by Cara Malone
“No,” Max whispered, her lips brushing against Ruby’s ear as she reached her hand around Ruby’s hip and under the waistband of her pajamas.
Today was the first day of the spring semester and she did have an eight a.m. class for her user experience design major, but it was only six-thirty now. Her fingers slid between Ruby’s thighs and found that she was already wet. Max had not woken up in her own bed since she and Ruby began dating, and one of her favorite things about their relationship was waking up next to her. It was hard enough on an ordinary day to get out of bed without lingering over Ruby’s body, but today in particular she knew it would be impossible so she’d planned ahead.
She kept her lips against Ruby’s cheek as she spoke so that her voice would vibrate inside of her ear and send shivers all the way down Ruby’s back. “Do you know what today is?”
“International Morning Sex Day?” Ruby asked with a little giggle as Max continued to slide her fingers up and down between her legs and she moved her hips gently against her hand.
Max bit Ruby’s neck playfully, indicating that she’d answered wrong. “Try again.”
Ruby reached behind her and put her hand on the outside of Max’s pajama pants, and Max was sure she could feel the heat that was building inside of her even through the layers of cotton. She pressed her hips firmly against Ruby’s hand as Ruby said, “Hmmm… Lesbian Librarian Appreciation Day?”
“No,” Max said, taking her hand out of Ruby’s pajamas and giving her a light slap on the ass. “You’re terrible at this.”
“What day is it?” Ruby asked, twisting around in the bed so that she could face Max. She was rubbing the front of Max’s pajamas faster now, and all the blood was rushing into her cheeks and head, making it hard to concentrate.
“It’s our three-month anniversary,” Max said, taking Ruby’s head in her hands and giving her a long and passionate kiss as their tongues danced around each other and their bodies pressing tightly together. When they finally broke from it, she said, “I have an entire day planned out for us, in between classes, of course.”
Ruby laughed and gave her a smile that lit up her eyes, one that Max had become awfully familiar with in the last three months and which she hoped she would never start to take for granted. She said, “Max, only you would go to such ridiculous lengths for a three-month anniversary.”
“You won’t think it’s so ridiculous when you’re trying to catch your breath and begging me to stop giving you pleasure,” Max said, which elicited another laugh from Ruby. She added, “I’m serious. First thing on the agenda is a full hour of oral pleasure.”
She pushed Ruby onto her back, then threw the blankets to the foot of the bed and started yanking Ruby’s pajamas down over her hips.
Ruby lifted up and helped Max undress her, then pulled her in for another long kiss before letting her crawl between her thighs. She stared up at the ceiling of her dorm bedroom and said, “Max, you’re incredible. I’m so lucky.”
“Not as lucky as me,” Max said, peeling Ruby’s panties down over her thighs.
Ruby closed her eyes as Max slid her hands back up her thighs, grabbing her hips and holding her tight as she lowered her mouth to Ruby’s skin. She felt Max’s tongue flick lightly, teasingly, over her clit, and she felt her breath hot between her thighs. Ruby moaned and slid her hands through Max’s short hair, trying to bring her mouth down between her legs, but Max resisted.
Instead, she kissed and nibbled at Ruby’s thighs, and ran her hands up over her stomach to her breasts, squeezing them and making her nipples go hard. She’d been sleeping contentedly less than five minutes ago, and now Max was kindling a fire inside of her that she needed to be doused. Ruby let out a moan and tried to bring her hips up to Max’s mouth, but Max pinned her down on the bed.
She looked tauntingly up at Ruby, shaking her head and grinning at her, and Ruby let her head flop back down on the pillow, asking the ceiling, “Is this supposed to be an hour of oral pleasure, or are you planning to torture me the whole time?”
“Good things come to those who wait,” Max recited, dipping her head to take another swipe at Ruby with her tongue.
The sudden contact sent a shiver of excitement through Ruby and she ran her fingers through Max’s hair again, down over the back of her neck and over her shoulder blades. She couldn’t help but be charmed by the fact that Max had gotten so excited over an anniversary that most people outside of high school wouldn’t even acknowledge. Their relationship thus far had been filled with these kinds of cute little surprises, and Max fawned over Ruby far more than she thought she deserved.
Max slid her tongue slowly over Ruby’s body, tasting her and tantalizing her. Ruby wrapped one leg over Max’s back in an effort to keep her close and put an end to the teasing – she wasn’t sure how much more of that she could take.
“Have I waited long enough?” She breathed, undulating her hips beneath Max’s mouth as her tongue rolled over her clit and then retreated again.
“Tell me what you want,” Max said in response, one hand sliding back down over Ruby’s stomach and going between her thighs. “And I’ll let you know.”
“I want you,” Ruby said, the words swelling in her chest along with a surge of emotion. She could barely speak, she was so caught up in the wave. “I want to feel you like we’re a single body moving in sync.”
“Do you want to feel me inside of you?” Max whispered, kissing Ruby’s thigh and then licking her way back to the crease of her hips, leaving a slick trail of saliva that drove Ruby wild.
Her whole body quivered with anticipation as she moaned a carnal yes.
“Do you want me to touch you?” Max asked, her finger tracing nearer and nearer to Ruby’s throbbing clit. “Do you want me to make you come?”
Ruby bit her lip and arched her head back on the pillow. She was so close to just grabbing Max by the wrist and thrusting her hand between her thighs – her heart was racing and she couldn’t stand the waiting. But if she didn’t play Max’s teasing little game, the torture would only go on longer. So she balled her fists up in the sheets and nodded frantically.
“Yes, Max, that’s all I want,” she said breathily. “Please touch me.”
“Close your eyes,” Max whispered, and Ruby obeyed, the world going dark around her.
And then finally, mercifully, Max relented. Ruby felt her mouth closing around her clit, tongue swirling over and over the hard little button and sending shockwaves of pleasure all the way out to the far reaches of Ruby’s body. Her toes curled and her scalp tingled, and she tightened the grasp of her thigh around Max’s body.
This was what it felt like to be at home, to feel connected to someone else with a tie that was fierce and inseverable. Ruby couldn’t cling tightly enough to Max as she felt her body responding beneath each stroke of her tongue.
Then Max slid two fingers into Ruby’s wetness, penetrating her and sending her into an entirely new realm of pleasure. With her eyes closed, it felt like her entire body was concentrated in the few inches where Max’s lips met her skin and her fingers plunged inside of her, and the whole world around them faded into nothingness.
Ruby came, shuddering and squeezing her thighs against Max’s body as pleasure bloomed brilliantly and then rippled out to every distant part of her body. She felt Max’s free hand squeezing her hip, and her tongue working overtime to tease out every last bit of pleasure from her, and then Ruby was rolling over, burying her face in the pillow as her body tried to decide between a gasp, a moan, and a laugh.
When she finally stopped quivering and caught her breath, she rolled back over and took Max’s head in her hands. She was beaming up at Ruby, looking so damned pleased with herself at having gotten such a strong reaction out of her.
“That was amazing,” Ruby said, still a little breathily.
She tried to pull Max up to the head of the bed, but she resisted, bending down to kiss the ridge of Ruby’s pubic bone before saying, “Was? I told you I budgeted an
hour for this, and it’s only been fifteen minutes.”
“I can’t take another forty-five minutes,” Ruby said plaintively, looking over at the alarm clock to confirm the time.
“Guess you shouldn’t have come so fast,” Max said, lightly smacking Ruby’s thigh with her palm.
“You shouldn’t have been so efficient,” Ruby said, although it was hard to chastise Max for giving her one of the best orgasms in recent memory.
“Lay back and relax,” Max said. “I’m not done with you yet.”
Then she dipped her head back down, looping her arms around both of Ruby’s thighs and holding them wide as she gently ran her tongue over Ruby’s tender skin and sparked another wave of desire in her belly.
It was almost exactly seven-thirty when Max finally rolled out of the bed, leaving Ruby splayed in the middle of it with the sheets twisted all around her limbs. Max had made her come four more times, and her whole body was aching in the most delicious way.
“Is it over?” Ruby asked, feeling almost delirious and certainly dehydrated as she watched Max strip her pajamas off, tossing them into a hamper in the corner of the room.
“For now,” Max said. “I have to take a shower and get to class, but I’ll see you again before you go to your afternoon class. Then in the evening we have reservations at that Italian place you like. After that… I don’t know, I guess we’ll see if you’ve gotten your energy back by then.”
She threw Ruby a cheesy wink, then walked naked through the doorway and disappeared into the bathroom. Ruby heard the faucet turning on, and she just laid in bed – she really was exhausted even though Max had been the one doing all of the work. She couldn’t wait until this evening, when she could return the favor. Ruby tugged the sheets over herself to ward off the chill air, and waited for Max to return from the bathroom.
When she came back, she was wrapped up in a plush, slate gray robe. Ruby crawled to the foot of the bed and laid down on her stomach, propping her chin in her hands as she watched Max walk over to the closet where she’d begun to keep a lot of her clothes. They were hardly ever in Max’s dorm, and it made no sense to go downstairs each morning just to get dressed, and besides – the view for Ruby was fantastic.
She watched Max drop the robe around her feet, revealing her smooth cream-toned skin, still glistening slightly from the steam in the shower. The curve of her hips was slight, and every part of her brought to mind words like firm and taut. Ruby traced the line of Max’s small, perky breasts with her eyes, and then noticed that she’d been caught.
“What?” Max asked.
“You’re beautiful,” Ruby said dreamily from the bed.
Max just rolled her eyes and turned to the closet, pulling out a pair of jeans and a thick sweater suited for the snow that was coating the campus beyond the bedroom window. She came over and tossed the clothes on the edge of the bed, putting on a tight pair of boxers and silky-looking black sports bra while Ruby sat up and inched closer to her.
The curve of her breasts in that slick fabric was irresistible, and she pulled Max onto the bed, wrapping her arms around her and kissing her neck while her hands glided over the sports bra.
“You’re messing up my hair,” Max complained, but she twisted around and pounced on Ruby, throwing her down on the mattress and kissing her before reluctantly going back to the task of getting dressed. As she pulled on her jeans, Max said, “It’s eight twenty. I have to get going or I’ll be late.”
“Okay,” Ruby said with a pout of her lower lip. “I’ll miss you.”
Max pulled the sweater over her head and ran her fingers through her hair one more time to bring it back to the practiced look of a tidy professional who may or may not have just rolled out of bed with a beautiful girl. Then as she headed out of the bedroom door, she turned back for just a moment to say, “There’s a surprise waiting for you in the kitchenette.”
Ruby grinned, but Max didn’t see it – she’d already rushed through the living room and out the door. So Ruby sat up in bed, giving a big stretch in the cool morning air, and then with a shiver she swiped Max’s robe from the floor where she’d left it and wrapped it around herself. She wandered barefoot through the small apartment, going into the kitchenette as Max instructed.
On the counter, there was a big spread of breakfast foods and a pot of coffee already brewed, with a mug sitting right beside it, ready for Ruby. Max must have set the timer on the coffee pot last night while Ruby was getting ready for bed, but where had all the rest of this breakfast bounty come from? There were cherry pastries, and croissants and honey, and fresh fruits, a veritable smorgasbord of food.
In the center of the counter, there was a plate with a note laying on top of it. Ruby went over and picked it up.
Build up your strength, for I have plans for you tonight, my goddess.
-Max
Ruby laughed, then tucked the note into the pocket of her robe before piling her plate high with the feast in front of her. After such a strenuous morning, she was hungry, and she couldn’t wait for whatever Max had planned for the evening.
She went into the living room and sat down on the couch, pulling her laptop onto the arm of the sofa to go over her notes for tomorrow’s GLISSO meeting as she picked at her plate. This would be her very first meeting as the acting president, and she had big plans for the group. There was the state conference coming up, campus events to plan, and she’d even gone back to the public library to talk to the children’s librarian that she met on her group outing about doing some kind of collaboration between the university and the public library system to bring a wider collection of books to the kids of Granville. That was definitely something that GLISSO could spearhead.
Max had asked her last night if she was nervous about running her first meeting, and Ruby said that she was just excited. For the first time since she’d graduated and left her Alpha Kappa Alpha sisters behind, she felt like she had a purpose at this new school.
“What about you?” Ruby had asked. “Are you sad that your best friend is graduating? This’ll be the first time you and Mira are apart in four years.”
“It’s okay,” Max said, resting her head on Ruby’s shoulder. “I have something a little better than a best friend now.”
In that moment, Ruby felt something swelling up inside of her chest, filling her with joy the same way it had this morning when she told Max how bad she wanted her. It had been overcoming her a lot in the past few weeks, washing over her in little moments when the two of them weren’t doing much – watching television, going over their notes from class, eating a meal in the dining hall, snuggling into bed at the end of the night.
It was like euphoria, a deep and instinctual feeling that she was right where she belonged in Max’s arms and that – despite their rocky start – they’d settled into each other exactly the way things should be. Max might be a little quirky at times, a bit too literal or kind of blunt, and Ruby definitely had to work harder for this relationship than she was used to, but the payoff was so utterly worth it.
She’d never met anyone so complex and intelligent and interesting and sexy as Max before, and every time she felt that swelling in her chest, she wondered if it was too soon to say those three little words. I love you. It felt true in her heart, and even though they’d only been together for three short months, it was also beginning to feel like a lifetime.
Tonight, Ruby thought, in the restaurant, if the moment felt right, she’d say it. Or maybe if she couldn’t quite get up the courage to say it out loud over a romantic meal, she could say the words as they were drifting off to sleep. They’d wrap themselves up in each other’s arms, and when Ruby heard Max’s breathing becoming regulated by sleep, she’d nestle her face into the crook of Max’s neck and whisper it to her subconscious.
I love you, Maxine Saddler.
A Note from Cara
Hello!
Thanks for reading The Rules of Love – I hope you enjoyed it! Read on to find out what’s next for Max an
d Ruby.
If you’d like to be notified when I publish a new book, sign up to my newsletter at https://bit.ly/2LPRHXI or connect with me on social media using the icons below.
With love,
Cara
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The Rulebook Series
Book 2: The Rules of Engagement
Max and Ruby have fallen hard for each other after a bitter grad school rivalry turned first into lust, and then into love. When the school year comes to an end, they’re faced with a new challenge: a summer apart. Will love be enough to get them through it?
The Rules of Engagement is book #2 in the fan-favorite Rulebook series.
Read The Rules of Engagement
Sneak Peek: The Rules of Engagement
Ruby was sitting on the end of her boxy, university-issued couch, her girlfriend Max nestled against her. The only light in the room was the bluish glow from the television and they were snuggled beneath Max’s heavy blanket despite the warm weather, the air conditioning blasting just like Max liked it.
It was a routine that had become comfortable for them both in the last six months, and the odds were good that on any given evening, they could be found in this exact position, checking movies off Ruby’s list of all-time favorites, which they’d taken to calling the Greatest Hits in Cinema According to Ruby Satterwhite. They had compiled the list together in their first semester at library school during a trip to the public library, and they’d been working their way through the list in reverse alphabetical order. Now that the summer was rapidly approaching, they were also nearing the end of the list.