Enough, she finally decided. She slid her jeans and underwear down her legs and kicked them off. Because she could wait no longer, she roughly took Joss’s hand and thrust it between her legs.
Joss’s eyes widened with the evidence of Sarah’s desire. “You’re so wet.”
Sarah leveled her with a challenging grin. “So what are you waiting for?”
“Not a thing.”
Joss pushed Sarah’s bra aside, settled her mouth delicately on first one nipple, then the other. She sucked hard then soft, licked, sucked again, alternating the pressure, and it drove Sarah wild. With her thighs, she locked Joss’s hand in place. Joss was palming her back and forth, and it was all Sarah could do not to come. She bit her bottom lip as a groan pushed past her throat. There’d been other women in her past, but the sex with them had never been like this, never this intense, this good, this hot. Joss unleashed a desire in her that Sarah barely recognized as her own, and it came with a razor-sharp awareness of every nerve ending in her body.
Two fingers, three, pushed inside her, thrusting fast and hard like the pounding sea in a raging storm. Sarah could no longer hold back the tide of her desire. She came on a moan that was very nearly a scream, gripping Joss’s hair, furiously rocking her hips against Joss’s hand to absorb every last vestige of pleasure. She could never get enough of the exquisite pleasures Joss was so expert at giving her. If it weren’t so damned risky, she’d consider a weekly rendezvous with Joss, exactly like this.
“You needed that,” Joss said with a self-satisfied grin. The kind that said, I’m the cowboy who just fucked you like you’ve never been fucked. Sarah would be indignant about that if only it weren’t true.
“I did.” Sarah gasped for breath, ripples of pleasure still coursing through her. Joss was still as sexy as ever with her hair flopping rebelliously over her forehead, her eyes twinkling with I’m-just-getting-started mischief that came across as a dare. Or a promise, more like.
Sarah’s heart cartwheeled until she ground her teeth and forced the flurry of inappropriate emotions back into submission. Goddammit, it’s more than sex. It’s always more than sex with this woman. She needed to exert control before her heart ran away on her. She rolled herself on top of Joss. Time to take control.
* * *
Joss came faster than she wanted. When Sarah touched her like that, she couldn’t help herself, even though she didn’t want it to end so quickly. If she could have, she would have ridden the crest of her desire for hours, enjoying and committing to memory every last second of the bone-shattering pleasure.
They lay on their backs collecting their breath and their thoughts. Joss had no idea if Sarah planned to spend the night, though she hoped so. Everything about this evening had been a surprise to her. A pleasant surprise. She never thought Sarah would agree to her bold proposition so easily, but then, she never thought she’d actually proposition her the way she had either. Seeing Sarah at the restaurant, laughing with her, feeling the sexual chemistry between them crackle in the air like distant lightning, Joss knew there could have been no other outcome but to come back here and screw their brains out.
“I need to taste you,” she whispered to Sarah.
“Yes.”
Joss slid down Sarah’s body, smelling the sweet tang of her skin along the way, brushing her thumb along the inside of her thigh where it was softest. She knew Sarah’s body as well as her own now. Knew every indentation, every curve, every sensitive spot, the smell of her skin, the scent of her desire. She knew where and how Sarah liked to be touched. Knew exactly how to access the very core of her pleasure, which was no small thing. Joss had never gotten to know a lover’s body as intimately as she had Sarah’s, and yet she knew instinctively there were still many places she could happily explore. Probably a lifetime of explorations.
Her mouth slid further down Sarah’s body, down her belly, licking a playful trail as Sarah squirmed with pleasure beneath her. With her tongue she parted Sarah’s lips, slowly painting circles, ever so surely closing the distance to her clit. With the first hard stroke of her tongue, Sarah cried out, pushed herself harder against Joss’s mouth, and Joss lapped her hungrily, greedily. She took her with her fingers too, felt Sarah’s desire curl into itself before exploding outward in a violent shudder and a high-pitched cry.
As Sarah spent herself with slow, endless spasms, Joss held her tightly. When she crawled higher to look into Sarah’s face, she saw tears on her cheeks.
“Sarah, baby, what’s wrong?”
Sarah shook her head, crying softly, turning away from Joss.
“What’s going on? Please tell me.” She kissed her neck until Sarah violently pulled away.
“Don’t, Joss.”
Christ, what did I do wrong now? Joss wanted to scream out. Sarah was a riddle she couldn’t ever seem to solve, and every time she tried, she got it wrong.
“I want to help,” she said lamely, but it was true.
Sarah swung her legs over the side of the bed and hurriedly pulled her clothes on. “I thought this could work, but I was wrong.”
“No. You weren’t wrong. We have a good time together, Sarah. The best. This…” She spread her hands outward, encompassing the bed. “This isn’t wrong.”
“It is for me.” Sarah’s eyes looked tortured in the dim light. “I love you, Joss, but you don’t or…or can’t love me back. I can’t make love to someone who doesn’t…I mean, I thought I could. With you. But I don’t need another person in my life who can’t love me for who I am.”
Ouch, Joss thought. That hurts. Exactly as Sarah intended, she supposed.
“Wait,” Joss pleaded, having no idea what to do now. “It’s not like that.”
“It is like that. To be with me, you have to be all in or you’re out.” Her eyes turned hard, uncompromising. “You taught me the power—the empowerment—of an ultimatum, remember?”
Sarah rose hastily, her top missing because it was somewhere in the kitchen or maybe the hallway.
Joss wanted to argue, to make her stop, to make her come back to her. But what would she say? Sarah wasn’t wrong, and Joss felt the sting in her eyes as she repeated her words in her mind. I love you, Joss…but I don’t need another person in my life who doesn’t love me for who I am…You have to be all in or you’re out.
Sarah left the bedroom, and a moment later, Joss heard the soft click of the front door opening and closing. She’d done nothing to stop Sarah from leaving because she was a coward, a loser, a fucked-up, half-assed girlfriend who couldn’t give Sarah what she wanted. And she wanted to give it to Sarah. If only she had it to give. It was hopeless. She was hopeless.
She rolled over and let the tears flow onto the sheet, where they mingled with the dampness of Sarah’s tears.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Covered in paint after pouring herself into her work for ten straight hours, Sarah barely made it back to the apartment in time to shower before guests were set to arrive for her and Lauren’s New Year’s Eve party. She was no more in the mood for a party than she was for a trip to the dentist, but Lauren had nagged her about it nonstop for two days, accurately sensing that Sarah was trying to work out excuses in her mind to skip the festivities. I’m only doing this so I don’t get a reputation as a party pooper, she’d told Lauren.
Since her evening with Joss, she’d been moping around, pissed off at herself. She wasn’t angry with Joss for what had happened. Joss was simply being, well, Joss—happy to oblige sexually but offering nothing deeper. Sarah knew it would end up that way before she’d accepted the proposition, but her hormones had happily agreed before she could give it much deliberation. Oh hell, who was she kidding. Deliberation or not, she would have accepted Joss’s offer because she’d been unable to resist the lure and the promise of the hot sex that only Joss could provide her. Which all would have been fine had she not freaked out after her second electrifying orgasm—when it hit her how much in love she was with Joss. And what a huge mistake it was t
o be in love with someone who couldn’t love her back. Aside from the instant gratification of sex, landing in Joss’s bed was nothing but trouble for her fragile heart, and she knew it, dammit. Knew it would make her want Joss even more.
What a fucking mess. She sipped watery beer from a stubby bottle and felt like spitting it right back out, the way she wished she could expel Joss from her system. Something stronger, much stronger, was in order if she were going to get through this party, she decided. And probably the next three months, for that matter.
“You look like a woman who needs some of what I got.”
The butch—about Sarah’s age—was stocky and athletic looking and had short sandy hair that reminded her of Joss’s. Minus the blond highlights. She was leaning against the kitchen doorframe and eyeing Sarah with more than passing interest. In her arm she cradled what looked to be a bottle in a paper bag.
“That’s not a very original come-on.”
“I know, but if it flops I can always pretend it’s the bottle I was trying to sell you and not my irresistible body.”
Sarah laughed and nodded at the bag. “What’ve you got in there, partner?”
A James Dean smirk. “Does it matter?”
“Hell no.”
The apartment was packed. Sarah figured she only knew about half the people here. The other half were Lauren’s friends or they were friends of friends who were borderline party crashers.
It was too cold to go outside, too jammed even to find a corner from which to sip whatever life-saving nectar was in that bottle.
“Follow me,” Sarah said before she could think about what she was doing. Well, she knew what she was doing. It was the why she didn’t want to think about as she led Bottle Girl to her bedroom and closed the door behind them. “I’m Sarah, by the way.”
“I’m Annie.” The woman looked like it was Christmas morning all over again, and Sarah was the present she was about to unwrap.
“You don’t look like an Annie.” Sarah held her hand out for the bottle.
“Everyone says that, which is why they usually call me A.J.” She pulled the bottle out of the bag—Jim Beam—and handed it to Sarah, who immediately took a healthy glug. It was nothing like Joss’s expensive bourbon, but what the hell, it’d do the trick.
A.J. made herself at home, flopping onto her side on Sarah’s bed and doing her best to look alluring in a bad boy sort of way. “I don’t usually get invited to a pretty lady’s room so quick. Why don’t you come on over here and keep me company?”
Sarah laughed. She didn’t mean to laugh quite so loudly and so sarcastically, but she couldn’t help herself. Defeat etched itself onto A.J.’s forehead.
“C’mon,” Sarah said. Out of pity for A.J., she lightened her tone. “Sit up.”
A.J. obeyed, and Sarah, standing beside her, clutched the bottle between them. “We’re not going to have sex, okay?”
A.J. rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “You sure? Cuz, like, I’m pretty good in bed. I mean, so I’ve been told.”
Sarah stifled another laugh, though she had to bite the inside of her cheek to do so. “I’m sure you are, and yes, I’m sure about the not having sex part. Here, have another sip.”
A.J. took the bottle from her and raised it to her lips. When she finished, she said, “How about we make out then? Like, it doesn’t have to be too hot and heavy.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow, her curious nature wanting to see where A.J. was going with all this. Sarah hadn’t dated much over the past couple of years, and she wondered dismally if this was what dating had come to. “What do you consider not too hot and heavy? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
A.J. smiled, raking her eyes boldly over Sarah. “Kissing, feeling each other, you know, over our clothes. I mean, unless you want to go under our clothes. That’d be, like, more than okay too.”
Sarah smiled and shook her head. It was high school all over again on dates with boys—oh, and one girl—trying to feel her up in the back of her father’s Mercedes. “Thanks, but I think I’m done with women for a while.”
A.J. smiled hopefully. “You might change your mind after we get through this bottle.”
Sarah lifted the bottle and drank from it. “I doubt it. I don’t seem cut out for one-night stands.”
“Ah, so you’re one of those, huh?”
“One of what?” She didn’t like A.J.’s tone.
“Can’t have an orgasm without love.” A.J. drew out the word love like it was something distasteful.
Sarah thought about that, took another sip of whiskey. That wasn’t entirely true, but with Joss it certainly seemed to be. She wanted no distinction between love and sex with Joss. She wanted the lines to blur and roll into one another, the pleasures of her mind, body and heart indistinguishable. She wanted nothing short of their hearts’ longings and their bodies’ desires to fuse like clouds, growing into something bigger and heavier and more powerful. A few rain clouds converging into a mighty storm. She shrugged at A.J. “Maybe I am.”
A.J. sat back against the headboard, drawing her knees up to her chest. To complete the picture, she only needed a long piece of grass stuck between her teeth and a cowboy hat on her head. “So tell me about this asswipe who broke your heart.”
Jim was loosening things up inside Sarah. She told A.J. a little bit about Joss, but she changed the name to Jess and altered her occupation to a business executive.
“That’s your first mistake,” A.J. said, her words beginning to slur too. “Falling for one of them business types. You should fall for a musician, like me.” She flashed another cocky grin.
Sarah rolled her eyes playfully. “I already have a musician in my life, my roommate Lauren.”
“Yeah, Laur’s cool.” A.J. spread her hand out and patted the other side of the bed. “Come here and tell Uncle A.J. how you plan to get your revenge on this Jess dumbass. Cuz she is a dumbass if she won’t give you the time of day.”
“Oh, she gives me the time of day all right. For certain, um, things. But not when it comes to commitment and not…” Sarah blew out an exasperated sigh. God, it all sounded so juvenile when she encapsulated it the way she had, but it really did come down to one simple fact. “She doesn’t want to be my girlfriend.”
“Crazy motherfucker,” A.J. mumbled. “Who wouldn’t want to be your girlfriend?”
Emboldened, Sarah took another swig of whiskey. Oh what the hell, she thought. A.J. was harmless, and even if she wasn’t, Sarah could handle her if she got out of hand. She scooted over to the space beside A.J., let A.J.’s arm dangle loosely over her shoulder. “I guess she’s not the girlfriend type,” Sarah acknowledged. “Which I knew going into it, but I thought…I don’t know.”
“You thought you could change her, huh?”
They each took another sip, the bottle nearly empty now. Sarah nodded.
“Fuck that,” A.J. proclaimed. “Changing is for diapers, not people.”
“I guess so,” Sarah said. It wasn’t easy letting go of the idea that Joss would come around to her way of thinking eventually. She was a good woman, with so much to give and so much that was worth loving in return. It was mystifying that she would not give them a chance.
Sarah’s thoughts drifted to what Joss might be doing right this minute. Probably working. At least, that’s what she’d told Lauren when Lauren had invited her to the party. Invited her behind Sarah’s back and then didn’t fess up about it until this afternoon. Thank God Joss wasn’t coming. Sarah wasn’t ready to see her again, because if she did, she knew she’d start blubbering away like a crybaby or fold like a house of cards and fall into bed with her again. Neither scenario held much promise.
She was tired, so tired. And A.J. was warm. And softer than she’d expected. She leaned into A.J.’s shoulder, felt her eyelids droop. “Sorry to dump all over you, A.J. Thanks for listening.”
A.J. pulled her in tighter. “You change your mind yet?”
Sarah’s mind was growing fuzzier by the minute. �
��Change my mind about what?”
“Fooling around. It would take your mind off things. Relieve some stress.”
Sarah smiled into A.J.’s shirt, which smelled of Gain laundry detergent. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.”
“Your loss, my friend.”
“I’m sure it is,” Sarah said before drifting off to sleep.
* * *
Joss maneuvered around people like they were pylons in a parking lot. She wouldn’t have believed Sarah’s and Lauren’s apartment could hold so many people. She wondered if they were breaking some sort of fire code or something.
Someone tried to press a bottle of beer into her hand, which she rejected.
“Have you seen Sarah or Lauren?” she asked. The reply was a head shake and a smile.
She moved on, asked someone else, who impatiently jerked a thumb toward the kitchen. It would take her a few minutes to make her way through the swarm of people, she realized. She swallowed back her nervousness, having no clue what she would say to Sarah. Her decision to come to the party was purely last minute, entirely spontaneous and probably insane, but screw it. She missed Sarah, needed to see Sarah again, even if it meant having her yell at her and tell her to get lost.
I’ll tell her I love her, she thought suddenly. Which I do. Except I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, how I’m supposed to act now, but I’ll tell her, dammit. She wondered if such an admission would mean they would start fitting their lives together. Start sharing calendars, asking each other’s permission to do things or to go someplace, hitting Crate and Barrel together, sharing changing rooms at Nordstrom’s. Christ, moving in together? It was all so overwhelming. And scary as hell. Maybe, she thought with desperation, there was a book, a how-to manual, that explained what being a girlfriend meant. Maybe Sarah would allow her to learn as she went along.
Fuck, she thought. I’m thirty-eight years old and I don’t know the first fucking thing about being anybody’s girlfriend. How pathetic is that?
By Mutual Consent Page 22