Bastion tried to catch Tess’s eyes since he couldn’t get closer. She met his gaze, giving him something that he wasn’t expecting. Not anger, almost a glimmer of pity.
He broke his stare, looking up at War.
“It’s not really about her,” Bastion ground out.
“No, it’s about their issues,” War said. “Bastion why don’t you stick around and talk to Tess about your tattoo?”
Bastion was planning to stick around. He wasn’t much for aftercare normally, but Tess’s first try at group sex had ended with violence and not the sexy kind. She wasn’t someone that Bastion could leave after he got what he wanted. In fact, none of them could make him leave, even if they were threatening to make him show Tess his scarred side.
“Unbind her wrists,” Bastion said to no one in particular. Kade did it, kissing her hands each before he slowly unwound his brother’s heavy belt.
The socks would have protected her skin pretty good but she probably had some girly moisturizer around here to soften any rubbing that chafed through to her wrists. “Do you have any moisturizing cream?” Bastion asked her.
Keir worked his belt back into his pants. He was looking at Tess’s skin while she massaged them as if every little reddening had been directly his fault.
“I think I saw some aloe lotion up in your bathroom,” War said.
“Yeah, I have some cocoa butter as well in my sock drawer,” Tess said, sitting up and bringing her legs together demurely as she swung them back over the bed’s edge.
War went over and got the cream. It was in a jar.
“Come over here and sit on my lap,” Bastion said.
Tess stood up in front of Kade and then paused, looking down at Kade’s feet. She mumbled something.
“What?” Bastion said, inclined to repeat his order but he didn’t want to send Kade’s chancy mood back into punching him again to communicate.
“Her panties are wet,” Kade said, a faint flush to his cheeks as he repeated it.
Bastion fought not to roll his eyes. It seemed insensitive now that it had become so awkward between all of them. Thanks to Kade having second thoughts, and that’s not what Bastion had intended. He really meant to show Tess how good it could be between all of them, try it out and give it a chance. Before Tess came, things were going downhill for them all.
Bastion didn’t care if Kade was tentative. He could wring his hands while Bastion made sure a special girl like Tess didn’t take off because Kade was too slow. They didn’t need to get to know her. Any of them could see from day one that she was the right fit for them and exactly what they so desperately needed.
“Tess, I don’t mind getting wet at all. In fact, I’d probably fucking love it,” Bastion said, letting the vulgarity roll off his tongue casually. He wasn’t a prince in his manners and she was going to figure that out soon enough. “I thought what just happened between all of us was the hottest damn oral orgy and I would lick you clean if Kade didn’t look like he’s going to knock me out with the next punch.” He paused a moment but it wasn’t as if Tess was going to hop up on his lap and everything would be okay, unfortunately. He had stuck his damn foot in his mouth. “Look, if it bothers you, take your panties off by the washer and leave them there. I’ll personally make sure they’re clean for you and ready to go in the dryer with your boxer shorts before I leave to make up for pushing things too far today without checking in on how you were feeling.”
Tess stopped her shy act and was looking back up at Bastion by the time he finished his little speech of an apology and an offer combined. “Are you asking me to sit on your lap without my panties?” she asked him with devilish merriment in her eyes.
That naughty mouth was going to get her in trouble when they were alone.
“Yeah, you caught me out,” Bastion said. “Shrug your knickers and have a seat,” he encouraged her, patting his lap.
“Bastion, goddamnit,” Kade said. “Can you just behave yourself for the rest of the night?” Kade asked.
He sounded tired and frustrated, although Bastion didn’t think it was fair that he was blamed for the latter. In fact, he had tried to help Kade with that sexual frustration but Kade had made it difficult by bailing too soon.
Would Tess have gone along if Kade hadn’t made it such a big deal?
Bastion was going to ask her more about her desires once the others had left, probe for those limits that were so important to understand before they took things any further with her. He really should’ve waited longer before they had gotten down and dirty. Doing things together as a group meant that everyone’s opinion mattered.
Group chat was probably going to be pretty heated tonight.
“Fine, I’m going to come over and sit on your lap with my wet panties on and don’t you dare say anything. There’s no way I’m walking around without my knickers,” she said, using his slang term. It sounded sexier when she said it. “I already have found out how dangerous it is wearing this kilt with boxers. Imagine if I was naked under it!”
Oh fuck, was he ever imagining it now. War coughed what suspiciously sounded like a choked laugh.
Tess gave War a measured look, then walked over and sat on Bastion’s lap without another word from him. He held his hand out for the cream War was holding, waiting for War to open the jar before dipping his fingers in and getting a good gob of it. He smoothed it onto her skin, appreciating that there was hardly any redness left. The socks had done a good job. He was going to buy her a dozen more of them.
“Satisfied now?” Bastion asked Kade.
“You are such a bastard,” Kade replied, but he did sound less testy. It was all in the tone. Bastion would rather have Kade talk to him with heat than cold rage any day.
He rubbed in the cream, enjoying the cocoa butter scent from it. Tess seemed to really like scented products, first with her changing chapsticks and now with the moisturizer. Bastion made note of it, wondering if she would like some scented bath products to enjoy when she was alone. He certainly could appreciate how nice and soft it would make her skin feel for the rest of them if she indulged girly bubble baths.
“Do you still want to go and punch something?” Tess asked, looking up at Kade’s unsmiling face.
Kade gave a bitter laugh. “All the time,” he admitted. “I’ll leave off on using Bastion’s face for practice though if you think he’s sorry.”
“He did use his tongue to make me feel better,” she said, all innocence while Bastion rubbed cream into her wrists that he had bound with a belt.
Keir laughed. “Did you even notice the rest of us, Pumpkin-Berry?”
“You’re kidding. I’m wearing the evidence of your and Kade’s kisses on my chest and War held me down and smothered my screams with his tongue. I noticed,” she said.
And now they were back to awkward silence. Bastion was pretty sure the rest of the guys were wondering about adjusting themselves and even Tess was wiggling a little on his lap.
“I suppose this means you liked it?” War said. “The group make out?”
“Groping and kissing four hot, shirtless guys isn’t exactly a hardship,” she quipped.
Bastion tsked her. “Be serious. These guys have sensitive feelings, especially the big, pierced dork over there with the smurf hair. Tell us if you want us to keep on doing this or if we should back off and cool down for a bit.”
“Like, right now?” Tess said, sounding uncertain as she turned and looked into his eyes like she was searching for the right answer.
“Well, of course not right now. My balls are so blue I’m going to cum like Kade’s hair dye once I get home and into the shower,” Keir said. The rest of them had similar plans, no doubt. “But soon, right?” Keir added, clearly wanting more commitment from Tess.
“Yeah,” Tess said. “I’d like that and next time, I want to be on top.”
Of course, she was looking Bastion in the eyes when she said that last bit and he knew she intended it for him.
“Those are fig
hting words, Kitten,” Bastion told her.
She scratched her little kitten claws over his shoulders, her eyes going to his scarred tattoo on the left. It was a phoenix but a lot of people mistook it for a dragon, purposely made oblique.
He straightened his arm and rotated his shoulder a bit so she could get a good look at his phoenix. “It was for my mom,” he told her.
The other guys look surprised that he had told her so easily, although he hadn’t explained anything else about the tattoo and it’s real significance to him.
“When did you get it?” Tess asked.
That wasn’t one of the first questions people usually asked him. It was always what was it and where did he get it and what did it mean, or some variation of the above. It was like zodiac signs, everybody had one or was thinking about getting one, even if they never could commit to ink on their skin for a permanent basis, and there were a thousand different ways to personally interpret each tattoo.
Bastion had dozens of reasons he had given to girls and other people that asked him about his tattoos, lies for why he had them and what they meant to him. None of them were even close to the truth. It was just a social question that people asked. Few of them really cared, and definitely, none of them cared enough to figure out when Bastion was lying.
“I got the scar when I was five and the tattoo when I was fourteen using some fake ID.”
Tess looked harder at the tattoo and noticed that his skin was quite scarred underneath the bold and delicate lines. Burns were obvious, melted skin smooth, without the nerve endings or hair follicles that marked people normally. It had been so long ago that all the pink from the original burn had healed to a very pale white strip of skin. He had been lucky that it hadn’t involved a joint so his range of motion is still fairly free, other than the way it felt strange whenever his muscles moved under the skin, like when he flexed his biceps. And someone else’s touch was still difficult to tolerate.
He tried not to flinch as Tess reached out and traced some of the phoenix’s feathers over his skin. To be honest, it didn’t bother him as much as it normally did to have someone else touch him over the scar. Her touch with soft but sure, not as light as other tentative touches he had poorly tolerated, so it didn’t have that weird ticklish feeling that seemed to disturb his dead nerve endings. The phantom discomfort that his body remembered. Tess’s touch pushed further down to the muscle that was still able to interpret it as something nice.
She wasn’t afraid or disgusted by his injury, and she didn’t even seem to pity him, as was also a common response once someone saw the scar. He knew all of the guys were staring at them, watching as she reacted. He wondered if any of them had expected her to act in the way she did or if they were just as surprised as Bastion?
“The bottle from yesterday wasn’t the first one to hit me in the head,” she said, something Bastion remembered her telling him in private. Now the others knew as well. “I think the very first time I remember getting hit was when I was around the same age as you got your burn. It might’ve been a little bit earlier, but I don’t really have good memories before I went to school,” Tess said.
War cussed. It wasn’t in English but they all understood his coarse grumble.
“Was the phoenix for the fire that burned you or a symbol of rebirth?” Tess asked before Bastion could say anything else to her newest revelation.
“Rising up from ashes,” he said.
“Is your mother dead?” Tess whispered.
“Yes,” Bastion said, also whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Tess told him in response. He hadn’t meant to tell her. This wasn’t the way questions normally went about his tattoo.
“Was it when you were five years old?” Tess said, guessing correctly.
“Yes,” Bastion answered.
“Are you going to tell me more, slowly, as we get to know each other better? That is what Kade and I agreed to about his mother.”
His monosyllabic answers must’ve tipped her off that he was uncomfortable. He appreciated her proposal, although it did mean he wasn’t completely off the hook. Tess wanted to know more about them. She seemed willing to let them in, sharing about her mother and her own life, which had been difficult by the sounds of things. It was only fair if they shared back.
“We need to hear more from you as well. I know you told us that it wasn’t your mother to hit you with a beer bottle and that your father was no longer involved directly in your life, but like my scar, things that happened to you that hurt you when you were younger will leave their mark, even if other people don’t see it because you hide it. Don’t hide things from us.”
Bastion waited for her to respond. His counterproposal was fair because there were a lot of things that all of them hadn’t shared with anyone outside of their group. Dark and frightening things that even Tess wasn’t ready to listen to yet, but if she ever wanted to know all of their deep secrets, then she was going to have to let them in as well.
“Okay, slowly, but you have to come up with a name for our group other than the Musketeers.”
Bastion knew a subject change when he heard one, but she still had given her agreement so he let it go. “What’s with you and names anyway?” he said. “Demanding all these custom monikers, throwing away half-decent ones that fit you, like Pumpkin and Kitten, are you wanting something more like Tiger? Those titles need to be earned.”
“Phoenix club,” Keir suggested.
Tess looked at Bastion’s tattoo, giving it another study before she answered. “Risen from the ashes? Sounds awesome enough but are you sure we won’t get reincarnated as Dumbledore's club?”
War laughed. “That’s what you get from having a book nerd for your girl, Bastion. She’s going to keep you on your toes.”
Bastion loved how her mind worked. It was challenging and fun trying to keep up with the direction of her thoughts. “It’s fascinating how much information is in your head, Kitten,” he said, brushing an imaginary piece of hair off her brow as an excuse to touch. “I never know what you will say next.”
The hazel colour of her eyes was more prominent when he was this close and the light was shining down into them, faint green lighting up her irises.
“Then, if I say my thighs are feeling clammy and that ice was cold and aren’t you guys all freezing your tighty-tits off without your shirts on in my basement...” Tess trailed off, keeping her eyes on him instead of looking at his chest and... tighty-tits?
The twins burst out laughing.
“Are you cold?” War asked, coming around to stand in front of Bastion and Tess.
She was sitting on Bastion’s lap with her thighs pressed tightly together. Bastion felt guilt, knowing wet clothes chilled a person fast. He should have insisted she change her underwear for her comfort instead of continuing to play games with her.
“I’m fine. We’re inside. I’m just saying that we should all get dressed properly,” Tess said.
“Let me take off your underwear and get you warm and dry,” War said, dropping to his knees. “I swear I’ll be a gentleman.”
Tess gave War’s big shoulders and chest a wide-eyed look. Bastion supposed she hadn’t gotten a good look at War earlier. He had been at her head and mostly out of view since they had all stripped their shirts.
“Unless you don’t want him to be a gentleman,” Bastion couldn’t resist teasing.
“I’m cold,” Tess admitted, giving a shiver that might not be entirely faked.
“Grab my ears,” War said. Tess did, giving him a wry look of puzzlement. “Now, give them a good yank if I misbehave. Trust me, it works. My mother has done it enough times that I’m surprised they’re still attached to my head.”
With that, War slid his hands up the outside of Tess’s thighs and under her skirt. Not fumbling around, he efficiently yanked her panties over her hips and off with a few good tugs and Bastion’s assistance to lift her up by the waist. She was so petite that even Bastion’s hands felt enormous as he clasped he
r above the hips and picked her up.
The underwear went into War’s pocket but Bastion wasn’t sure Tess caught sight of them disappearing. War wouldn’t steal them, not if it would distress her, which it probably would so Bastion was sure the panties somehow would make their way on top of the washer as he had suggested earlier.
“How about I throw a towel into the dryer for a minute to warm it up for you?” Kade said.
“Are the towels in the washroom upstairs?” Keir asked.
“I have a pile of them in the basket by the dryer. I pulled them out and folded them but didn’t bring that load upstairs yet,” Tess said.
“I’ll go do it,” Kade said, walking over to the laundry room entrance that opened before Tess’s bedroom, coming off of the staircase upstairs.
“How about we get you settled on the bed again so we can dry you up properly. Can’t do that on Bastion’s wet lap,” War said.
“Uh, the bed might be wet too,” Tess replied.
She was right. Bastion hadn’t been that careful about his ice and where it was melting. In fact, he had hoped her ass got a bit wet and thought about snapping the string at the back of her panties against her tight second hole when he had gone down on her.
Tess definitely had to get off his lap.
“Take her,” Bastion said to War. “I’ll put some of the dry towels over the wet spots for her to sleep tonight. Unless you have new sheets?”
“Nope, only one set for the futon. I can wash them in the morning,” Tess said.
She looked awkward as she wrapped her arms around War’s shoulders, slowly lowering them from where she had held his ears. Her hands cupped his beefy shoulders but she didn’t squeeze, letting War take her weight himself as he supported her under her bottom, tucking that short kilt of hers under his hands so nothing was exposed and keeping both her legs together and to one side. It was close to a princess carry and War did it with ease.
“What happened to the girl that bragged groping the naked chests of hot guys was no hardship?” Bastion teased.
Impetuous (Victory Lap Book 1) Page 31
