Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Mercy
L ance acts like having to share a room with me is going to be painful.
To be fair, it probably is.
It's not often that I travel with a second suitcase filled entirely with makeup and hair products, but we'll be going to the fancy, dress-up dinner tomorrow night and I wouldn't know where to have booked an appointment in Waterford to have someone else do that stuff for me, even if I'd had enough notice.
Lance is used to plain Jane Mercy, who never takes more than five minutes to get ready for anything.
Brushing past him at the door, I take the thirty second tour of our "suite." It's a small sitting area with a kitchenette and a table and chairs with the bedroom off to one side.
One bedroom. One bed. One bathroom.
Lance mutters about me probably wanting my privacy, but I don't understand what the big deal is.
"It's a king size bed," I point out. "Not like there's not room for the both of us."
I'm curvy and Lance is tall, but there's still enough real estate in that bed that we could share and not even touch each other.
I guess that's his plan-- just like it always has been-- so I start putting my things away in the closet without letting the disappointment register.
"What are you fussing about, O'Leary?" I chide. "It's not like we've never seen each other naked."
He answers me with cold silence from out in the little sitting room where he went back to grab more of our things.
Ouch. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to bring that up.
It was a hundred years ago now. Back when we were fresh out of high school, I think. When I used to punch Lance in the arm until he'd wrestle with me. Back when Lance used to wrestle with me.
The grown man standing in the doorway of our hotel "suite" bedroom now still bears a striking resemblance to the kid I used to horse around with back then. Tall, broad-shouldered, ripped from neck to ankle from working on his family's ranch since he was a kid.
It's just that, somewhere along the way, he stopped being a kid and started being a man, and I guess men don't wrestle with their BFF's. Not that wrestling is exactly what I have in mind these days.
"It was dark." He mutters. "We were swimming. Not like you could see anything."
He's right. And it wasn't just me and Lance. And I don't think any of us were exactly sober.
"My point was that it's not a big deal to have to share a room," I tell him. "We used to share a tent when we went camping-- unless you started snoring in the last ten years, I don't mind sleeping with you."
The look on his face turns to pure horror.
I roll my eyes.
"You know what I mean." I throw a hairbrush at him.
And that is why we will never be more than friends.
Finally, I manage to get a smile from the grumpy cowboy as he throws my hairbrush back at me.
"We should go down and check things out," he says.
"Definitely," I agree, rifling through my things to find my hat. "And we should get some food in you, you're losing your sense of humor."
Lance
A total lie; I saw everything. Every curve and contour of Mercy's sweet body with the moonlight glinting off her wet skin.
It's an image that's been branded into my brain for ten years now and I'd pay damn good money for a chance to update it with the vision of those same curves now that they've filled out and matured into full fledge womanhood.
I'll never forget that night at the dam.
We were just eighteen and barely out of high school. Camped up at the reservoir with a bunch of the kids that were still hanging around the valley back then-- before the group got split up with everyone who went off to college and never came back.
One of the Savage boys had a pontoon boat and a bunch of us met up out there for a weekend of doing what country kids do on summer nights.
There might have been some drinking, and there might have been some smoking, and it didn't take long before a couple of the girls got it in their heads to go skinny dipping.
Of course-- naked girls in the water meant it didn't take long for most of the guys to drop trou and jump in with 'em.
Most everybody paired off and it was just me and Mercy. Mercy acting like it was no big deal to be swimming out there naked under the full moon, wanting to have a conversation, and horse around-- while I had to keep my distance and do my best to act casual about it.
Ever tread water with your dick hard?
I can't recommend it.
Just the same as I did back then, I slap a grin on my face and shrug like sharing one big bed in one small room with Mercy isn't going to be the death of me.
We put our things away and she hangs the garment bag that holds her formal dress up in the closet next to the one I brought that has my tux in it.
"No peeking!" She slaps my hands away when I go to unzip it to peek at the dress.
"Just wondered what it looks like."
Curiosity's killing me-- wondering what kind of dress she picked out.
"You'll get to see it soon enough. Let's go get some dinner."
Mercy's pulled on her good boots, brushed out all that long, golden hair of hers, and set her usual, simple straw cowboy hat on her head, pulling the brim down low and giving me a hard stare that says she means business.
So I make an excuse to hide in the bathroom a minute while I adjust my dick that's already aching from how pretty she looks in her tight jeans and pray I can keep it under control for the weekend.