Tonight was all hands on deck. Heather usually demanded it when it was a big night, and tonight was huge. The only people who were excused from the festivities were Willa and Van so they could do more planning for their eighties extravaganza. Aquitaine was arriving in less than three weeks, and they were finalizing plans.

Willa was sad to be missing tonight, in all honesty, because Prom Redo sounded like a blast, but a night alone with Van? Even if they were working? She could be down with that. Who was she kidding? She was hoping going down would in fact be a part of this evening.

Willa toweled off and threw on a shirtdress. When she was presentable, she plopped down at her desk, cracked open her tin of sunflower seeds, and started poring over her notes. Monday would be trivia night, Tuesday would be Star Wars night… Was it getting hot in here or was that the memories from the other night? Whatever it was, Willa took up a page of notes to fan herself with.

Van was lobbying hard for Friday night to be some sort of Ghostbusters extravaganza, so Saturday night would be the John Hughes mash-up ball. Wednesday she was thinking a slumber party with video games, movies, crimping irons, puff paint T-shirts, and friendship bracelets. Which left Thursday.

She turned on her eighties mix to get herself into the groove and racked her brain for one more thing to add to the schedule. Hopefully Van would have more ideas than she did, but then again, she usually did, irritatingly smart woman.

Van should be back any second now, but in the meantime, she could catch up on some of the journals that had been piling up in her inbox. She couldn’t afford to be a month and a half behind her colleagues when she got back, especially knowing she’d get ragged on for her tan.

People who did field research in caves were usually as pale as the sightless creatures they happened upon in the course of their explorations, and being tennis-tanned as she was, Willa was already kind of an anomaly without having spent six weeks at a goddamn summer camp.

Which was fine. She didn’t mind the good-natured poking in her department, but she needed to make sure that was all it was. They could tease her all they liked as long as deep down they knew she had earned her place there as surely as they had. It was sometimes an uphill battle to be taken seriously in academia when her original scholarship had been for tennis—it was possible it would’ve been a good idea to go to a different university where no one knew—but she liked to think she’d proved herself. And it was time to keep proving.

So she tossed another handful of sunflower seeds in her mouth, clicked over to a new window in her browser—once again thankful Van had worked her geek mojo to rig up Wi-Fi for them—and signed into the journal site to get to reading.

* * *

Most of the time, this job was easy-peasy. So easy it was downright boring on any given day. Which was partly what Van had wanted—an escape. But this was like jumping from the frying pan into…maybe a brick wall that knocked her unconscious. She’d spent the morning updating the website, scheduling social media posts and a newsletter, and then all of a sudden—ka-blow! For some reason, their server had gone haywire and the camp’s site was up and down and Heather had freaked.

Van had managed to fix it, finally, and at least she’d been excused from the Prom Redo tonight, which had not been high on her list of things to do. If she was lucky, she could persuade task mistress Willa to engage in some extracurricular activities before or—maybe and if she were super-lucky?—after they’d done their planning. Truth be told, this was not her area of expertise. Or anywhere near it.

In some ways, Van was creative; had to be in her field. And to get a PhD—like, hello, original research? That shit was not easy. But the kind of thing Heather and the rest of the staff did all the time… It hurt her head thinking about it. Indeed, her head hurt now on the walk back to the cabin.

Sadly, Willa didn’t exactly seem like the type to offer her tea and sympathy. More like the kind of girl who thought all the world’s problems could be solved by cutting sugar out of your diet and going for a brisk walk. Van groaned thinking about it and not in the fun way. Maybe if she promised to go for a hike with Willa later, she could get five minutes of resting her head in Willa’s lap while Willa’s callused fingers massaged her scalp.

There were far worse places to be than Willa’s lap for damn sure. Perhaps she could convince Willa of the same…

When she stepped over the threshold of the cabin, Willa was sitting at her desk, a foot propped up on her seat so she could rest her chin on her knee while she looked intently at her laptop. She was all high blonde ponytail and long, tanned limbs, and suddenly tea was the last thing on Van’s mind. Though that whole her-head-in-Willa’s-lap thing was becoming increasingly appealing.

“Hey, Wills. I thought you might’ve gotten started without me, but no way could you look that intent if you were watching The Goonies or something.”

Willa shook her head, ponytail dancing around her shoulders. “No. Definitely not anything fun like that. I was reading a journal article about plate subduction.”

Yep, that would leave Van cross-eyed as well. Willa stood and stretched, reaching her fingers up toward the ceiling, her long, lean body on full display, the hem of her dress rising temptingly high, her breasts straining at the snug fabric that kept them hidden from view. For sure at some point this evening, that dress was coming off.

When Willa had finished a series of movements that had Van wondering when the last time she’d even touched her own toes was, she turned to Van and wrinkled her pert little nose.

“So would you mind terribly if we went for a walk first before we get down to business? Sometimes moving helps me think, and my brain is, like, bustified from all these journal articles.”

Walking was not as good as stripping Willa here and now, but it was far better than sitting down at Willa’s neat-as-a-pin desk and trying to get something done. How could the girl think when everything around her was so…clean? Where did all her inspiration come from? Out of thin air?

“Sure, we can go for a walk. As long as we avoid the boathouse. I don’t want to get sucked into that.”

“Agreed. Actually, I found something on a trail run the other day I thought you might like to see.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Van couldn’t imagine what that thing might be, unless it were a downed UFO, which would be frigging awesome, but Willa would’ve totally reported that to the appropriate authorities like some sane person, so probably not. But the way her eyes sparkled and the corner of her mouth pulled up, Van was looking forward to it anyhow.

A few minutes later found her tromping through the woods, and hell if she knew how Willa was navigating. Must be some shit they taught at Girl Scout camp, because Van sure as fuck couldn’t tell one tree from another. So she followed Willa through the forest and tried to keep her concerns to herself. There were, after all, people who enjoyed this nature thing, though for the life of her she couldn’t understand why. The invention of “inside” was one of the greatest innovations of humankind as far as she was concerned.

Luckily, it wasn’t too long until Willa slowed and pointed to a copse of trees to her right. “Through there.”

What choice did Van have but to follow?

Once they’d elbowed their way through some branches, Willa threw her arms out and proclaimed, “Tah-dah!”

What the hell was she… Oh.

There was a small pool surrounded by rocks, and in the cooling air of the late summer evening, steam rolled off of it. Steam? This was a—

“It’s a hot spring. How cool is that?”

Willa kicked off her sandals and sat on the edge of the pool, dipping her feet in, the water reaching up to her knees while the hem of her dress settled mid-way up her thighs.

“Super-cool.” And it was. An actual hot spring this close to camp? “Does anyone else know about it?”

“I can’t imagine they don’t. It’s not far. Although, if you’re not looking for it, you might never find it.”

“Or if you’re not insane and go for runs in the middle of the woods at the ass-crack of dawn.”

“Or that,” Willa conceded, kicking her feet, making splashes and ripples in the water. “You coming or what?”

She wished. An orgasm right now would be phenomenal, but Willa probably hadn’t brought her out here for sex. So she could settle for shucking her shoes and socks and rolling up her pant legs until her calves were bared. She sat next to Willa, enjoying the companionable silence between them until Willa broke it and broke it hard.

“Do you think people do it out here?”

Dammit. Van almost choked on nothing at all, and Willa pounded her on the back a few times.

Once she’d recovered, she pitched Willa what she hoped was a winning smile. “People do it everywhere.”

“That’s true.”

They sat there for a few minutes, energy and attraction crackling between them, the easy silence gone. When Van couldn’t ignore it anymore, she made a joke. “Is that what you brought me here for? Doing it?”

This thing with Willa was brand-new. If it wasn’t, Van would’ve been able to read her better, not had to ask. Willa laughed, but didn’t say no. She didn’t say no. Hint taken.

Van slid her legs out of the water and swung onto Willa’s lap, careful not to fall backward into the water. Grace was not her middle name, but she could pull this off.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You brought me out here with licentious intentions, didn’t you? I can’t believe it. Here I thought we were supposed to be working—” That was why Heather had given them permission to get out of tonight’s activities after all. Not for Van to be slipping her arms around Willa’s neck and leaning in close to press their breasts together. “—and you’re trying to seduce me, an impressionable young woman.”

“Pfft.” Willa’s dismissive noise was adorable, and her cheeks had definitely gone pinker than usual. “Sometimes sex makes me think better.”

Which wasn’t an idea entirely without merit. After all, sometimes when Van was struggling with a particularly difficult problem, she could get further by distracting herself with something totally engaging and completely immersive than she could by banging her head up against the brick wall of her issue.

“Then I guess we have to. For science and, you know, our jobs. It’s our sworn duty.”

Willa was giggling now, her face buried in her hands. “When you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous.”

“Nah. This is completely rational.”

To prove it, Van stood up and unclipped her overalls, shoving them to her feet and pulling her long-sleeved MIT T-shirt over her head.

* * *

Oh my god. She’d been kidding. Sort of. But never did she think Van would actually strip down bare-ass naked in the middle of the woods, especially knowing how close they actually were to camp, even though it felt a million miles away.

And yet there she was, in all her glory. And she was glorious. In all her fantasies about Van, never had Willa thought of Van’s body as lush, and now she had to wonder why. Van was soft and beautifully shaped, her hips and thighs round, even her stomach was a smooth plane of invitation. Van had made the mistake of getting undressed a few steps away from the hot spring, so her skin turned to gooseflesh as she made a break for it, wrapping her arms under her small breasts tipped with hardening brown nipples.

At least Van had enough sense to climb into the spring carefully instead of cannon-balling like it appeared she might. Once she was in the pool, the water lapping just below her shoulders, she looked up at Willa. “You know, I’ve never been a big fan of doing it in water, but I can see why people would think it was a good idea.”

“Same. It’s the moisture thing, isn’t it? You expect it to make things all hot and wet and slick, but what it actually does is…”

Van moved closer, and damn if Willa could remember what she was going to say. She was far too intent on Van’s hands coming out of the water to land on Willa’s knees and part them. “It does succeed in making some things slippery, though.”

Which is when Van’s fingers trailed up her thighs and Willa lost her ability to think in coherent sentences at all. Van’s shoulders and biceps were plump and her breasts were just above the waterline. She was mouth-watering, simply delicious. And she had an intent look on her face that made other parts of Willa just as wet.

When Van tugged at the sides of her underwear, Willa tipped her hips up and allowed Van to slide them all the way down her legs. Willa tried to keep her feet out of the water so the scrap of cotton wouldn’t get wet—fine, wetter—but wasn’t terribly successful. When she’d settled, her ass was bare against the warmed rocks. Strange, but pleasurable.

“Come here.” Van tugged at her knees until Willa’s butt was wavering over the edge of the pool, and then, then… “Lean back.”

Oh, my. Willa did as she was told, leaning back and letting Van scoot her even farther off the edge, sliding her sundress up until she wasn’t decent. Nope, not at all. Her breath came faster and she was feeling hot and cold all at once. Maybe dizzy.

“You look like a wanton little water nymph, you know that?”

Willa could only whimper as Van kissed the inside of one knee, sending tingles straight to her core. And kept kissing until she was nearly to the place Willa wanted her to kiss most, and then she was gone again, scooping the heated water over Willa’s spread thighs, making her shiver with sensory overload.

The hot water and the cool air, the hard rocks covered by the soft fallen leaves and pine needles, and the spine-tingling intimacy of having Van staring into her very core were nearly her undoing. She was determined to hold out, though, because this was bound to get better.

It did when Van threaded her fingers through Willa’s own and held their hands to the sides of Willa’s thighs while Van’s mouth laid a trail of kisses up Willa’s opposite leg.

“Beautiful girl,” Van crooned while she loved the inside of Willa’s thigh, and every sensual nerve in Willa’s body lit up. Her breasts ached and she arched her back, even widened the spread of her legs though she knew it would make her look even more…how had Van put it? Wanton? So be it. There was no one here to see her be so shameless, and if Camp Firefly Falls was about anything, it was grown-up fun and games. Although this felt sweet too. Like it was about more than just pleasure.

The thought slipped away as quickly as it had come, and as Willa abandoned any sense of decorum she ought to have, she started to beg. “Please, Van, please. I need your mouth.”

Pressing kisses to the juncture of where hip met thigh, Van teased her relentlessly with lips and tongue and teeth. “You have it.”

“Not where I want it.”

“Where do you want it?”

Everywhere. She wanted Van’s mouth everywhere, forever. But in the interest of expediency, because she hadn’t gone completely senseless from the sensual havoc Van was wreaking on her, she decided to be more direct. “On my pussy. I want your mouth on my pussy. Please.”

She expected a teasing response, maybe some gentle mocking about her complete and utter lack of control, but what she got was a swirling of Van’s tongue around her clit, and then lips closing around that sensitive, swollen bud to suck.

“Fuck. Jesus, Van, your mouth.”

Then Van’s tongue was…inside her. The shallow penetration wasn’t as satisfying as a cock or other things designed to make a woman feel good and full, but the way she could move. Willa couldn’t help but toss her head from side to side, even knowing she’d be picking leaves out of her hair for days.

Worth. It.

When Van returned her attentions to Willa’s clit and sucked before worrying it softly with her teeth, Willa was a goner. She didn’t even try to swallow her cries of ecstasy.

After licking her through every last pulse of aftershock, Van moved closer still, her arms resting on top of Willa’s spread thighs while Willa could do nothing but try to find her breath while she looked at the stars coming out in the darkening sky. Jesus.

“You put on quite the show there, Wills.”

Willa’s lips curled into a satiated smile, but then something nagged at the back of her brain. It wasn’t panic, though it could’ve been—camp wasn’t far away, but she was confident it was far enough they wouldn’t have heard her. Probably. But show, show…

She sat up hastily and jabbed a finger into Van’s self-satisfied face. “That’s it!”

“Uh, what?” It wasn’t often Willa got to see Van perplexed, so she took a mental snapshot and tucked it away before she continued.

“A show. That’s what we can do on Thursday night. An eighties talent show. Lipsyncing, skits, whatever else people sign up for. The campers will have enough time to prepare. You could even mention it in their pre-arrival newsletter, and they could pick up props and stuff before they even get here. It’ll be fabulous.”

Van looked up at her, and suddenly Willa burned with embarrassment. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I totally ruined the mood, didn’t I? That was the best head I’ve ever gotten, and here I am going on about a talent show. Do you hate me?”

Van shook her head as she bit her lip. “I don’t, because you’re frigging adorable when you’re all gung-ho about something, but I’m not going to lie. I’d kinda hoped there would be a longer lag time between the sex and the idea-having.”

“I’m the worst.”

“No, you’re not. Not even close. Let’s go back to camp and get all this stuff down before you forget anything.”

“But—”

“It’s fine.” Van’s dark eyes weren’t lying. She wasn’t angry. She might have even been charmed, although Willa would settle for amused. “We’ll go back to the cabin, write all this down, and send it to Heather, and when she tells us how much she loves it, we can celebrate. Besides, you know orgasming isn’t the only way to get pleasure out of sex, right?”

“Sure…” She’d had pleasurable sex without coming. For intimacy, for comfort, for closeness, for giving pleasure to her partner. Sometimes for exertion’s or anger’s sake, for that matter. “But I do think it’s best when there are climaxes involved.”

Van snorted. “I will keep that in mind for the future, but I assure you I enjoyed myself very much just now.”

Then she was climbing out of the pool, using her BB-8 underwear to get as much water off of her as she could before pulling on her shirt and overalls and shoving the damp handful of orange and white fabric into one pocket and Willa’s underwear into the other.

Willa was about to protest—was Van seriously taking a souvenir of her conquest?—but then Van grinned, showing her perfect white teeth. “You don’t have any pockets in that dress. So unless you want to carry your wet undies back, bunched up in your hand…”

Oh god. Willa’s face flamed. No, no, she did not want to do that. Just in case they did run into someone on their way back to the cabin, which would totally be her luck. Nor did she want to slide the spring-damp cotton up her legs and try not to squirm all the way back to the cabin. So she mutely shook her head and Van’s grin didn’t dim a lumen.

“All right then, let’s go.”