At Your Most Beautiful

by Harper Bliss

  Maya looked down along her body, and saw Quinn gazing back at her, her eyes blazing with lust. All this desire on display, Maya thought, for her. She didn’t stop to think how it was possible. She was far too busy enjoying the effect of Quinn’s tongue on her nipple. It swirled and swept and licked Maya into a state of heavenly arousal that gripped her entire body. All Maya wanted was more of Quinn. More of Quinn’s lips all over her, more of her hands, one of which slid along the side of Maya’s other breast.

  That was the other huge advantage of landing in bed with someone like Quinn. There was nothing else to consider but the here and now. Maya couldn’t possibly allow her mind to drift further into the future because that would mean considering the consequences of her actions. The only consequence she was after was to have her acute desire quenched. To have her body suffused with post-orgasmic bliss. To be touched brazenly and deftly by someone who, very simply—no matter the reason—wanted her so much, she clearly didn’t care about the consequences either. Together, it seemed, she and Quinn would ignore the hell out of the ramifications of what they were doing. They didn’t exist yet and, as far as Maya was concerned, they never would. This would be the very definition of one night only. Anything else was impossible. Maya had to squeeze out every last drop of pleasure from the short time they had together. She had not another minute to spare for further qualms, for anything that would hinder her pleasure.

  Quinn freed Maya’s nipple from her lips and, her gaze still firmly locked on Maya’s, blew some air over Maya’s rock-hard nipple, the sensation making it even harder.

  Quinn cupped Maya’s breast firmly in her hand and then focused her attention on Maya’s other nipple. Just her gaze on it made something twitch inside Maya again—pure, unbridled lust. A sensation that might as well be new to her, so long had it been since she’d felt anything even close to this.

  Between her legs, her lips pulsed wildly against her panties. Maya wanted nothing more than to rip them off and tell Quinn she was ready—that she was hers for the taking. That was what it felt like when Quinn lay on top of her like that. When she sucked Maya’s nipple deep into her mouth. She hadn’t come here—talked her way into Maya’s bedroom with all her youthful bravado and effortless charm—to gingerly show her what it could be like to sleep with a woman. Quinn had come here to ravage Maya. And this was only foreplay—something, Maya knew from her own experience, most men didn’t bother with too much.

  Quinn cupped Maya’s breasts in her hands while she adjusted her position and slid between her legs. She kissed a wet circle around Maya’s belly button while she swept her thumbs over Maya’s nipples.

  The closer Quinn’s lips came to her panties, the more Maya lost control of her body. The fire in her belly, the heat in her core, the goose bumps on her skin. The way her mind had been taken over by desire only—no room left for anything else. She wanted Quinn so badly, so feverishly. She dug her heels into the sheets because all she could do was wait.

  Quinn kissed Maya above the line of her panties—the same place Maya had caressed earlier on Quinn’s belly. Quinn’s hands drifted down. She placed one on Maya’s belly, while she traced her fingertips down Maya’s inner thigh. They danced along her skin, light as a feather, before Quinn drew a path inward and, ever so slowly, traced a line along the gusset of Maya’s panties.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Maya moaned. Her clit pulsed with all the lust that burned inside her body. She glanced down, beyond the slope of her breasts and the hard peaks of her nipples, to Quinn who lay between her legs, teasing her, enjoying Maya’s reaction. Then Quinn did it again. With the lightest of touches, she tracked a line along Maya’s panty-covered lips, up to her aching clit, and drew a circle there, leaving Maya a quivering mess barely able to catch her breath.

  Never in her life had Maya wanted to get rid of her panties so much. They were surplus to requirements, Quinn’s ultimate means to tease her.

  Then, just as Maya had hooked a finger into the waistband of Quinn’s shorts earlier, Quinn did the same to her panties. She slowly pulled them down, but she couldn’t get them off as long as she sat between Maya’s legs. Clearly, she had no intention of removing them because she remained in position. Instead, she let her finger dip down, until it rested just above Maya’s throbbing clit.

  Did Quinn want Maya to beg for it? Did she long to see her face contorted with uncontrollable desire? When Quinn’s finger moved only a fraction, a powerful spark of electricity ran up Maya’s spine. Quinn was doing what she’d been doing all along. Expertly playing Maya, and she was in no position to pretend she wasn’t enjoying it. Yes, she wanted more of Quinn, but she also wanted to enjoy these delicious moments before Quinn gave her the ultimate pleasure. Because not long after that, it would all be over. There would be no encore for the two of them. All they had was this night, these moments together. So Maya enjoyed the exquisite frustration building in her flesh, the delicate tension in her muscles, because—and this, too, was very different from when she’d bedded a man—she knew what was coming. Maya trusted that Quinn could get her there, although, rationally, she had no reason to. Yet, she did.

  Quinn slid her hand out of Maya’s panties and lifted it toward her mouth. She sucked her finger between her lips, then opened her mouth, and showed Maya as she swirled her tongue around it. With her other hand, she pulled Maya’s panties aside, then dipped her wet finger inside again.

  Maya let her legs fall as far apart as they would go—she was still plenty flexible, yet she knew that whatever she did, no matter how limber she was, it wouldn’t make a difference. This was Quinn’s show. This was the moment when she drove Maya beyond the edge of crazy.

  Quinn’s finger didn’t stop this time around. Its glorious wetness circled around her clit, and Maya’s hips moved upward to meet it.

  “Aah,” Maya moaned. “Oh, Quinn.”

  Her gasps of pleasure must have done something to Quinn because instead of letting her moistened finger work more of its magic, she slid her hand out of Maya’s panties and swiftly maneuvered herself out from between Maya’s legs.

  When Quinn looked her in the eyes, Maya could see something uncontrolled in them too—the same unruly sensation that was coursing through her own flesh. Quinn started pulling down Maya’s panties slowly, giving the illusion of being in control, but her motion was growing slightly wilder, and by the time the wretched garment had reached Maya’s ankles, Quinn gave it one last quick tug and threw it behind her.

  Amid the pleasure of anticipation, Maya also felt the satisfaction of Quinn succumbing to her own desires—desires created by Maya.

  Quinn didn’t resume her position between Maya’s legs, however, but glued her hot skin against Maya’s side. She kissed her on the lips while Maya spread her legs for Quinn again. Quinn broke from their kiss and swept her finger across Maya’s lower lip before gently letting it slip into her mouth.

  Maya sucked it between her lips, all the while looking deep into Quinn’s eyes. She released Quinn’s finger and drew in a breath while she watched Quinn’s hand disappear between her legs.

  Quinn drew another wet circle around Maya’s clit.

  The breath Maya had been holding came out in a desperate stutter.

  Quinn might have looked a little lost in her own desire earlier, but she seemed fully back in control now. Why else would her touch only be so light? Sure, it was exquisite and even slightly satisfying to have Quinn’s finger circle her clit, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Maya wanted more. More of Quinn. More of her finger. More than her eyes looking down at her and her finger, which had felt so sensual against her tongue, moving so gently around her clit.

  Then, Quinn drew her lips into a truly devilish grin, before her face slipped from Maya’s view. Before she settled between Maya’s legs again. Before she kissed the inside of Maya’s thigh and her lips inched closer and closer to where her finger had been earlier.

  Next thing Maya knew, Quinn wrapped her soft lips around Maya’s clit, circled her tongue around
it, and set every nerve ending in Maya’s body on fire.

  Every molecule of Maya’s being ignited with pleasure. It was as though she could feel the touch of Quinn’s tongue everywhere. Maya groaned with satisfaction, with knowing what was so imminent, with all the saved up desire she hadn’t been able to expend, and with how utterly magical Quinn made her feel. Her hips bucked, her heels pressed into the bed, her hands were lost in Quinn’s silken curls. All the while, Quinn licked her and with every flick of her tongue, drove Maya closer to the precipice. That ledge she so desperately wanted to let herself fall off, beyond which a well of utter rapture waited, but Maya also wanted this to last. Quinn’s full attention on her body, just as the lavish attention she had bestowed on Maya all weekend, was not something she wanted to part with so quickly. But Maya’s stamina was no match for the deftness of Quinn’s tongue and the strength of her intentions. She let herself be caught in the storm of delight that engulfed her, that prickled on her skin and glowed in her blood.

  “Oh, Quinn,” Maya moaned, because she wanted to acknowledge, for both of them, that this was all Quinn’s doing.

  Chapter 8

  Maya pulled Quinn up into an embrace so tight, Quinn had a little trouble breathing. But she would catch her breath later. Her body was energized by what she had just witnessed. Maya Mercer enjoying a glorious orgasm. Quinn would never in her life forget the moment when Maya cried out her name as she came. It counted as one of the biggest wins of her twenty-four-year existence.

  Maya huffed out some air and loosened her grip on Quinn a fraction. Quinn could feel how she lightly shook her head.

  “Jesus, Quinn,” Maya said. “That was fucking spectacular.”

  Quinn kissed Maya’s cheek. “I only ever aim to please.” She knew she sounded cocky. It was how she felt. Last night, alone in her bed, this was all she’d dreamed of, and now here she lay, in Maya’s arms, not an inch of space between their naked bodies.

  “Don’t you feel any ambivalence?” Maya asked, on a small sigh.

  “None.” Quinn kissed Maya on the lips this time. “Why would I be ambivalent about something as beautiful”—She traced her fingertip along Maya’s cheek—“as what we just did.”

  Maya chuckled. “You’re such a sweet-talker.”

  “Not just a talker.” Quinn kissed Maya’s neck and inhaled her scent. She wanted her again already. She wanted to make this night count, although, already, in the back of her mind, Quinn was making plans to sneak out of the house the next night and the next—she’d be wanting a repeat performance of this for as long as she would be staying at her parents.

  Maya placed her palms on Quinn’s cheeks and pulled her nearer. She looked into her eyes. “I want you too, Quinn,” she said, and Quinn almost dissolved into a puddle there and then. Maybe Maya had been with a woman before. Quinn didn’t know because she hadn’t asked, and she wasn’t going to now. But whomever Maya had shared her bed with in the past, the fact that she was in bed with Quinn right now didn’t seem to unnerve her too much. If she had any reservations at all, she hid them well behind the desire in her eyes.

  Quinn nodded as another wave of lust rolled through her.

  “Do I finally get to see that tattoo now?” Maya didn’t wait for a reply, but pushed herself out of their embrace. She placed her warm hand on Quinn’s hot skin, then slid it down to Quinn’s shorts. Then she folded herself over Quinn’s belly, as though she was going to do so much more than finally decipher Quinn’s tattoo, unleashing yet another avalanche of arousal that tore through Quinn’s muscles.

  Maya traced a finger along Quinn’s belly as she read out loud. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she whispered, then looked back at Quinn with a grin on her lips. “Maybe you can share that secret with me later.”

  Quinn flashed her tongue along her lips and nodded again. Maya’s face was too close to where all the energy in her body converged—to the throbbing center between her legs—for Quinn to explain now anyway. She was about ready to implode.

  Maya maneuvered herself so she could slide Quinn’s shorts and bikini bottoms off her.

  For all her bravado of the past few hours and days, when Maya came to lay next to her and she felt the soft expanse of her naked skin safe and warm against her own, Quinn was momentarily overwhelmed. Despite the raging fire beneath her skin, she needed to take a pause. This wasn’t just about the thrill of the conquest. Of finding herself in bed with a gorgeous, semi-forbidden woman. Quinn genuinely liked Maya.

  She could hardly claim to have any feelings for her that were anything else than generated by lust, but Quinn did care for Maya. She’d been someone on the periphery of her life for a very long time. She wanted the best for Maya. She wanted her to have better than unmemorable dates with uninspiring middle-aged men. But more than what Quinn might want for Maya in that moment, she felt her desire reflected back at her, and was there ever anything more delightful than another woman wanting you just as much as you wanted her?

  Maya ran a finger over Quinn’s tattoo again, as though her hand was drawn to it magnetically. Rachel most certainly had been fascinated with Quinn’s tattoo as well. But no. No thoughts of Rachel right now. Rachel was the past. Maya was the now. And who knew what the future might bring? Although Quinn had a very good idea what the very near future had in store for her. More desire. More pleasure. More Maya.

  She spread her legs for Maya and the simple act of doing so lifted her to a higher level of arousal. Because soon it wouldn’t just be air caressing her there. It would be Maya. Whether it would be her tongue or her fingers, Quinn didn’t much care. As long as it was Maya, who had danced for her so sensually, and who had flirted with her, and made her feel so desirable, so utterly wanted, that Quinn could hardly remember why Rachel had dumped her.

  Maya leaned in and kissed her. Their tongues flitted in and out of each other’s mouth.

  Quinn ran her hands along Maya’s back, she held on to her hips, dug her fingertips into the strong muscles of her thighs. Quinn had meant what she had said to Maya the day before. As far as she was concerned, Maya was at her most beautiful right now. A woman who had already lived a large portion of her life but still had decades in front of her, with all the wisdom and grace she had already accumulated. A woman who could teach Quinn a thing or two, like how to dance a proper salsa in the back garden. A woman whom Quinn had delighted with her tongue mere minutes ago. A woman whose hand was drifting down Quinn’s thigh.

  While their tongues kept dancing, their mouths so eager for each other, Maya’s fingertips slid along Quinn’s sex.

  Quinn moaned into Maya’s mouth. She was so ready for her. So thoroughly wet for her. But Maya didn’t immediately slip a finger inside. Instead, she lightly circled Quinn’s clit, making her muscles tense.

  Maya broke their kiss and looked at Quinn.

  Fuck, Maya was so beautiful. Her eyes so dark, her hair so full and perfectly wavy and even in the half-light of the bedroom, her effortless elegance was still so evident, as though she simply had no other way to carry herself.

  In another life, under different circumstances, Quinn thought, as Maya’s finger kept skirting along her clit, this could be something. If Quinn had met Maya somewhere else, if she wasn’t her parents’ neighbor, Quinn would go after her like nobody’s business. Then, all thoughts in her head came to an abrupt halt, because, ever so slowly, Maya pushed a finger inside. Quinn’s breath stalled in her throat. Her already tense muscles constricted further in delicious anticipation. Maya’s finger moved inside her and it was as though the motion dislodged something at Quinn’s center. It undid all the tension she’d created between them—and inside herself—over the past two days. Because of course Quinn had put on a display, in her skimpy bikini, when she pushed herself out of the pool slowly, when she presented Maya with a cocktail that was a touch too strong. Quinn could let go of all of that now. She let her muscles relax. She let herself be exactly who she was—a woman enjoying the attention of another woman. And what a wo
man Maya was.

  Maya added another finger and ramped up the intensity of her strokes inside Quinn. She gazed deep into Quinn’s eyes.

  With the smidgen of clarity she had left, Quinn stared back, and the way Maya was looking at her multiplied the effect of what her fingers were doing a thousandfold. Because there was no doubt that Maya was enjoying the hell out of this. The evidence of that joy was plastered all across Maya’s face.

  “Oh, fuck,” Quinn groaned. “Oh, Maya.”

  Hearing her name must have spurred Maya on because she brought her thumb into play. As though she’d never done anything else in her life, she edged it along Quinn’s clit every time she drove her fingers deep inside.

  Maya leaned in and kissed Quinn lightly on the lips while her fingers delved deep inside of her and her thumb drove Quinn a little bit crazier with every minute movement it made. But it was the gentleness of Maya’s kiss that finally tipped her over the edge. It was Maya’s hot breath on her cheeks. Her nearness and the intimacy it created between them. Maybe, subconsciously, Quinn had expected things to be less intimate between them, but ever since their hips had connected while dancing, all distance between them had dissipated.

  Quinn believed it was for that reason that when she came at Maya’s fingers, with a hard tremor in her muscles and an unexpected lump forming in the back her throat, she knew she would never forget how Maya had made her feel. She knew she would want to recreate that same sensation over and over again. Because it wasn’t just physically satisfying, it also healed something deep inside her. The wound Rachel had left her with when she’d told her they should no longer see each other. That there was no future for them together. Their difference in age had been an easy enough excuse, but Quinn knew it wasn’t the only and possibly not the real reason they had split up—because the real reason was that Rachel had stopped loving her the way she once had. It was only now, in Maya’s arms, that she could finally accept that and know that, one day, she would be loved again.