Chapter 20 Marshall
CHAPTER TWENTY
Marshall
Wednesday
Oh shit.
I know immediately this isn’t real.
The hallway is wrong. Stretched, dimmer than it should be, the light buzzing too loudly, as if it’s coming through water.
The carpet under my bare feet is cold in a way that doesn’t make sense, and when I look down, my toes don’t quite line up with the rest of me.
But I don’t wake up.
Jesse has Abilene pinned against the wall, his hands all over her, and the sight of it hits me straight in the gut. I’ve walked in on something I shouldn’t be seeing.
Except I’m not walking. I’m stuck. Rooted.
Fuck.
My hands ball into fists, nails biting into my palms, because I know if I loosen them, everything will break. Lightning, maybe, or the illusion holding this together.
Jesse’s got that starved wolf grin on his face, the one he wears when he wants something too much, and Abilene isn’t exactly saying no.
My face feels hot. But I don’t move.
I force myself to watch.
There’s a shameful electricity in witnessing what you want, but only through a glass wall. The hallway’s cold, too. The AC hums, and I swear the vents must be aimed directly at the patch of carpet where my toes curl, because my skin prickles.
But inside my chest, just under my ribs, my whole body tightens and burns with a shameful pulse I can’t unclench.
Jesse’s hand slides to the small of Abilene’s back.
He’s intense, tracing the waistline of her leggings. He seems almost drunk, every movement overpronounced, nearly cartoonish, but she’s the same, and her head tilts back, hair just missing the cheap plastic smoke detector above.
Her laugh floats through the air, barely audible. She’s pretty when she’s flushed, when her guard is down.
I want to reach out and touch her hair, just to see if it still smells of cinnamon and Pantene, but I’m on the other side of the glass, frozen out by my own fear.
And then, just like that, she glances past Jesse’s shoulder and catches my eye.
Shit. Does she want me too?
Immediately, my cock hardens. I know I shouldn’t. This is kinda insane, but I find myself drifting towards them.
I want Abilene too. I can’t deny that. If Jesse is also pleasuring her, then so be it.
There’s a little voice hissing that I should break it up. Be mature. Be a friend and step in, or at the very least, back off and let them have their moment in private.
But I can’t.
I walk up to them instead, so slow and heavy-footed I barely feel the ground. My hands find the edge of the cheap hallway trim, a shitty plastic imitation of crown molding, and I grip it hard as a ship railing.
Jesse doesn’t notice me, most of his attention sandwiched between the base of Abilene’s neck and her collarbone. He’s nipping her there, marking her, and her breath fogs the space just above his head.
Abilene doesn’t look away from me. Her mouth opens and closes silently, then she gestures down and back, a flick of her wrist that’s either “come here” or “get lost.”
I choose to go toward her, to cave to what my dick wants. Almost as if she senses what I need, Abilene pushes off from the wall, twists a little, and drops to her knees in front of Jesse, inviting me in.
The carpet burns my knees as I sink behind her, hands hovering in the static between our bodies. Abilene’s spine arches, and her ass presses flush against me.
It seems she’s always known I’d be here, a second shadow behind her.
My hands settle on her hips, uncertain, then bolder, and her whole body shudders in response.
Jesse has his fly down already, his boxers the only thing separating her from him.
For a split second, I feel a jealous knot in my gut, as if this is a contest and I’m about to lose, or maybe win, or maybe both.
Jesse’s eyes finally flick toward me, a slow, drunken realization pouring over his face. But instead of telling me to fuck off as I half-expect, he grins, daring me.
It’s a look that says, come on, let’s see who can make her break first.
I don’t know if that makes Jesse my teammate or my enemy, or maybe just another animal in the same tangled food chain.
Abilene’s small hand tugs the material down and closes around Jesse. He gasps, all the joking drained out of his face, replaced by a surprised rawness.
Her other hand reaches back for me. Heat leaps from her wrist into my palm, surging up my arm fast as a short circuit. I’m shaking so hard I worry she might notice, but Abilene only squeezes tighter.
I want to slow it down, say something clever, or ask if she’s sure, but my mouth is dry, and my mind is gone, kneeling on this rug with the wood paneling pressing lines into my back.
She pulls Jesse toward her face. His cock is flushed and glossy with a bead of wet at the tip, and I see it twitch as it hits the cold air. I freeze.
Then Abilene looks at me again, as if to say, “Ready?” and I nod, even though I’m not, not really.
She puts her mouth around him. Easy, but I can tell she’s teasing.
She goes slow, slower than Jesse wants, and he makes a low, desperate sound in his throat. She reaches back for me again with her other hand, finding my belt buckle.
Just having her fingers there, fumbling with the clasp, dragging it loose, popping the button, is enough to make my pulse spike.
My zipper sticks, but then it’s open, and she reaches in and wraps her hand around me, hot and almost greedy. I gasp, or maybe whimper. I’m so hard I can barely breathe.
I press my chest to her back, and my cock slips between her thighs, right behind her leggings, and she leans into me, releasing a moan that vibrates all the way into my teeth.
Jesse groans. “Damn, Abilene. You’re fucking…”
He exhales sharp, his hips stuttering forward, and she laughs around him, a wet noise that makes me lose my damn mind.
Her hair spills over her collar, strands brushing my chin whenever I lean down. I kiss the back of her neck, right where Jesse bit her, and I feel her pulse flutter fast under my lips.
She’s got both of us, her hands working in mismatched rhythm. Jesse’s cock fills her mouth, then slips free with a wet gasp. She pants, a spit string snapping in the air.
“Don’t come yet,” she scolds him playfully. “Seriously, it’s so fucking annoying when you do.”
Jesse tries to laugh it off, but the sound comes out shaky, more as a cough. I almost pity him, until she tugs me closer and I nearly fall on top of them both.
I feel the urge to take the lead, to show Jesse up, to do something that will make Abilene remember me more than him.
“Let’s just…”
I shift her around, and she lets me, a ragdoll twist, so she’s braced on her hands and knees, hair half shielding her face from Jesse, but not from me.
Her leggings are still on; I glide a hand over her ass, press her down, line myself up. I want her so bad even the rub of my cock against the fabric feels like a miracle.
Abilene looks over her shoulder and dares, “Well?”, taunting both of us. She knows exactly how much we want it, and she’s the queen of rationing, the evil genius controlling every drop.
It’s a relief when Jesse finally understands his role, wrapping a hand in her hair to steady her, letting her guide him back. He’s a show off, but he’s also a follower; he waits for my cue.
I drag her leggings down. She lifts her hips to help, and both of us are helping, and it’s almost comical, the three sets of hands fumbling at the stretchy fabric, rushing toward the same goal with no coordination.
Abilene’s laugh bubbles up again, closer to a bark. Her leggings catch at the knees; I don’t care. Her underwear’s black and uselessly thin, and I just press my forehead to the small of her back and breathe her in, wanting to tattoo this memory behind my eyes.
Jesse lines up at her mouth again, more urgent now, and she takes him with this weird, hungry grace. He moans, and the sound rattles in my chest, lighting off another nuclear pulse of jealousy and lust.
I want to hear her moan louder. I want to see her come apart first for me, before she does for him.
I push against her, and the heat of her through that slip of cotton is almost unbearable. She arches into me and grinds back, and fuck if the friction doesn’t make my eyes water.
She wants it, wants me, and that’s more intoxicating than all the cheap vodka in the world.
Two seconds later, and I’m rutting against her, desperate, barely holding on to whatever tattered edge of self-control I have left.
I push her underwear aside, still letting her tease, and then I’m sliding into her, and my whole brain shorts out.
She’s so wet, the way it squishes between us, the staccato slap of skin on skin echoing between the walls. I look up and catch Jesse’s eye, and suddenly I don’t care about beating him.
This isn’t about fucking her. It’s about something else, brutal and comforting. She makes a noise, half moan, half exhale, and both our hands dig into her hips, carving marks for later.
And then it shatters.
I jerk awake with a violent gasp, lungs burning as if I’ve been underwater too long. My heart is slamming so hard it hurts, a wild, panicked rhythm that takes a few seconds to slow.
The cabin is dark. Silent. Real.
No hallway.
No voices.
No Abilene.
Just me, tangled in rough sheets, sweat cooling fast against my skin. My hands are clenched so tight they ache, fingers numb, because they were gripping something that vanished the second I opened my eyes.
Fuck.
I scrub a hand down my face, breath still uneven, pulse roaring in my ears. The dream clings stubbornly, images bleeding into the dark behind my eyelids, no matter how hard I blink them away.
It felt too real.
Too detailed.
I sit up, elbows on my knees, head bowed, trying to ground myself in the quiet hum of the cabin and the distant lap of water against the shore.
Somewhere down the hall, a floorboard creaks as the building settles.
Abilene’s door stays shut. Jesse’s room stays dark.
Everything is exactly as it should be.
And still, my chest feels tight. My body wired and restless. My mind refusing to let go of what it imagined so vividly.
I press my palms into my eyes and exhale, as if that might put me back together.
It doesn’t.
Because now I know something I can’t unknow.
And sleep doesn’t come back for a long, long time.