Divine Solace: 8 (41 page)

“Are you creaming for us, Mistress?” she whispered, looking
down to meet Lyda’s silver eyes. The response she got was being pulled down for
another hard kiss, Lyda gripping her nape as Noah took her over the edge to a
moaning, twisting, tornado climax, her hands digging into Gen as it happened.
Noah gripped her spread thighs, his knuckles pressing into Gen’s legs as he
held Lyda still to maximize her pleasure.

When Lyda rolled down that peak, they were all breathing
hard. Gen thought it was all incredible, but this last time had been special.
Three people enjoying one another, the reins tangled in all their hands, free
form, incredibly pleasurable.

Noah sat back on his heels, looking down at both of them.
Gen had shifted to her hip, curled up against Lyda’s side, held in her arm
span. Reaching out, Gen slid a hand down his side. Noah caught it, lifted her
knuckles to his mouth. When she brought them back to herself, she could smell
Lyda’s musk from his lips. Lyda’s hand tightened in her hair then.

“He handled the climax, you handle the cleanup, rabbit. You
wanted to know how wet I was for you. Go find out up close and personal.”

Noah moved out of the way and Gen was pushed between Lyda’s
legs. She did exactly as bade, tenderly licking the crevices, collecting the
climax, savoring the taste and scent. Lyda made a pleased murmur. When Gen
lifted her head, she saw Noah was stretched out behind Lyda, his head propped
on his fist again while Lyda had her head on his thigh, watching Gen as Noah
stroked her hair with his other hand. She looked sleepy, their Mistress.

“Time for bed,” Lyda said, confirming it. Noah eased her
head to the floor and rose. He switched off the lamp and then, to Gen’s
surprise—and maybe Lyda’s—he bent and picked Lyda up, carrying her to the bed.
Lyda linked her arms around his neck, and held when he lowered her there. He
stayed close, not pulling back until she brushed a kiss over his mouth and let
him go.

“Gen,” she said. “Come to me.”

Gen slid into Lyda’s embrace. Then, another surprise, Lyda
brought Noah into the mix. He slid in behind Lyda, the two of them holding onto
their Mistress in a new tangle of limbs, mouths close enough to brush lips,
breath warm against flesh.

“Sleep,” Lyda ordered. “Everyone. I won’t be able to
function tomorrow if I’ve spent the night being fucked to death. Or fucking my
pets to death.”

Too late. Gen felt like a limp noodle. She hoped feeling
returned to her extremities soon. Aspirin was going to be in order for muscles
that hadn’t been used since…ever.

“Noah.” Lyda’s profile was a silhouette in the darkened
bedroom as she looked behind her. “You’ll clean up that mess in my guest house
tomorrow. And that note doesn’t exist. If you forget that, I’ll take a strip
off your hide.”

“Yes Mistress.”

Quiet descended. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness thrown
by the nightlight by the dresser, Gen could tell Noah was staring into the
darkness over Lyda’s head with a look she didn’t like at all.

Gen curved her hand over his forearm, draped over Lyda’s
side. A little bite with her nails attracted his attention. “Stay with us,” she
mouthed. She meant all of it. Not just his person, but everything, his mind,
his heart…his soul.

A look of resignation crossed his face, but he nodded. “I
want to,” he murmured. “But it’s not about what I want.”

Lyda said nothing, her eyes closed. But her hand tightened
on Gen’s, a silent message.

Leave it alone. For now.

Gen had never been to Gatlinburg. As they wound along the
scenic highway that offered panoramic views of the Great Smoky Mountains, Gen
coaxed them into stopping on the pull-off lanes more than once so she could
gape and snap a few pictures with her phone, even though it wouldn’t capture
how awe-inspiring it was.

Then she saw a chainsaw carver who had rows of wooden bears
set up on the roadside. “I want one,” she pronounced. Noah grinned and Lyda
rolled her eyes, but they stopped. And after a critical look at the
craftsmanship, Lyda had bought a couple herself. She even talked to the artist
about supplying wholesale to the nursery.

Gen earned a speculative look from Lyda when she decided
against buying one, but the smallest bear offered was eighty dollars. It would
cut too deeply into her vacation budget. She told them she’d decided having a
picture of one was better and snapped a quick shot before getting back into the
car.

They’d left Tampa before dawn. Lyda had taken the backseat,
spreading out her paperwork and balancing her laptop on her knees. When she
started muttering to herself in a way Gen recognized from Marguerite’s
adversarial relationship with her own accounting software, Gen began asking
questions. Before long, the computer had been transferred to her lap and she
was helping Lyda catch up with her books, to the woman’s obvious relief.

“Do you do this for Marguerite too?” Lyda asked. “If she
does, I hope she pays you well for it.”

“I do,” Gen said, with no little pride. “She used to do it,
and now she trusts me with pretty much all of it. I even did her taxes last
year. I don’t have a degree yet, but—”

“You should hire out your services,” Lyda said bluntly. “I
know at least five other businesses who’d love to have someone handle their
books rather than doing it themselves. If you ever want to hang out your own
shingle, let me know.”

“Oh, well… I love working at Tea Leaves, but I can always
use more money.” She figured she could do it at night, or on her days not
working at Tea Leaves.

Lyda frowned. “Doesn’t Marguerite pay you enough?”

“Absolutely,” Gen said hastily, horrified at the vision of
Lyda deriding Marguerite about her pay scale. “But there’s only so much you can
reasonably pay someone to wait tables and run a counter in a tea shop, given
the profit margins. I love it there, though, and I don’t want to leave.”

“You’re not a big spender, Gen. Do you have a lot of fixed
costs?”

“No.” When Lyda continued to stare at her, and she felt Noah
glance her way, Gen bit back a sigh. She could say she didn’t want to talk
about it, but they were getting to the point it was best to put certain things
on the table. “I’m in debt, thanks to my second husband. I’ve paid off a lot of
it. In another year, I’ll be clear, but getting clear sooner would be great. So
if you’re serious about those businesses, I’ll be thrilled.”

“I’m surprised Marguerite didn’t loan you the money to get
out from under all that.” This time, there was no reproof in the tone, at least
not toward Marguerite. Which told Gen that Lyda knew M enough to know she would
have offered.

“I wanted to fix it myself. This is my private business.”

“Because it makes you ashamed? Sounds to me like you should
be proud as hell about it.” Lyda leaned between the seats, bracing her hand on
Noah’s headrest. “Plenty of people make mistakes and get into a hole, and look
for everyone else to bail them out. Government, family, friends. You picked up
your own shovel, even when that hole wasn’t all your doing.”

Gen set her jaw. “Yes. I did.”

“Then don’t let questions about it embarrass you.”

She sat back. Noah gave Gen a wink and squeezed her hand.
“We better stop for gas,” he said. “And I need a snack.”

“When do you not?” Lyda said dryly.

“I need a restroom break,” Gen added quickly, earning a
conspiratorial grin from Noah. Truth, she could use a snack as well. When they
pulled into the station, she asked her two companions if she could bring them
anything from inside the store. Noah called out a request from the pump to
bring him Cheetos and a Dr Pepper. Lyda was quick to lean out the window and
correct him, telling Gen to bring him a bottle of water and a granola bar. Noah
made a gagging noise that had Gen grinning.

Lyda rolled her eyes. “Fine, then. Bring him that junk. When
he becomes a diabetic, I’ll get a chance at needle play. I’m sure you can
inject insulin into someone’s privates.”

“Cheetos and a bottle of water,” he compromised, crossing
his eyes. Gen laughed at both of them. At the convenience store doorway, she
stopped to look back. Noah had the gas pumping, but apparently had decided to
prove just how healthy he was. He was standing in front of Lyda’s window, doing
a stripper dance, gyrating his hips and then turning to rotate his very fine
ass in a way that had the woman pumping gas behind them gawping. Lyda looked
toward Gen, and rolled her eyes again. “Get his damn Dr Pepper and Cheetos
before I strap him to the top of the car,” she called out the window. But Gen
saw her reach through the other window, give him a quick chest stroke and
admonishing flick, gestures of affection.

They’d all done a lot of touching throughout the trip.
Occasionally, while Noah was driving, Lyda would slide forward, stroke his hair
or Gen’s. Gen would hold Noah’s hand or him hers. After that night, sharing a
bed together, things had just grown more…connected. It had been like an
official starting point, the moment where it was clear a relationship was
happening, growing. Lyda of course still had her more reserved “Mistress”
moments, and Gen saw flashes of that unsettling side of Noah, but overall, Gen
was optimistic about the turn things seemed to be taking.

Gen had hosted the dinner at her house for them. She’d shown
Lyda the craft room and the back garden, as well as how good a job Noah had
done on the floor and walls. Before that night, he’d come back and done the
painting. She loved the fresh paint smell, which made it seem like she was in a
brand-new house. Lyda had given her a couple azaleas to plant around the
walkway he’d also helped her build out of some spare brick left over from a
construction site.

Gen had been so nervous that night, but once they were both
there, the way they settled in, piled on her couch together to watch a movie
after dinner… She had a scrapbook building in her mind, not only of the
amazing, erotic experiences she’d had with them both over the past several
weeks, but other equally significant things. Like Lyda pulling her down on the
carpet of Gen’s small living room and showing her an array of horrible
exercises to work her abs and glutes. Noah, escaping to the kitchen to bring
them big dishes of ice cream scooped over warm brownies to save her. Then
later, Lyda had put melted ice cream on Noah’s bare stomach, Gen licking it off
as Lyda teased her pussy with knowledgeable fingers, her other hand working Noah’s
cock…

Gen tuned back in to the present, a smile quivering on her
lips. Yes, things were going well. When it was like this, a three-way
relationship wasn’t as complicated as it seemed.

It was the first time in a long while Gen had taken a
vacation that was more than a day here or there, so it was even more exciting
to be taking one with two people starting to mean so much to her. She hadn’t
really shared how much, since those feelings were advancing at a pace that
scared the crap out of her, but it was still really nice to be here with them.

Once back on the road, they arrived in Gatlinburg within the
hour. Noah had warned her the town was a gaudy midway carnival set in the midst
of all that natural beauty. Regardless, Gen found herself enchanted by it as
Noah did the slow stop-and-go traffic down the main strip in the Escalade, past
T-shirt shops, fudge stores, Ripley’s Believe it or Not and the Hard Rock Café.

“Hey, there’s a tacky place.” Noah pointed it out.

Chloe had told her to bring back the tackiest souvenir she
could find. Gen saw a couple suitably horrible candidates in the store window
Noah had indicated. “We’ll go back later,” Lyda interjected before another
spontaneous stop could happen. “We’re almost there. I want to get settled.”

They turned off the main drive and started up a steep
incline, a winding road that took them into neighborhoods dug into the sides of
the mountains surrounding the town. They passed a gate to a resort community,
and Noah nodded. “That’s where Dot is staying with her friends. She said to
come see her early evening. Fair warning, she likes to take walks after dinner,
and this is probably the only day we’ll get a pass.” He glanced at Gen. “She
thinks eight miles is a nice outing. And she’ll give you grief if you get out of
breath. Never mind the fact she’s in a power wheelchair.”

Gen chuckled. “I have walking shoes. I notice you didn’t
give Lyda that warning.”

Noah stroked Gen’s leg with his long fingers, then left them
there, curved intimately over her inner thigh. “Don’t feel bad. SuperMistress
back there can wear me out too. She’s Xena Warrior Princess.”

“Oh God. That makes me Gabrielle, doesn’t it?”

“You’re cute, short and have good tits,” Lyda agreed. “Plus
that really nice soft ass. But you’re still coming back to my class one day. I
particularly like the cool down period in the locker room.”

“Nothing cooling about it,” Gen retorted, though she got a
little breathless, remembering it.

“You should have gotten video,” Noah complained.

“Don’t pout,” Lyda said. “You’ll get plenty of girl-girl
action this weekend, unless you piss me off and I decide to put out your eyes
with a hot poker.” She packed up her laptop, tucked the folders into the case.
“Barring a few panicked phone calls from Eric, that should take care of work. This
looks like our place coming up.”

Gen turned her attention to the cottage they’d be occupying
for the next few days. A creek gurgled in front of it, the bubbling water and
shiny dark rocks flashing with sun sparkles. A short bridge over the creek
provided pedestrian access to the cottage from the street.

“I love it,” Gen said, beaming at Noah.

Noah parked the car on the other side of the road. “It has
one bedroom with a queen and a sleeper couch, so three people can be
comfortable. Only one bath, but there’s also an outdoor shower in back.” He
turned, handed the key to Lyda. “If you want, you can look it over while I
bring in our stuff.”

“I think you purposefully waited to tell me about the one
bath until we arrived,” Lyda said, though the humor in her voice told Gen she
was teasing. Gen slid out of her side as Noah opened Lyda’s door. If Gen had
waited, he’d have offered the courtesy to both of them, because when they’d
stopped for lunch, he’d done just that, opening the door for Lyda and circling
around to Gen’s side to open her door while she’d been fishing a brush out of
her purse to freshen up.

He’d said people had called him a treasure. After traveling
with him half a day, she thought he was a luxury. Taking responsibility for
bringing in their luggage was only part of it. From pumping gas and driving, to
verifying the air temperature they wanted in the car, he never seemed to tire
of doing things to make the journey more pleasant for the two women. When Noah
was in the convenience store restroom, she’d expressed concern about taking
advantage of it. Lyda had shaken her head.

“You won’t. You’re too much of a service sub yourself. I
doubt you’ll ever feel truly comfortable having him do all the stuff for you he
likes to do for me. But don’t deny him the opportunity needlessly. Serving us
nourishes his soul.” She’d glanced up, seeing Noah returning from the
convenience store. A light smile played around her lips as she saw he was
carrying a bobble head cat Gen had seen by the cash register and remarked was
really cute. “The man can’t be trusted with his own petty cash.”

She glanced at Gen then. “There’s a mutual benefit to it
between Dom and a service sub, but the Dom keeps in mind where the line is
between taking advantage and fulfilling a mutual need for it. Follow my lead on
it, and you’ll be fine.”

So, despite a twinge of guilt at leaving him with the
luggage, Gen followed Lyda across the bridge to the cottage. They stopped
halfway across, Gen pointing out a frog sitting on one of the rocks, staring at
them with fixed expression. Lyda laid her hand on her back as they looked
together, sliding her palm down to Gen’s hip, a casual caress like lovers did.
“Thanks for saying that, about how I should be proud of myself.” Gen lifted a
shoulder. “I am, you know, but you saying it made me feel special.”

“You are special.” Lyda leaned forward, kissed her mouth,
her hand tightening on Gen’s hip, thumb catching in the back pocket of her
jeans.

“So are you. Actually, you’re extraordinary. Which is part
of why it meant so much to hear you say it.” Gen dared to touch her Mistress’s
face. Lyda stilled as Gen stroked the distinct cheek bone. When she moved up,
Lyda closed her eyes, let her tease her lashes.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” Gen said.

“I just kissed you.”

“I mean a really hot, scandalize-the-neighbors,
make-Noah-hard and make-both-of-us-wet kiss.” Where had this wanton side come
from? Where was the “safe” Gen?

Who cared?

Lyda’s eyes opened, so close to hers. “Are you waiting for
permission?”

“Yes.” Gen wondered how Lyda did that, put as much strength
into her gaze as she had in the grip of her hands. “Because that turns you on.
I like knowing I can get you worked up. That makes me feel pretty special too.”

“Uh-huh.” Lyda continued to study her for another protracted
moment. One breath, two breaths. Gen took another step closer, so they were
right up against one another. Lyda was wearing boots with block heels today,
giving her a height advantage over Gen in her canvas sneakers.