The next twenty minutes were playful, joyous fun. Lyda soaped Gen's breasts, running her fingers in all crevices, doing the same to Noah, then letting them do it to her, so that they were all exploring, kissing, fondling. Then Lyda changed back to a demanding Mistress, shoving Gen against the tile and plunging her fingers into her, worrying her clit with her thumb. At her command, Noah pressed up behind Lyda, slid an arm around her waist, bent his knees and impaled his Mistress on his cock.
"Cup your breasts for us, Gen," Lyda said with hoarse demand. "Play with your nipples while I enjoy your cunt."
Gen did, until she was crying out for mercy, to be allowed to come. Lyda let her go only after she did. Noah fell shortly thereafter, their cries and moans echoing through the shower and making Gen want to start all over.
*
Such over-the-top sexual intensity could easily bespell a person, make her believe she was feeling deeper emotions. So over the next several days, Gen tested the theory, and was happy to find she enjoyed the nonsexual things the three of them did together as much. She savored every new thing she learned about them. Yes, the Dom/sub thing was always a pleasant undercurrent, but it was part of who Lyda and Noah were. A part she realized she liked very much, in or out of bed.
That second day, they did a lot of shopping and sightseeing. She and Noah bought Lyda a T-shirt that said Badass Bitch. She retaliated by buying them bright red Dr. Seuss shirts that said Thing 1 and Thing 2 and making them wear them. They sampled fudge, wandered wide-eyed through Ripley's Believe It or Not, and went hiking in the National Park. Noah coaxed Gen into letting him piggyback her for short stints to give her tired feet a rest. It was charming and sweet, and not at all a hardship to rest against his back, her cheek against his shoulder. Lyda's hand occasionally brushed her back or hip. Then there was dinner and the nightly walk with Dot, followed by more bedtime pleasures.
The next day, they went driving around outside of Gatlinburg to explore antique shops, dusty stores piled to the ceiling with paperbacks, and places run by local artisans. When they found a craft supply store, they had to drag Gen out of there at closing time. Lyda promised she could return later...if she was good. The sensual threat set off all sorts of fantasies in Gen's head, while probably scandalizing the shopkeeper.
When they returned to the cabin, Lyda left Noah and Gen to their own devices for dinner, opting for an energy bar and a run. She told Noah she'd catch up to them on the walk with Dot.
"How far does she run?" Gen asked Noah as they went across the bridge to retrieve Dorothy. He grinned.
"Do you really want an answer to that?"
"Let me guess. She found out how far Army Rangers can run, called them a bunch of pussies and doubled it."
"Tripled it, more likely." He had his arm around her, hand tucked into the back pocket of her jeans. "I've told her if she wasn't so beautiful she'd be totally butch. She told me she has no problem being both."
"No, she doesn't." Gen sighed.
Dorothy met them at the door on her walker. She spent a certain amount of time each day using it so her muscles wouldn't atrophy. Gen watched, quietly charmed by Noah's gentleness as he helped Dot into her scooter, then held open the screen door so she could motor down the ramp.
Gen's affection for Noah's grandmother had strengthened into adoration over the past few days. It was fueled by her merciless teasing of Noah, always tempered with a tender love in her eyes and touch. Noah was obviously nourished by the relationship, and that alone would have made Gen love the old woman. Studying them together, Gen realized it was the most relaxed she'd seen him, even when he was with her and Lyda.
"There she comes." Noah nodded. At the base of the steep hill they were going down, Lyda was coming up, moving at a steady pace. Sweat dampened the T-shirt between her breasts, the running shorts clinging to her hips and toned thighs, her thick tail of hair swinging over her shoulders. She had on her earbuds, listening to the player she had strapped to her arm.
"Heavy metal," Noah said. "She runs to old school stuff. AC/DC, Aerosmith. If you ever want to really piss her off, slide some Guns and Roses or Poison into the mix. She considers them rock wannabes." Since he was behind Dot, he rubbed his backside with a grimace, pantomiming an awkward gait, as if he'd had rebar shoved up his ass. Gen hid a smile.
"I never swung that way," Dorothy remarked, "but she is a cool drink of water, isn't she? Makes you feel all fluttery. She's sort of beyond your reach, like bumping into Grace Kelly or Greta Garbo." She lifted a hand to draw Noah parallel to her. "Stop walking behind me making faces, boy. I'll box your ears."
"Yes ma'am." He squeezed her hand. Dorothy looked back at Lyda. "But she makes me think about what Rita Hayworth said. 'They go to sleep with Gilda, but they wake up with me.' She needs things, just like we all do."
"Sometimes I'm not so sure," Gen said. "She's as self-contained as an island. If you erode one shore, she'll just add on to the back side."
"So take a boat out to her. Kings or garbage men, we all need love. To be needed and accepted for who we are, deep inside. That's the way you solve every problem, and find out what's important, and what's not."
She held Gen's gaze long enough for Gen to realize the woman was trying to say something that covered more than just Lyda. Noah touched Dot's shoulder. "Don't be a busybody," he said mildly.
His grandmother looked up at him. "Just saying the truth, my boy," she said. "The truth your heart knows."
Lyda reached them then. As she ran in place, she removed the earbuds, tucking them into the armband. "I love running here," she told Dot.
"Of course you do," Gen said. "There are ninety degree inclines everywhere."
"Maybe it's what I have waiting at the top of the hill." Lyda crooked an arm around her neck, pulling her in for a kiss, surrounding Gen with the scent of sweaty woman. Thinking of how hard Lyda pushed her body and Dot's warning about arthritis, Gen decided she'd learn how to give Lyda massages. Rub lotion into every inch of her skin. Maybe she and Noah could take a class together so they could do it at the same time. There was plenty of that lithe body to share.
It was the thought a person had when she intended to be with someone for a long time. This weekend had made it easier to fall into that mode of thinking, the three of them working so well together, but vacations could be like that. The quick shadow in Noah's gaze at his grandmother's pointed comment warned against that. As did the other things Gen knew about Lyda--or didn't know, as the case might be. Take a boat out to her...
She realized then she hadn't been self-conscious about Lyda kissing her. True, it was just a press of lips to lips, not a knee-weakening tongue invasion, but it had been a lovers' kiss. Dorothy was pointing something out to Noah. She'd seen it, Gen was sure, but it didn't seem to offend her. Lyda's expression told Gen she'd noticed her lack of self-consciousness. And liked it.
Gen slid a finger along Lyda's collarbone, collecting perspiration. "I'm going to learn how to give massages," she said. "Then I can make your muscles feel better after your hard workouts. I'll also feed you ice cream."
Lyda gave her one of her sultry looks. She did a few more cool down circles around them at a trot, until Dorothy told her she was making her dizzy and Lyda dropped to a walk next to them.
It was one of the nicest trips Gen could remember having...ever.
*
Lyda took the wheel on the first leg of the return trip. Gen was in the front with her, Noah in the back, stretched out on the seat, sleeping. Gen turned on her hip to study him. He had his long legs bent, one foot braced on the floorboards, the other knee leaning against the seatback. His arm was over his eyes, the other loose across his chest. He hadn't taken many extra naps here, his sleep less disturbed. Except for last night.
About three a.m. she'd woken to find Lyda and her alone in the bed. When she'd lifted her upper body to peer over Lyda, she'd seen him through the window, sitting on the back porch swing in darkness. His head was tilted, listening to the evening sounds.
Making sure the covers were tucked around the soundly sleeping Lyda, Gen picked up his pillow and the throw at the end of the bed and took them out to the porch.
Noah studied her with his dark eyes, saying nothing, but he made room for her. She propped the pillow against his thigh, lay down on her hip. As he stroked her hair, she curled her hands around his thigh.
"You should be in bed," he murmured. "It's more comfortable."
"I want you to know I'm right here. We both are. Even if she sleeps like the dead."
"She always has," Noah glanced through the window, into the darkened room. "She says it's why she'd be a terrible mother."
"What do you think her mother was like?"
"I thought she might be like Lyda, terrifying, but I was wrong. She doesn't talk much about her family, but one time she said, 'I make them uncomfortable, because I'm so different.' She says they have the Christmas-card-once-a-year, contact-me-if-someone-dies kind of relationship."
"That's sad. But I get it." Gen couldn't say her relationship with her own mother was much different. Their phone calls usually petered out after ten minutes, and they'd started spending holidays separately back in her twenties.
They were three people without close family ties, and perhaps because all of them were aware of what they were missing, they sought it elsewhere. She grazed his chin, stroking the sandpaper stubble. "Whether she says it or not, or we mean it the same way, we love you, Noah."
Their eyes held forever, it seemed. Rather than struggling for the right thing to say, like she'd done the day at the guesthouse and chosen so wrongly, she let her feelings be guided by that penetrating look. Following the map it laid out inside her heart, she didn't analyze the words that came to her lips, just spoke them.
"You're a treasure. You're also a pain in the ass. You're beautiful, sexy, frustrating. You're sad, broken. Strong, amazing. All those things separated out might mean different things, but all together, woven into one special soul? That's a gift."
She touched his mouth again. "I don't want you to say anything. The words are for you. You do with them what you will. We'll simply love you."
Settling her head on his thigh again, she closed her eyes. After a time, he stroked her once more, his feet keeping the porch swing moving in a cradle rock. She fell asleep that way, vaguely aware of when he carried her back to bed, tucked her in between him and Lyda and curled close behind her.
Coming back to the present, Gen thought about how he was with them, with his grandmother, and how he'd reacted to Elias. Last night, the words she'd spoken had been pure feeling, but she knew they were right. What purpose they'd serve, she didn't know. But she hoped it was like looking at the concept for a collage, sorting through paper choices, seeing the picture form until that click moment when she knew how it was going to work.
The thought reminded her she had some magazines to flip through, but she turned back to Lyda, intending to ask if she wanted her to read an article, play some music or initiate conversation, doing her part as the person riding shotgun.
Instead, in a blink of the universe, she saw Lyda's expression change, her lips draw back, her body going rigid. Then she wrenched the wheel to the right.
The world exploded.
There was the impact, the flash of the car hitting them. The Escalade was spinning out of control, hitting the guard rail--oh God--going through the guard rail. The nose of the car dipped like at the top of a roller coaster.
Screaming, air pushing through the lungs...pain, crashing metal...Gen head hit something hard, blood in her eyes...
Please, no.
Silence.
Gen opened her eyes. Things were rocking, back, forth, back, forth...a seesaw. It was like she was on a seesaw, vertical, facing down. She needed to throw up, but she was wheezing, a hard pressure against her chest. Her forehead was itching. What a crazy thing to annoy her right now.
"Gen. Gen. I need your help." Noah's voice. Urgent, imperative. "Look at me. Look toward my voice."
Her head turned before her eyes opened, and she fought the desire to throw up. She was looking up at him. How was that possible?
"Gen."
Noah had never snapped at her, as demanding as Lyda, his eyes hard as stone. Why wasn't Lyda saying anything? "I...I can't seem to move."
"Wiggle your fingers and toes."
She did, relieved to feel those. A similar look crossed Noah's face, seeing her do it.
"You're wearing your seat belt and the car's on its side on a slope. Keep looking at me. Don't look away. I'm your focal point."
Dazed, she tried to look away, get her bearings, but he made that sharp noise. He even lifted an arm toward her, carefully. He had one hand wrapped around the chicken strap, elbow hooked around the seat back, one foot braced on the back of the driver's seat. She could see sky through the back window. Their various luggage items seemed to be clustered at odd places in the oddly angled car, like one of those funny skewed perspective paintings.
"Gen."
She forced herself to focus again, and he nodded in approval.
"You're going to go out my window." He pointed above himself and she saw it was broken, jagged pieces of glass forming teeth around the opening. She saw trees, smelled forest. As well as burning metal, smoke. "When I say go, I'm going to unbuckle you, give you a lift up there, all right? But you have to hold onto the seat so you don't fall forward, and try to help me, move this way and come right to me, okay?"
She was starting to realize what was happening, understand the slight rocking motion of the car. She knew now why he didn't want her looking toward the front of the car. She swallowed, hard. "Noah, what if...shouldn't we wait..."
"We can't. It will be too late." Though he spoke calmly, his brown eyes were brilliant and intent. "You remember that day Chloe got hurt? I know you wish you'd been there. That you could have helped and protected her. This is your chance to do that, Gen. You're going to save all three of us. Okay?"
"Okay." She wasn't sure of any of it, but then the car groaned, the seesawing abruptly becoming more pronounced.
"Now. Hold onto the seat." With the sharp command and a curse, Noah leaned forward, his pocket knife already out to slice through the seat belt. Gen's arms were too shaky, and she lost her grip, but Noah grabbed her arm. She was able to seize it with the other hand as well, and he pulled her up into the back seat. "Move slow and steady. Be still. Be still now."
He held Gen against him with a rigid-as-steel arm. He made that harsh noise to keep her motionless, both their weights pressed to the seat like glue, against gravity. Slowly...so slowly, the seesawing went back to a more gentle motion again.
"Okay." Noah let out a breath and lifted his head, directing her attention to where the broken out window beckoned. Then he looked back down at her. "Out of the two of us, I'm the only one who has the upper body strength to pull her free, lift her up to you. I'll push and you'll pull her through. Okay? I know your arms are shaking, but you have to find the adrenaline, Gen. You have to be strong enough. Understand?"
His dark gaze bored into her face. Though she sensed she was in shock, possibly concussed, things were becoming clearer and his message got through. "Okay. Yes. I will."
"I know you will." He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. "Once you're out there, move back as far as you can to counterbalance."
She noticed he had blood on his neck, running down into his shirt from his hairline. She wasn't the only one shaking. "Everything working good enough to do this?" he asked. "Anything feel broken?"
It wasn't like they had a lot of options if anything was. He'd just made that clear. Maybe he was just giving her that extra second to let adrenaline juice her up even further. Kudos to the powers-that-be for providing that perk in life-or-death situations. But now that some clarity was returning, she had to look for Lyda. She had to, even when Noah tried to stop her. She looked toward the driver's seat. And bit back a cry.
Her beautiful hair was a mass of blood. She was draped over the
steering wheel like a ragdoll, face turned away. She wasn't moving. "Noah."
"She's alive. I refuse to believe anything else." He set his jaw. "We just do this. No talking about that."
"Okay." She bit back the fear, fought the fuzziness in her brain that could kill them all. "What do I need to do again?"
"I'm going to give you a boost out that window. We'll try to do it smooth. Fast, but not too fast. Once you're up there, move back as much as you can to help us counterbalance. Once we're steady again, I'll cut Lyda loose and push her up through the window. You pull, and we'll get her out of there. Move both of you toward the back, so I have a clear track out the window. All right?"
"But...why not just get out and open her door?"
"Her door was the main impact point. It's dented and probably not able to open. And there are other reasons. No time to explain. Here, use this towel to grab the edge of the window, since it has broken glass. Ready?"
Noah touched her face, held her gaze. She thought there'd never been a shorter or longer moment in her life than right now, seeing the steel nerve in those brown eyes, the deep fear, but not for himself. "If the car falls anyway, there's nothing anyone could have done to stop that," he said. "If it starts to fall, you jump off the rear wheel."
"No." A different kind of fear flooded her. "No. We just do it together and see what happens. We just do it. Stop talking about things like that."
He stared into her eyes. "Okay."
She nodded. "I'm ready."
"Go." He boosted her up before she could say anything else. She gritted her teeth, scrambled out the window, cutting herself on the glass in her haste, even with the protection of the towel. Stomach muscles she didn't know she had helped her through that opening and she scrambled for the back tire. The car was wedged loosely between a stand of slender trees and perched on a jutting layer of rock, explaining the instability. She had a harrowing impression of the steep side of the mountain.
Forest covering the slopes had slowed the vehicle, but it wasn't thick enough. Where it thickened was in the deep ravine about a hundred feet below them. A rushing wide creek cut through it, showing the depth of the drop over the edge of those rocks. The car would pitch straight down amid the tall pines, speared by or destroying them on its crashing descent.