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Lyla was sitting on the piano bench, facing the keyboard.  Shana was sitting close beside her, facing the opposite way.  The singer was absently running through finger patterns on the keys with one hand, but the board was turned off and there was nothing but the soft clack of her fingernails on the fake ivory.

“All this time…” she said, her dreadlocks dangling over her face as her head bent down.

Shana didn’t say anything, but Lyla felt her hand come to rest on her shoulder, and she was thankful for it.  Her mind was already lost in all the possible endings she could put to the sentence.

“Protecting me,” the singer finally added.  “From things I didn’t even know.  Didn’t want to face.  Now he’s out there and I just let him without a second thought.  I should’ve gone with him.”

She thought of how it would hit the news when he filled in a lot of blanks around the way the back door had been locked.  There were too many possible reasons for it, and none of them were good.

“You know he wouldn’t let you risk exposing yourself until you’re ready,” the brunette told her.

Lyla knew she was right, but he was six hours later than he said he’d be, and she didn’t know why.  And beyond that, she felt responsible.  She was sure something went wrong.  She could feel it.

“This is the longest we’ve been away from each other the whole two months.  It’s not the same as me just being over at Izzy’s working in the studio.  It feels weird.”

“He’s fine,” Shana said, squeezing her shoulder lightly.  “It’s just a few reporters.  Besides, you’ve seen what he can do if anything goes wrong.”

Lyla nodded.  “Yeah, I guess I have at that.  Still…I dunno.  I shouldn’t have let him go on his own.  Maybe I’ve been too caught up in the new recording.”

They’d seen the interview, but afterward they deliberately avoided the television.  Now the singer’s anxious curiosity was beginning to get the best of her.

“Baby…that album you’re working on is one of the best things anyone ever did for him.  And nobody deserves it like he does.”

Just the way any artist would, Lyla had wanted to express the intensity of the experience she’d been through.  When she started out, she’d thought that experience was the fire.  Being caught and then saved.  But as she worked her way from song to song, she started to realize the real experience was still going on.  The real fire had started outside the club on the curb when Case took her by the hand and led her away.

He was her experience, and she was his.

“So what do you do when you end up loving someone and everything you’ve got is less than they deserve?”

Shana laughed, and Lyla shot her a snarky look.

“I’m only laughing because I’m pretty sure even you know how dumb that sounds,” the brunette tacked on.

“You’re a shitty therapist, you know that?”

Shana snickered again.  “I’m much better with sex therapy than actual counseling.”

Lyla chuckled.  “I’ve noticed that about you.”

“Mmm, still waiting to see you and Case walk in right around closing time.”

“Liar.”

“Okay.  Hoping a little.”

“That I’ll believe.”

Shana’s hand moved across the front of Lyla’s body and cupped her breast through the light blouse she had on, then she laid her cheek against the singer’s shoulder where her hand had just been.

“You probably shouldn’t do that.”

“I know.”

“But it does feel good.”

“I know that, too.”

The brunette’s hand caressed the singer’s flesh absently.  Lyla felt her nipple pebble to hardness.

“How come you and Case never…took it further?”

“Probably for about every reason in the book,” Shana said.  “I was too close on the heels of all that shit with Kelly.  Then there’s that little thing about being a famous, gold digging whore.”

“That doesn’t matter to him.”

“Yeah, but it does to me.  That’s what a big part of me will always be.”

“No, it won’t.  Remember what you said that day about us all having our own burning building?”

“Yeah, but not like yours,” the brunette reminded her.

“They’re never like anybody else’s.  They’re not supposed to be.

Shana’s hand slipped under the bottom hem of Lyla’s blouse and found went back onto her breast.

“Wanna know my big secret?  I’m thirty-five years old, famous for doing porn and a billionaire preacher, and I’ve fucked exactly nine men in my life.  Not exactly a world record.”

Lyla wasn’t sure if she was doing a good enough job keeping her surprise off her face.  Shana lifted her head and smiled wryly as she kept massaging her breast.  The singer’s pussy was beginning to buzz with warmth.  The other woman’s hand was a highly welcome touch of hot affection, but at the same time it was making Case’s absence that much more striking.

She’d already experienced a taste of where Shana was capable of taking her, but she felt strangely disoriented without him there.  She could imagine allowing herself to surrender her desire to almost any kind of sexual situation or exploration, but not without him.  From that night behind the warehouse – on top of his huge, vintage car in the rain – her path to all the sensations that brought her sensual soul to life were inextricably linked to him.

“Does that seem wrong to you for some reason?” she finally asked.  She wanted to reach under her blouse and pull the other woman’s hand away from her tingling breast, but then again, no, she didn’t.

“No,” the brunette replied.  “But the apparent contradiction isn’t lost on me.”

Lyla sighed.  Her breast billowed into the other woman’s clutch with the intake of breath.  “Maybe it really isn’t such a contradiction.  But your clean little secret is safe with me.”

“You aren’t much like other people,” Shana said with a smile.  “Except maybe Case.  The two of you are like two halves of the same fruit.”

The singer chuckled softly.

“And I do like fruit,” the brunette added.  She kissed Lyla’s neck.  Once.  Lingering just briefly – one soft, half damp, breath-laced kiss.

Lyla expected the next kiss to come to her mouth, but it didn’t.  Shana just straightened back up and withdrew her hand from under the singer’s blouse and let it rest on her bare thigh, close to the edge of the yoga shorts she had on.

“Probably be done in the studio in a few more days.  I’m gonna have to figure some way of getting back into my life.  I’m just not sure if it’s even still there.  Or if it ever really was.”

“Baby, this is your life.  Anyone can see that.  All you need to do is say yes to it.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It kind of is.”

“When people find out Izzy is playing guitar and bass on the album it’s gonna cause a big stir.  He sounds better than ever.  It’s gonna be a big change for him, too.”

“Maybe.  Izzy’s been through everything three times over already.”

“And what about Case?  I just kind of dropped myself on his lap out of nowhere.”

Shana snickered briefly.  “That man lives in the middle of nowhere.  Or haven’t you noticed?  At least he used to…before you.  Even you can’t miss the way he looks at you.  Or how his voice changes every time he says your name.”

“Yeah…um…yeah.  But he never said anything.  It’s like he just put this veil of protection all around me and then set me free inside it.  I feel him, but…”

“But you’re as big a coward as he is?”

They both started to laugh, and when they finished, Shana kissed the other woman’s mouth with tender hunger.  It was somewhere between brief and lingering, but long enough to make the singer’s pulse speed up and pussy begin to ache with a dull throb.  She felt an ironic sense of caring behind it, as if the brunette were kissing her on Case’s behalf.  The ache in her pussy shot even deeper as the hand on her thigh squeezed harder.

“You’re putting me in mind of fucking his brains out the second he walks in that door and telling him I love him while I got him balls deep inside.”

“Now that I’d love to see,” Shana said, voice going husky.

“Freak.”

“Yeah, but you gotta admit I’m a sweet freak.”

“Mhmm, and I know you’re just trying to get me hot enough to jump his ass before the door even shuts.”

“Yeah, well it’s working.  Admit it.” 

Shana slid her hand up Lyla’s thigh until she was cupping her pussy.  The singer started to wish she’d put on panties.  Her slit was beginning to flush and dampen her clinging shorts.  She got up off the bench and walked a semi-circle around it before she soaked herself completely.

“I still don’t know why you and he never…ya know.”

“Different kinds of fruit.  Besides, I make a better tourist than a neighbor.”

“Oh, you seem quite neighborly to me.”

Shana laughed briefly again.  “You know what I’d love more than anything?  To see you and Case get over yourselves enough to just admit everything you feel for each other and live happily ever after right here in the village.  That would inspire me.”

“Yeah, well…pretty sure we got the love part handled.  Just the details are a little…challenging.”

“Only if you let ‘em be.”

“Mhmm, sure.  I think I might’ve liked you better when you were just rubbing my pussy.”

“Then c’mon back over and take a seat, baby.”

Lyla flashed her a sarcastic look, even though she gave the idea a moment’s thought.  But she also thought it should’ve been that kind of moment where she could look at Shana and realize how alike they were.  But it wasn’t.  They weren’t.  All she could think of were their differences, and how they were a big part of the reason Lyla trusted her.

Shana had a steadiness about her she’d probably never admit to being aware of.  She seemed secure even in what she imagined to be her flaws, but Lyla didn’t see them as flaws.

Before the singer had a chance to reply, Case’s truck pulled up out front.  Lyla rolled her eyes in relief while Shana flashed her a told-you-so smile.  After that, a long time passed before he finally walked in.

He looked tired, as if the weight of his own body was more than he needed to carry.  Lyla spotted the blood and dust on his clothes and felt ice run through her veins.  She couldn’t speak, but Shana was quick to notice it, too, and started to say something.

“It’s not mine,” Case told them calmly.

Lyla’s throat still felt plugged, but her feet were moving toward him as he stood in the middle of the room.  Her arms went around his body as if they were thinking for themselves.  His moved around her at the same time.  He’d held her with anxious heat and desire many times before – with the love and need they had yet to name – but now she felt as if he were trying to wrap her up inside him as far as he could pull her.

She’d felt the emptiness in his heart the moment he reached for her hand that night outside the club, and she’d recognized it instantly.  It was the same void she’d been carrying around in her own.  For the first time since, there was no trace of it anywhere between them.  All she could feel was a circle of sweet desperation surrounding her.

Her knees went out from under her and his arms held more tightly as she began to slip toward the floor.  Shana’s hand settled onto her back, and then it seemed as if another force that existed entirely beyond any of them were lifting her back up.

“You’re back.  That’s all that matters.”

It was Shana’s voice, just behind her, speaking the words that were caught somewhere between Lyla’s throat and the place inside her where all of her fears had just begun to unravel.

Everything went fragile as crystal – time, the stars, even the mountain they were on.  She couldn’t get the image of the blood on his clothes out of her mind no matter how tightly she closed her eyes.  The details were the least of it.  The realization of how close she came to losing him before she even had the chance to have him completely – without restraint – weighed on her soul like a terrible darkness.

“Nothing touches us but us,” he said.  His voice was still calm.  Steady, but haunted in its tone.

“Welcome home to the people who love you, Case.”  It was Shana again.  Her hand was still there on Lyla’s back.  Still warm.  It almost felt as if she were holding her against him.  “You know how to find me if you need something.  Anything.  Either of you.”

“Wait, Shana.  You’re part of all this now.  I feel better knowing you were here.  Knowing she’s been safe and not alone.  You have a right to hear what went down.”

Lyla was trying to tell him she shouldn’t have let him go on his own, but the right words still wouldn’t come.  “I need you,” was all that came weakly from between her lips.  She wanted to hate the entire notion of love for all its insane delicacy and hopeless flaws.  It seemed such a pitiable thing to give anyone.  Something you couldn’t even see or touch.  Odorless.  At least flowers had a scent you could follow and be able to find them in the dark.

“We saw the interview,” the brunette said.  “Looks like you’re famous all over again.  The unknown hero comes forward…blah, blah, blah.”

Lyla knew there was more, and that he’d talk about it when he was ready.  Nothing else mattered but their being back in each other’s arms.  His hand moved to her face, pulling at her to look at him.  There was a fearful peace in his eyes.

“Where I just was…” he began.  “It was the complete opposite of this.  Us.  Everything we are and have.  For a while, I was afraid.  More afraid than I’ve ever been of anything.  Not so much of what he could do, but what he is.  The opposite of everything.  Then I remembered what you keep saying.  Nothing touches us but us.  I remembered.  Heard the echo of your voice in my head, and I looked into the eyes of a man who’s not a man.  I just felt pity and disgust.  And this feeling of total certainty I was coming home to you.  I love you, Lyla.  Maybe more than anyone was ever meant to love someone else.  But I do, and that’s just how it is.  I know you can’t stay here forever, but if you could stay…with me…”

“Jesus.”  It was Shana again.  Her body was pressing tighter against the singer’s back.

“I need us,” Lyla said.  There was more, but his face was already angling down and his mouth took hers in a hard, breath-sapping kiss.  Shana was rubbing her shoulders lightly.  She didn’t need the extra reassurance, but she was thankful for it.  It felt right the brunette was there to witness what was happening between Case and her.  No one but Shana would truly understand.

They kissed long and deeply, and then Case finally broke.  He pulled out of the embrace, but took Lyla’s hand and started toward the stairs.  “You’re gonna see it sooner or later,” he said.  “Better to just get it over with.  C’mon, Shana.  You, too.”

The singer walked up the stairs with Case leading and Shana following.  He led them to the bedroom where the only television in the house was.

Lyla and Shana both took a seat at the edge of the bed while Case turned on the set and left the room without a word.  A commercial was just ending, and then it cut directly to Darien Trent’s interview with a state police officer out in the desert, where officers and EMT personnel were in the process of arresting and hospitalizing a man named Nicholas Ducaine.

He needed treatment for rattlesnake bites and an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, although he told the police he’d been shot by Case Rawlins, the former B league third baseman who’d just come forward to identify himself as the Shockley Park nightclub fire hero.  Ducaine was being arrested for arson and attempted murder, along with other charges yet to be determined.

They were gearing up to throw every book ever written at him.

The police were extending Trent an extra measure of courtesy in covering the story since he’d been the one to call it in, and had given them valuable information that was saving them an enormous amount of time and trouble.

Lyla’s heart filled with a sense of horror as she watched Trent unravel the story.  She didn’t have to turn and look to know Shana had to be having a strong reaction of her own.

The sound of the shower being turned on came from down the hall.  Case would be stepping in to wash away the residue of the whole experience.

The report went on longer than it needed to for the amount of information there was to convey.  In the end, it was really the simple story of a sociopath and the resonance of his random acts of evil.  After a few minutes, Lyla looked at Shana who was staring at the screen with a look of quiet astonishment.

“Seen enough?” the singer asked.

“Definitely.”

Lyla shut off the television and they sat through a moment of pure stillness, broken only by soft sound of the shower running in the other room.  By now, Case would be clean of the outward stains – the blood and dust – but she couldn’t imagine how long the inner stains would be with him.  She wasn’t sure if the strange sense of relief now replacing the horror she’d felt before should be normal.  Maybe it was just the calm before the inevitable, emotional storm.

She almost felt as if she were back in the club that night when a tall stranger stepped out of the shadows and showed her the path out of the chaos.

That had been the true moment of finding the rest of her life.  Whatever she did in the next days and weeks hardly mattered, and what she was left with now was the same feeling she’d had that night.  There was a joyful purity in simply being alive, and Case was there to remind her.

Now it was up to her to remind him.  And as she studied Shana’s face outlined in the dim light, she realized the brunette had only had herself for a rescuing hero back when her own fire had broken out.  In her uniform from the diner, her thighs and pronounced cleavage featured ripe curves as the pale light cast lines over her skin.  She was fantasy and reality combined.

Lyla wished she could be more like the other woman in one, fundamental way – to be able to taste that joyful purity without feeling the need to name or define it.  But that was what her music was for.  And now, she felt her heart and body filling up with a different kind of music.

She reached over and put her hand on Shana’s thigh.

“I just need a minute or two with him.  Then come.  If you want to, I mean.  But I think it’s what’s supposed to happen this time.  A night like this, you know?”

“Yeah.  A night like this,” Shana sighed.

The brunette seemed downright meek.  Almost passive.  It was an unexpected side of her to see, and the singer understood what a rare moment it was.

Lyla leaned over and kissed her.  Her mouth felt soft and supple.  And so alive.  Their tongues caressed each other just for a moment.  Lyla needed to go.

“Just a minute or two with my man,” the singer reminded her.

“Is that what he is?”  The brunette was smiling.

Lyla grinned and then left the room.  She could hear Shana snickering as she crossed the hall.  She quietly shed the few clothes she had on in the bathroom.  When she pulled the curtain aside, Case turned to look at her as she stepped in.  It felt like she was floating.

He turned the rest of the way to face her completely, the spray of the shower hitting him in the back.  There was no more dust or blood on him now, only wet skin and muscle.

“When I saw that blood…I thought it was yours.  I can’t even tell you…”

“You don’t have to.”

He touched her cheek and held his hand there.  It made her feel like she was the one who’d just come home.

“Yeah, I do.  Some things may be best left unsaid, but this isn’t one of them.”

“Words don’t have to be the only way,” he said, his hand sliding down her neck onto her breasts.  “Besides, I’ve got all your new songs memorized by now.  I have a pretty good idea…”

“Case, just shut up and let the lady talk, please.”

It was Shana, already standing inside the room.  Lyla smiled to herself, knowing the brunette had to have come in right on her heels to eaves drop.  She grinned up at Case and slipped her hand between his thighs to caress his cock and balls.

“Baby, I know you get that I love you, and maybe even how much.  But I need you to know – I mean really know - it’s the sticking kind.  The life no matter what kind.”

He looked at her with an intense gaze, his cock quickly swelling in her roaming hand.  His eyes briefly darted to the curtain, in the direction of Shana’s voice, and he returned a questioning look at the singer.

“You got something to say you don’t think she should hear?” Lyla said in response to his look.  His cock was feeling harder and heavier in her hand while his moved from one bare, wet breast to the other, cupping and squeezing.

Case closed his eyes and took a breath, then opened them again and looked at her with a kind of easy determination.  “Okay, oddly enough, no.”  He reached up and whipped open the curtain with his free hand.  Shana was standing an arm’s length from the old tub, her uniform and panties already on the floor.  Even though he let his eyes linger a moment on the naked brunette, his expression never changed.

When his gaze settled back on Lyla’s face, it made her feel like the only woman on the planet.  She brought her other hand to his cock and began caressing his shaft and sac with both.  She was vaguely aware of Shana stepping in behind her, pulling the curtain closed again.  Smooth, full breasts pressed against her back and strong yet delicate hands settled onto her hips.

“You’re the opposite of everything I was in the middle of earlier,” Case went on.  His free hand slid between her thighs, his fingers raking over her pussy lips.  “I’ve been in a kind of coma for years, but you brought me out of it, and tonight you rescued me just the same as I rescued you.  Not from dying, but from killing, and right now they look like the same thing.  They’re both something you can never come back from.

“But even before that, I knew what a miracle you are.  It’s just that tonight, you rescued me and you didn’t even know.  But your words…and your faith in them.  I want to live inside all that from now on.  No looking back.”

“Baby…” she started to say, but then he kissed her before she could get any more words out.  His tongue swept into her mouth easily as a deep breath.  Shana’s hands traveled over her hips until they were pressing into the flesh of her upper thighs.  The brunette mashed her prominent breasts harder against the singer’s back, pushing her warm, smooth pussy into the swell of her ass at the same time.

Case’s fingers dragged harder into Lyla’s slit while Shana’s hands ground into her thighs with increasing pressure.  She felt her feet inch farther apart, opening the gap between her legs for the hands exploring her.  It was a dizzying sensation to feel three hands between her thighs, two bodies pressing at her from in front and behind.

The lips of her aching sex were beginning to feel thick and sodden.  Her senses had never felt so deeply enmeshed with her soul’s desire to live – for her body’s next jolt of breath – the next kiss – touching and feeling until the stars flake off the sky and fall – the next time Case would say I love you.

Shana’s hands moved higher, until her fingers were playing at the fringes of the singer’s slit while Case’s large, middle finger dug into the furrow between them, teasing her body with the promise of entering.  She growled into his mouth and set both of her hands into a corkscrew motion along the length of his cock.

Before she could orient herself to everything happening around her – to her – two fingers from separate hands eased into her pussy.  She pulled away from the unrelenting search of Case’s mouth, needing to drag a deep gulp of air into her body.  An awareness of Shana’s lips and breath against her neck struck her sharply.

She wasn’t even sure how long the other woman had been nipping at the side of her throat as she stared into Case’s eyes.  He barely seemed to notice Shana’s presence, keeping his gaze steady on Lyla’s face.  A desperate sense of motion was lighting up the surface of her skin.  When she tried to decipher the piercing look in Case’s eyes, all she could come up with was bald need.

It was a striking thing to recognize and realize it was the same river of want running through her.  Her vision started to fade in and out of focus while the two fingers searched into her core.  As they began to pump and slide into her slick sheath and play games with each other.

Shana’s other hand found Lyla’s clit and ground repeatedly over the sensitive bud while those fingers slipped in and out of her pussy in contrary motion.  Case groaned when her double-handed grip tightened around his cock, but she couldn’t manage to keep stroking while the shudders of her climax rippled through her body.

She barely had time to catch her breath when the brunette pulled her hands away and brought them to Lyla’s shoulders.  Then the former porn star was pushing the singer down, following to kneel close behind, heavy breasts still pillowing against her back.

The brunette reached forward and took hold of Case’s strutting cock.  As she began to stroke his imposingly hard shaft, Lyla’s mind began spinning.  Another woman was pleasing her man’s rich, thick cock.  But it was Shana, the woman who’d fingered her pussy in a public place the first time they met.  Just Shana.  The woman was lover to neither of them, yet something far beyond a mere friend.  It was almost as if she were their equalizer, a conduit for all the things that remained unspoken between them.

“Suck it,” the brunette said as she pushed Lyla’s head forward with the other hand.  “Suck your lover’s cock…your man’s cock.  He belongs to you now.”

The singer’s lips parted while Shana held a hero’s strong, rigid cock and kept pushing at her head until the shaft was filling her mouth.  Her tongue slid and rolled under his flesh as she took him deeply.  Case uttered a throaty moan that gradually transformed into a gasp.

“Yes, baby, that’s so good,” Shana moaned huskily into Lyla’s ear.  “Suck it.  Taste him.  Love him every way you know how.  Show him how you belong to him too.”

The brunette continued massaging his smooth balls while the singer fucked as much of his shaft with her mouth as she could manage.  He was beginning to thrust back at her mouth, weaving his fingers into her locks as he groaned deeper and harder with every lunge.

Then Shana’s other hand was sliding down along the furrow between Lyla’s ass cheeks, until the tip of a finger found her starbud and began to massage.

Case was soon thrusting into the singer’s mouth with growing desperation, but it was Shana who pulled her away.  She hadn’t even realized she needed to breathe until she suddenly felt her mouth empty of cock and filling with a rush of humid air.  She also realized she needed to let her mind catch up with the raging pulse of need thrumming through her body.

Shana kept on massaging Lyla’s taut rim, but brought Case’s cock toward her own mouth with the other hand.  The singer watched his rod slide deeply into the other woman’s mouth with the kind of incredulous fascination that made her nipples burn and her pussy ache to be filled.  The brunette’s action seemed audacious and yet perfectly natural at the same time.  With her finger teasing the outer ring of Lyla’s rimhole, the singer felt her conscious thoughts fade into a feeling of simply being caught up in the flow of some warm continuum. 

Case groaned deeply as the brunette sucked the tip of his cock, and he was soon thrusting as hard into her mouth as he had into Lyla’s just moments before.  But when the singer lashed out at his driving shaft with her tongue, his body went almost still.  She licked at his full, rigid girth until her tongue slipped against the soft, damp circle of Shana’s lips.

Shana pulled back, giving Lyla more room to explore until both their lips and tongues were savoring the proud length of Case’s erection.  The tip of the brunette’s finger slipped just inside her ass, teasing the very opening of her chute while a hero’s cock throbbed between their searching mouths.

Shana pulled away from Case’s cock while Lyla took him back in her mouth.  The finger in her ass slid deeper.  The brunette let go of the man’s shank and slipped her hand between the singer’s thighs to massage her slick pussy.

“It’s you,” Shana cooed into Lyla’s ear.  “You’re the one who’s giving all of this to him.”

“Yes, Lyla, baby yes,” Case groaned.

She felt lighter yet stronger, and in some strange way, felt as if this were another way of singing to them both – as if she could turn her body into a song.  And it felt as if the swarm of need and sensation swirling through her was looming too large for the tiny space they were in.  Between the heat and taste of Case’s cock and the dizzying play of Shana’s hands, she was beginning to fear the sky wouldn’t give her the room she needed to explode.

The compactly built singer cautiously worked her way back to her feet, breaking away from Shana’s grasp.

“You two need to come with me…like immediately,” she announced.

Case laughed and shut off the water, then ripped open the curtain.  Lyla stepped out of the cramped enclosure and stalked back to the bedroom.  There was no doubt in her mind the others were close behind.  When she reached the bed, she turned to find Case barely an arm’s length behind, his unrestrained cock swaggering as he approached.  Shana was right behind him.

Lyla reached past him and grabbed Shana’s wrist, pulling her toward the edge of the bed and then roughly shoving her backward onto the mattress.  The brunette uttered a weak yelp of surprise, but there was a smile on her face when she righted herself.  The singer climbed onto the bed beside her and pushed her shapely thighs apart.  She set her eyes on Case as she started massaging Shana’s open pussy.  The brunette was smooth as a plum and soaking wet.

Case stood with his knees touching the edge of the bed and stroked his ripe hard on, keeping his eyes on Lyla’s every move.  She felt his gaze like fingers grazing across her skin, and even as Shana moaned and rocked her hips, she kept her focus on him.  The singer leaned over and spent a long moment licking the other woman’s open slit, and just as Shana started grinding her pussy against her mouth, she reared upright.

“Get over here and help me,” she told Case.  “She deserves this.  Us.  This isn’t us tasting her…it’s her learning what the taste of us is all about.”

Case kept his feet on the floor, but leaned over with his palms planted against the mattress and laid his tongue into Shana’s pussy.  Lyla held her open for him, keeping her widely splayed.

“Fuck,” the singer cooed as she watched him lave their special friend’s pussy.  “That’s gotta be what you look like when you lick all over me that way.”

She shoved her other hand between her legs and fingered herself while she rubbed Shana’s clit.  Between her finger and Case’s tireless tongue, the ex porn queen was grinding back hard as she mewled and whimpered through her release.

After, Case leaned toward Lyla and kissed her as hard and deep as she’d ever felt.  His lips were slick with Shana’s dew and his tongue tasted of her pussy as he drove it into her mouth.  Lyla wasn’t sure how long the kiss even lasted, and she only forced herself to pull away when she became aware of the other woman’s fresh moans.

Shana was fingering her pussy and watching them kiss, Case’s hands roaming the silken darkness of Lyla’s body.  The singer moved into the space between the brunette’s open thighs and thrust her ass upward at Case.  She angled her head to look back at him.

“Fuck me,” she growled, just before turning her head back to Shana’s brashly open slit.

Case smacked Lyla’s ass sharply.  For a moment, it felt as if her own skin were turning liquid as she licked the other woman’s pussy, letting her tongue glide wherever she could reach around Shana’s searching fingers.  Case smacked her ass again, and a moment later she felt the largeness of his cock head slipping between her wet, swollen sex lips.

Strong hands grasped her hips.  Long, thick cock flesh drove forcefully into her core, shoving her whole body forward.  As Case fucked her, each thrust sent her mouth grinding harder against Shana’s finger-packed pussy.

The slick glide of Case’s powerful cock sent waves of hot sensation through Lyla’s body.  She’d already learned she could trust him with her life.  Now she knew she could trust him with her passion.  Her pleasure.  She could trust him with all her best and worst choices.

She would go anywhere with him, and she knew he would go anywhere she asked.  Anywhere she needed.  Heaven, Hell and burning buildings.

But she was here now.  They were here.  And it was only their bodies on fire.

Shana’s thighs circled around her head as she rocked to another climax against the singer’s mouth.  When Case started smacking her ass again, his cock thrusting harder and faster, she knew he was on the verge of diving over the edge.  When her pussy rippled with hard spasms of her own release, he spanked her hard three times while his driving cock erupted inside her with creamy, wet heat.

Case wasn’t sleeping when he heard Shana slip out of bed and get dressed.  Just pretending to.

“To be continued?” she whispered.

“I think you already know the answer to that,” Lyla replied softly.

He didn’t have to roll over and look to know Shana would be smiling and giving a slight nod.  He’d known her long enough.  Lyla’s weight shifted, and then he could hear the soft slicking sound of a deep kiss.  It lasted long enough to make his cock swarm with heat.  He wanted to turn and watch them kiss, but he forced himself to lie still.

“Come over to the diner and I’ll serve you the other kind of breakfast,” Shana said on her way out.

She didn’t bother keeping her voice low that time, and by the time she was probably at the bottom of the stairs, Lyla rolled up to Case’s back.  He rolled over to face her, fully expecting the lack of surprise on her face to see he was really awake.  Her smile widened even more when she slid her hand under the sheet to feel the thickness of his awakening cock.  She fondled him almost absently as they looked at each other.

He started to think they should talk about Shana, but realized it wasn’t necessary so he kept quiet.  She wasn’t some parlor game for Lyla or for him.  Shana was there for them.  Yet she and Lyla had the kind of bond that only women sometimes have, not as lovers, but as women.  And in a way, the brunette was there holding up a mirror to a part of what he and Lyla had the capability to become when the fire raged out of control.

Maybe even more, Shana was there to feed on the love between them, as if it were as close as she needed to get to that particular fire.  But Case cared about her and hoped he and Lyla could show her it was all right to let it back in.  He knew she’d been living just as he had these past years, without love, desperation or happiness. 

It felt as if everything had changed so much it came back around to being the same again.  Case brought his hand to her face and brushed a couple of stray locks out of the way, then lightly stroked her cheek.

“Back…before everything…” he said.  “I used to listen to you and see you perform when I could, and I always thought how beautiful you were.  But in a different way.  A distant kind of beauty.  But love changes things.  When I look at you now, I’m not sure if you’re necessary because you’re beautiful or beautiful because you’re necessary.”

She smiled but averted her eyes.  There was a gleeful sense of pure embarrassment all over her face, and he wanted to put that same look right there every day for the rest of their lives.

“You know my ass is still tingling ‘cuz you smacked it so hard last night,” she averted, but her hand began gliding over the growing flesh of his cock with new purpose.

“Oh yeah, um, sorry about that,” he said with a complete lack of sincerity.

“I’m not.”

“It was…amazing…but I have a little confession.  I just missed seeing your face.  I won’t pretend I didn’t cum so hard I was seeing sparks, but I felt kind of lost not seeing your face.”

“Then look at me now,” she said.  “And let me look at you too.”

She turned onto her back and he rolled with her, shifting his body over her, cradling his hips between her open thighs.  She held his cock to her pussy, plugging his dome just inside.  She was already wet.  Already slick.  He ground his shaft into her slowly, savoring the velvet scrape of her inner body along the heat of his shaft.

“It all comes down to this,” he said, filling her a fraction of an inch at a time.  “Why we do everything we do.  Just this.  Your face in front of mine.  Your breath hitting my lips just before I kiss you and remember I’m alive.”

And then he did kiss her.  She arched deeply into the kiss while his cock sank deeply into her elegant body.  He pulled back from her mouth reluctantly, but there was something in his heart that needed to be painted on the air.

“I love you,” he said.  “And I want to believe we can live for this.”

“Baby…we already are.”

He drew his hips backward and slid himself back inside her again.  Her hips followed the rocking of his as his straining cock slicked back and forth within the hot grip of her body.

In the moment, there were no such things as fucking or making love.  Neither concept applied.  There was nothing but the pure convergence of skin, breath, hearts and souls.

He held her face between his hands and knew what she said was right.