Quaranteam - North West Ch. 17

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QT:NW continues the official Spin-Off for the Quaranteam universe originally created by CorruptingPower. You do not need to have read the original series to enjoy this one, but you really do need to start with Chapters 1-4 (I really suggest you read the original though, it's great!). Fans of the original should be pleased to know CP has approved the story and the continuity.

In this chapter you can expect a forest rendezvous, a roadtrip, and police action.

Returning Dramatis Personae

House Black

Harrison 'Harri' Black - Sheriff of Black County, 'Jason Momoa-looking motherfucker' mountain man (mixed heritage), former Army MP

Vanessa Peters - Construction Forewoman, Daughter of Brent Peters the head of the construction project, Brunette

Erica LaCosta - Fiancee of Harri, Leo's sister, Italian Tattoo Artist, Dark Brunette

Macho - Rescued daschund puppy, named for his big balls, mascot and beloved pet of House Black

Ivy Gauthier - Quebecoise stripper, half-tattooed, Dirty Blonde anal queen

Kyla Bautista - Trained dancer, Phillipino Spy, Harri's Deputy Sheriff, Raven hair

House LaCosta

Leo LaCosta - Harri's best friend and former roommate, Italian carpenter, Erica's brother

India - Girlfriend of Aria, Hippy Stripper/Sugar Baby, grew up in a commune, Brunette dreads and braids, Member of House LaCosta

Danielle 'Dani' - Australian stripper, Brunette, Member of House LaCosta

Aria - Girlfriend of India, Stripper/Sugar Baby, Ginger, Member of House LaCosta

Other

Abigail 'Abi' Jónsson - Co-owner of Valkyrie Falls women's athletic retreat, Icelandic Personal Trainer and Crossfit Competitor, Athletically Thick Blonde

Josie 'Joss the Boss' Draper - Professional Wrestler, Athletically Trim Blonde

Captain Toranno - Oregon State Trooper

Referenced Characters

Lt Col Miriam Abarbanel - Military friend of Harri's, Air Force Lt Col, Jewish heritage, Commanding Officer for Valhalla Hills construction and the Oregon Quaranteam research project

Mary Duncan - Attended high school with Harri, former cheerleader, Husband has disappeared while looking for work

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"You know, I totally get why, but I'm a little jealous that you're getting this and I'm not," Leo said. Then he let out an entirely relaxed groan that bordered on inappropriate.

"Hey, I consider it a family heirloom," I grunted back, already with my head thrown back and my eyes closed as I enjoyed the soft breeze coming in through the trees.

Over the past day or so I'd spent a lot of time up at the spring. Vanessa's warning had been taken to heart and after my minorly traumatic trip down to Eugene I'd been more than happy to take a day off and make sure my girls and I had good, solid memories of the space tucked away.

That is to say, I fucked each of them on the banks of the Spring and enjoyed the cooling waters with each of them individually. Now we were running out of time and Leo and I had decided to take Man Time for ourselves. It only felt right since, before the world turned upside-down, it had been just us.

I reached over and grabbed another beer from the little cooler we'd brought up with us and cracked it open, the sweet snap and sizzle music to my ears. "So, how are things over at your house?" I asked after taking a sip. Leo and I had been spending less time together than in the past few years, both because I'd taken the Sheriff's job seriously and also we were both trying hard to make sure everything in our multiple relationships was running smoothly.

"Weird and wild," Leo said, grabbing his own second beer and cracking it open. "Sometimes I don't know what to do with myself in the morning, and I miss having the barn to work in, but all of a sudden it's dinner time and between Dani, Aria and India I've been doing stuff all day, and then family dinner keeps us busy halfway into the night and my head hits the pillow and I'm out like a light."

"Yeah," I chuckled. "I feel like that a lot too." It was odd, knowing that I'd thought I filled my days pretty well when it was just Leo and I up here. The amount of just 'stuff' to do with our girlfriends, let alone the sexual time, was almost mind-boggling.

"Says the man with an extra girlfriend and who is playing cop," Leo teased me.

"Well, not today," I said.

"Good," Leo nodded. "You need to take breaks, dude."

"We need to take more breaks," I said. "Like this. It's not like I missed you or anything, but-"

"Yeah, I get it," Leo chuckled.

We sat and drank in silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the sound of the water and the trees around us. We couldn't hear the tree-clearing crews yet, but by later in the afternoon they would be audible and by that night they'd be close enough that the Spring wouldn't be usable until after all the construction was finished.

"You know I love you, right?" Leo asked me.

"Better not have a boner over there, looking at my fresh new bod," I teased him. I'd only had five workouts with Abi over at the Falls so it was too early to show any signs of the effort going into them, but I still felt great... a day or so after.

"You know what I mean, asshole."

"I do," I grinned and stretched my arm out to offer him my fist for a bump. "I love you too, man."

He bumped my fist and smirked, taking another sip of his beer.

"Speaking of which," I said. "When this whole thing started, you remember that conversation we had about becoming brothers-in-law?"

"Yeah. And then you go and make my sister be the one to pop the question, you dick," Leo laughed.

"Pffft, you know she's more decisive than I am about that sort of thing," I said. "Anyways, we haven't set a date or anything for the wedding, but I wanted to make this official too - would you be my best man?"

Leo took in a deep breath, grinning widely, then let it out. "Sorry, I can't," he said.

That made me blink in surprise. "What?" I asked. "Why not?"

"Erica already asked me to be her Man-of-Honour," Leo said. "And walk her down whatever aisle you end up with, too. So I'm spoken for, buddy."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I asked. "She didn't tell me she was asking you."

"First she pops the question, then she snakes your best man," Leo snickered. "Come on, Black. Get your shit together."

"This is unbelievable," I groaned. "Who the fuck am I supposed to ask now? I couldn't choose between my girls, and I'm pretty sure they'll all be bridesmaids anyway."

"I dunno, dude," Leo said. "For a macho military guy, the fact that I'm your only close male friend is a little sad."

"Hey, I've got plenty of male friends," I said. "We just live all across the country, and some are still in active service. And we rarely talk to each other." And, the silent thought hung in the air, I had no idea how many of them were still alive what with the pandemic.

"Well, I'm sure you'll figure something out," Leo said. "Worst comes to worst, you can ask my sister if she'll share me."

"Bastard," I laughed, splashing him across the spring pool. That just made him laugh more.

"I hope you guys aren't naked in here," Vanessa called from somewhere outside of the trees that ringed the pool and the clearing around it. "Or, hell, maybe I do."

"Just mostly," I called back, looking over my shoulder as my partner came trudging through the woods. She was dressed in her work gear, steel toe boots and reflective vest and all. The only thing she was missing was her hard hat on her head, which was instead hanging from a carabiner on her belt. "Hey, Vee."

"Hey, big guy," Vanessa said, coming over to the spring pool and starting to kick off her boots. "Hey, Leo."

"What's up?" I asked. "How'd you get up here?"

"I walked my ass up here," Vanessa said. "You two had both the ATVs."

"I would have come back down to get you if you called," I said.

"Nah, it's fine," Vanessa said. Her boots were off and she peeled her socks off her feet, then rolled up her jean legs to the knee and slipped her feet into the cold water. "Oh, fuck that's good."

"What's up, Vee?" Leo asked.

"A girl can't take a hike in the woods?" Vanessa asked with a little teasing smirk. "No, but seriously, I just needed a hot minute to myself with everything going on and coming up here to check on the site of our house was a good enough excuse to slip out for half an hour."

Just that was a change from the old days. A hike up here would have usually taken an hour even if you took the quickest path, now with all the new roads being cut the time was in half. By the time things were finished, it might only take twenty minutes from the highway to the spring. Hell, maybe fifteen.

"Everything good?" I asked.

"Good as in what?" she asked me. "Everything is on time for the new schedule. We've got almost two hundred workers bussing in for each day and night shift, which they mostly hate because some of them are coming from up to an hour away. The renos to the first barracks are almost done and we'll probably start moving people over in the next few days, but they're going to hold half the number of actual construction workers as before. My labourer crews are going to explode with completely untrained women who the foremen are going to need to watch like hawks to make sure we don't have any safety issues, and I've only got so many cleaner and cook jobs before they'll need to be doing physical labour. My ass is dead tired, my brain is fried, and I'm not going to get an actual day off for at least another two weeks."

"God damn," Leo said.

I'd already asked her almost every morning when she woke up at 5 AM to start her day if there was anything I could do to help her out and she always said no. I felt bad, but tried not to let it show since I knew even though she was cranky and tired and ached all over that this was the life she'd chosen and that she actually enjoyed it. So instead of asking her, or commenting, I just reached over and took her feet in my hands and started washing them off lightly with my thumbs to get the sweat and grit from her boots off of her.

"Fuck," Vanessa groaned, closing her eyes and laying back on the ground.

"How are the house plans?" I asked.

Vanessa snorted. "I finally got back an email about some of my requests."

"Which one did it?" I asked with a smirk.

"The stripper pole stage," Vanessa chuckled.

"Not the full-sized shooting range?" I asked.

"Nope. They know you're the official law enforcement for the 'county' so it wasn't even questioned," Vanessa said. "And Leo, they approved the woodworking shop outbuilding for you. I'll get you the plans when they are done so you can check them over and ask for changes."

"Awesome," Leo grinned. "And I can tell you one thing right now for sure - more electrical outlets."

Vanessa smirked and nodded. "We'll get you covered."

"Did you know Erica asked Leo to be her man-of-honour?" I asked Vanessa.

"Hah! I knew she was going to, not that she did," Vanessa laughed. "She beat you to it, didn't she?"

"Yes," I grumbled.

"Just ask Dani," Vanessa said. "Or Miriam."

That made me purse my lips into a thoughtful frown. I had assumed Erica would have Dani as a bridesmaid along with Kyla, Vanessa and Ivy, but if I got to her first I could get one back over on my fiancee.

"You two want me to give you some time alone up here?" Leo asked.

"Nnnn-yeaa-no," Vanessa wavered back and forth. "I can't. I need to get back."

"Don't move too fast," I teased her, considering she hadn't moved from her lying-back position. I tickled the bottom of her foot lightly and she just shifted a little.

"Five more minutes," Vanessa groaned.

Leo and I just laughed.

* * * * *

The buzzing of Erica's tattoo machine had been a steady drone since we had gotten back from the spring pool. Vanessa had ended up riding on the back of my ATV instead of hiking back down herself, and I'd gotten a chance to give her a proper kiss in the shadow of the storage container where we parked. As we'd kissed she'd groaned and her hands had travelled a little, rubbing my torso, and I could tell she wanted more but was holding herself back. I decided I would stay up late that night so that I could get some alone time with her.

As I entered the compound, sweeping through the door of sheets that gave us our privacy, I found Erica was set up in the shade next to our RV and was currently tattooing India's shoulder. The tanned woman was topless and face down on the folding table as my fiancee sat next to her on a stool.

To be frank, the whole 'outdoor tattooing' setup wasn't the most sterilized set-up, but Erica was doing what she could and as long as we weren't getting a breeze blowing dust or grit through it seemed to be doing fine. It didn't help that Macho, the dachshund I'd rescued, was tied up in the shade and barked happily from under the table to see that I'd come back, his little tail whipping wildly.

While Erica was tending to India, I saw Dani already heading into the other RV with Leo while Ivy, Aria and Kyla were all laying out in the deck chairs taking in the sun that was peeking out from the soft cloud cover overhead. It wasn't nearly as hot out as the late spring had been but still pleasantly warm and it had been a few weeks since the girls had a reason to break out their bikinis.

"Hey, Harri?" Aria asked me as I went over to the little covered wooden board that Leo had rigged for us to hang our keys on. "You got time for that design now?"

"Oh, sure. Let me go get my stuff," I said. I passed by Erica on my way to our RV and she stopped her needlework on India just long enough to give me a little peck on the lips. She was still doing the linework on India's shoulder, some sort of a tropical flower piece. I went to one knee to give Macho a good head rubbing too, and that turned into a quick belly rub as well - the girls had given him the name due to the big fuzzy balls that wagged between his short little legs and seemed almost oversized for the little guy. Inside the RV I quickly changed into a fresh pair of shorts and shirt after wiping the dust off of me from the ATV ride back down the hills, then grabbed my sketchbook and some pencils.

"Alright, what were you thinking, Aria?" I asked as I went to the sunbathing women. I leaned down and kissed Kyla, who smiled softly and reached up to run her hand under the bottom hem of my shirt and stroke her fingers across my stomach briefly.

"So, I was thinking of doing a matching design," Aria said as I went around her to Ivy, leaning down to kiss my other girlfriend. Ivy, unlike Kyla, wasn't happy with a brief and firm peck and she wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a deeper kiss as she fed me her tongue.

"Mmf!" I grunted against Ivy's lips, holding a finger out to Aria asking her to wait a moment.

"Ivy, he was in the middle of a conversation," Kyla chuckled.

Ivy finished her kiss with me, letting go of me and falling back slightly into her chair with a big shit-eating grin. "Love you,mon amour," she said.

"Je t'aime aussi chéri," I said, my French 'lessons' still pretty much limited to telling Ivy that I loved her, and different little things I could call her. It still worked as she beamed at me and pursed her lips again in an air kiss. "OK. Sorry, Aria. A matching design?"

"It's fine," Aria smiled. "Yeah, matching. I've had this idea for a while of doing a nature landscape on my left leg and a city landscape on my right leg. They would go around my lower legs, and if possible I thought it would be cool if they formed a loop since it'll be a mini leg sleeve."

"Oh, that is cool," I said, opening up my sketchbook to an empty page and tearing it out. "How big were you thinking? I'm not huge on tattoo design, but I could probably do it tight like a band, or all the way out to just under your knee down to just over your ankle."

"I know, Erica said tattooing wasn't your thing," Aria said. "That's OK. I was thinking a couple inches below my knee and above my ankle, so you have most of the lower leg to work with but it doesn't need to be solid or anything."

"Neat. OK, so if I've learned anything at all from Erica about tattoo design it's that fitting the curve and shape of the location on the body is really important. I'm thinking that we can wrap the paper around your shin and calf and I can mark the curves. Sound good?"

"Nice thinking, babe," Erica called over from her work on India. "Glad to know I'm rubbing off on you."

"Wait, did you sayon orto?" Kyla called over teasingly.

"Andwith!" Erica laughed.

I slipped off of my chair, shaking my head at the banter, and knelt in front of Aria. She sat forward on the chair to give me room to work, and soon I had the paper around her leg and was tracing the curves of her calf.

"Harrison," Ivy said to me. "Do meune petite faveur and look up,mon amour?"

I glanced over at her with a questioning look, then glanced up at Aria - right into her cleavage. Now, Aria had very nice, big tits; just about the same size as Erica's and full and natural, so it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before. She also took after her girlfriend and often went braless when she was wearing a T-shirt or tank top, so seeing them bouncing and jiggling as she moved around wasn't even that weird now.

Being six inches from her pale, bikini-clad cleavage was new, though.

"Oh my God, he went so red," Kyla started laughing behind her hand.

"You OK there, Harri?" Aria grinned at me. I immediately ducked my head down and went back to trying to outline the curves of her calf. The fact that my hands had been touching her bare skin when I glanced directly into her cleavage had just made the whole thing that much more weird and intimate.

"Yep, totally fine," I said.

"For a guy with four girlfriends, you definitely don't seem OK," Kyla teased me. "They're just boobs."

"Not the same thing, dear," I said.

"What about showering at the Falls?" she asked. "You never go that red there seeing Josie or Abi completely naked."

"Still not the same thing," I said.

"Oh, leave him alone," Aria said. "He's being sweet.And doing me a favour."

I stood up, generally happy with the marking of the curves of Aria's calf, and I set down my sheet and pencil on my chair before stepping over to Kyla. "Come here," I said, picking her up out of the chair bodily. She naturally looped her arms around the back of my neck and her legs around my waist as I held her by her butt. "Would you rather I stared into Aria's cleavage and got hypnotized by the boobs?"

"No," she said with a little smirk and an eye roll.

"Would you rather I have lost control and motorboated her?" I asked, lifting Kyla up and pressing my face between her own bikini-clad breasts and making the sound.

She laughed, shaking her head and running her fingers through my hair before pushing my head back from her. "No, dear. I wouldn't want that."

"Then stop teasing me about being tricked into doing something rude," I said and gave her butt a little swat.

She sighed and nodded, then kissed me. "I'm sorry, dear. You're right."

I set Kyla back down on her feet and turned to Ivy. "And you," I said, shaking my finger at her. "Don't think I magically forgot you're the one who tricked me to begin with."

Ivy was just grinning, curled up on her deck chair and chewing on the inside of her lip. "I am not sorry," she said. "Aria has great tits."

"Awe, thanks Ive," Aria laughed.

I just shook my head and let out an exasperated sigh. "Troublemaker!"

Ivy scrunched up her face in a pleased little teasing expression and stuck out her tongue.

"Alright," I said, turning back to Aria. "Let's talk landscapes."

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