by Marla Monroe
She shivered and closed the book. “I’d rather stick to things I know. I won’t be outside much until springtime. Maybe it will have moved somewhere else by then.” She moved closer to him and watched as he finished separating out the papers to file.
“I’m going to sit in the living room and read,” she told him.
“We’ll be finished with all of this in another hour or so.” He pulled her into a hug and kissed her belly before returning to his filing.
When he finally finished he looked at the clock and cursed. He had been at it for nearly three hours.
“Cam, you finished over there?” Phillip quickly straightened up the desk and stood up and stretched. He could tell he had been sitting in one place for that long, too.
“Yeah. I was just noticing the time. It will be supper time in another hour. I bet Lacy is pissed.”
“Well, it had to be done, and now we don’t have that much to do with it for the rest of the winter other than watching for the animals.” Phillip waited for Cam to put away his journals.
“Wonder where she is. Do you think she’s still in the living room reading?”
“Maybe, if we’re lucky she fell asleep and took a nap.”
“Or maybe, you’re not lucky and she’s waiting for you in the hall,” a voice came from outside the office.
Phillip and Cam looked at each other and winced.
“Baby, time got away from us. I’m sorry.” Phillip braved the door first.
She was standing at the door with two cups of coffee in her hand. “I was just coming to give you some coffee and tell you the chili will be ready in another hour.”
“Thanks,” Cam said, taking his mug from her.
“Just what we needed.” Phillip took his and sipped it.
“What have you been doing?” Cam asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“I couldn’t get interested in the book, so I decided to make a snowman. He’s looking in the window at us in the kitchen.”
“You went outside without us?” Cam went still.
“Cam.” Phillip prayed he wasn’t going to blow up at her.
“Um, yeah. It’s daylight and I was just by the back porch.” She took a step back from Cam.
“Next time let one of us know where you are. That way if we can’t find you we know where to look,” Cam told her.
She nodded and Phillip sighed. Thank God he hadn’t blown up at her. If he had, they would have been back at square one.
“With that animal out there we don’t know about, we’d rather you didn’t go out by yourself right now.” Phillip tried to sound matter-of-fact about it.
“Sure, okay. I don’t really want to meet up with whatever it is making those tracks. They looked like Sasquatch tracks in that journal.”
“Well, maybe not Bigfoot, but something big, that’s for sure,” Cam said.
“The tracks actually look more like a big cat of some kind, with six toes instead of four or five.” Phillip walked back into the office and pulled out a picture of the tracks. “He has to weigh close to three hundred pounds, too, by how deep the tracks are compared to mine and Cam’s.”
“My God! You’re kidding. Three hundred pounds? That’s huge.” Lacy peered at the photo closer. “Whatever it is, I don’t want to be anywhere near it.”
Phillip looked over her head at Cam. They hadn’t told her how close the animal actually got to the garden during the summer. It was probably best not to, at this point.
“So, what are we having with the chili?” Cam asked.
“I fixed crackling bread.”
“What is that?” Phillip asked.
“It’s like cornbread, but you pour it thin and make several of the patties you can tear apart and dip in the chili.”
“Sounds interesting,” Cam said.
Lacy rolled her eyes at him and thumped him on the chest. “You’ll like it. Give it a chance.”
Phillip smiled. So far they were doing pretty good. If Cam could manage to keep from worrying so much, they might make it through the winter without killing each other. He followed the other two down the hall and back to the living room where they flopped on the couch in front of the fire. Things were looking up.
* * * *
Cam hugged Lacy as they stood in front of the kitchen window looking out at the snowman she had built earlier that day. He had to work hard at calming his racing heart. The thought of how long she had to have been outside without them to build the massive thing worried him. It had to be a good five feet tall.
It had his old John Deere cap on he had brought with him and arms made from corn stalks giving it leafy hands. She had unearthed some rocks for his eyes and mouth and a carrot for his nose. All in all, it was a very good snowman. But she had been outside by herself with whatever that thing was they still hadn’t seen. It scared him to death.
“He’s a fine specimen of a snowman.” Cam squeezed her shoulder. “I’m impressed.”
“Thanks, I’ve always wanted to build one that was taller than a foot high. I never had enough snow growing up, and then when I moved west, I never had the time.”
“You ought to be exhausted from building him and cooking supper. It was delicious, in case I didn’t tell you,” Phillip said from beside them.
“You told me about a hundred times now, but feel free to tell me a hundred more.” She giggled.
“You’re a glutton for praise.” Cam pulled her away from the window toward the stairs. “I’m feeling like a long soak in the tub.”
“Sounds good to me,” she said as he dragged her behind him.
“You coming, Phillip?” Cam asked.
“I’ll be up later.” Phillip waved them on.
Cam smiled back at him and saw his friend wink. He was giving them some alone time. Hopefully he wouldn’t fuck it up. He noticed she walked up the stairs even though he was pulling her along. She hadn’t run up the stairs since he had jumped on her that one time about it. Now he felt guilty since he was all but running up them.
“You get undressed. I’ll run the bath,” he told her.
“Sounds good to me.” She immediately began pulling off her sweater followed quickly by her thermal top.
Cam started the water and added her bath salts. He’d smell like a flower of some kind, but who would know other than Phillip? Once the water was the right temperature and deep enough, he shut it off and began undressing as well. He looked around for Lacy, but she wasn’t in the bathroom anymore.
“Hey, Lacy. The water is ready.”
She walked back into the bathroom with her hair pinned up on her head. She looked hilarious, but he refrained from laughing. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Evidently he didn’t do too well at covering up his expression though because she frowned at him.
“I don’t want to get my hair wet. I just washed it.”
“No problem. I’ll make sure not to.”
He helped her in the tub and held her hands as she sat down in the warm, sudsy water. He joined her and pulled her back into his arms.
“Just relax and I’ll keep your head above water.”
They sat there for several long minutes and for a minute, he thought she might have slipped into sleep.
“Cam?”
“Umhum?”
“Are you happy?”
His eyes flew open. Where had that come from?
“Yeah, baby. Why would you ask that?”
“You didn’t seem to be very happy most of the summer.”
“I let things worry me too much. I’m trying not to do that anymore.” He prayed that would satisfy her.
“Are you happy with me?”
Fuck.
“I’ve very happy with you, Lacy. You mean everything to me.”
“You don’t wish someone else had picked you?”
“Lacy, what is going on in that mind of yours?” He sat up straighter.
“I heard you and Phillip talking last night outside. You were checking on Rachel.”
“Ah, hell, Lacy. I was being stupid. I don’t care about her. I care about you. I love you, baby.”
“Don’t say something you really don’t mean, Cam. I don’t want you to ever tell me what you think I want to hear.” She pulled back from him and turned around, so she could look at him.
“I’m not lying, Lacy. I do love you. I was afraid of loving you and fighting it. I promise, I don’t want Rachel, and don’t regret anything except how I’ve treated you.”
“I don’t know what to believe, Cam. You haven’t seemed happy with me at all almost from the beginning. What am I supposed to think when I hear that you’ve been asking about another woman?”
“I guess that’s up to you, then. I can’t make you believe me, but I’ll keep trying to prove it to you. I do love you, Lacy.” Cam felt the tension in the air and wondered if this would be the end of their relationship, or was it clearing the air to go forward?
“I want to believe you. I love you, Cam. I love both of you. I want us to be a real family, but I’m scared you’re going to be miserable if you’re really not happy with me being your wife.”
“If we had been doing the choosing, we would have chosen you anyway, baby. I wish I could prove it to you.”
“I guess time will have to prove it to me, Cam. That’s about all we have right now, lots and lots of time.” She turned around and leaned back in his arms again.
Cam leaned over her and kissed her cheek then her neck, and wrapped his arms around her again. He felt a little lighter now that it was out in the open. He had worried about it all the way home the night before. He knew it was wrong when he’d gone to check on Rachel, but he had done it anyway, wanting to see if he felt anything for her. He had been running scared. He knew better now. He knew he loved Lacy and had a lot to prove to her. What if she never trusted him? Then what? He didn’t have the answer to that. All he could do was try to make it up to her.
Chapter Twelve
Lacy lay back against Cam wondering if what he’d told her about loving her was true. Why would he have gone to see Rachel if he loved her? Unless he was trying to prove to himself that he didn’t. She closed her eyes and tried to forget about it for just a little while. She wanted to believe for now that everything was fine.
The water began to cool, and Cam stirred.
“I think it’s time we got out, Lacy. I don’t want you to get sick from sitting in cold water.” He held her up until she was sitting on her own.
Lacy turned and watched the water sluice off of him as he stood. The sight made her mouth water. He reached down and helped her to her feet. When he stepped out of the tub and grabbed a towel off the warming rack, she followed him. He immediately began drying her off with the warm towel.
“You smell like jasmine now,” she teased him.
“That’s okay. No one will ever know.” He smiled at her.
“Hmmm, unless someone tells on you.” She grinned and bit her lower lip.
“I’ll get you if you tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone what?” Phillip walked into the bathroom already undressed.
“Smell him?” Lacy challenged him.
“I’m not smelling him.” Phillip frowned. “Why?”
“He took a bath with me, and we used the jasmine bath salts,” Lacy explained.
“Oh, I see. Glad I opted for a shower later, then.” Phillip scooted around them and stepped into the shower.
“Come on, Lacy. We’re going to bed. Phillip can join us once he gets out of the shower.” Cam picked her up and carried her into the bedroom where he let her slide down his body. “The pins have to come out of your hair. I don’t want one of them to come out and poke us later.”
Lacy chuckled and began removing the bobby pins. She dropped them in a bowl on the dresser. She climbed on the bed and scooted down between the covers to get warm. The air in the house had grown cooler as the night progressed.
“Cold?” Cam pulled her into his arms.
“A little.”
“Phillip will be here soon, and we’ll get you nice and toasty.” He rubbed her arms up and down with his big hands.
She burrowed closer to his warm body and let him hold her. She wanted them to work things out. She wanted that family feeling so badly, especially if they were going to have children. She didn’t want them to feel a rift between their parents.
Thoughts of children again made her wonder if she could even get pregnant since she wasn’t yet, and they’d had plenty of sex, especially she and Phillip. What would that do to them all if she couldn’t? Would they resent her? She sighed.
Cam squeezed her close. “What is it, baby?”
“Nothing. Just thinking too much.”
“Don’t think—feel.” He pushed against her and she felt his cock, hard and long against her ass.
“Seems like you’ve got something on your mind, too.”
“I stay like this around you, Lacy.”
“I want you, Cam. Fuck me.”
“I want us both to take you tonight, Lacy. Will you let us both in your body?”
Lacy shivered. Could she do it? She had known this time would come. She had said she was ready. They’d been preparing her for months.
She nodded her head.
“I need you to say the words, Lacy. I want you to want this, or it’s no good.” Cam cupped the side of her face.
“Yes, I want you both inside of me.” She let out a breath.
“We’ll make it feel so good for you, baby. I promise we will.”
Phillip walked out of the bathroom amid a cloud of stream, drying off with a towel.
“Damn, it’s cold in here.” He dropped the towel and all but dove beneath the covers.
Lacy grinned when he immediately honed in on her breasts with his slightly chilly hands. She slapped at them.
“You’re hands are cold. Don’t be touching me with them. Warm them up first.”
“I am warming them up, baby.” He chuckled.
“Phillip, she wants us both—together,” Cam said.
Phillip stilled. He looked into her eyes. “You’re sure? I don’t want you to do something you’re not comfortable with, Lacy.”
“I’m sure. I want both of you inside of me. I want us to be together.” Lacy hoped he would understand that what she was saying was that she wanted them to be a family.
“We’ll make it good for you, baby.” He leaned in and kissed her.
She opened to him, and he immediately slid his tongue along hers. She licked along the roof of his mouth as he teased hers as well. He sucked hers back into his mouth and then thrust his back into hers. She pulled away needing to breathe. He nipped at her lower lip and rubbed noses with her.
“Baby, let me have a taste of that sweet pussy. Roll over for me.” Cam slid lower in the bed under the covers and spread her legs wide.
She sighed when he licked her cunt. He always made her wild when he ate her needy pussy. His tongue slid between her pussy lips deep into her slit. He stiffened his tongue and fucked her over and over. Her hot cunt burned with the need for more.
“Please, I need you in me.” She started to reach down and pull him up, but Phillip grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head.
“Let him get you ready, baby. We want you crazy with need. It will be so much better.”
“I’m there already. I want you. Please,” she begged him.
Cam pulled the covers off of them. He inserted two fingers into her tight cunt and began a slow in and out rhythm as he licked all around her clit. She squirmed, trying to make him lick over it, but he chuckled and avoided it like a pro. His fingers continued to fuck her as he sucked on her pussy lips, then ran his tongue around her clit again.
“Someone fuck me. Please. I need you inside of me.” She thrashed her head back and forth. Phillip struggled to keep her still, but managed to lick her nipples.
Lacy moaned at the feel of his tongue across their taut peaks. She thrust them closer to his mouth.
Cam drew some o
f her juices down to her back hole and began pushing his thumb inside of her. She pushed out and he popped in. He pulled out and pushed in several times then removed his thumb and added two fingers. She breathed through the burn. He stroked his fingers in and out of her several times before pulling them out.
“She needs more lubrication. I’ll be right back.” Cam climbed off the bed and disappeared from sight for only a couple of seconds before he returned.
He poured something cold on her ass and massaged it into her tight rosette before slipping two fingers back inside of her and fucking her ass with them. He licked all around her clit then surprised her by pulling it into his mouth and sucking it.
Lacy went crazy as she exploded, squeezing down on his fingers in her ass until he couldn’t move them in her anymore. He slowly let her down with soft licks across her clit until she was panting heavily, but no longer riding high. She fought to catch her breath, but he pulled out his fingers and she moaned. She felt empty now, and there was still a need inside of her.
“Climb up on Phillip, Lacy. Plant that juicy cunt on his cock for me, baby.” Cam helped her roll over.
She crawled up Phillip’s body and leaned down for a kiss. He nipped at her lower lip then sucked it in and teased it with his tongue. She aligned her slit with his thick dick and slowly slid down on him. It took a couple of thrusts by him before she was all the way seated on his massive cock. She felt full and yet still empty.
Cam began adding lubricant to her back hole again and used two fingers to thrust in and out of her ass. He rubbed along the thin membrane that separated her ass from her cunt.
“Fuck, man. I can feel you,” Phillip said.
“Please, hurry, Cam. I need to move. I can’t stand being still.” Lacy tried meeting his thrusts, but Phillip was holding her down close to his body.
“Just a minute, Lacy, I have to be sure you’re ready. I don’t want to hurt you, baby.”
Cam pulled out and added a third finger. She moaned at the pinch, but pushed out and all three fingers entered her. He thrust them in and out several times before pronouncing her ready.
