He felt as though he blacked out for a few minutes. The next thing Chase remembered was Lacey stroking Devin’s damp hair as he plastered her to the wall. Every time Devin’s cock would twitch inside Lacey, his ass would clench around Chase’s cock, draining every last drop from him. Chase collapsed against his partner, too, gluing Devin in a sandwich, running his hand through the spiky hair too.
“Holy shit,” Chase panted.
“I love you,” Devin murmured against Lacey’s ear.
Chase froze. Well, if that isn’t enough to ruin the moment for me. But he realized it wasn’t his moment, it was Devin and Lacey’s moment, and he pulled out of his friend.
Usually, he went to the bathroom and washed up. This time, though, he stumbled backward until he sat abruptly on the bed. He couldn’t tear his eyes from Devin and Lacey. They remained coupled like two rutting dogs stuck together. Devin ran his lips over the tip of her nose, the side of her throat, her shoulders. With half-closed eyes, he looked as though he was praying. Lovingly, he tickled her exposed breast, her underarm, her ass.
Lacey kept her high heel hitched in one of Devin’s back jean pockets. “Oh God, Devin,” she said, as though about to sob. “I’m so deeply in love with you, it scares me.”
Chase was in shock. Would he lose Devin to this scheming she-bitch from hell—wait, no. Lacey’s no temptress, no whore, no slut. She wasn’t there to steal Devin.
But it just might happen along the way, no evil plot intended.
Chapter Thirteen
“He said he loves me.”
Katrina’s voice came from the black depths across the room. Lacey couldn’t see Katrina’s silhouette but knew she was snug in her double bed. Lacey could have slept with her men, but didn’t want Katrina to sleep alone. “Which one?”
“Devin.”
There was a long silence heavily laden with thought. Finally Katrina said, “Do you love him, too?”
“I do. I love both of them, actually.”
“‘In love’ love?”
“‘In love’ love. Meaning my heart flutters when I think of them, which is all the time. I want to know every tiny last little thing about them, like what brand of cereal they like. The fact that Devin hates celery is so upsetting to me. I’m determined to convert him. I think he must only dislike it raw. But there are slight differences, it’s weird. Devin is more a panic-stricken sort of love, like I’ll die if he doesn’t love me back. With Chase it’s more down-to-earth, practical, sort of comforting. I’m not paranoid about anything Chase might do.”
“Maybe you trust him more?”
“Hm, I never thought about it that way. I was thinking it’s more like I have more to lose with Devin, because I care for him more deeply.”
“He is stupid hot. They both are. But Devin’s got that sexy, tattooed maturity. Maybe it’s more the difference between cowboy sexy and underwear model sexy. Which one has a bigger cock?”
Lacey giggled. “I guess Devin’s slightly more hung. Do you care about that, though?” Lacey realized she’d made a fatal error asking that. Now she’d have to hear about Marco’s flesh flute. Boy, did I step into it.
“Oh, yes! I think it makes a big difference aesthetically. When Marco stands in silhouette with a hard-on—”
Lacey was relieved when Katrina’s phone on her nightstand lit up with a new text. “Who’s texting you at midnight? We have to be up early tomorrow to help cook for that fandango.” Lacey and Katrina were supposed to help the cooks with a big feast for all hands. Lacey had heard gossip that Devin planned to surprise her with his country and western band. Evidently he played lead guitar and sang with the Surging Monkey Preps. In her romantic imaginings, she even pictured Devin singing directly to her while wearing his chaps.
“Marco must’ve had ESP that I was talking about his johnson,” said Katrina, sitting up and looking at the phone. “Huh. It’s from Cal. Weird. I wonder why he just didn’t text you. Where’s your phone?”
Lacey’s phone was in her purse over on the cabin’s table, but she would’ve heard it buzz if Cal had tried her first. Lacey sat up in bed and swung her bare feet to the floor. Cal must be reporting something urgent but didn’t want to annoy Lacey with it on her sexcation. Cal was probably the biggest supporter of Lacey’s sexcation. The last year of her marriage he had loathed Ben and hadn’t successfully hidden that hatred from Lacey all of the time.
She saw Katrina frown in the light from the phone. “Huh. Okay, no big deal.”
Lacey could tell by the strain in her friend’s voice that it was a big deal. “Of course you know I’m going to ask you why he’s texting you. What’d he say?”
Katrina shrugged and replaced the phone on the nightstand facing down. “He’s just making a lewd comment about Devin and Chase. You know. ‘Hubba hubba’ and all that. Asking me if you got any.”
Turning on the nightstand lamp, Lacey rose in her leopard-spotted pajamas and went to her purse to grab her phone. “C’mon, Katrina. You know Cal gets squeamish about anything to do with sex. The only real girlfriend we’ve known him to have was that girl who hid her stuffed animals in his kitchen cabinets then stabbed their eyes out with a steak knife.” Cal was the epitome of a free and easy rocker. He occasionally made out with a few drunken girls who shared his interest in Nirvana or Green Day, but he was a far cry from a ladies’ man.
“That’s true,” Katrina had to admit. “He’s not terribly interested in sex. I wonder if he’s one of those asexual people you hear about.”
But Katrina’s attempt to distract Lacey didn’t work. Rapidly, she texted Cal.
Cal. Why are you texting Katrina at midnight?!?
Lacey stared at her phone. She could feel Cal pondering whether or not to be truthful with his stepsister. Normally he would’ve texted right back.
This gave Katrina enough time to launch herself off her bed and cry, “Are you texting Cal? Don’t do that. Lace, believe me. It’s nothing urgent. You’re on vacay now. Don’t listen to Cal’s stupid meanderings. You don’t need it.”
Lacey knew when Katrina started talking like a tween she was even more insincere. “You two are up to something.”
“It’s a surprise,” Katrina tried to say.
Lacey almost fell for it. Because of the fandango the following day, she could believe that Katrina and Cal would plot something both embarrassing and mortifying for her. “What sort of surprise—” Her phone lit up. Cal.
Katrina threw up her hands and twirled around to go back to bed.
Just telling her I found that bratty kid who put up those fliers.
Lacey’s thumbs flew over the tiny keyboard. Who was it?
Stormy Smithson’s bratty son. I threatened to melt his BB gun into candlesticks until he told me who put him up to it. Ben natch.
Although Lacey had predicted this, she was still nearly blind with rage. “That fucking douche!” she yelled at no one in particular. She was surprised when Katrina frowned.
“Which douche? Cal?”
“No, Ben of course! Paying that Smithson kid to staple those incendiary fliers all over town!” It was evident Stormy Smithson himself wasn’t behind it. She had seen him steal furtively from Positive Vibrations with many pink plastic bags under his arm. She paused. “Were the two of you talking about something else?” Aha. The flier thing was another distraction.
Lacey’s question was answered when muffled male voices came outside her cabin. She moved to the door and listened.
“Their light is on,” said Chase.
“It’s just a low-watt night light. Let’s not bother them,” said Devin.
“But we have to go into town. We have to let them know.”
Lacey ripped open the door just as Chase was about to knock. He smiled happily to see her, but Devin fidgeted with distress. “Something’s happened,” Lacey surmised.
She was correct. “Ah, yeah,” Chase was forced to admit. “We have to go into town. Apparently someone tried to set fire to our store.”
Lacey’s jaw hung low as Katrina butted in, wedging herself between Lacey and the doorjamb. “I know. Lacey’s brother Cal just texted me. I was trying to keep it from her because I didn’t want to ruin her sexcation.”
Now Lacey was aghast that Katrina would be so blatant in her mode of speech. She hit her best friend with the back of her hand. “Katrina! More like a staycation now, thanks to fucking Ben.” She turned back to the men. “I heard Ben was the one who put up the fliers. Was he the one who tried to set fire to your store?”
“We heard about the fliers earlier tonight,” Chase admitted. “We’ve got to get over there to talk to the fire chief—”
“Mick Gillette.”
“Mick Gillette, and see what he thinks. We should be back in a couple of hours. We just wanted to let you know in case you came looking for us.”
Of course Lacey insisted on tagging along. She couldn’t bear thinking of Positive Vibrations under attack just because fucking old Ben had gotten tanked and probably high and had decided that even though he didn’t want Lacey, he didn’t want anyone else having her either.
They were ten minutes behind the men by the time both women threw on some tolerable clothing. Katrina, having better night vision, was the driver.
“Ben had better have a good fucking alibi,” Lacey fumed as Katrina swung around one bend after another in the winding foothill road.
She drove like an angry race car driver, nearly sliding into more than one snow bank. “Oh, you know his alibi will be the same as it always is. He was at the Pit o’ Dummies partying, of course!” The Pit was what they called the local watering hole, the Bit o’ Honey, where Devin’s band was alleged to play. Lacey had rarely been there, as it was the hangout for a lot of people who disliked her for being a party pooper.
“He’s just trying to ruin my vacation,” Lacey snarled. “He’ll have twenty of his butt buddies to back up his alibi even if it isn’t true.”
“That, or he got Dean Smithson again to set the fire,” Katrina grumped. “Probably paid him in video games. You know, firemen can tell a lot about a crime scene by the way the fire was started.”
“Can they tell the level of stupidity?”
“Actually, yes. They’ll be able to tell that Chase didn’t overstuff an outlet with plugs or knock over a halogen lamp if they find evidence of accelerants.”
“And the fire coming on the heels of those incendiary fliers”—the word “incendiary” suddenly had new meaning—“is more than a slight coincidence.”
Still, doubt had been planted in Lacey’s mind. Maybe Ben hadn’t been involved. She knew Chase had an assistant manager named Julie spending the night in the store, so maybe she had knocked over a halogen lamp or overstuffed some outlets. There were definitely enough items with plugs around that store.
“Besides,” added Katrina, careening around another hairpin turn, “Cal just said someone tried to set the store on fire. Maybe there’s just a little soot damage.”
But when they turned the corner onto Jack London Street and saw the two fire trucks out front, hoses still snaking through the watery street, Lacey knew it was more than a little soot. It seemed like the whole town had turned out to watch the firemen, although it was nearly one-thirty in the morning. The women had to park behind Delight Hardware two blocks away and jog down Jack London Street, getting bits and pieces of information as they ran.
“Firemen came in time to put the fire out,” said the guy who owned the vitamin store.
“They think it’s foul play,” a guy with a bass guitar slung over his neck said.
“Lacey!” cried Saul Wakeman, the creepy bookstore owner who always bid on Lacey at the merchant’s gala.
Lacey cut around a few knots of people to avoid Saul Wakeman and practically bashed into Chase and Devin. They were talking to Mick Gillette and a girl who Lacey assumed was Julie, the assistant manager. That Emilio Castillo, the chief of police, was there was not calming.
“I swear, the boy left around ten-thirty,” Julie was saying in a stressed, plaintive voice.
“Dean Smithson,” Lacey assumed.
“Right,” said Devin. He took Lacey’s arm in a proprietary manner and told the authority figures, “These here are our women. They can be privy to this conversation.”
While Mick and Emilio exchanged raised eyebrow glances, Lacey asked Julie, “Why’d you let Dean Smithson into the store? He’s only about ten.”
Katrina blabbed, “He’s also the minion of Ben Pearson, who paid him to staple those nasty fliers all over town.”
“Julie didn’t know that,” Chase said soothingly.
Julie continued, “I let him in because he said his Dad wanted to exchange a video. The one he’d gotten was defective.”
“Which one?” asked Mick.
Julie’s face was blank. “Does it matter?”
“It does if we want to get a handle on the sort of culprit who might do this.”
Devin asked, “You think Stormy Smithson might be behind it?” To Lacey he said, “They found rags soaked in turpentine at the back of the store, then lit. That was the accelerant. A sniffer dog found it.”
“Stormy could be behind this,” said Mick. “He could’ve sent his kid to do his bidding. Now, what was the movie?”
“Uh,” said Julie, “Ardent Moms.”
“Oh,” said Chase, “that one’s popular with the women of the Cultured Pearl.” He explained to Mick, “Three women. Gal-on-gal.”
Lacey was beyond irritated. “Captain Gillette, Stormy or his gal-on-gal had nothing to do with this. Has anyone questioned Ben Pearson about his whereabouts?”
“Oh yeah,” said Emilio Castillo, who was known to have had chummy dealings with Ben and his real estate-developing father. “He was at the Pit with his usual crowd, came over to see the fire, then went home.”
Lacey stamped her foot. “Well, of course he’s got some alibi. He paid the kid to do it.” Tearing herself away, she stomped up the two steps that led into the store, now fully lit with a few firemen still meandering about. The smoke stench was still so acrid it burned her eyes, but hopefully in the front here, smoke damage was all it was. She paused, looking at a display of the same lovely black leather corset she had selected for herself. It was doubtful they could get the smoke smell out of those. Smoke evidently had been pouring from a hallway that led to the bathrooms and an alleyway, probably where the dog had found the soaked rags.
“Shame, huh?”
Cal was behind her. She said, “Yes, and we know who was behind it of course, but can we prove it?”
“Yeah.” Cal snorted. “‘Go home fags’? Real witty.”
Lacey frowned. “Who said, ‘go home fags’?”
“Oh, they didn’t tell you? It’s spray painted on the brick wall in the alley. Kid probably did it before lighting the rags.”
Lacey sloshed in the dirty water that blanketed the hallway. She would help clean this place up. A pile of books about blow jobs and G-spots were piled up near the men’s room door, charred. “Here’s another possible source of the fire.”
“We saw that,” said a passing fireman. “Looks like the kid squirted those tubes of motion lotion all over them and lit them.”
“Well, has anyone arrested that damned kid?” Lacey fumed.
Cal said, “They went to his house the second Julie told them he’d been here and took him to the juvenile hall. But you know the drill. Since he’s a juvenile, yadda yadda.”
“What yadda yadda?” Lacey said with irritation.
“I mean, what’re they gonna do to him? Spend a night at the Hall where he’ll just play more video games.”
“Make his dad pay a fine, most likely,” said the fireman and exited the back door.
Lacey sighed. “Well, that’s one way we could get Ben, indirectly anyway. If we let Stormy know who the real culprit behind this mess is, he’s the sort who might just haul off and kneecap ole Ben.”
“Yeah, Stormy’s been involved in a few assaults in hi
s time. Oh, look.”
Someone had ripped the boxes from at least a dozen Prelude and double rabbit vibrators. In a further effort to start a fire, they’d plugged all sixteen vibrators into a power strip where a worker had earlier plugged a sander.
Lacey put her hands on her hips. “This is the work of a rank amateur.”
“Yeah,” agreed Cal. “It’s got Ben written all over it.”
Lacey grabbed her stepbrother’s arm. “C’mon. Let’s get some mops and cleaning powder from the store. It’s the least we can do. Ben never would’ve become so irate with poor Chase and Devin if I hadn’t become involved with them.”
“Ben never would’ve become so irate if he wasn’t a goddamned drug-addled, immature, selfish, whining idiot,” Cal corrected.
“That’s true.” It was sad to see the lace baby dolls and crotchless body stockings ruined by smoke. “I was wondering. You said Ben came into our store yesterday. Did you notice what he purchased?”
“I’m one step ahead of you. I rang him up, and I definitely recall a can of turpentine. I’ll have to go look back at the computer to see what else—there were a few more items.”
Lacey rolled her eyes. “Typical. He goes to a store to buy turpentine just blocks from the place he wants to burn down.”
“All caught on camera, natch.”
“Natch. Hey, Chase, hey, Devin. Do you think these clothes can be dry-cleaned?”
Chase sadly fingered a leather harness. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had to clean smoke out of a strap-on harness before. But probably not well enough to resell.”
He looked so pathetic, so bereft, Lacey tried to cheer him up. “Maybe you can have a fire sale. We’ll help you clean. We’re heading over to Delight Hardware right now to grab mops, buckets, cleaning agents, that sort of thing.”
“I’ll come,” said Devin, apparently eager to be away from the depressing store.
Surprisingly, Chase was of the same mind. Out front, both fire trucks had departed and only a few lookie-loos lingered. Oddly, one of them was the mayor Jared Alessi, who shook Chase’s hand and expressed his condolences for the fire. Then he shook Devin’s hand with both of his and expressed condolences for the fire.
Three Hearts Beat as One (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 12
