The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Ten: Lauren, Sunday

She woke up wondering if she was in some kind of time loop. Every morning seemed the same; she woke up way before she wanted to. "Five more minutes," she grumbled, refusing to open her eyes. "Need more sleep."

"No one's asking you to get up," Rachel grumbled, sliding an arm around her back and drawing her closer. 

Lauren felt her lover's skin against her cheek, smelled her Amarige by Givenchy, burrowed her way down her chest and sought her nipple like a newborn babe. 

Rachel purred sleepily. "Babe," she said, "the kids will be awake soon. You don't want me shrieking like a banshee right now."

"Just bite into a pillow," she said.

"Sweetie, we're pushing our luck just with my being here. The kids might have been okay with it when I was healing up, but I haven't been back here for a couple of weeks. They'll at least wonder why."

Lauren sighed. "Fine. I guess what we did last night will have to suffice."

"And what we did last night was pretty damned nice."

Lauren looked at her, pouted and said, "I feel sorry for Al, two floors below us, sleeping alone."

Rachel smiled sardonically. "I know what you're doing."

"What am I doing?" she asked with mock innocence.

"Guilting me into inviting him up here one night."

Lauren chuckled throatily and burrowed deeper into Rachel's neck, kissing all the places she loved. "The bed's enormous. It'll fit three."

"You know why we're doing this, babe. You need to get your husband free from Joanie's clutches. Al understands it has to be this way. He let me come up here knowing he'd be down there. Unlike some people, we tell each other who we're having sex with."

Lauren was glad Rachel couldn't see her face right now, or she'd see her self-satisfied smirk. She was now certain Al hadn't told her about Friday, and that he'd let her come up here out of guilt over what they'd done. The memory of it made her shiver with pleasure, and Rachel took that to mean she was turning her on, because her hands found Lauren's breast and ass and began squeezing. 

"I thought the kids will be up soon," Lauren purred.

"Your fault. I can't resist you when you're pressed into me."

They were quick about it, and while Rachel worked on Lauren she kept remembering how she and Al fucked in that shower, the fear of being caught only enhancing the experience for her. What would the bigwigs at VPL have thought if they'd caught the head of their newest security contractor in flagrante with one of the staff on the first day of the new contract? It had been the stupidest risk she'd ever taken, maybe stupider than taking Al up to his room at Harrison Hot Springs and then hearing Joe pounding on the door, seconds away from murdering him; it was one thing to destroy her home life, still another to ruin her reputation and tank her company. So, why had she done it? It wasn't that Al was so irresistible that she'd been willing to take the risk. Did she get off on the adrenaline rush? Was that the reason she was risking her marriage? It had been the same when she'd first seduced Rachel, and neither Al nor Joe had known about them yet. Maybe confessing to Al about them had been the wrong thing to do, because it had dispelled that frisson of risk, and she'd immediately begun looking for ways to get it back, and she'd settled on Al. If she'd just been content sneaking around with Rachel, Joe might still be in the house.

Wait. No. That wasn't true. Joanie had been in the picture even before Lauren had confessed to Al and set all the dominoes tumbling. She still would have found those texts and had to confront Joe about them, and the rift still would have opened. Or she could have just ignored them and witnessed Joe's slow descent into adultery, because she was sure it would have happened eventually. All she'd done was give it her blessing.