Chapter 18
CODY - NOW
Alice’s eyes widen with surprise. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Oh, she knows what I mean. Sweet little liar.
She brought this up and said all those things to that douche-dick. That means she’s thought about it. I knew it in the kitchen this morning, when I could’ve kissed her. I knew it before then, too, if I’m honest. Back before her marriage, I could see the thoughts on her innocent face.
She hasn’t only thought about this in passing—she has thought about it a lot.
I pull into the garage beneath my building and park. “I’m talking about the part where you told Brayden that you’re sleeping with both Landon and me.”
She puts the back of her hand on her cheek, probably trying to cool her blush. “I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said all that stuff. I was just trying to piss him off and I let my mouth run away with me.”
“I’m not sorry,” I say. “You shouldn’t be, either. Because you brought up a very interesting concept.”
Her lips press together. She looks deliciously mortified.
“The thing is.” I turn in my seat slightly, so I can face her fully. “The thing is, Wonderland, I don’t think you would’ve said those things if you hadn’t already thought about it before.”
She remains stubbornly quiet.
“So tell me, Alice. Have you thought about it before?”
She shakes her head.
“No? You haven’t imagined what it’s like to fuck around with me and Landon? Because I think you have.”
Her gaze is down on her lap. I would give anything to make those baby blue eyes lock on mine. I want to see her lust struggling to get free, to escape the binds of her upbringing.
“I’ll tell you what,” I say. “I have imagined it. Landon and me. With you. I’ve imagined it a lot. I’ve imagined it vigorously.”
“Cody,” she whispers, “what are you doing?”
“Seducing you, baby girl. Should I stop? You tell me to stop, and it ends.”
I wait, breath held. This could go either way.
“No,” she finally says. “Don’t stop.”
My dick grows harder. She wants this. I fucking knew it.
“Let me tell you about some of the things I’ve imagined,” I say. “The most recent one was seeing you and Landon together on the couch.”
She gives me a skeptical look.
“Not when you were having a panic attack,” I clarify. “The night before. Your tits looked so good, and his hand was right next to them, wrapped around you. I thought of the two of you fucking like that, and I’d just come home to find you in the act.”
She looks down, embarrassed and aroused.
I shift in my seat, trying to get comfortable. But there’s no comfort to be found when my dick is a fucking tire iron in my pants. “But I’m not mad to find you two like that. I’m happy, because it means I have the perfect angle to lick your sweet pussy while he fucks you.”
“Cody,” she breathes.
“Yeah, baby girl?”
“That’s—”
I wait. When the moment stretches too long, I say, “What is it? Disgusting? Wrong? Or…arousing?”
She shakes her head, not wanting to answer me.
I can still work with this. “I think it’s arousing. Hell, I’m so fucking hard right now, Alice, I can barely stand it. And I bet you’re wet, aren’t you?”
Her scandalized expression is a thing of beauty.
“Tell you what,” I say, “I don’t think I can get out of this car for a while. I’m too turned on from talking to you, thinking about all these things. How are you feeling?”
She tries to cover her face with her hands, but I gently pry them away.
“I’m going to touch myself with your hand, Wonderland. Is that okay? So you can see how hard I am for you?”
She nods. It isn’t enough.
“I need a yes or a no, baby girl. I need to know you really want this. No regrets afterward.”
“Yes,” she whispers.
Slowly, I move her hand toward my lap, waiting to see if she pulls away. Instead, though, she starts moving on her own. When her hand finally reaches my cock, she curls her fingers, tightening so she’s fully gripping my length.
I hiss out a breath of pleasure.
She seems to marvel at my cock, moving her hand up and down. I have to steady my breaths and calm my mind, or I’m going to come in my jeans like a teenager.
“Now touch yourself,” I tell her.
“What?” She pulls her hand away. “No.”
“You don’t want to?” I run my palm over my cock again, wishing it was Alice touching me.
She hesitates. “It’s not that I don’t want to…”
“What’s stopping you? Tell me it isn’t some fucked-up sense of loyalty to that asshole you call a husband.”
“It’s just…embarrassing.” She bites her lip.
“Sometimes it’s good to do things that scare you.” I grin. “So how about a challenge? How about I touch myself, and you touch yourself?”
ALICE - NOW
This is unreal. The parking garage is dimly lit. My eyes have adjusted enough to make out Cody’s face, but it’s his deep, rasping voice that fills the car and my senses. Every time he speaks, my lust increases.
Am I wet? Yes, I’m wet. Impossibly wet. I’m probably going to leave a mark on the car’s upholstery, and I’m so embarrassed, I could die.
I’m sleeping with Landon and Cody. Yes, both! At the same time. And it’s incredible.
I can’t believe I shouted all of that, right in front of Cody.
I also can’t believe I’m considering his proposition. Touch myself, in front of him? It’s one thing to do it in the privacy of my bedcovers, with no one to know but me. The church always said it was wrong, and that girls and women should only be touched by their husbands.
But it was my secret pleasure, throughout high school and into adulthood. Even when I was sleeping next to Brayden, I would wait until he fell asleep and then silently, oh-so-silently, get myself off.
It felt good, it was private. Nobody needed to know.
And here’s Cody, telling me to simply do it in front of him?
I’m thinking about it, though. Thinking of how good it would feel. Thinking of how amazing it would be to watch him do the same to himself. I’ve never seen that before.
My mom always said I was too curious for my own good.
“You don’t have to take anything off,” he says, eyeing my skirt. “I’m not shy, but if you are, Wonderland, that’s okay. Can I take my cock out?”
“I—” I don’t even know how to respond. “Yes?”
He chuckles. “Thank god, I’m dying over here.”
He unzips his jeans, reaches into his boxers, and brings his length out.
Holy crap, he’s huge. I stare, unable to look away, as he brings his hand up and down the firm shaft.
“Fuck, that feels nice.” He closes his eyes briefly before opening them and sliding his gaze to me. “Your turn, Wonderland.”
I shouldn’t, should I? This is too bizarre. We’re supposed to be friends. But a pulsing insistence thrums away between my legs. It’s hard to feel shy or embarrassed when my entire body is screaming for relief.
“Go ahead. If you want to. Just pull up your skirt a little, so you can reach that pussy. Touch yourself, baby girl.”
I shouldn’t love it so much when he calls me “baby girl,” but I do. I really do.
Stop thinking about it, and just do it.
I do as he said, lifting my skirt up past my knees and sliding my hand between my thighs.
My underwear is damp, even on the outside, just like I feared.
“Do you feel yourself yet?” Cody continues stroking himself, but his gaze is on the movements my hand is making beneath my skirt.
“Yeah?” I slide my panties to the side, searching for bare, slippery skin. When my fingertip grazes my clit, I gasp. I didn’t expect it to feel so good right now, in front of someone else.
“There you go.” He grins. “This is fun, Wonderland. Keep touching yourself. Tell me how wet you are.”
“I’m…wet,” I say.
“Very wet?”
I close my eyes, embarrassed. “Yeah.”
“I bet Landon’s cock would slide in and out so good. I’d lick your clit, so you’d come on my face and on his dick.”
A lust monster has overtaken me. I’m greedy for more contact, greedy for more of Cody’s naughty language, greedy for more.
“Look at you, so beautiful.” His hand moves up and down, and his flesh looks painfully hard. “Fuck, I could watch you all night. Move your fingers more, baby. Put one inside you.”
I don’t know what has come over me, but it feels so good, I can’t stop. I slide a finger inside, drenching myself in my own juices and trying to hold back a whimper.
“Just like that, goddamn.” Cody groans as his gaze moves from my skirt and back to my face.
I want to hide from him, but the way he looks at me is adding to my arousal. My release isn’t far—I can feel it building into something massive and all-consuming.
“Are you close, baby?” He’s still half watching my lap, half watching my face, like he can’t decide which part of me to stare at. “I’m close. It’s so fucking hot seeing you let loose. Let go for me, Alice.”
“I’m—I’m close.”
“Good, you can come, it’ll be so nice.”
I cry out, my hips lifting, pumping against my own fingers to increase the friction on my clit. “I’m coming—”
I reach out blindly with my free hand. He takes it in his.
He groans, squeezing my fingers and moving his hand up to the tip of his length so he can catch the seed that erupts.
We come together, holding hands. Our breathing seems suddenly loud in the quiet of the dark car.
Cody gives my hand another squeeze before letting me go. He reaches across me to get some tissue from the glove compartment, which he uses to wipe off his other hand. “Alice, that was amazing. How do you feel?”
“I feel bad.” I didn’t realize it until I said the words, but it’s true.
“What?” He looks puzzled as he faces me more fully. “Why the fuck would you feel bad, Wonderland?”
I think back to how all of this started. How Brayden grabbed me, and Cody came to rescue me, and then I yelled all of that stuff to Brayden about how I was sleeping with Landon and Cody and they’re better than him. Not my finest moment. I’m usually calm, cool. I don’t lose my shit like that.
Then I follow it up by…by masturbating with Cody in his car? What am I doing? I’m insane.
“Because I used you,” I say. “We did this because I was mad at Brayden.”
“No, we did this because we wanted to. Brayden had no fucking part in it.”
“I guess.”
“Were you thinking about Brayden when you were touching yourself and making those sweet little noises?”
I look down, embarrassed at how he noticed my sounds. “No, I wasn’t thinking of him.”
“I didn’t think so. And if that’s ‘using me,’ then you should use me as often and as selfishly as you desire.” He reaches for my hand and brings it to his mouth.
I watch, transfixed, as he licks up and down my fingers, cleaning them off.
“You taste fucking good, Wonderland.” His gaze meets mine, and I can’t look away.
ALICE - THEN
Cody’s light brown eyes met mine over the picnic table. “Please, Alice. I’m not saying to break up with the guy, but maybe give it some more time before jumping into an engagement?”
“He said you’d be jealous.” I shook my head and pulled my hands out of his reach. “He said you’d try to talk me out of it.”
Next to him, Landon gave me the kind of look a father would give his wayward daughter. “Alice, it isn’t that we’re jealous. It’s that we’re worried.”
“Can’t you be happy for me?” I pointed to my ring. “I’m going to get married. I’ve dreamed of this forever.”
They were incredibly handsome, sitting across from me at the picnic table in Blackberry Park. Landon’s beard made him look like royalty, like one of the Caperna princes. Cody, as usual, looked flirtatious, like the kind of playboy my mother used to warn me about.
Together, they spelled danger for my libido, revving me up, inciting treacherous fantasies.
Those fantasies could ruin everything Brayden and I were building together. A future, a family. Status within the church, and security.
“You have your whole life in front of you,” Cody said, his flirtatiousness fading as he focused on my face. He looked earnest, concerned.
“I know.” I stood up abruptly. “I have a life with Brayden. I love him, and all I wanted was your support. I guess I don’t have it.”
I tried not to cry as I walked away, but I couldn’t help my tears. I was crying partly because I was walking away from my two closest friends. Partly because they didn’t stop me.
ALICE - NOW
Back then, Cody had looked at me with a softness in his eyes, a vulnerability.
He isn’t looking at me like that now. His gaze is filled with lust, which I never saw before. But it’s also guarded, like he’s hiding a part of himself, holding it back and away.
Something changed in him, while I was gone. I think I might have caused it.