Three's Not a Crowd

Angie Martinelli was not a happy woman. She was dressed to the nines and gorgeous as hell, if she did say so herself. She was in one of the nicest homes on the coast, drinking bubbly that was worth more than her Pop made in five years, but she was not happy.

Peg and Steve were, clearly. They’d been holding court with Howard, recounting the glory days for hours now. She understood that none of them could claim each other in this big, fancy room with all these fancy, well-connected gossip hounds waiting around to hear about it, that was fine, par for the course. Was it fine to leave her standing around with nothing to do, like that statue over there that looked like some kind of weird porno? Hell no.

Most of the guests were flocked around her two jerk spouses and Howard, while they talked about all the fun they’d had getting shot at and blown up during the war. It was all remember when, and what about that time, and no, the best part was. All stories Angie had heard a thousand times but couldn’t contribute to. They were even finishing each other’s sentences for God’s sake, Howard included.

Angie drained her glass and snagged another from a passing waiter. They hadn’t even looked at her in she wasn’t sure how long, but it was too long. She was stewing in her terrible, unforgivable neglect when one of the few guys who wasn’t glued to the show across the room started chatting her up.

Well then.

He was dull as hell. Angie made sure she was not. She was charming and funny and not at all slutty about it, though she did lean a little closer than normal when he offered to light her cigarette.

She could work with this.

She continued to be charming and funny toward everyone actually willing to pay her a little mind. When dinner came around, she pretended to be so engrossed in a conversation with some prince from Norway or somewhere that she didn’t notice the seating, didn’t notice that she was sitting closer to Princey than her war hero spouses.

She felt them staring and steaming at her the entire time she was asking about some fancy kind of steamed vegetables.

After dinner, she built up a dance card, held a few hands longer than she normally would after a song ended, blushed and giggled at everyone who complimented her footwork. By then Steve and Peggy were blatantly staring. She refused to make eye contact when Peggy tried staring her down over the shoulder of some guy who got rich off diamonds. He spun her rather expertly at one point and there was applause from the closest onlookers. Neither one of her dates for the nights clapped, but she felt them tracking her as she glided across the floor, like heat at her back.

Was this what it was to be one of the targets from their war stories?

When she judged the moment right, Angie talked herself away from a small crowd who boo hooed about her leaving, implored her to hurry back.

“Now now, boys, a lady’s got to powder her nose, doesn’t she? Don’t worry, I’ll come right back. Say nice things about me while I’m gone.”

“Oh, only the nicest for you, darling.”

Angie beamed at the diamond guy and turned on her heel, triumphant. Darling was English’s thing, and even if she hadn’t heard it, Steve surely had.

In truth, Angie had no idea where the bathroom was in this particular Stark joint. Certainly there were at least ten of them, but she could never remember where. Not that she cared to find out. She wandered for a few minutes, whistling happily to herself until she heard the distinctive, purposeful rhythm of Peg’s heels echoing off hardwood. She stopped, admiring a sort of pretty tapestry that was probably a thousand years old and worth a zillion dollars, and also looked like a really classy, old-timey porno. “Took you long enough.”

The heels click-clacked, quick, determined. “It’s hardly my fault you spent most of the evening being a horrible flirt.”

Angie found herself being half-dragged into some room they probably weren’t supposed to be in. “Who, me?”

“Yes,” Peggy said, voice terse as she shut the door behind them. “You.”

“I was socializing, mingling, same as everyone here. Same as you.”

“Flirting. Horribly.”

Angie was pushed back against a heavy oak desk that was probably the most expensive hunk of wood ever, probably got polished twice a day. "Horribly? I was doing damn well thank you very much. Some guy named Schultz was in the middle of inviting me on his yacht for the weekend. I don’t know how things work over ‘cross the pond, English, but ‘round here you don't get yachts if you're doing horribly. And I haven’t done a bad job at flirting since before Pearl Harbor, so—”

Peggy’s lips came down insistent, demanding on hers. And Angie lost her train of thought. She moaned as Peggy’s tongue forced it’s way into her mouth. Peg tasted like that crazy expensive champagne Howard had been refilling for her all night.

“Well,” Angie said after Peg had taken too long to pull away and Angie was struggling for breath. “You’ve gone and ruined my lipstick, Margaret. What’re people going to think?”

Peggy’s eyes flashed, as they always did when Angie used her full name. She pushed Angie back harder against the desk, then lifted her up without warning so her ass was on top of it. “Oh shut up,” she said, kissing Angie again, trapping Angie’s face between her hands.

Peg had clearly trained to hold her breath much longer than Angie. She’d have to get tips on that, it’d be helpful with her singing. For now, Angie moaned into Peggy’s mouth, wrapped both arms around her neck to skim over the necklace at Peggy’s throat.

She was dizzy and drunk, and not from the champagne, by the time Peggy backed off enough to let her breathe.

“’Shut up,’” Angie mocked, reaching for Peggy’s left breast and pinching it through her dress, not necessarily in the way she knew Peggy liked. “Now see, that’s what I’ve been thinking half the night, while you guys blabbed it up with Howard about how much better your life was before me.”

Peggy made a noise at the pinch, but kept her hands on either side of Angie’s face, forcing their gazes to hold. “No. Never.”

Angie swallowed at the tone, the look, but kept her own voice light. “No?” she pinched Peggy’s other breast. “All you’ve done all night is go on about you and Steve and your honeymoon period with Howard and your glory days shooting Nazis. Never even looked twice at me.”

“We looked plenty. You were too busy making eyes at strangers to notice.” Peggy’s hands left Angie’s face and went to work on her dress instead. Her mouth was on Angie’s neck, kissing and sucking.

“Nuh-uh,” Angie said, a very nuanced, adult response as she squirmed on the desk, gripping it with one hand and losing the other in Peggy’s curls. “That was only after you spent all that time reliving your glory days and ignoring me.”

“I feel it’s rather disproportionate to react by drawing the attention of others instead.” Peggy’s hands found Angie’s ass on the desk and pinched, at the same time she nipped Angie’s pulse point.

Angie hissed. She guessed that was turnabout after the tit tweaks earlier. “I thought about busting into that little court you were holding, grabbing Howard’s twenty-thousand-dollar vase and busting it over Steve’s head. Would you have preferred that one?”

“An interjection wouldn’t have gone amiss.”

Peggy sucked hard at a weak spot on her neck, used her teeth. “Watch it, you’re going to leave a mark,” Angie said, though it came out more of a moan than she wanted.

“Will I really.” Teeth again, then Peggy’s tongue soothing the skin. “Would that embarrass you?”

Angie gave Peggy’s hair a tug, gripped the desk with her free hand. “Did my mingling embarrass you?”

“Embarrass is not the word.”

“Not like you can make any claim on me.” Angie tugged again.

“Making a claim and having one are two entirely different things.”

Angie gasped as the material of her dress was suddenly and unceremoniously hiked up above her thighs. “Hey, careful, that’s a nice outfit.”

“Marvelous,” Peggy agreed, pulling back from Angie’s neck to focus on getting rid of her underwear. She didn’t pause in her task when the door opened. Steve leaned casually against the frame, meeting Angie’s eyes as Peggy worked.

“Took you long enough too,” she said as Peggy pushed her legs open with the same efficiency she used when stripping rifles. “You going to shut the door, or give Howie’s pals a free show?” It didn’t matter. He would hear anyone approaching long before it mattered, but she liked goading him. Especially when he was trying to look all impassive and bored while Peggy was pulling off her underthings.

“Wouldn’t you like that? You’ve been putting on a show for everyone, all night, why not now?”

“Oh honey, that show was just for you.”

This seemed to please him. His lips turned up at the corners and he finally shut the door, hands in his pockets as he ambled across to them, still feigning disinterest. “I miss anything good?”

Angie huffed at that. “All fucking night, baby.”

Peggy made her own sound of disgust. She kissed Angie again, rough and possessive. Then she threw Angie’s underwear behind her without looking. Steve caught them.

“We were just having a discussion,” she said, raking her nails over Angie’s bare thighs, “about Angie’s shameless flirting.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked, twirling Angie’s underwear between his fingers, feeling along the inside. “Some discussion.”

“Bullshit discussion,” Angie said, knowing his fingers were wet now. She squeezed hard at Peggy’s shoulders when those nails did another pass at her legs, shivered. “What do I have to do, send up smoke signals to get one of you to pay me any mind? You drag me here, forget I exist, then expect me to just stand around and look pretty and get no reward for it?”

“You get plenty of reward for it,” Steve said, ambling closer and studying her panties like they were a mildly attractive tie he probably wouldn’t purchase.

“Do I really? And did you finally pry yourself away from your boyfriend with the mustache just to stand around and watch?” It'd be far less irritating if it were less true. Why couldn't he have had a pretty boy with less risk of VD? Really, she'd settle for a shared past or affection or whatever it was (she’d yet to decide if Steve and Howard had actually screwed, or if Howard just wanted to screw) with the pool boy. Any pool boy, at all. Facial hair was acceptable, so long as they weren't the living embodiment of why soldier's needed to wrap it up.

“You flirted with enough other fellas tonight, what’s to make me think I’m even wanted?” He looked for a moment like he was going to pocket her underwear, then tossed them aside instead.

“I believe, darling, that that was the point,” Peggy said, giving Angie a kiss that was only slightly less bruising than the others. “Wasn’t it?” she asked, low and mere inches from Angie’s lips.

Okay, so they were annoyed, Steve with his hands in his pockets, playing at disinterest but never looking away. Good then, they could see what it felt like. “You see, baby?” Angie asked, nipping at Peggy’s ear and looking at Steve over her shoulder. “This,” she spread her legs wider and Peggy didn’t stop her, those strong hands still resting on her thighs, “is why Peg’s the big gal in charge of everything and you’re just another soldier boy. Peg understands. You, I’m still not sure you know one single thing about girls, or what makes them tick.” She threw him her best smirk, the challenge as clear as she knew how to make it.

“Know enough to tell when a girl’s playing a dangerous game.”

She would’ve challenged him on that, had the first words of a rebuttal out of her mouth when two of Peggy’s fingers suddenly pushed up and into her, strangling any coherent response on her lips. She made a sound that she was dimly aware Steve was smirking at, Smug bastard, as if he could even take credit.

“You were saying?” Steve drawled.

Angie could only pant into Peggy’s shoulder, clutch at it while her body rushed to adjust to the sudden intrusion.

“Come on,” Steve said, stepping close enough to run his thumb over Angie’s cheek, smooth back a bit of her hair. “You chatted up every other guy in the room tonight. Talk to me, sweetheart.”

Angie breathed in deep as she could a few times, raised her head to meet those baby blues of his. “Dangerous, huh? Well gee golly gosh, Cap,” she put on her best distressed damsel, radio voice, “thank goodness you’re here to save little old me from danger!”

With a noise almost like a growl, Steve’s hand in her hair tightened, pulled. He kissed her every bit as intensely as Peggy had.

“Hey,” Angie protested once she could use her mouth again, thinking of all the pins he’d just dislodged, all the work undone. “You have any idea what you just did? Not all of us are super-y, we don’t just roll out of bed looking perfect.”

“You do.”

“You’re just,” Angie had to pause when Peggy’s fingers did a particular number on some spot inside, “you’re just saying that because your big gorilla hands went and ruined an hour of work.” She let go of the desk though, the hand not on Peggy’s shoulder reaching for his tux.

“Sure,” he said, his fingers doing a quick pass over the length of Angie’s spine before finding the zipper of her gown. He kissed her again.

Holding his eyes as she pulled back, Angie deliberately rocked herself against Peggy’s fingers, then let go of his suit to rub at her clit. It had been a long, frustrating night. She continued to watch him as she rubbed herself off.

They weren’t expecting that. They must not have because it took a whole second before they moved. Peggy shrugged Angie’s hand off her shoulder like the grip was nothing and Steve grabbed both Angie’s hands with that crazy speed of his, brought them behind her back. “You don’t get to touch that right now.”

“Really?” Angie looked down, temporarily distracted by the sight of Peggy’s fingers going in and out. “Attached to me, shouldn’t I get to do what I want with it?”

“Not right now, no.”

He kissed her before she could answer back. His grip felt light where he held her hands together, but they were most definitely trapped. Angie cried out into his mouth when Peggy adjusted so her thumb could work Angie’s clit.

She was dizzier, drunker on this than she’d ever hope to be on Howard’s scary-expensive champagne.

One-handed, Steve worked her dress down, exposing her breasts and covering one with his fingers, tweaking the nipple until it was stiff and begging for more attention. Not that that took long.

Angie moaned hard when he kissed her again. Unable to do anything else, she wrapped her legs tighter around Peggy, losing a heel in the process. Her hair was ruined. She could feel sweat on her forehead. She was an utter mess and didn’t care. “I hate when you don’t see me,” she said, absent any smartass flare.

“We always see you,” Peggy said instantly, almost breathed it against Angie’s ear, nuzzled her jaw.

Angie shivered at Peggy’s words, felt as much as heard them. Felt Steve too, his mouth all over her neck, her shoulders. Angie turned her head enough to kiss Peggy. “Doesn’t feel like it sometimes. You,” Angie struggled to speak, to focus on anything while Peggy worked her over and Steve’s mouth kept working lower.

“We what, darling?”

Angie cried out before answering. Peggy’d done that thing with her clit that was sort of a pinch, but in a good way, the thing that made Angie feel desperately, blissfully alive, but also like she might die. “I don’t care if we’re in a room with five-hundred people and all they see is you.” She honestly didn’t. She loved being the center of attention and all, but she didn’t mind with them. She was proud of them and in awe of them and she knew just why others were, too. “But when,” Angie struggled again as Peggy did something particularly distracting with her fingers, “when we’re with all those people and it’s you who doesn’t see me…”

She hated this, this whiney, insecure side. And to display it when near everything else was on display too—the bottom half of her dress hiked up and the top pulled down—that was just irritating.

“There is never a time we don’t see you.” Peggy stretched her open with a third finger. “Never.”

“Fuck!” Angie would’ve grabbed at the desk if she had use of her hands. Instead she clenched her wrists, dug them into her palms, and moaned through her whole body. She could’ve hid her face against either of them, muffled her cries, but she didn’t. She’d held her feelings in all night, she was sick of it. The party was in full swing and they were far enough from it that they shouldn’t be overheard. Even if they were, this was a Stark shindig. Half the other rooms were probably filled with bored, horny snobs doing each other just like they were. Well, not just like. Probably. But who knew? And if it came to it, Steve would hear anyone getting too close, even if he was distracted. Probably, he’d hear them. Worth the risk.

“Like hearing you,” Steve murmured. “Almost as much as I like seeing you.” He kissed her nipple, sucked it between his lips, then opened his mouth to take her in more fully.

“You’re always seen,’ Peggy said again, kissing the straining, exposed muscles of Angie’s neck.

“Promise me,” Angie gasped, sliding her ass as close as she could to the edge of the desk, needing to get closer to them.

“Promise what?” Peggy asked, her fingers never losing their rhythm inside. “What do you need, darling?”

“See me. Don’t forget.” They were so good together, so much shared history between them. You could wonder sometimes, whether three wasn’t a crowd.

“Couldn’t forget if I tried, darling. Not that I’d ever be foolish enough to try.”

Angie kissed Peggy for that, sloppy and desperate, rolling her hips on Peggy’s fingers. She looked down at Steve, watched him sucking on her breast, grazing his insanely perfect teeth over the tender skin. “Steve…” It was a sigh, a plea. Angie would’ve reached for him, pulled him closer, messed up his hair in retaliation, except the hand that wasn’t massaging her other breast still had her wrists trapped.

He pulled away from her tit, nipped the underside before peppering kisses along the swell. “You’re unforgettable, Ange. I always see you.”

“You better. I see you, too, and that’s saying something. Peg’s a tough act to follow.”

“That she is.” Steve shared a brief, fond smile with Peggy. “Guess that makes me pretty special, huh, being seen by you?” He took her nipple back into his mouth.

“Being seen by our girl,” Peggy said with a nod, kissing Angie’s temple chastely, then her mouth, the opposite of chastely.

“Your girl, huh?” Angie asked, squirming. She was on sensory overload from both of them, drunk on Peggy’ s perfume. “Even if you can’t tell those dumb, loaded snobs out there?”

“Always ours, no matter who knows or who doesn’t. Not making a claim publicly isn’t the same as not having one. You will always be ours.”

That brought a surge of emotion Angie definitely didn’t want to deal with. Her makeup was ruined enough. She smiled, made herself breathe through it. This was not the kind of sex you cried during. “Couldn’t take the truth anyway. They’d die of jealousy, wouldn’t they?”

“Too right,” said Peggy, changing the angle of her fingers so Angie’s hips jumped. Peggy moved with her as Steve reached out a hand to keep her steady. Peggy cupped Angie’s face, tilted it until their eyes met. “There is no reliving our glory days with Howard, Angie. Or the Commandos, the SSR, or anyone else. These are our glory days. You are our glory days.”

“Oh baby.” Angie kissed her. “Pegs…” She kissed her again. “Peggy.”

“What is it, darling?”

“That is, a really sweet, really, really corny thing to say. Especially when you’re knuckle-deep in my pussy.”

Peggy gave her a look, the effect only slightly ruined by her smudged lipstick. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” Then, without warning, Peggy pulled her fingers free and backed off.

“Hey!” Angie was left gasping, throbbing, her body suddenly bereft. “What the fuck, English?”

“This is why I don’t bear my soul to you, cruel woman.”

Cruel? She was the cruel one? Worried about her wounded soul when the throbbing in Angie’s cunt was fit to kill her? She would’ve told Peggy off quite thoroughly (or maybe cried, she wasn’t totally sure), if Steve hadn’t taken Peggy’s place in front of her.

He chuckled as he kissed her the laugh coming from deep in his throat. He finally let go of Angie’s hands, but only long enough for Peggy to grab them up, keep them trapped behind Angie’s back with her more delicate fingers. With his own hands free, Steve pulled his pants and underwear down to mid-thigh, revealing the stiffness Angie had been too distracted to notice before.

He kissed her again, held himself close to her opening. “You gonna stop being a brat?”

“Hell no,” Angie sassed. “And you’re going to fuck me anyway.”

He laughed again, flicked the nipple of her left breast. “Big words from someone who can’t even use her hands.”

“When have I ever needed my hands to get you off?” She shifted them in Peggy’s, felt the wetness that clung to Peggy’s fingers. “Give me my hands back, English.”

Peggy kissed along the column of her neck, her curls tickling Angie’s skin. “I thought you didn’t need them?”

“I don’t, I want them. What’s the point of having an ass like that in grabbing distance if you can’t grab? It just ain’t right.”

Peggy paused in her ministrations. “Fair point.”

The moment her hands were free, Angie put them on Steve’s obscenely perfect ass and squeezed., raking her nails over it. He grunted and then he was inside her and Angie kissed him hard, her legs going tight around him.

It was an adjustment, Peggy’s fingers, then nothing, then Steve, but it was a fucking beautiful adjustment. He fucked her slowly at first, but she could feel he needed more and so did she so she pinched his ass and told him to move into the next gear and then moaned her approval when he found a speed she could actually do something with.

Peggy had taken over the backup role from him, kissing on Angie, stroking her hair, murmuring sweet, dirty things in her ear. Sometimes Angie turned her head to kiss Peggy as he fucked her, and sometimes the other two would kiss and she’d be a very happy middle-woman.

She’d gotten plenty warmed up from Peggy, and both her spouses were in their fancy clothes. It was never going to take long. Angie felt it from him too, how his hips stuttered  and his breathing got more erratic. He could run around fighting Nazis for days without getting tired, but she could have him panting as much as the next guy. In only a few minutes, if she was in top form.

She squeezed his hip with one hand, his ass with the other, never bothering to check her grip. She had her face buried in his tux until Peggy tugged her hair and brought her in for a kiss. She came with her mouth on Peggy’s, tasting that fancy champagne Howard liked.

Steve grunted and thrust into her a few more times, said that he loved her, or maybe that he saw her, Angie couldn’t tell. He put his head on her shoulder after he came, kissed it, kissed Peggy over it.

They took a few minutes to settle, Peggy looking smug and amused as she gently directed them in getting themselves together. Steve asked her if she wanted anything while fitting Angie’s lost heel back on her foot.

“Oh most definitely, but I’ll wait for a good, proper showing at home,” she said cheerfully. “One of us has to remain presentable.” She ran light hands through her hair, the curls miraculously only slightly mussed.

Angie grumbled as she ran a hand over her own ruined hair and searched for all those strategically placed pins, so carelessly brushed aside.  She could get Steve to find them for her, but gave up halfway through instead.

“That’s what I like about girl sex,” she said, regarding the mess on her thighs. “Much less messy.”

“Sorry,” Steve said as he kissed her ankle and stood up, his own clothes already back in place.

“No you’re not.”

“Nope.” He crossed the room, picked up her underwear.

“Thanks,” Angie said, holding out her hand for a throw.

Steve smirked, eyebrows lifting as he pocketed them. “No, thank you.”

“Hey, I need those!”

“I think you’ve proven you do just fine without them.” He smiled his most charming smile and gave the number of people she’d supposedly flirted with that night.

“Peggy!” Angie said.

Peggy told Steve he’d forgotten about a waiter carrying a shrimp plate, then kissed the back of Angie’s neck.

Steve’s smile widened. He adjusted his suit jacket and patted the pocket with her underwear. “See you out there, ladies.”

Angie huffed and threw the shoe he’d just helped with at his back as he exited the room.