At Your Most Beautiful

by Harper Bliss

  “And you get the joys of being a super young grandmother.” And a super hot one.

  Maya nodded. “I should probably tell Tommy and Beth about, um, me dating women soon. It’s like a reverse coming out.”

  “That’s not what you said last week.”

  “I know, but… things can change quickly in this city.” A soft smile bloomed on Maya’s lips.

  “Your date went that well?”

  “It’s not just how the date went or how lovely Beverly is.” Maya peered into her cocktail glass. “I stopped by Tommy’s before I met up with Beverly and I felt like a fraud keeping something like that from the people I love the most. It didn’t sit right with me.”

  “Just tell them, Maya. What have you got to lose?”

  “It’s surprisingly difficult to defy your child’s expectations of you like that. Tommy might never see me the same way again.”

  “I’m trying to imagine Mom or Dad telling me they’re gay, but I can’t really see it,” Quinn said.

  Maya chuckled. “Oh, god. Can you imagine Brooke coming out to you?”

  “It’s not possible. My mom, she’s…” Quinn could only shake her head.

  “Did she know about you and Morgan?”

  “She knew about her, but for obvious reasons Morgan never accompanied me to Thanksgiving or Christmas at home. She had her own family to be with.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  Only a permanent state of semi-broken-heartedness, Quinn thought. But she hadn’t come here to wallow in self-pity so she kept that thought to herself. “It was my own choice also.” She waggled her eyebrows. “According to Morgan, the situation was quite convenient for me as well. I still don’t really get what she meant by that.”

  “She was probably just lashing out.” Maya tilted her head. “Or do you think it was part of the attraction?”

  “I don’t know.” Quinn shook her head. “I’ll figure it out some time.”

  Maya shot her a soft smile. “I’ve always remembered something you told me ten years ago. I don’t know why it has stuck with me, but it has.” Maya paused. “You said you couldn’t afford a therapist to figure out your mommy issues.”

  “Oh Christ.” Quinn gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Did I really say that?”

  Maya nodded.

  “I must have said a lot of things that weekend.”

  “It wasn’t really so much about what you said, but how you paraded around my garden in that skimpy bikini.”

  “I was young and reckless back then.” Quinn could feel how the conversation was taking a turn—very much in the direction she wanted it to go. She hoped to be fully back on her game soon. “That being said, ten years down the line, given the chance, I’d do exactly the same.”

  Maya cast her a quick glance, then looked away. She took a sip, then cut her eyes back to Quinn. “Since seeing you, more memories have been coming back to me. Like that tattoo on your belly.” Maya looked at the tattoos on Quinn’s wrists.

  “Even though I was still quite young when I got that one, I’ve never regretted it for one second.”

  “A great topic of conversation, I imagine.”

  “Not just conversation.” Quinn circled a finger over the rim of her glass.

  “Can I get you any more drinks, ladies?” The server had appeared out of nowhere at the worst possible moment.

  Maya studied her empty glass, then looked at Quinn. Quinn waited for Maya’s lead.

  “Why not,” Maya said and beamed the server a wide smile. “Quinn?”

  “Same, please.” Quinn didn’t care about the fruitiness of her cocktail any longer. She just wanted to get back to their conversation. But when the server had gone, so had the intensity of what they’d been saying before. A short silence fell.

  “You’re dressed very formally tonight.” Quinn took the opportunity to inspect Maya’s perfectly tailored suit again.

  “We had a parents thing at the academy earlier for which we were asked to dress ‘businesslike’.” Maya sat up a little straighter and pulled at the hem of her sleeve.

  “Businesslike agrees with you.”

  “Thank you.” For the first time, Maya looked her straight in the eye. It was a look Quinn could most certainly work with.

  Chapter 21

  Maya gazed into Quinn’s blue eyes. What was it about her that obliterated every last one of Maya’s boundaries as though they might as well not exist? And why-oh-why did it feel a million times more exciting to sit across from Quinn than it did from Beverly?

  Maya couldn’t answer any of these questions. Not now, not since the image of Quinn’s lower belly tattoo had settled itself at the forefront of her mind again.

  Quinn seemed a touch less forward than last week, and yet, Maya could hardly bear to look away from her. The fast-forward button had been pressed on her life since she’d run into Quinn again. She had taken her sweet time getting her bearings in New York, but now, it seemed, it was high time for some sort of action.

  “Do you have any other new tattoos?” Maya heard herself ask Quinn. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to know the answer to that question—she did. But part of her still felt she shouldn’t be asking questions like that.

  Quinn nodded slowly. “I sure do.”

  “Not in any visible places?” Quinn was wearing a long-sleeved blouse of which the cuffs covered the tattoos on her wrists.

  “Correct.”

  “Pity I no longer have a swimming pool.” Had Maya’s manhattan been spiked? What on earth was she saying? Quinn had only been flirting a little bit earlier, almost innocently, but referring to the pool Maya used to have was hardly innocent.

  Quinn gave a low chuckle. “That’s a damn shame, indeed.” Her gaze drifted sideways and an instant later their new cocktails arrived.

  After they’d clinked rims, Quinn asked, “After I left your house that morning, do you remember what was going through your head?”

  Maya had to take a sip before she could reply. “My mind was all over the place. So much so I changed the date of my trip to Puerto Rico so I could leave earlier. I didn’t know what to do with myself because a large part of me was disgusted by what I had allowed to happen, while the other part of me…” She huffed out some air. “The other part of me wanted to do it all over again.”

  “Disgusted?” Quinn sounded appalled. “Why would you be disgusted by it? What we did, what we so briefly had between us, was fucking beautiful, Maya.”

  “Maybe from your point of view. You were the carefree twenty-four-year-old who was home for the summer and managed to seduce her neighbor. I was the older woman who had ended up in bed with someone much too young for me and of the same gender.”

  “If you put it that way.”

  “How would you put it?” Maya had suffered through enough guilt to last her a lifetime. She was more than ready for a different perspective.

  “I had the night of my life.” Quinn sunk her front teeth into her bottom lip for an instant. “While I understood your reasons, I was pretty crushed when all of a sudden you were gone. Honestly, that night… even after all this time, it’s still the stuff a lot of my dreams are made of.”

  That had been the thing about Quinn back then and it was still very much the thing about her now. She always knew exactly what to say. At least she did where Maya was concerned. There was something about Quinn that Maya couldn’t help but react to, especially when she spoke to her like that—as though Maya really was the woman of her dreams.

  “Surely you’ve had much more spectacular nights since.”

  “I can’t say that I have,” Quinn said. “Because that night was something special. The circumstances made it so. You made it so. God, Maya, you… just blew my mind. I don’t just mean when we were in bed, but how you were with me in general. The way we talked and flirted and how you responded to the things I said and did. There was something about it, something special that I will always cherish.”

  Maya took her time sipping her drink.
Despite all the guilt and shame it had caused her, she had also known that night had been exceptional, but Maya had always believed that to be because her circumstances had been so different than Quinn’s, who still had so much of her life ahead of her, who still had so many women to meet. She wanted very badly to believe what Quinn had just said but took it with a pinch of salt nonetheless. Because, over time, memories get distorted and can turn into emotional events of which the accuracy fades and the associated feelings become amplified. Still, Maya was flattered by what Quinn had just confided in her.

  “There was something special about it,” Maya confirmed. “Something I forced myself to forget about.”

  “God, Maya. If I had one wish it’s that you hadn’t felt so badly about it afterward. Life’s for living, not for the energy-consuming, useless activity of feeling guilty. Fuck guilt. Really.” Quinn narrowed her eyes and something close to a grin appeared on her face. “I might have something along those lines tattooed in a…” She paused, injecting the air with suspense. “…rather intimate spot.”

  If it was Quinn’s objective to have Maya longing to see that particular tattoo right there and then she was succeeding.

  Maya drank again. What else was she going to do? This was why, she now knew, when saying goodbye to Quinn last week, she had made herself believe that they wouldn’t see each other again. Paradoxically, it was the same reason Maya was sitting here with Quinn tonight, their conversation quickly descending into a deep flirt. Maya hadn’t been able to resist her years ago and something told her that she wouldn’t be able to resist now either.

  Quinn slanted her body into Maya’s direction. “But I want it on record that I’m not going to seduce you again, Maya. I’ll happily take credit for doing so ten years ago, when I only cared about myself and my twenty-something urges, which were greatly satisfied.” She inserted a smile that disappeared as quickly as it had come. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but it’s just not something that I’m going to do again.”

  Quinn might as well have given Maya the sexiest of lingering kisses. She might as well have disrobed and shown Maya her latest tattoo. She might be claiming to not want to seduce Maya again but with those words, that was precisely what she was doing.

  “Why not?” Maya had no choice but to play along.

  “What if I cause you another ten years of guilt?” She sounded much more serious all of a sudden.

  “What if you don’t?” Maya quipped.

  “That’s not up to me, though.”

  Maya had a choice. She was still sane enough, still sober enough, to decide between taking a deep breath and walking away or, as Quinn would say it, to live her life. To live the life she wanted to live which, right now, could only mean one thing: bridge the distance between them and kiss Quinn on the lips.

  “You’re right,” Maya said. “That’s entirely up to me.” She gazed into Quinn’s eyes again, into those soft oceans of blue—the same color as the water in Maya’s former pool. “And so is this.” Maya closed her eyes then and, not caring one iota that they were in a bar close to her place of work, leaned toward Quinn, and kissed her.

  The instant their lips touched, it felt like someone had flipped on the electricity in a long-vacated building. The kiss was soft and short, but powerful enough to leave Maya wanting so much more—to choose anything but the darkness she’d been plunged into for far too long.

  Quinn flicked her tongue over her lower lip before she shot Maya a smile. She didn’t say a word but her gaze was full of meaning.

  “Do you want to come back to my place for some, um, dinner?” Maya asked, even though it wasn’t food she was hungry for.

  Quinn nodded. “I still owe you a dinner, by the way.”

  Maya took a few quick sips of her manhattan. “You don’t owe me a single damn thing, Quinn.”

  Chapter 22

  Quinn had wanted this more than anything, she realized as she stood in the elevator with Maya, but this was not her doing, which made it all the more enthralling. She had flirted and had initiated a first, very tentative move, but she certainly hadn’t expected Maya to kiss her in the bar.

  Upon arrival at Maya’s, first the door of the cab had been opened for her, followed by the front door of the building. This was a swankiness Quinn wasn’t used to. Her friends didn’t live in buildings with doormen who pressed the elevator button for you. She and Griff lived in a fourth-floor walk-up that left them breathless every time they climbed the stairs.

  “Are you hungry?” Maya flicked on the lights.

  Quinn whistled through her teeth. “How much was that dance school of yours worth?” she blurted out at the sight of Maya’s apartment.

  “Enough,” Maya said. “It’s not as big as it looks and certainly a whole lot smaller than my house in Milbury.”

  “Remind me to never invite you to my place.” Quinn followed Maya into the kitchen.

  Maya opened the fridge. “I have leftover quiche from last night.”

  “Maya.” Quinn could look at Maya, in her elegant suit, sauntering through her kitchen all night long, but there was something else she wanted more. “I’m not hungry.”

  “We had those cocktails. We should eat something.” Maya kept staring into the fridge, as though she was afraid to turn around and face Quinn now that they were in the privacy of her home. Now that their options to do certain things had multiplied.

  “Maya,” Quinn repeated. “Will you look at me?”

  Quinn watched Maya’s shoulders go up and down as she took a deep breath. She closed the fridge and turned around.

  “I don’t know what it is about you.” Maya put her hands on the edge of the kitchen island. “It was never my intention to kiss you. To invite you over.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” A knot formed in Quinn’s stomach.

  “Fuck no.” Maya held out her hands. “I want you to come here.”

  Quinn walked over to her but kept a small distance between them. She pulled the side of her blouse out of her jeans and hiked it up. “Read this.” She pointed at the tattoo that ran along the side of her torso.

  “Life is for living,” Maya said as she read. “You actually have that tattooed on your body?”

  “I do.”

  “Does it make a difference?” Maya reached out her hand and ran a finger over Quinn’s side. “In your life?”

  “I’m here with you now, so what do you think?” Goose bumps popped under Maya’s finger.

  “Fair enough.” Maya chuckled. “Do you have any others?”

  Quinn nodded. “I told you they were in a more intimate spot.”

  “You did.” Maya pulled her finger away. “Look, Quinn… I don’t really know what to say. Frankly, I’m not so sure how we ended up here, but—”

  “We’re here because we want to be.” She took a step closer, leaving barely an inch of space between them. “Isn’t that more than enough?”

  “You…” Maya took hold of Quinn’s hand. “What am I going to do about you?” She locked her gaze on Quinn’s.

  “I’m not an issue you have to deal with,” Quinn whispered as she leaned in. “But you could start by kissing me again.” She didn’t wait for Maya to bridge the final gap this time, but pressed her lips against Maya’s.

  As soon as their lips touched, Maya placed her hands on Quinn’s cheeks, pulling her closer.

  As though she’d been starved of another woman’s touch for much longer than the four months since Morgan had left her, Quinn latched on to Maya. She remembered how uncharacteristically nervous she’d been when she’d entered the bar and seen Maya sitting there all done up and glamorous with that air of unattainability to her that drove Quinn crazy. Quinn was no longer the girl who believed, without much doubt, that she could get anything or anyone she wanted. Life might be for living, but living taught you some harsh lessons along the way. That she stood here in Maya’s kitchen, losing herself in kiss after scorching kiss, was nothing short of a miracle.

  “Come,” Maya
whispered when they broke from their kiss, and took Quinn’s hand. She pulled her into a short hallway, right into her bedroom. As though Quinn finally had full permission to let it all wash over her, memories from when she’d stood in Maya’s bedroom ten years ago flooded her brain. She couldn’t wait to see what Maya looked like now underneath that suit. She couldn’t wait to see how she would respond to her touch. Quinn had still been so inexperienced back then, although, at the time, she’d been convinced she knew it all.

  Maya shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. She kicked off her shoes and sat at the foot of the bed, as though she needed to take a breather. Maybe she did.

  Quinn kneeled next to her. “Are you all right?”

  “I want you so badly, I can barely believe it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ambivalent about it.”

  “That’s understandable.” Quinn did understand because, unlike ten years ago, she now wondered if she had to protect her own fragile heart in this situation. Her heart that had just been broken into a thousand pieces. She, too, had to take a moment to question what this was.

  Maybe they both wanted to relive the spark they’d shared between them all those years ago, for their own reasons. One thing Quinn knew for sure: that spark was still there and then some. Time and reason had not erased it. She’d known that from the second she’d laid eyes on Maya again. Whether they should act on it was another matter altogether. But they’d made that decision earlier in the bar. The biggest difference with ten years ago was that it could no longer be attributed to a moment of temporary madness, an almost innocent act, even, without consequences. They weren’t the same people they’d been back then. Everything was different now.

  “You really are doing your best not to seduce me.” Maya smiled down at her and Quinn melted under her gaze.

  Quinn shook her head, pushed herself up, and kissed Maya again. Because when they kissed, all lingering doubts were instantly erased. When they touched, any remaining doubt evaporated, and Quinn knew exactly why she was here. To make love to Maya Mercer.