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“Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” Jeri retorted as they finished what they were doing and sat down, just as Dante helped Shyla to a space in front of the fire and settled her on one of the folded blankets before announcing they were having pancakes for breakfast and returning to the kitchen to fetch the frying pan and mixture.
* * *
“Those were amazing,”Jericho announced, patting his stomach as he finished his last mouthful. “And here I thought we were going to be half starved for the duration.”
“Well, it will get boring fast if we have to stay too long,” Shyla warned him. “I’m about at my limit for what I can make from the stuff that’s stored here. I can make some flat bread to go with the soup and change up the pasta with a cream sauce. After that I can attempt omelets with the dried milk and powdered egg. Not sure how successful that will be. And then I’m done.”
Jericho took her fingers and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, causing a little shiver to tickle her spine.
“Considering we thought we’d be eating half rations of plain pasta for a single meal, every day, that sounds mighty fine, sweetheart,” he said with a wink.
The praise warmed her as much as kisses. It was nice to be valued, even if they wouldn’t have been in this predicament if not for coming to her rescue.
Dante got up and checked the temperature of the water that was heating on top of the log burner, before taking all their dirty plates to the kitchen.
“The water needs a little while longer,” he decided. “I’ll clean the stuff we’ve used with snow, so we don’t waste all the hot water. We can give them a rinse later on when we’ve had time to boil more.”
“I found a couple of towels. One is pretty skinny, I think we can rip it up and make each of us a washcloth,” Lazarus told them. “We could all do with bathing.”
Shyla remembered her toothbrush and wondered if she should offer to share. Would they think that was gross? Or would it be more gross kissing one of these guys with bad breath and furry teeth? Yuk! Maybe that was more gross. And it wasn’t like they wouldn’t be sharing a whole load of other intimacies, if things kept moving in the direction they were heading.
Except… well, what if they had some sort of blood born disease that she caught from them? On the other hand, she was pretty sure she was going to have sex with one or more of these guys. Maybe all three of them. Shit! No condoms. Shyla had an IUD, so pregnancy wasn’t an issue, but…
Suddenly the toothbrush question paled into insignificance. What was she supposed to do now? Put the brakes on? That would be the sensible option… except she wasn’t feeling very sensible. She was feeling naughty and sexy and really, really horny. It was like they existed in a little bubble which defied reality. A place where things that would normally be considered taboo could happen without reproach from prying eyes. Where she could live out her fantasies without censure. Not that she’d ever realized this particular fantasy before, but now the opportunity existed, she was desperate to taste it.
She was in a position born of circumstance and necessity where intimacy was unavoidable and inevitably flourished because it was impossible to maintain any kind of distance.
It wasn’t real though, she reminded herself. None of this was real.
When they got off this mountain and went back to the regular, safe existence of their everyday lives, that return to reality would mark the end of whatever illusion of fantasy they spun here.
The opportunity to experience something so forbidden would be gone, and likely never come again, so if she didn’t grasp it with both hands, right now, it would be lost forever.
She would regret not taking the chance; she knew that much. But was she prepared to deal with the consequences? Although she’d likely regret those too.
But what if there weren’t any? She was getting ahead of herself here. Imagining scenarios that might not even exist; letting her imagination run away with her.
It might be an awkward conversation to address in the cold light of day without the heat of the moment to float it, but the only way to find out was to ask.
She’d start with the toothbrush.
* * *
Lazarus wasbusy ripping up the rather threadbare towel when Shyla dug something small and almost unrecognizable out of her bag and stared at it for a while, completely lost in thought, her expression serious, like she had the cares of the world on her shoulders.
He wondered what was going through that pretty little head of hers.
The ripping sound of the cloth brought her out of her reverie. Or maybe she’d set the world to rights inside her mind. But whatever it was it brought a frown with it.
“Is ripping up someone else’s property a good idea?” She asked, biting her lip in a way that gave him all sorts of ideas.
“Don’t worry,” he replied, keeping his desires in check. For now, at least. “Jeri and I already discussed it. We’ll arrange replacements for everything we’ve used, and maybe a bit extra for whoever else finds themselves in need of shelter during an emergency. It’s generally accepted that these cabins work this way.”
She smiled then. “That’s a great idea. I’d like to contribute too. There are definitely some things that could be added to the pantry to make things easier. Maybe some tinned goods.”
She looked back at the thing in her hand, then over to Dante and Jeri, before glancing back to him.
“I, um, have some tooth powder we can share, but… well, there’s only one toothbrush.”
