Chapter 31: Chapter 30 - Nat

Friday 11 December

~*Nat’s POV*~

“To Cody!” We all raised our full glasses to the sky, alcohol sloshing over the edges as we clinked them with our neighbours’ glasses, mixing everyone’s drinks into new and exciting varieties of beverages.

“To me!” Cody shouted before downing the remains of her own drink in one overwhelming gulp before slamming the glass onto the timber tabletop. She raised her hands in the air in a victory salute to the heavens and jumped around in time with the thumping bass playing over the speakers. “Woo!”

I settled back into the leather-lined booth, bringing my glass to my lips, and taking a sip. Cradling the same glass for almost an hour now, I wasn’t really feeling the need to get completely blackout drunk like Cody was, simply content to keep a seriously cheerful buzz going. I had lost count of the number of drinks I had had earlier in the night and decided to slow down once I started feeling nauseous. I had been holding the same glass ever since.

Once everyone else had arrived and she had recovered from her grudging embarrassment about spilling her first drink all over Tiergan, Cody had started to dance around The Gap like a madwoman possessed, at least one drink always in her hand, occasionally two. All the men either stood to or sat at the sides of the room that we had been placed in, with their drinks in hand, happy to let her and Zelda circle each other, singing at the top of their lungs to whatever tune was blaring out of the speakers set into the ceiling.

The girls tried to rope me in to dance with them. I gave in every couple of songs, but I much preferred to sit or stand off to the side, even though I had to admit that my alcohol intake had proven effective in loosening me up. Regardless, I still hadn’t shifted the uneasy feeling that dropped over me whenever I had my back to the room. Constantly feeling under scrutiny, the creeping terror that drifted through my veins had me hightailing it to the nearest wall, where I could lean my back against it and stare out at the others in the room.

It seemed that the alcohol I had consumed had loosened my inhibitions, but also spiked my paranoia. The breathing techniques that Kennedy had taught me over the course of the week were certainly coming in handy tonight.

“How are you doing, Nat?” Bells dropped into the seat opposite me. He clasped his drink with both hands, shuffling sideways until he was comfortable.

“Oh, you know. Same ol’, same ol’,” I said. Drunkenly, I gazed out at Cody and Zelda as the music once again shifted into a new beat and they both squealed with excitement. “They look like they’re having fun.”

Bells turned and watched the pair jump around in time with the music. “That they do.” His head bobbed along with the song’s beat. “You don’t want to join them?”

“Nah. I’m good right here.” I glanced down at my drink before bringing the glass to my lips and taking another sip.

“Well, there goes my plan to ask you to dance,” he said, his ever-present grin broadening as he took in my surprise. He brought his own glass to his lips, raising an eyebrow at me as he peered at me over the rim. “What? You don’t think us men-folk dance? I’ll have you know I’ve got all the moves.”

“I’m sure you do, Bells.” I raised my glass to my lips once again to hide my smirk.

“For example,” he said, shuffling back out of the booth he was sitting in, taking two steps around the table we had both been sitting at, and moving to sit down next to me. “Right now, I’m looking to get up close and personal with a certain woman I find myself incredibly attracted to.”

I shifted down the booth to let him in as he lowered himself into the booth next to me. He angled his body towards mine and rested his arm on the back of the booth, the epitome of relaxation. His other hand toyed with the glass, still half full of whatever liquid he’d purchased.

“You like to take the lead, don’t you?” I couldn’t stop my grin as I watched him relax next to me.

He smirked. “Best place to be.” He took another sip from his glass.

“You must be pretty drunk to be this confident.”

“This is still my first glass of the night.”

“Bullshit. You’ve been here at least two and a half hours.”

“Okay, you got me.” He lowered his gaze to his glass. “I wanted to be sober when we talked about going to the movies tomorrow night, just the two of us, but the nerves got the better of me and now I don’t know how many I’ve had.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, choosing to ignore how drunk he could be and focus on the more important topic of conversation. “How would you know I’d be free?”

“Nat, if you’re not free tomorrow night, I’ll just keep asking until you are.”

“You’re that eager to spend time with me?”

“With you? Definitely.”

“What if I say no?” I licked my lips as I lifted my glass once more, eyeing him over the rim.

He leaned towards me, his eyes darkening. “You won’t.”

“So confident,” I muttered with a sly grin, my head drifting closer to his.

“Not at all,” he whispered, lifting a hand up to brush my cheek with his knuckles. “It’s taken me all week to build up the courage to ask you. I wouldn’t call that the mark of a confident man.”

I leaned my cheek into his hand, still gliding ever nearer to his own head. My eyes flicked down towards his lips, as I noticed they parted ever so slowly. I couldn’t stop myself from licking my lips again in anticipation of what he might taste like.

“Am I ever gonna see your face agaaaaaain?” Cody sang entirely off-key, as she swung into the booth opposite us, immediately breaking the delicious tension between Bells and myself. I pulled back slightly from Bells’ hand, looking towards our unwanted, yet completely oblivious, guest. Bells’ elbow dropped to the table, his hand still raised, not wanting to let go of the moment between us, his fingers twitching with the need to get closer to me once more.

“I love that song sooooooo much, Nat. It’s such a classic!” Cody shouted as she downed the remnants of her drink and looked over at us. “Come with me, Nat. I need to pee. Then I need another drink. Then I need to… No! We need to dance more!” She boogied in her seat, to prove her point.

“Where’s Zelda? I’m sure you’d rather dance with her, right?” I looked around the room but couldn’t locate the woman in question.

Cody pouted. “She left me, Nat. She left me!” She grabbed my drink from my hands and tipped what remained in the glass into her open mouth. “Why would she do that, Nat?” she said, slurring her words.

“I don’t know, Cody.” That didn’t sound like something Zelda would do, unless... “Where’s Tatum?”

“I don’t knoooooow,” Cody whined. “He’s always going off with Zelda.” I watched the slow realisation of where Zelda could be dawn on her. “Oh! Do you think that’s where she went? Do you think they’ve gone to…” she trailed off, replacing her words with some rather graphic hand movements. “Hic.” She stopped what she was miming, to hold a hand to her mouth as she hiccupped, then giggled. “They always go off to…” The obscene gestures started again.

I chanced a glance at Bells to find him laughing silently. He watched Cody continue her imitation of… something… progressively making her hands move faster and faster. The moment she started to vocalise her movements, I put my hand on hers and forced them down to the tabletop. She hiccupped again.

“Right, time to get you to the ladies.” I turned to Bells. “If you’ll excuse us, please.”

His eyes flicked to me, blinking a few times to get his bearings. “Of course.” He shuffled out of the booth to let me out. “Cock blocked again, it seems…” he muttered under his breath as I passed him, just loud enough for only me to hear, raising his glass to take a disgruntled sip.

I stopped to haul Cody out of her seat and glanced at him. “Not for long, I hope,” I murmured to him, giving him a wink and a grin of my own. “Who knows? Maybe soon, we could actually put into practise what Cody was so vividly miming?”

With the glass still at his lips, Bells choked, alcohol spluttering from his lips as he tried to keep some sense of dignity. I smiled at him innocently as I dragged Cody to the toilets, listening to him splutter and cough, trying desperately to clear his throat after what he’d heard me say.

Smiling as I walked away with Cody, it suddenly dawned on me I had never once thought about saying things like that to Bells before. Apart from the paranoia and the loosening of my inhibitions, it turned out alcohol also made me rather bold.

~~~

Emerging from the dark corridor, I dragged Cody into the room we’d left about twenty minutes prior. Even though she was shuffling her feet, I honestly didn’t know how she was still upright, given the amount of alcohol she’d consumed. I couldn’t imagine that we’d be too far away from calling it a night. I felt like I was about done, myself.

To my relief, I saw Tatum sitting next to Owen in the booth seat opposite Bells and Murph, with Zelda on his lap. They were all chatting away happily about something.

Tiergan and Raf were standing to the side, both holding a large glass of beer in their hands. Raf noticed us coming back and tilted his head at us as we passed. He and Tiergan took the opportunity to accompany us as we joined the group at the now very crowded booth.

“You can sit here, Nat.” Bells shuffled to the edge of the booth and pulled me into his lap. I floundered a little until I found my balance. I watched Murph’s eyes narrow from his spot next to Bells, as Tiergan and Raf pulled over a couple of chairs, sat down, and Tiergan pulled Cody into his lap. Cody giggled as she found her own balance, leaning forward to nab Zelda’s drink from her hand.

“Hey! That’s mine, bitch!” Zelda tried and failed to retrieve the glass from Cody before she downed it in one go.

“It’s sexy time tax, Zeld’s. You shouldn’t have left me.” Cody pointed a finger at Zelda, waggling it in her face.

“What are you talking about?” A faint blush erupted on Zelda’s cheeks. “I was here the whole time…”

“Uh uh,” Cody drawled, still hiccupping. “I know you and Tate’s were somewhere playing hide the pickle.” She glanced at the drinks still left on the table, discerning which one she could liberate from their owner next. “Or the salami...” She went to grab Owen’s drink from the far corner but ended up knocking over Tatum’s instead. “Pineapple…?”

Owen and Tatum were grabbing some paper towels from the table to wipe up the spilled drink when Tatum’s hand stilled in shock at what Cody had just said. All the other men at the table burst out laughing.

“Pineapple?!”

“You have a prickly dick there, Tatum?”

“Hope you’ve got some ointment for that rough surface!”

“Sweet Goddess, ‘hide the pineapple?’ Now I’ve heard everything…”

“Cody!” Zelda glared at her best friend with daggers in her eyes.

“What?” Cody was completely oblivious, still hunting for her next drink. She targeted Murph’s next, who deftly lifted it out of Cody’s reach.

“She doesn’t mean that, honey.” Zelda turned to Tatum and placed her arm around him, drawing him in close and pecking him on the cheek. “Your dick is not prickly like a pineapple.”

The table erupted again as Tatum hung his head in embarrassment. “Thanks, Zelda…”

“So…” Raf tried to bring the conversation back into safer territory. “You’re all in the Camp, right?”

“That’s right,” Tatum responded quickly, latching desperately onto the lifeline Raf was throwing him. “How’d you know?”

“We saw these two yesterday,” Tiergan said, his head bobbing first at me, then Cody, who was still eyeing every drink left on the table with wanton desire. “We finished up warrior training today, so for us, this is just as much a celebration of finishing training as it is Cody’s birthday.”

“You’re both warriors?” Owen asked. He sounded impressed.

“Apparently so,” said Raf. “We start scheduled patrols on Monday.”

I wiggled in Bells’ lap to get into a better position so I could see everyone around the table.

“Wow, that’s quick.” Bells wrapped his arms tighter around my waist.

“Yeah, I think they’re short-staffed at the moment or something.” Raf moved his drink into his other hand once he saw Cody start eyeing it.

I shuffled again to lean forward to tap Cody on the shoulder. “Cody? If you want a drink, we can go up to the bar and get one. You don’t have to keep trying to steal everyone else’s.”

“Aww,” Cody said, swivelling back from Raf to face me. “But it’s so much more fun getting them off everyone…” She pouted, then grinned like a loon when she saw Owen’s drink unattended. She swooped quicker than I think even she expected to grab it up and start drinking.

Bells gripped my hips to stop me from moving. “Nat,” he whispered into my ear. “If you don’t stop moving, I won’t be able to get up from this table anytime soon or let you get up.” He rested his forehead on my shoulder.

“… plans for next year? I assume university for…”

I froze as best as I could in my still drunken state, half leaning over the end of the bench to talk to Cody, half leaning into Bells. As the others talked around us, I focused on listening to Bells’ breathing get more ragged. I leaned back fully into his lap, wrapping an arm around his neck to hold myself in place.

“Is this okay?” I breathed the words against his ear, hoping against hope that no-one else could hear what we were talking about.

He groaned softly, his forehead still leaning on my shoulder. I could feel movement below me, even as I remained stock still. Bells’ hands tightened reflexively.

“… studying for something I’m not sure I’m ready for…”

“Oh, so… not okay, then…” I murmured into his ear. I didn’t know what to do. We had blocked Murph in on our side of the table, so I prayed we wouldn’t have to move soon.

The conversation was still flowing freely around the table, aided by Cody giggling away about something. I tried to hold one ear out to their conversation, but in my addled state, I was finding it extremely hard to concentrate on anything other than Bells.

Bells let out another soft moan in response to my words. The movement I had felt thickened, then stiffened underneath me, at the juncture point between my thighs.

The point where I was rapidly growing warmer and wetter.

“… hoping to be at Fed University in Churchill…”

“I don’t know what to do, Bells... Tell me what to do…” My lips brushed the edge of his ear as I breathed the words. I felt my nipples harden in response to the quiet noises Bells was making, the hard grip that he still held me in, the warmth spreading through my body.

“Stop talking… Making worse…” Bells breathed, his words strangled, his forehead still not having moved from my shoulder.

I thought about what he said. We were both incredibly stuck where we were. I knew that eventually Murph was going to need to get up, which meant that we would have to move. If Bells couldn’t relax before then, it wasn’t going to only be Tatum who felt embarrassed by tonight’s events.

I looked down at what I was wearing, thanking God that I had worn black pants and a dark blue top. I cursed my decision not to wear jeans, because the denim maybe would have helped us, but at least I had worn dark enough colours that could hide how incredibly aroused I felt.

“… not really sure if we’re doing the right thing by sharing…”

Bells was clad in similar clothing, if not similar material. His black jeans were worn thin with age, and he still had on his usual blue denim jacket he wore everywhere, which had enclosed me by default when he had wrapped his arms around me earlier.

Still feeling his dick throb under me, I dropped my mouth to his ear again. “This isn’t working, Bells.” The twitching got worse as I breathed the words into his ear. “You need to finish.”

He rolled his head towards me, a combination of desire, misery, confusion, and shock crossing his face in incredibly quick succession. “What? No!” His panicked eyes flicked towards the others at the table, still oblivious to the two of us.

“Your pants are thick enough and dark enough to get away with this,” I mumbled. “It’s the only way, because eventually we’re going to need to move.”

His eyes bore into my own, silently pleading for me to do something, anything, to get him out of the situation that we had found ourselves in. I stared unblinkingly at him, trying to convince him of my argument; a silent battle of wills playing out between us, surrounded by seven old and new friends.

“… going to have to get a part-time job…”

“We can do this,” I breathed, my eyes pleading to let me help him. “I can help you.”

Not visible to anyone, a shudder ran through him. I felt it travel from his chest down his stomach, bypassing his groin to his thighs, before rebounding back to his cock. His eyes closed in defeat, and he nodded once to me, laying his head down on my shoulder once more.

I sighed softly. We had a course of action. Now, I just had to get him to climax. I couldn’t imagine it would take long, seeing how absolutely rock hard he was already. But it was going to need to be creative. No one could know what we were doing.

No one.

Gripping him around the neck, I brought my breasts as close to his chest as possible, making him feel my nipples poking through the thin top I was wearing. Shifting my torso slowly from one side to the other, I made him feel every part of me as I moved. Now, along with his thick cock beneath me, I could also feel his own nipples harden in response to the sensations I was giving him.

“… went looking for a house a couple of weeks ago…”

Licking my lips, I drifted them across the edge of his ear. I felt him shudder and heard him quietly moan. “Do you like that?” I breathed. “You want more?”

Another shake rippled through his body, stronger than the last. I held onto him tighter, telling myself it was because I was trying to shield his movements from the others, but knowing deep down that I just wanted to get closer to him any way I could.

I shifted where I sat, slowly and softly rubbing my now oven-hot and dripping core against his rigid cock, feeling it pulse harder and stronger against me with every slight movement I made. Bells was sitting as stiff as a board, barely breathing, but with every breath out, a soft, barely audible moan escaped him.

Pushing him into the back of the leather seat, I dragged one of my hands from around his neck and slid it between us, resting it on one of his nipples, hidden from view entirely by my body. Another deep shudder went through Bells as he realised where I had let my hand stop.

“… how long the course will take…”

“I know you want this,” I murmured to him. I flicked his erect nipple with every second word. “Give in, Bells.”

He groaned in response. I felt the tension in his body become even stiffer, more coiled. I pinched his nipple between my thumb and forefinger. “Give it to me.” I ran my tongue over my lips again, then slowly dragged my lips along the edge of his ear. “Let go.”

His grip around my torso became almost unbearable, tightening to a point where I could barely breathe. In response, I tweaked his nipple once again. “Let go, Bells.” I nipped his ear.

A vicious shudder ripped through him as he gasped. He opened his eyes and stared at me as his body trembled. I forced him harder into the back of the seat, holding him still and steady as his cock danced a staccato rhythm beneath me. I held his gaze as his body ever so slowly relaxed.

“Thank you,” I whispered, as the tiniest smile floated across my face. A small, guilty, but relieved smile appeared, before he closed his eyes once more, breathing in and out deeply and slowly, as he finally relaxed his entire system.

“… hope that everything will work out right in the end…”