Reluctant Necromancer

Ashley returned a few hours later. She was tired and covered in sweat. I should have found it gross and off-putting, but all I wanted was to have her press me up against the wall and devour me.

I stalked her back to our room where she grabbed up a change of clothes to take into the shower. “So…want me to scrub your back?” I asked with a smirk as I stood in front of the door as I closed it.

“What are you doing?” she rolled her eyes at me.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Being a horny idiot,” she shot back.

“Ouch,” I pressed my hand over my heart. “I’m wounded you think so little of me.”

“Am I wrong?”

“I mean…not strictly. But I do question the idiot part. I prefer to think of myself as simply…highly motivated.”

She laughed, “I’m gross and covered in sweat.”

I strode across the room toward her, “You’re gorgeous.” I closed the distance between us and leaned up to press my lips against hers. “Please,” I begged.

It was like that single word finally broke her resolve. She grabbed me by the hips, fingers digging into my flesh hard enough to bruise, and pushed me back into the door. There was a soft thud as my body collided with the door and she pressed herself against me.

One hand traced across her cheek, settling my thumb at the edge of her jaw while my fingers splayed through the hairs at the back of her neck. The other pressed up from her waist, bunching up her baggy shirt as my fingers glided across her rippling abs. Oh my god I had dreamed about these before I even knew I wanted her.

I had lied to myself and tried to suppress my attraction to her. Telling myself I disliked her perky attitude and that she wasn’t that pretty. Except she was. I was shit at lying, even to myself. Deep down I’d always known she was an amazon goddess made to be worshipped.

I pressed my lips against the side of her neck and nipped at the salty skin there. A purr practically rumbled out of Ashley’s chest. I soothed the little pain away with an open mouthed kiss, licking up more of her salty skin. Her head fell back as she allowed me more access. We once again traded off who was the aggressor in this situation.

With a growl she pressed her thigh between mine, pressing up into me. I gasped and moaned into her neck. She chuckled darkly. Ashley reached up and wrapped her fingers in my hair and jerked my head back. The pain shot through me like a bolt of lightning, straight to my core.

It took her another two hours before she made it to the shower. By then I’d badgered her down to letting me take one with her ‘to save water.’ It seemed fair after I worked up a sweat of my own. That girl was no stranger to making me work for it. And I did in fact wash her back…after I washed her front.

When we finally came back into the common areas of the house everyone else was home. Mara gave us saucy winks and I blushed remembering how loud we’d, but mostly I’d, been. John and Oliver smiled at us but didn’t tease. Oliver must have gotten John to behave. I expected to be teased mercilessly as soon as he wasn’t around to reign John in.

“So, how did the clinic go?” I asked Oliver. Hoping to take the onus off of us.

Oliver threw his hands in the air and huffed, “It would have gone great if the doctor let me see anyone. Every time someone was sent back to my room to be seen he sent out his little sniper nurse to direct them to him.”

“Most of the staff liked Ollie and seemed interested in getting more help,” John added while he rubbed his husband’s shoulder in a soothing motion. “I mean we’re miles from the nearest hospital and injuries have definitely gone up with everything going on. Not even taking into account monster injuries.

“But the doctor and this older nurse, that I really think they’re having an affair,” Oliver jabbed him in the ribs. “Anyway, she took the doc’s side and made it impossible for Oliver to treat more than a handful of people.”

“Maybe we should talk to Montgomery about setting you up in your own space?” I suggested. “It’s not like we need all the paperwork and shit a doctor’s office does. Just go into the room, lay hands, exit the room. Boom, done.” I clapped my hands together.

“Still takes a little bit of admin and people wrangling to keep things fair and organized,” Oliver pointed out.

“We could help,” Mara suggested. “Me and Grace didn’t have anything to do while everyone was off. And John will already be there most likely.”

“Providing security to keep those grubby lumberjacks hands off him,” John harrumphed.

“Don’t volunteer me for shit. Maybe I’m going to go to the gym with Ashley,” I groused. Then quickly turned to Ashley who looked very excited, “I am not going to the gym with you. I’d rather die and you can pry the twinkie from my cold dead hands.”

Ashley’s face fell momentarily before bursting into laughter. She nodded her head, “Yeah, I should have expected that.”

“And I already knew that, dumbass,” Mara added. “Consider yourself voluntold.”

“Rude,” I whined.

“I’ll bring it up to Montgomery tomorrow,” Oliver said. “Thanks guys.” He looked a little bashful.

Mara slid over next to him and gave him a side hug. “Of course you big meat head. We love you and your giant heart,” she smacked a kiss against his cheek.

“Well, that’s for tomorrow. What do you guys want to do tonight?” John asked.

“D&D?” Ashley asked behind me.

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m already living it as is,” John answered.

“We could play a different TTRPG,” Oliver suggested.

“OH!” Mara exclaimed. “There was a comic book store downtown. Let’s go see what they have.”

“Nerds,” I grumped.

“Like that isn’t how we all met?” Ashley shot back. “Nerd.”

Mara looked around the circle of us, collecting nods of agreement from everyone. Finally she got to me and then everyone was staring at me with expectant looks. I threw my arms up in the air, “Fine!”

“Yay!”

“Huzzah!”

“Woo!”

Ashley just patted me on the back. We all quickly loaded into the van and Oliver drove us downtown with Mara acting as navigator. I pulled out my phone and googled the local comic shop. Then watched as we made the most winding way there. We could have gotten there in half the time if anyone had been willing to veto Mara on navigating. I chuckled with Ashley as we both watched us meander across the map.

Eventually we made it there. Dragon’s Cavern Comic Shop. As we all hopped out I showed Oliver the map and he just shook his head and threw up his hands like ‘whatcha’ gonna do’ while following John inside.

The shop was a pretty typical shop. There were comics in the front. In the back were a pair of foldable tables and chairs for groups to gather at and play. Behind the counter were a bunch of the more expensive collectables. There was a rack to the side of the counter with a small handful of minis, mostly pretty generic stuff. And beside that was a small bookshelf with various gaming manuals.

John and Mara were gathered around that whispering giddily to each other. Oliver stood nearby checking out the minis. There wasn’t a lot of room for all of us to look at the gaming section so with a shrug I turned around and started sorting through the comics.

I didn’t really have any interest in them, but they provided something interesting to look at while I waited on the others to make a choice.

I was flipping through a section of Wonder Woman when a hand reached out and snagged a comic out from between my fingers. With a start I looked over my shoulder. Ashley looked a little sheepish as she clutched it to her chest.

“I’ve been wanting to read this arc.”

With a shrug I shuffled over to another row of comics and gestured to where I’d left of on Wonder Woman. She dove right in with an eager grin across her face. Despite it not being my thing, I liked seeing her excited about something so normal.

Ten minutes and several loud debates over the different systems later Mara and John settled on a game for us to play. Something called Starfinder. Basically D&D in space, but not. I don’t know. I was going to need to learn a bunch of weird rules it sounded like.

They marched up to the front and bought the basic rule book, an adventure book and then made us all pick out a set of dice. There were a wide variety of colors and textures of dice in little cases under the countertop. I went with a weird like mutant green color. Ashley grabbed a bright pink. The others grabbed different colors, I wasn’t paying attention by that point. The old dude behind the counter rang everything up with a small smile across his face. Like we’d made his day showing up and arguing in his store.

On the way home, Oliver ignored Mara’s directions home and took the more direct route he’d spotted from the map earlier. It honestly wasn’t that hard to navigate back to the house when not following Mara’s rambling directions.

We ended up playing for several hours that night. And yeah, there were a lot of funky rules, and I had to do math. But I had fun. Ashley held my hand most of the night.