Quaranteam - North West Ch. 01-04

When I was coming back, Danielle was slipping on my flannel shirt. "I'm really fine with it," she was saying. "I like being naked, and I'm a stripper so I'm used to it. Honestly, it kind of turns me on."

"Yeah, well there's about twenty construction workers outside right now and I don't think anything is going to get done if they catch a look at you, Dani," Erica said.

Danielle laughed and shrugged while she brought the sides of the flannel shirt up and tied them between her tits. I don't think my shirt had ever looked better, and somehow she just effortlessly made it a perfect, teasing shape that hugged her cleavage and slim torso.

"You're a stripper?" I asked, offering her the water. "I thought most women in that business preferred 'dancer' or something like that

"Mmm, only the ones who are embarrassed about it deep down," Danielle said. She took a sip from her glass. "But I made $300k American last year as astripper, so why should I care what other people think of me? I'm a businesswoman and entrepreneur, and I work hard to make sure my product is amazing. And my product happens to be stripping off my clothes and making guys cream their pants."

I almost choked on my own spit as Danielle casually dropped her tax bracket. "You made that much?"

"Oh, you must not be a strip club boy, are you?" Danielle smiled at me.

"He will be," Erica said, chuckling.

"I will?"

"Oh yeah, baby," Erica said. "Half of my best clients are strippers. I'm a tattoo artist, by the way," she said to Danielle, then smirked at me again. "Once the world opens back up, I know some babes who are going to rock your world. I can't wait to see the look on your face!"

"Well, it's always nice to find a discerning lady-fan of the art," Danielle said. "Honestly, women always make the best fans. Guys shell out more cash, but women just appreciate us more."

The front door of the house opened and Vanessa walked in, stopping as she saw Danielle standing between Erica and I in nothing but my shirt and her panties.

"Fuck, sorry," she said, and she looked like she was going to head right back out the door, then re-thought that and stayed where she was. "Um, Harrison, we could use your help out in the barn. Any shot we can get that old tractor running to move the planer?"

"We can try," I said. "I didn't need it to plough the past couple of winters since the ATVs did the trick. I'll see if it'll turn over."

I left Danielle in Erica's hands - something which both brought chub-inducing pictures to mind, but also just a touch of jealousy considering the open lust my now-girlfriend was showing for her twin's vaccine-fuck-friend.

We really need to figure out some terms and definitions, I sighed.

The tractor, in fact, did not turn over. It was deader than a doornail. With enough leverage and muscle power, we managed to get Leo's big planer - which he had thankfully already prepped for moving - onto a trailer we used with the ATVs and carefully towed the sucker with two guys on either side to keep it balanced and upright. Vanessa shooed me away after that, telling me to go keep packing up the valuables and let her paid gorillas do the heavy lifting. The big labourers all grumbled good-naturedly at her name-calling, and as I was leaving them I heard one trying, "Me Tarzan, you Jane."

"Yeah, and I'll Jane you right in the mouth if you start trying to hit on me, Tarzan," she replied. "I don't shit where I eat, unlike you goddamned animals."

Back in the house, Erica was helping Danielle start packing Leo's things up in his bedroom, so I went back to work cleaning out all the corners of the house. The one thing I realized was that I didn't actually need to beneat about anything. The last time I'd moved, when Leo and I had left our place back in Portland and come up to the homestead, half of the bother was cleaning everything up to make sure we got our security deposits back.

This place was gonna get knocked over in two days, so what was the point of cleaning?

I'd been trying to find time to sneak Erica to somewhere private, and maybe to fool around a bit now thatthat was part of our relationship, but Danielle was too full of questions. If she wasn't chatting with Erica, she was asking me all sorts of questions about the house, my family, and the deal with the land and the vaccine. I was happy to chat with her as we packed up the kitchen, or while she helped me as I handed her things out from the little root cellar under the house, but that smile and those eyes were hard not to get distracted by. Not to mention the braless cleavage inmy shirt and her toned, bare midriff and legs since she only bothered to slip on a pair of booty shorts to complete her outfit.

It turned out that Danielle had known about the vaccine longer than any of us by about a day and a half. The Government, whichever agency was running the whole thing, had gotten her contact information from a couple of the strip clubs in Portland where she'd been scheduled to work before the lockdown. Danielle was the kind of girl who took risks, so she immediately signed up to be a Phase 2 tester for the vaccine - Portland was one of three secondary trial locations across the country in 'Phase 2.' She'd asked around once she got tested and entered the Quarantine Hotel, and it turned out most of the women who'd been contacted had been sex workers of one sort or another - strippers, dancers, OnlyFans models, high-end call girls, even a few honest to god porn stars. Danielle figured whoever was in charge had decided the sexual nature of the vaccine lent itself more easily to openly sexual people. It seemed... Well, it seemed weirdly logical to me, but also shady as hell. She'd received the same briefing Erica had, which she said had felt more like a meeting selling timeshares in Boca than anything else, had done the questionnaire and then picked a guy out of a list of twenty photos of her top 'matches'. She remembered seeing Leo on that first list but didn't remember why she picked the guy she did. They drove her to a big building in downtown Portland, but she never got out of the car. Her escorts came back about twenty minutes later and told her the guy wasn't a valid partner anymore, and she had to pick again. She got a new list, and Leo was on it.

"I can't help but notice you aren't asking about him," I said to her as we were carrying the dining room table across the backyard towards the storage containers, each of us on an end. "You've gotten half my life story at this point. You're not curious about the guy you're, well,imprinted on?"

Danielle smiled and shook her head. "Naw, I had my guy pegged the minute I saw him. I have all the time in the world to learn the details, I know what I need to know. He's sweet and boyish, and honest. You should have seen him blush when I walked up and kissed him. Hah! He didn't know what hit him."

"Neither would I," I said. "You're quite the woman, Danielle. Leo's a lucky guy."

"Well thanks, hun. But I have a feeling you'd knowjust what to do with me. I could see it in the way you were standing when I got out of that car yesterday."

"The way I stand?" I asked.

"Oh, for sure. You're a big guy. Muscley, but not a bodybuilder. You have that mountain-man vibe with the longer hair and the beard, but even after a couple of months of quarantine you still keep it trimmed and neat. And your eyes were looking at everything all at once. My Dad had eyes like yours, and he was Australian military back home. A man like you, if he isn't a prick, well... let's just say I've known a couple of gals with guys like you, and they arequite happy."

We'd set the table down outside the storage containers and were headed back for the chairs now. "Well, thanks I guess. Hopefully Erica feels the same."

"Oh, she does," Danielle smirked. "She may not realize it completely yet, but the way she's grinning to herself when she didn't think I was looking? She does."

That little nugget of information made my heart sing.

"Sorry if it's a button, but I noticed you said your Dadhad eyes like mine. He's gone now?" I asked.

"Mhmm," Danielle nodded. "Years ago, so don't worry about it. Cancer. I was fifteen and it hit me hard. Mum got a boyfriend the next summer and within six months of that she moved us to California and I finished high school in the Valley. I hated the new guy, and then the guy after that, so I moved back to Sydney as soon as I could and was planning to go to school there. But then I took a job at a strip club to pay the bills, and the rest is history. I've been doing it for five years and did a tour up the east coast of the US last year, so I figured I'd do the west coast this year."

"Oh, well, I'm still sorry to hear that. It all sounds tough," I said. "But I guess it's good you found your... calling?"

"Hah," she laughed. "Something like that. I'm not like other girls who have specific ambitions. I've just been banking as much money as I can, while I can, and having fun doing it. I'm not looking to go to med school, or become a lawyer or something."

We were carrying the last of the chairs, and Danielle was telling me a story about her senior year in high school when Leo came back. It turned out Danielle's accent, a bastard amalgamation of Aussie twang and Valley girl, was the one thing she disliked about herself but she was just plain terrible at trying to fix it and it was because of some traumatic bullying while she'd lived in the Valley. As soon as Leo came out of the mouth of one of the trails, the chair Danielle was carrying was forgotten as she dropped it in the middle of the yard and began sauntering over towards Leo and the surveyors.

She looked like a lioness on the prowl, and Leo stopped when he saw her coming. The surveyors, about two-thirds of whom were men, all moved aside to let her past them, watching with big eyes as she stalked up, knocked Leo's baseball cap off his head and moulded herself to him as she planted a kiss on him that I could feel searing from across the yard. And she didn't stop. They were kissing a solid thirty seconds, hands wrapped around each other, before the surveyors backed away and came towards me, shaking their heads and grinning.

"We need fifteen minutes, then are you ready to head out again?" one of them asked as they got near me.

"Sure, sure," I said. "How many are coming out?"

"All of us," one of the ladies said. "About... fifteen?"

"Jesus Christ," I said, shaking my head.

"Hey, big project at speed. Most of the time you pick quality, quantity, or speed. The government wants all three, and they are throwing around the kind of money needed to make it happen right now," the first guy said. "We'll be working like crazy for the next two weeks getting all the info, then another two handing it all off to the developer team, then back on site again to make sure everything is being built in the right place."

I headed back to the house to get my hiking gear back on. Danielle and Leo had stopped making out and were talking now, but I could see Leo was holding Danielle's hand while she had her other on his chest, and he was grinning and nodding along with whatever she was saying. I smiled, happy for my friend, and went inside.

"Hey," I said when I found Erica upstairs, cleaning out my closets. "I need to head out in about ten minutes on another tour."

"Oh yeah?" Erica asked, turning to face me. She was still wearing that tight t-shirt, her sweat from hard work making it stick to her a little more. It cupped under her tits, making them stand out just that touch more, and I could see the bumps of her nipples in the black fabric.

"Yeah," I said lowly, and stepped beside her, offering her a hand to help her up. "And Danielle and Leo are out in the backyard talking right now."

Erica's eyes lit up as she let me help her up. "Well why didn't you say so?" she asked, and I pulled her in to kiss her, feeling her tits press against my chest. She hummed happily into my lips and slid her tongue across mine. I picked her up without breaking the kiss and brought her over to the bed, and she lifted her legs up to circle my waist and cling to me as I laid her on her back. I was leaning over her and she wrapped her arms around my neck, keeping me close as we made out.

"Mmm, I want you," she whispered between kisses.

"Yeah?" I asked. "Good. I want you, too."

"How bad do you want me?" Erica asked me.

"Utterly. Totally. Bad to the bone."

She snickered and pulled up her top over her tits, freeing them, and I shifted to quickly mouth over them, kissing as much of them as I could all at once and as quickly as I could.

"Oooh, baby, baby," Erica crooned. "God, you make me feel so sexy."

"You are sexy," I said, pulling away from her tits and mauling them with my hands as I lifted my lips back to her. "Deadly sexy. Femme fatale. Boss bitch."

"You say the nicest things," she laughed. "I'm glad you aren't freaked out by all of this."

"Oh, I'm freaked out more than enough," I said to her, pausing our kisses to press my forehead to hers and looking down, meeting her eyes. "The entire world stopped, and now it's going faster than it ever has before, but you Erica Lacosta are enough to make me not care about any of it."

She cupped my cheeks with her hands, then ran her fingers through my beard and pulled me down to her, kissing me hard as she kept her eyes open, looking at me through the soulful, hungry kiss.

There was a bang downstairs, the back door opening and closing, and we could just hear the muffled sounds of Leo talking with Danielle.

"Fuck," I said, as Erica let go of my beard and our kiss ended.

"Fuuuuck," Erica groaned. "Fucking Leo."

Erica straightened herself out, getting her shirt back on properly and standing back up, while I straightened my hair a moment and pulled it back and then changed into a new shirt. I caught Erica eyeing me up from across the room while I was shirtless, and she didn't even blush or look away. "Yummy," she said and winked.

"You're trouble like this," I said with a smirk.

"You don't know the half of it," Erica said. "I feel like I've been set free. The only thing keeping me from tearing your pants off is the thought of my brother being in the next room."

That made me laugh, and as I got myself together and was ready to head out I kissed her one more time, one hand squeezing her ass and pulling her into me as I held the back of her head with the other.

"Ugh, you bastard," she said when we separated. "You keep getting better at kissing me."

"Just taking your cues," I said. "Fuck you like I hate you, right?"

"Did I say that?" Erica thought. "God, everything yesterday went so fast."

"Actually, I think you said you wanted someone to love you, but who fucks you like they don't. I figured that went for steamy kisses, too."

"Oh, it certainly does," Erica said, one finger tracing down her boob and nipple over her shirt. "But now I'm going to need to change panties, you bastard. God, you're leaving me here soaking wet."

"I prefer to think of you as simmering for later," I smirked, and she scoffed and threw a sock at me as I left the room.

The tour with the Surveyors was slow going, but it was late in spring and we had plenty of light left to us. Leo had taken them along a bunch of the lowlands areas, so I took them up the other side of the property, pointing out some of the ponds and a couple of old growth copses of trees. There was a solitary Redwood on the property which they all agreed would be a shame to lose, and I pointed out some other big, ancient trees that served as landmarks. Deep into the hike we reached the Spring Pond, high on one of the rolling hills near the back of the property, and I showed them where I wanted mine, my sisters and Leo's houses to be built. I didn't much care how they organized the lots, but the Spring Pond fed down as a stream into the Nehalem River that bordered the property, and it had sweet, pure water that had been a swimming hole for my family for generations. Other than the old House itself, this was where the Black family had made their mark.

It helped convince the Surveyors when I pointed out that my family graveyard, dating back more than a hundred and fifty years, was an acre up the slope overlooking the pond. At the mention of a Native burial ground I could almost see all of them shudder, not in fear of spiritual consequences but of Red Tape. I had a feeling this particular project wouldn't actually care one shit if they came across potential burial grounds, but all of these folks had horror stories of major projects getting stalled for months, or even years, by old bones in the ground.

The sun was setting over the hills when I led them back down, having reached the very far edge of the property and pointing out the markers my great-great-grandfather had erected prior to the first World War. It was twilight during the last few minutes of the hike, and despite being veterans of their work I could tell the long day of heavy walking, questions, and note-taking on the move had drained them all. As they left, trudging around the house back to their work trailers to file away their notes, I saw Vanessa just shutting off the light in the barn.

"Hey, how'd it go today?" I asked.

"Good. Better than I hoped, actually," she said, grinning widely. "How's it going in the house with your wife and... who was that?"

"Erica's my girlfriend, and that's kinda new, and Danielle is- well, it's a long story. How's a beer sound?" I asked.

"That sounds fucking great, actually," Vanessa said. She checked her watch and then nodded. "I've got some time. I'm technically off shift already, we just don't have any time clocks or anything set up yet. I sent the boys back in the van about fifteen minutes ago, I'll take my truck back to the motel when we're done."

I fetched out a couple of six packs from the fridge inside, and Leo and I went and dragged the metal fire-pit back out of the storage containers where one of Vanessa's 'gorillas' had stored it away. Soon enough I had a fire crackling away on the back porch, and Vanessa was sitting in one of my lawn chairs while Erica and I lounged on that old beat-up couch that was going to be demolished along with the house. Leo had planted himself in the heavy wooden Adirondack chair he'd built for himself two years prior, and Danielle had happily slipped over the wide armrest to sit on his lap, her legs dangling over the side as she cuddled up to his chest.

We filled in Vanessa as we went at our first beers, giving her the rundown on my background and the house, and Leo and I being roommates, and that naturally led to talking about the chaos of the last two days, and Erica and I getting together because of the vaccine. Danielle chipped in and filled in some of the details from her end when it came to the vaccine stuff, but mostly she spent her time in the conversation occasionally whispering to Leo, making him blush and grin.

Eventually, she kissed him, then rotated on his lap and slowly stood up, her ass practically brushing against his face. "Well, it's late," she said, smirking naughtily and knowing full well that we knew what she was doing. "I guess I'll head to bed. It was nice to meet you all today, see you in the morning."

She sauntered back into the house as we replied with our own good nights, Danielle's hips swaying, ass flexing in her booty shorts.

Leo made a show of yawning and stretching. "Aaaaw, yeah. I guess it is a little late-"

"Oh, shut up, Leo," Erica said. "Just go have sex, already."

He at least had the decency to blush as he scampered out of his chair and followed Danielle into the house.

Vanessa shook her head and laughed. "Honestly, I wouldn't have believed you all if you'd told me this stuff last week," she said. "The only reason I believe you guys haven't been together for years, all four of you, is because this entire job has been so fucking weird."