“Girl, you’ve got brass ones. Bigger than Ben’s even. Damn, I bet he was pissed.”
“Obviously.” Cass’ voice was frost. Dana quieted, but she reached out, found the older sister’s knee.
“Not like that, hon. You know what I meant.”
“I do.” Cass sighed, rubbed her temple. It made Marcie flinch, seeing her worry. “Rachel, do you think we should put her in the hot tub?”
“Good idea. That’ll help relax her, and then I can give her a full massage afterward.”
They helped her to her feet, stayed close despite her protest that she could walk. The sun porch’s annex held a hot tub that could seat a dozen people. There were a few wooden loungers around it, some of Jon’s tranquil maples. He should start a nursery, call it Peaceful Plants. Ben could run a bakery right next to it. Steamed Buns.
She must have said the first part, because Rachel gave one of her musical chuckles. She and Cass were helping her into the hot tub, one on each side. “I’ll suggest it as a retirement option for him. I think he has enough projects and ideas going right now to last him the next forty years.”
“He took me by surprise,” Marcie said. There was no filter on her mouth right now, no organization, just myriad thoughts drifting through her head. She remembered that breakfast, what he’d told her about touching Rachel. “One moment he’s this peace-and-love super genius guru, the next, he’s a Dom and he…”
“Turns the cartilage in your knees to jelly?” Rachel squeezed her waist carefully, brushed her cheek against Marcie’s. “Yes, he does. It makes kneeling to him very convenient.”
“For several reasons,” Cass said wryly. “Here we go. We’ve got you. Just take the steps slow.”
Marcie was vaguely aware of the front doorbell ringing and Savannah telling Cass she’d get it. When the heated water closed around her calves and Rachel pressed the control to start the jets, everything else was lost in the bliss and bubbling noise. She may have even moaned. She kept her wits about her enough to glance over her shoulder and watch Savannah move in a stately sway back across the sun porch, toward the front hallway.
“She doesn’t even waddle. Wow.”
“Yeah. But you should have seen her the night we got her to do Jell-O shots with us,” Dana said. “Before she was pregnant, obviously. Even Matt had never seen her drunk. We have some blackmail photos. Or at least, I’m told they’re blackmail material. She says if we ever share them she’ll hire an assassin to take us all out. I’m not scared. We’ll show them to you later.”
Marcie smiled, she couldn’t help it. Dana was just like that, the right combination of humor and calm assurance, with Rachel’s earth mother support on the other side. No matter what, it was going to be all right.
* * * * *
She almost fell asleep in the hot tub, Dana and Rachel watching over her, but after twenty minutes, they brought her back out. Rachel moved one of the loungers to the sunroom, and Marcie was so loose they poured her back onto it. They’d moved the chenille throw with it, which felt wonderful on her naked skin. Dana sat in a chair near her head, to give Rachel room. Savannah had pulled her foot rest close as well. Matt’s wife had a bowl of ice as well as prepared ice packs, which Rachel indicated would be used when she was done, to keep the swelling down where needed. Cass sat next to Dana, stroking Marcie’s hair with her fingers, soothing.
Marcie listened to the murmur of voices, not really focused on any of it, just floating in her head. There was no pain there, all the things that hurt or disturbed pushed behind a gray mist. She closed her eyes as Dana’s fingers twined with hers, the black woman’s thumb sliding over her palm, her wrist pulse, caressing. She bit her lip as one of the ice cubes made a slow glide over the marks on her thighs, her ass. She felt the tips of Savannah’s nails. It felt good, soothing…but a little more than that too.
The hot tub had loosened her up, but it had done something else. She hadn’t come tonight. What had happened at Surreal had been a roller coaster, physically and emotionally, and since the latter had claimed center stage for the past couple hours, she’d assumed the former had settled down, but their touch was reawakening it. Were they doing it…intentionally?
“Um…Cass…” Her cheeks were warming. In a moment, she was going to be making it obvious how those slow, sensual glides of ice felt, the teasing touch on her wrist pulse, definitely an erogenous zone.
“It’s all right. Let them take care of you in the way they know you need.” The two sisters met eye to eye as Cass knelt before her, stroked her hair along her temple. “You’re one of us, aren’t you?”
Just like that, the key to the city, to the secret clubhouse, to the place she’d always known she belonged. It made tears spill forth anew. “Oh Cass.”
“Sssh. It’s okay. I’ve known for a long time what you are, haven’t I? And I’ve never told you it’s wrong. How could it be, when I’m cut from the same cloth? But I worry. Because you’re young, reckless…and it goes so deep for you, deeper than me. Maybe more than any of us. There was a time I was afraid the life I gave you contributed to it, in the wrong way.”
Marcie was already shaking her head, but Cass pressed a hand over hers, showing she’d made whatever peace she needed to make with that thought. “It doesn’t matter. As long as this is what you truly want.”
“It is. But with him. Only him. What if he doesn’t…”
