fierce and confident brown eyes that could level entire courtrooms were haunted and drenched. The pain there, the anguish was every bit as crippling a blow as Cami’s. Both of the women before him were survivors, although from the way this scene had played out, only one of them had suffered an attack.

  Even though he couldn’t touch them, Evan refused to leave their sides until this had passed. Eventually Cami gave a watery sniffle and peeked out at him from Z’s arms. When she saw him there waiting, her face told him everything. That expression said ‘I’m sorry’, ‘it’s not your fault’, ‘please forgive me’, and it made him crazed.

  “I can see what you want to say.” It took a Herculean effort to keep his voice gentle, when all he wanted to do was shout. “And I’m begging you–don’t. Don’t say one word of apology to me. That doesn’t belong here, not for this. Not ever.” She nodded at him and her face crumpled anew as fresh tears fell.

  “You ready to get up now?” Ziporah gave a last squeeze to Cami and then briskly rubbed her back. “Let’s go wash up. Come on, I’ll help you.” The two women staggered to their feet and stumbled down the hall like they’d spent the night drinking.

  Only then did Evan shove to his feet and walk away. Needing to do something, anything, to keep from breaking everything in the house out of frustrated fury, he marched into the kitchen to see what he could do there. He’d heard things dropping earlier, so there was bound to be something in here for him to keep his mind occupied until they came back.

  What hadn’t fallen to the floor, had been left on the stove to burn. So Evan threw all of it away and took his aggression out by scrubbing the pots and pans. Unfortunately, the chore didn’t take up enough time or enough of his thoughts.

  He wanted to ram his fool head into the walls until he knocked some sense into it. Why hadn’t he asked them? Why hadn’t he delved into the pain and vulnerability that they both wore so clearly? Evan scrubbed hard enough at the pan in his hands that he was scratching it with the iron wool mesh as he berated himself for what he considered unforgivable negligence.

  It was the same with the birth control and medicals. He’d been so turned inside out and upside down by his desire–no, his need– to have them, that he’d taken a risk he’d never taken before in his life. Evan had let the pleasure and the joy that they brought to him cloud his judgment and his lack of action had brought them to this night. The memory of their pain weighed on his heart like a cancer and Evan could only blame himself. There was a part of his brain trying to argue that this trauma wasn’t his doing, but the truth in his eyes was that he should have kno
wn. That if he’d only talked to them, delved into their pasts, then this whole sorry mess could have been avoided.

  With a snarl, Evan ordered food to be delivered, he had no idea what kind of food the girls would be in the mood for after something like this, so he ordered from three different places and enough to feed an army. He might not be able to go back and keep this from happening tonight, but he damn well promised himself that he was going to do everything in his power to insure that neither of them would have to suffer through another like this again. Not if he could help it.

  With a smorgasbord of food spread out on the coffee and end tables, Evan heard the tale that had changed their lives forever. He refused to keep his hands to himself once they had come back in the room. They were his and no ghost from the past was going to come between him and the women that belonged to him. So he sat in the center of the couch with each of them tucked under his arms and their legs draped over his.

  “Oh my God, Evan,” Ziporah said after a while with a shake of her head and a sad laugh that was nothing like the laugh he normally heard from her. “Look at all this food. There’s no way we can eat all this.”

  “It was really sweet of you though,” Cami offered in a shy watery whisper. “I can’t believe you ordered so much just because I was upset.” Evan squeezed them both a little tighter and gave them each a soft kiss on their temples.

  “It was the only thing I could think to do,” he told them. “Let’s just eat what we want and the rest we’ll drop off at a shelter.”

  So they did. The girls ate French fries with chow mein and spaghetti marinara with Philly cheese steak sandwiches. Nibbling and munching as the night wore on and as they did, they filled in the details of the attack and the events that followed.

  Much later, after the girls had talked themselves out and eaten until they swore they were going to burst, Evan was in the kitchen dealing with the leftovers. “You don’t have to do all this yourself.” Ziporah’s weary voice sounded just behind him and Evan turned to face her. “Let me help. She’ll be fine. This was a bad one but we got her through okay.” Evan leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest as he studied her for a moment.

  “What do you mean we got her through it?” Evan wanted to know.

  “Her flashback. It was a bad one but at least it was over relatively quickly.”

  Evan took two slow deep breaths before he could speak. It astounded him that she thought this flashback, the pain, was all on Cami’s part. “Sugar, I know Cami gets help for dealing with what happened but have you ever gotten help for it?”

  The baffled look on her face was all the answer he needed and on a soft curse Evan opened his arms and pulled her tight against his chest. “Oh, Ziporah. Your innocence was shattered that night right along with Cami’s. That was the night you both found out monsters were real. Where was your family when this happened? You were there to take care of Cami. But who was there to take care of you? Didn’t anyone see that this tore you up same as it did her?”

  His words seemed to sink in and reach inside her. She didn’t say a word to him but her arms cinched tight around his waist, she tucked her face in his neck and quite simply fell apart. She sobbed with silent, heart-rending grief that shook her entire body, and Evan’s heart broke even more.

  That no one had been there for her was another tragedy on top of an already tragic situation. He knew that she was the strong one, the one to always appear confident and unruffled, so he could understand how she had fooled so many and hid the devastation within her. But that didn’t make it okay. All he could do now was hold her as she cried and promise himself that as long as she would let him, she would never have to be the strong one again.

  It was an effort to keep up a calm front for their sake. On the inside, a murderous rage was boiling within him. That night, as the two of them slept, each curled tight against him in trusting slumber, Evan lay awake in torment.

  It been more than a week since that fateful night, and Evan hadn’t made love to them since. He wanted to give them time to heal, and if he were honest, time for himself to come to terms with it. That some asshole had done what he did to sweet innocent Cami brought tremors of rage to his hands every time the thought crossed his mind.

  She deserved better than to have him touch her while he was still processing and dealing. It was only right that he wait, until nothing of what he now knew could taint their lovemaking. So, tonight he felt he could at least put it behind him and bury it. It would be there always, the helpless rage that he hadn’t been there to protect her when she’d needed him, but he felt he was at a place where he could touch her without her seeing it.

  “All right now, ladies.” Evan raised his voice so that it carried back to where the two were still fussing with themselves and their mirrors. “Come on out here and let’s get finished so we can go. I ain’t about to be late.” There was a big dinner party at Cade’s place.

  Z came out first and the sight of her stirred his blood. She had on a deep purple dress that was probably called passionate orchid or something to that effect, all he knew was the color suited her perfectly. It was made of a soft-looking fabric that was thick and warm, with long sleeves and a skirt that flared out around her knees as she walked. It hung lovingly to her athletic form and showcased her slender build stupendously.

  “Beautiful, sugar.” Evan walked over and kissed her gently on her juicy painted lips. He wanted to stroke her silky hair but he didn’t dare, as she had it piled up in one of those buns that look like a sexy mess with little bits dangling around her face. “In that color, I should call you sugarplum. You are stunning.” She blushed and smiled and her skirt swayed around her knees as she rocked back and forth in pleasure at his complement.

  “Cami is the slowest person on the planet,” she told him in warning. “I kind of feel sorry for you, because you are never going to be on time for anything ever again.” But then she smiled at him. “Only kinda sorry though, because now I’m not suffering alone.”

  “Oh yeah?” Evan headed toward the hall. “We will just see about that.” He opened the door to Cami’s room, ready to drag her out no matter what state she was in, but the sight before him froze him to the spot.

  Cami had chosen one of those long-sleeved wraparound dresses in black for tonight. It cut low between her amazing breasts, parted high up her thigh and tied at her waist. The material was slinky and moved sinuously around her with her motions when she turned to face him. Evan tried, but he could see no indication of any undergarments and the spit dried up in his mouth. All those blonde, honeyed curls had been straightened and brought into submission in a tail that gathered at her neck and poured down her back. There was a small part in it, far off to the side just above her left temple that brought attention to her perfectly arched brows and the gleaming jewels of her eyes. Those lips that could tempt a saint were painted a deep shiny red and the beauty of her about brought him to his knees.

  “I have no words.” Evan walked to her with his hands turned up in a gesture of surrender. “There are no words for how beautiful you look right now.” A blush warmed her cheeks and made her even more appealing, as Evan took her by the hand and led her out of the room. These two women, who were so different in both looks and personality, appealed to him on every level he had. Talk about your cup over flowing, Evan thought.

  “I’ve got a surprise for you girls.” They stood side-by-side in the middle of the living room and tried to look like the idea of a present didn’t thrill them. Evan hid his smirk, because he knew his surprise wasn’t going to be what they were expecting.

  Reaching into his jacket pocket Evan pulled out a small egg-shaped toy and turned to Cami first. He knelt before her. “Open your legs for me. Come on, widen your stance. Wider.” She obeyed with a curious and eager smile. “Now lift your skirt. Higher, get it out of my way.” Once she did, Evan saw he’d guessed wrong, she was wearing panties. It was a miniscule thong made up of a couple of strips of lace and a ti
ny triangle of black satin. He moved that so-called barrier out of his way and swirled the egg over the lips now revealed. She was as beautiful down here as she was everywhere else. The delicate folds of skin, pink and glistening as he caressed them, were like an exotic flower. Arousal brought a dark rosy flush to them and he could hear her breath already getting choppy. He played for a moment, nudging her clitoris and stroking in and out, before placing a hand on her hip and pushing the vibrating toy deep inside. When she cried out for him and clutched at his shoulders, Evan leaned forward and kissed her right on her mound, drinking in the perfume of her arousal like the sweetest of wines. It took all his will power to stop himself from staying exactly where he was for the rest of the night.

  Then he turned to Ziporah. “All right, your turn. You know what to do.” She was wearing a thong, too; hers was white lace with a purple ribbon and a cute little bow. As he eased the panties aside, he pondered how they were different here, too. Z’s skin tone was darker and her fragrance was all her own, yet every bit as enticing as Cami’s. Evan pulled a matching egg out of his other pocket and repeated the same motions on her. When Ziporah became aroused, the lips plumped up and became ultra sensitive, begging for the stroke of his tongue. Denying himself the pleasure of exploring them was no small test of his control. He consoled himself with the promise of the coming night and teased the small vibrator in and out and rubbed it over her clit until her slender hips were following his motions and her pussy was glistening wet. He was so hard, he could hammer nails with his shaft.

  “Okay, rules for this evening.” Evan stood in front of them and felt his chest swell at the site before him. His ladies were stunning, and so turned on he could practically see the arousal coming off them like heat waves of the pavement. He smiled at them then held up two innocent looking devices, one in each hand. They could easily be mistaken for remotes to unlock a car or disable its alarm, but considering what just transpired and what lay deep within each woman’s pussy, they knew exactly what he held. “I am going to turn these on whenever I damn well please.” Then he tucked one in each pocket and turned toward the door. As expected, they burst out laughing.