Chapter 5: Double Vision
The air in the gilded cell was a thick perfume of expensive incense undercut by a base note of human sweat. It clung to the back of Jan’s throat, sweet and cloying. She was on her back on a pile of velvet cushions, the fabric lush against her naked skin. Hands, so many hands, caressed her. Lips traced the line of her jaw, her collarbone, the sensitive curve of her ear.
It was a symphony of sensation. A mouth—Mike’s, she thought, with that familiar, gentle clumsiness—closed over her left nipple, sucking firmly while his tongue flicked the peak. Another mouth—Casey’s, fiercer, more knowing—worked her right breast, teeth grazing in a way that made Jan gasp and arch her back. Fingers, slick with her own arousal, circled her clit with a practiced, torturous rhythm.
“Fuck, yes, right there,” Jan moaned, her head lolling to the side. Her vision was a blur of beloved faces. Mike’s kind, earnest eyes gazing up at her from between her breasts. Casey’s smirking grin before she dove back in. Hank’s large, calloused hands smoothing over her thighs, spreading her wider. Yukio, her tattoos stark in the pulsing amber light, kneeling beside her head, fingers threading through Jan’s short red hair. Stacy, standing over them all, watching with that intense, dark-eyed focus, her hand idly stroking her own flat stomach.
It was perfect. It was everything she’d ever fantasized about on lonely nights. Her friends, her found family, all here, all wanting her, worshipping her body. Fatima’s elegant fingers slid inside her, curling, and Jan cried out, her hips bucking off the cushions.
“God, Fati, don’t stop…”
“You like that, Red?” Fatima’s voice purred, her accent thick. “You are so wet for us. Like a ripe fruit.”
The praise, the touch, the overwhelming sense of being the center of this beautiful, carnal universe… it was intoxicating. Jan’s magic, her innate Power of Exposure, hummed in resonance with the scene, amplifying her own pleasure, feeding the others’ desires in a feedback loop of escalating ecstasy. She was the sun, and they were all orbiting her, burning up in her heat.
Hank leaned down, his broad chest brushing her knees. “My turn, Red,” he growled, his voice a low rumble. He positioned himself, his cock thick and urgent, nudging against her soaked entrance, already stretched by Fatima’s fingers.
Jan was panting, on the precipice. This was it. The final, perfect piece.
But as Hank moved closer, the dim, shifting light of the cell caught the hair at his temples. Silver streaks. Distinct, handsome. And in that fractured moment, Jan’s bliss-hazed mind snagged on a detail.
Hank, in her time, in her real life, didn’t have silver streaks. Not yet. He was younger. Mike and Casey, their hair was still its normal brown and dark blonde, untouched by grey. The Mike and Casey currently lavishing attention on her breasts had threads of silver woven through their hair.
Her eyes darted. Stacy, watching, her hand still moving between her own legs—her hair was perfect, dark and sun-kissed. But the Stacy she’d last seen was twenty-six. This Stacy had a tiny, almost imperceptible line at the corner of her eye, a whisper of a crow’s foot. A detail from a future Jan hadn’t lived.
Illusion.
The realization was a cold splash of water in the face of the orgasm that had been building. The hands on her body didn’t feel like loving caresses anymore; they felt like manipulation. The mouths weren’t worshipful; they were parasitic.
“Stop,” Jan said, her voice hoarse.
The figures didn’t stop. Mike groaned against her breast. Hank pushed forward, the head of his cock breaching her.
“I said STOP!” Jan’s magic flared, not as desire, but as a wave of disruptive will.
The scene shuddered. The faces above her wavered, like reflections in a disturbed pond. For a second, she saw not the familiar, loved features, but blank, polished surfaces—masks worn by something hungry and empty.
Then the vision solidified again, but the wrongness was now undeniable. The silver in their hair. The slight, off-kilter proportions. The love in their eyes that was too focused, too ravenous to be real.
Hank was inside her now, his thrusts starting deep and slow. But the pleasure had curdled into violation. She was being fucked by a collection of her own memories, twisted and used against her.
“You’re not them,” she whispered, tears of frustration and rage mixing with the sweat on her temples.
“Of course we are, sweetheart,” Fake-Casey murmured, licking a stripe up her neck. “We’re exactly who you want us to be.”
“No.” Jan shut her eyes, gathering the core of her power, the part that wasn’t about exposure or arousal, but about the Green Moon’s fundamental principle: the truth of desire. She focused on the ache for her real friends. For Mike’s awkward jokes and Casey’s rebellious snort. For Hank’s clumsy affection and Yukio’s wild stories. For Stacy’s relentless, loyal toughness. For Fatima’s sharp, loving mind.
She pushed that longing outwards, a pulse of pure, un-adulterated want.
The illusions dissolved with a sound like shattering crystal.
The hands vanished. The mouths disappeared. The weight of Hank on top of her evaporated.
Jan was alone on the velvet cushions, naked and shivering, in a cell of gilded iron bars. The air still hummed, but the scent was now purely the burnt-sugar ozone of the realm’s magic. The figures were gone.
From the deeper shadows in the corner of the cell, a slow clapping sound echoed.
“Took you long enough to figure it out.”
Jan scrambled to her knees, covering herself instinctively, though the gesture felt foolish. A figure stepped from the darkness. It was a Jan, but not her. This Jan was older, her face rounder, her body softer under a grey tracksuit streaked with dirt and sweat. Her red hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and her green eyes sparkled with the same mischief, but it was tempered by a deep, weary knowledge.
“Welcome to my memories, sweetheart,” Fat Aunt Jan said, her voice a familiar rasp. She leaned against the pulsing wall, looking Jan up and down. “Or, well, a funhouse mirror version of them. He’s been cycling me through them for… shit, I don’t even know how long. Trying to find the one that makes me break. That makes me want to stay.”
Jan stared, her mind reeling. “You’re… me.”
“Twenty years of pasta and regret later, but yeah.” Fat Aunt Jan wiped sweat from her brow. “He grabbed me when I showed up to use Bob’s stupid gym to lose some of this.” She gestured at her body. “Didn’t work out so well. He used my own connection to time, my brother’s legacy buzzing in my blood, to finish his coup. Kicked Bob out, warped this whole place. Now it’s Tobias’s Pleasure Prison.” She barked a laugh. “He likes alliteration, the prick.”
“He’s feeding on us,” Jan said, understanding dawning. “On our… climaxes. Our energy.”
“Bingo. He’s a psychic vampire with a gourmet palate. Doesn’t want fear or pain. Wants the good stuff. The big, messy, magical orgasms. The stronger the emotions attached, the richer the meal.” She nodded at the now-empty space where the illusions had been. “Your fantasies. My memories. He serves them up, lets us get right to the edge, and then…” She made a sucking sound. “All that lovely, nutritious joy. Gone. And we’re left empty, ready to be filled again.”
Jan felt sick. “My friends are here. Stacy. The kids. They came for me.”
Fat Aunt Jan’s expression softened, then sharpened with concern. “Shit. Of course they did. Brave, stupid, wonderful idiots.” She pushed off the wall. “They’re in the labyrinth. He’ll be leading them into harvesting chambers, feeding gardens. The more they fight, the more scared and horny they get, the better the flavor.”
“We have to help them!”
“Working on it,” Fat Aunt Jan said, pacing the small cell. “Being in here, being the main course… I’ve learned things. Felt the structure of this place. It’s like a body. And we,” she tapped her own temple, then pointed at Jan’s, “are currently in the brain. Or close to it. The control room.”
Jan stood, her nakedness forgotten in the face of this new, desperate alliance. “What are you thinking?”
A slow, wicked grin spread across Fat Aunt Jan’s face. It was Jan’s own grin, but with twenty extra years of cunning behind it. “Tobias needs our compliance for the highest yield. Resistance, anger… that makes the energy bitter. He wants us willing. Wants us to choose the fantasy.” She walked over to the gilded bars. They hummed with a low, warning energy. “But what if we gave him compliance… and poisoned the well?”
Jan felt a matching grin spread across her own face. The terror receded, replaced by a fizzing, rebellious spark. “You want to fuck with his food supply.”
“From the inside. He’s weaving these scenarios from our heads, from our memories. He can’t create something from nothing. He needs raw material.” She looked at her younger self, her eyes gleaming. “So we feed him raw material. But we lace it with something nasty.”
“Like what?”
Fat Aunt Jan’s grin turned feral. “Like a fucking computer virus. We have a shared head, kiddo. We remember the same people, the same feelings. But I’ve got twenty years of new data. He taps into us to create his illusions for the others. So we think of our friends… but we think of them winning. We think of them finding us. We think of Stacy putting a bullet right between his mirrored eyes. We think of Mike and Casey annoying the ever-loving shit out of him. We flood the system with images of his defeat, our escape, our triumph. We pump it full of hope and fight until it chokes him.”
Jan’s heart hammered against her ribs. It was insane. It was brilliant. “He’ll feel it. He’ll know.”
“Probably. But by then, the corruption might be everywhere. And it might just give the others an opening.” She held out a hand. Her fingers were smudged with dirt. “Wanna see if we can fuck things up from in here?”
Jan took the offered hand. The touch was solid, real. It was the first real thing she’d felt since the gilded doors slammed shut. “Hell yes, I do.”
Fat Aunt Jan closed her eyes, concentrating. “Okay. Think of them. Think of Stacy. Not just her body, but her will. Her stubborn, glorious, pain-in-the-ass will to protect everyone.”
Jan closed her eyes too. She pushed past the recent memory of the illusion-Stacy, back to the real one. Stacy at thirteen, fighting a boy who was picking on a younger kid. Stacy at twenty, holding her after a bad breakup, saying nothing, just making her eat shitty pizza. Stacy in the present, rolling her eyes but always, always having her back.
She poured that into the mental space they were sharing. Not lust, but ferocious loyalty.
Fat Aunt Jan grunted. “Good. Strong. Now Mike. Think of him not as a lover, but as the guy who can fix any damn computer, who can talk a system into doing what he wants.”
Jan pictured Mike, hunched over a keyboard, his kind face lit by the monitor’s glow, outsmarting a security system with a few keystrokes.
“Casey,” Fat Aunt Jan prompted, her voice strained. “Her art. The way she sees the truth in things.”
Jan saw Casey’s paintings, the bold colors, the defiant subjects. She saw her seeing through bullshit with a single, raised eyebrow.
They worked through the roster, memory by memory, transforming the emotional raw material of their friends from fuel for pleasure into a corrosive agent of resistance. They thought of Hank’s steadfastness, Yukio’s fearless curiosity, Fatima’s sharp intellect. They thought of the younger ones—Rick’s earnest goodness, Portia’s cool competence, Kim’s deadly focus, all of them.
The cell around them began to change.
The gilded bars trembled. The velvet cushions rotted, sprouting strange, thorned vines. The pulsing amber light flickered, strobing with jarring images: a flash of Stacy’s Glock, a glimpse of Rick’s determined face, a snapshot of Portia’s chronometer blinking. The sweet incense smell was overwhelmed by a burst of gunpowder, ozone, and wet earth.
Somewhere deep in the labyrinthine prison, a shockwave of wrongness reverberated through the feeding conduits.
Jan opened her eyes. Fat Aunt Jan was sweating harder, a trickle of blood coming from her nose. “That got his attention,” she panted, wiping the blood away with the back of her hand. “He’s coming. And he won’t be happy.”
The cell door melted away, not into freedom, but into a vast, dark chamber. Standing at the threshold, his form flickering with suppressed rage, was Tobias. His sunglasses were gone. His eyes were voids of swirling, hungry energy.
“You ungrateful cunts,” he hissed, the sound echoing in the suddenly cavernous space. “You ruin the vintage.”
Jan stood tall, naked and unashamed, her Green Moon power simmering not with seduction, but with pure, defiant rebellion. She looked at her future self, then back at the entity before them.
“You wanted a feast,” Jan said, her voice clear and strong. “We just decided to change the menu.”
Tobias’s void-like eyes narrowed. He didn’t roar or rage. He simply waved a dismissive hand, his motion sharp and final.
From the shadows of the vast chamber, glossy black tendrils, like living liquid latex, whipped forward. They were faster than thought, wrapping around Jan’s ankles and wrists with a wet slap. Another set seized Fat Aunt Jan, pinning her arms to her sides. The substance tightened, cool and unyielding, sealing itself around their bodies until they were both immobilized from the neck down, held upright like macabre statues.
“Irritants,” Tobias spat, his voice devoid of its previous theatricality. “You’ll be purified. Slowly. Until your minds are nothing but sweet, compliant syrup.”
He turned on his heel, his form dissolving into the swirling darkness of the chamber’s periphery. The sense of his presence faded, leaving them alone in the eerie silence, bound and helpless.
“Well,” Fat Aunt Jan’s voice sounded in Jan’s head, clear as a bell. It was a telepathic thread, spun from their shared essence and the intimate, cursed knowledge of this place. “That went about as expected.”
Jan focused her thoughts, pushing them towards her older self. He took the bait. He felt our little ‘virus.’ He’s pissed.
Oh, he’s more than pissed, Fat Aunt Jan thought back, her mental voice a wry grumble. He’s distracted. Scrambling to contain the corruption we just shot into his plumbing. That’s a win.
We’re still wrapped up like fucking presents for him.
Details. Jan could practically feel the mental shrug. Point is, we have a sliver of an opening. He’s focused on damage control in the system. We can maybe… poke another hole.
What did you have in mind? Jan thought, straining mentally against the psychic bonds.
We can’t break these things, Fat Aunt Jan projected, a sense of tactical assessment flowing with the words. But we can maybe… redirect our energy. Tobias feeds on specific emotional frequencies—pleasure, lust, euphoric release. Our Green Moon magic can tune those frequencies, right?
Jan understood instantly. We can broadcast a different signal. A protective one.
Exactly. We can’t shield everyone. Not from in here. But we might be able to bolster one group. Keep the realm’s horny vibes from messing with their heads.
Which group? Jan’s mind raced through the fragmented glimpses she’d seen through Tobias’s illusions. Portia’s squad is backtracking, Kim’s team is scouting…
Stacy’s, Fat Aunt Jan thought, certainty firming the projection. She’s with Rick, Bruce, the scholar girl, that poor bastard Cooper, and Godfrey. Stacy’s got the gun, the will, and the biggest grudge. She’ll be the one pushing hardest to find the heart of this place. She’ll find us. We make sure she’s clear-headed when she does.
Agreed, Jan thought, focusing on the image of Stacy: the set of her jaw, the unwavering darkness of her eyes. She poured her intention, her will, through their shared link—not a spell of seduction, but one of clarity, of fortified resolve.
Beside her, she felt Fat Aunt Jan concentrate, adding twenty years of practiced magical nuance. Together, they wove a subtle, invisible shield, a quiet hum of protective energy, and sent it spinning through the labyrinth’s twisted pathways, seeking their stubborn, bad-tempered, wonderful friend.
The tunnel Franklin had led them down smelled of damp chalk and ozone, and the rhythmic thumping was a physical pressure against their eardrums. Mandy kept adjusting her glasses nervously. Calista’s elven eyes glowed faintly in the gloom, scanning for threats. Ben just looked awkward, his shoulders hunched, constantly glancing between the two young women and then quickly away.
Franklin stopped suddenly, holding up a hand. “Hold on.”
The others froze. He turned to face them, his calm demeanor fractured by a flicker of anxiety. “I need to tell you something. Before we go further.”
“What’s up?” Mandy asked, her voice echoing slightly.
“I… I do have magic. It’s just not flashy. It’s from my dad’s side—Fair Bargain stuff. And my mom’s Verdant Pasture. It’s… preventative. A shield.” He took a breath, as if steeling himself for disappointment. “I can create a localized negation field. It stops external magical forces from influencing us, from… feeding on our emotional or physical output. Tobias can’t siphon energy from anything we do inside it.”
Ben blinked. “Seriously? That’s huge!”
“Why didn’t you say something before?” Calista asked, her head tilted.
“It’s small,” Franklin admitted, shuffling his feet. “I can’t cover everyone. Five, maybe six people max. It didn’t seem fair to protect just us when there were sixteen.”
“Franklin, you absolute dork,” Mandy said, but she was smiling. “Covering our group is better than covering no one. Do it.”
Relief washed over his features. He nodded, closed his eyes, and held his hands out, palms facing each other as if holding an invisible sphere. A subtle, greenish-gold light emanated from his skin, weaving through the air around them. It wasn’t a dome, more like a faint, shimmering bubble that expanded to envelop the four of them.
The change was immediate. The oppressive, sensual pressure of the realm lifted, replaced by a neutral, almost sterile quiet. The magical hum that had been urging their nerves toward arousal simply vanished.
“Whoa,” Ben breathed, standing up straighter. “It’s gone. The… the horny feeling.”
“Exactly,” Franklin said, opening his eyes. The light faded, but the protective effect remained, a steady, quiet hum in the air around them. “He can’t feed off us now. Anything that happens in here stays with us.”
He peered down the tunnel ahead, which split into two narrower, darker passages. “I’m going to scout that left fork. The field will stay with you if you stay put. Just… wait here. I’ll be two minutes.”
Before they could argue, he moved, his form swallowed by the darkness of the left-hand tunnel almost instantly.
Silence descended, thick and awkward. The removal of the realm’s influence left their own natural tensions exposed. Ben shifted from foot to foot, intensely aware of Calista and Mandy standing so close in the confined space of the alcove.
Mandy smirked, pushing her glasses up her nose. “So. Ben.”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve been about as relaxed as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs since we got down here. And not just because of the evil sex dungeon vibes.” She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms. “It’s ‘cause you’re stuck in a hole with both of us, isn’t it?”
Ben’s face flushed. “I—no, I mean, it’s not—“
Calista laughed, the sound like silver bells. She sauntered a step closer, her hips swaying. “It is pretty obvious, Ben. And I can see why it’s a dilemma.” She ran a hand through her silver hair. “You have a choice. The glamorous half-elf fashion model…” She gestured to herself with a theatrical flourish, a faint, otherworldly shimmer seeming to cling to her skin for a moment. “…or the delightfully dorky tech genius.” She nodded at Mandy, who gave a little bow.
Ben stammered, completely at a loss for words.
“Franklin’s gonna be back soon,” Mandy said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. Her eyes were locked on Ben’s, bold and challenging behind her lenses. “You should pick. Right now.”
“Or,” Calista purred, taking another step so she was right in front of him, her scent of jasmine and smoke filling his senses. “You don’t pick. You could have both of us. It’s not like it’s wrong.” She leaned in, her lips brushing his ear. “I’m adopted. Not really her sister.”
The proposition hung in the protected, quiet air, charged and undeniable. Mandy pushed off the wall, her smirk softening into something more genuine, more vulnerable. “I’ve had a crush on you since sophomore year, Ben Bryant. You never noticed.”
Ben’s breath hitched. He looked from Mandy’s hopeful, smirking face to Calista’s smoldering, inhuman beauty. The conflict that had churned in him for months crystalized into a single, sharp, undeniable want.
He didn’t speak. He simply nodded, a slow, deliberate motion.
It was all the invitation they needed.
Mandy moved first, closing the distance and grabbing the front of his shirt, pulling him into a fierce, clumsy kiss. Her glasses knocked awkwardly against his nose, but her lips were insistent and sweet. At the same time, Calista’s hands were on his belt, her fingers deft and sure. The button popped, the zipper hissed down.
Ben’s hands moved on their own accord. One tangled in Mandy’s shaggy brown hair, deepening their kiss. The other found Calista’s waist, pulling her tight against his side, feeling the incredible, sculpted warmth of her through her clothes. He was being undressed by skillful hands, his shirt pushed over his shoulders, his pants and boxers shoved down his thighs. His cock sprung free, already fully hard and aching.
Mandy broke the kiss, breathing heavily. She looked down, her eyes widening slightly behind her glasses. “Okay,” she breathed, a genuine note of appreciation in her voice.
Calista chuckled, a low, smoky sound. She was already pulling her own top over her head, revealing small, perfect breasts with pale pink nipples already peaked. Mandy followed suit, shucking her hoodie and t-shirt with less grace but equal determination. Her breasts were fuller, her body softer, and seeing her like this, so brazen and beautiful, made Ben’s chest ache.
They were on him then, a tangle of warm skin and eager hands. He stumbled back until his shoulders hit the rough chalk wall of the alcove. Calista dropped to her knees before him, her silver hair a cascade over his hips. She didn’t hesitate. She took the length of him into her mouth in one smooth, deep motion, her lips stretching around his girth, her tongue flattening against the sensitive underside.
“Oh, fuck,” Ben groaned, his head thudding back against the stone.
Mandy captured his mouth again, swallowing his moans. Her hands were everywhere—cupping his face, running down his chest, teasing his nipples. She broke the kiss to watch Calista work, her own hand sliding into her jeans. “You like watching her suck your cock, Ben?” Mandy whispered, her voice husky. “She’s really good at it.”
He could only nod, his vision swimming. Calista’s mouth was a hot, wet, skilled vortex of sensation. She hummed, the vibration traveling straight up his spine, and began to bob her head in a relentless rhythm, her hand working the base of his shaft in time.
Mandy kissed along his jaw, his neck. “My turn,” she murmured, and gently pushed Calista’s shoulder. Calista released him with a soft, wet pop, grinning up at Mandy with a wicked glint in her violet eyes. They switched places with a seamless understanding that spoke of deep, unspoken communication.
Mandy stood before him, pushing her jeans and panties down her legs. She was completely bare, her thatch of dark curls glistening with her own arousal. “Don’t just stand there,” she said, her confidence a radiant thing. “Fuck me, Ben.”
He needed no further urging. He grabbed her hips, his fingers digging into her soft flesh, and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck, and he guided himself to her entrance. She was soaked, hot, and he slid into her in one long, breathtaking stroke.
They both cried out. Mandy buried her face in his shoulder, a muffled “yes” escaping her lips as he filled her completely. He held her there for a moment, savoring the tight, velvety clutch of her, the feel of her weight in his arms, the smell of her hair.
Then he began to move.
He fucked her against the wall, each thrust driving her body up the rough stone. It was raw, primal, a claiming. Mandy met every drive, her hips rolling, her moans growing louder, punctuated by little gasps and curses. “God… yes… right there… harder, Ben, fuck me harder!”
Calista watched from a few feet away, her hand sliding between her own thighs, her eyes half-lidded with pleasure. “She feels amazing, doesn’t she?” Calista breathed. “All that warmth. All that heat just for you.”
She was right. This wasn’t just sex. This was a revelation. With every snap of his hips, every time he buried himself to the hilt inside Mandy’s clutching wetness, the confused fog that had clouded his feelings for months burned away. The magnetic pull he felt towards Calista was still there—a powerful, glittering attraction—but it was a distant star compared to the supernova he felt holding Mandy, being inside her, seeing the love and fierce desire shining openly in her eyes.
He was smitten with Mandy. He’d always been smitten with Mandy. Calista’s enchanting, otherworldly presence had just been a beautiful, distracting noise.
He leaned his forehead against Mandy’s, their breaths mingling, their sweat-slicked skin sliding together. “Mandy,” he gasped, the name a prayer and a confession.
She understood. Her eyes, wide and unguarded behind her fogged glasses, saw the realization in his. She kissed him, deep and slow, as his thrusts became less frantic, more purposeful, more intimate.
Behind them, Calista laughed softly. She stopped touching herself and just watched, a serene, knowing smile on her perfect lips. “Took you long enough, dummy.”
Ben barely heard her. His world had narrowed to the woman in his arms, the incredible friction of their joining, the coil of pleasure tightening unbearably low in his gut. Mandy’s breaths became short, sharp cries. Her inner muscles began to flutter and clench around him, a rhythmic, milking pulse.
“I’m gonna come,” he warned, his voice ragged.
“Me too,” she whimpered. “Don’t stop. Ben, don’t stop!”
He drove into her, once, twice, three more times, and then he was coming, a wave of white-hot ecstasy tearing through him. He groaned, a deep, guttural sound, as he emptied himself into her. At the same moment, Mandy shattered, her body convulsing around him, her scream muffled against his shoulder as her own climax ripped through her.
They clung to each other, panting, trembling, as the aftershocks subsided. Gently, Ben eased her down until her feet touched the ground, though she kept her arms locked around his neck, her face buried in his chest.
Calista lounged against the opposite wall, completely naked and unabashed. “See? I told you we knew all along.”
Mandy, still catching her breath, turned her head to look at her adopted sister. A grin split her flushed face. “Elf Glamour is a hell of a drug, Cal.”
Calista shrugged one elegant shoulder. “Low-level, constant emission. Makes everyone a little bit in lust with me. Clouds the issue.” She nodded at Ben, who was still holding Mandy tightly. “He was always gone on you, Mands. Since, like, forever. But with me around, his poor brain couldn’t parse it. This…” She gestured to the alcove, “was the fastest way to clear the signal. Plus,” she added with a wicked grin, “it was really, really fun.”
Ben, finally finding his voice, kissed the top of Mandy’s head. “You planned this?”
“Obviously,” Mandy mumbled into his chest, not letting go.