“Hey. I thought I was taking you to lunch,” Jolie said as Ana returned to the table.
“Oh, yeah. Sorry. I just want to get out of here. It’s not a big deal for me to get it.”
Jolie’s brow was creased. “Okay, but I don’t want you to have to pay for everything. Even though I talk a lot about not having money, it’s not a hint that you need to pay for everything. You know?”
Ana grasped her hands across the table. “Of course, it won’t happen again. I honestly was only thinking about when I get to kiss you again.” Jolie’s smile told her she was forgiven.
“I’m going to run to the bathroom before we go,” Jolie said. A few minutes later, Jolie emerged from the bathroom, limping. Ana stood and rushed toward her.
“Are you okay? Why are you limping?” She grasped Jolie around the waist and helped her the rest of the way to the table.
“I’m fine. My leg’s just acting up for some reason.” Jolie sat carefully.
“Did you twist it or something?” Ana knelt beside Jolie’s chair, her fingers resting against her leg. The skin felt cooler than normal, which struck her as odd. If she’d pulled something, it should’ve been warmer. Ana frowned.
“I’m fine, really. I’ll just go to the lab tomorrow. They fix my model for free there.”
Ana’s eyes widened as it dawned on her. “You have a bioleg? Wow.” She examined it further. “This is one of the best I’ve seen. Can’t see the seam at all.”
“Yeah, it was an experimental model. I don’t think it ever made it to market, but it’s better than the ones out there. Usually.”
“Amazing.” Ana ran her fingers along the back of her calf, and Jolie let out a quick breath, prompting Ana to look up. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks were bright red. Well, it looked like there was at least some sensation in her leg despite the malfunction. Ana drew her fingers upward, beyond the hem of her dress, and brushed Jolie’s smooth inner thigh.
“Jesus.” Jolie gasped.
Ana grinned and withdrew her hand. “I’ll take a look at it when we get home. I can probably fix it.”
Jolie sucked in another breath. “I don’t give a shit about the leg. When the hell’s the food coming?”
Ana looked behind her. “Right about now. Good timing.” She stood and took the bag of food containers from the waiter. The aroma made her stomach grumble, but she was sure that could wait.
Jolie pushed herself out of the chair, and Ana was quickly by her side, her arm firmly around Jolie’s waist. She felt Jolie lean into her, and she picked the pace up a little. The short walk to the truck felt like forever. The second they were both inside, Jolie pulled Ana on top of her.
Their mouths met roughly. Jolie ran her tongue over Ana’s bottom lip, moaning against her mouth. Jolie slid her hands underneath Ana’s shirt, cupping her breasts through her thin bra. Ana smiled to herself. This was already so much better than this morning. Waves of pleasure ran through Ana’s body as Jolie’s fingers grazed her hard nipples.
Ana broke away, panting. “Wait.” She reached over Jolie and brought up the control panel to tint the windows, then turned up the overhead light. “Okay.” She collapsed into Jolie, kissing down her freckled neck to the top of her achingly sexy cleavage. Jolie moaned as Ana pulled her dress lower and kissed in between her breasts. Ana wanted to stay there forever, her mouth on Jolie’s fair skin.
“Oh my God, you’re making me dizzy.”
Ana slowed her study of Jolie’s chest. “Are you okay?”
Jolie nodded and took some deep breaths. “I’m fine. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing.” Ana felt her shoulders being pulled up until she was kissing Jolie’s swollen lips again. Jolie pushed her backward and climbed on top. “Can anybody see in here?”
“I don’t think so. I honestly don’t care right now,” Ana said.
Jolie reached behind herself and unzipped her dress halfway, pushing it toward her waist. “You’re right, neither do I. Except that we might get arrested.” They both giggled. Ana’s reputation had always come first, but she knew she would ruin it for five more minutes with Jolie.
“Again, do not care,” Ana said, staring at Jolie’s chest. “Just want to touch.”
“Thank God. If you didn’t, I might have to touch them myself. You got me pretty worked up in there.”
“Either way sounds hot.” A smile crept across Ana’s face, and she didn’t move her hands from Jolie’s thighs. She could wait.
“Fine, that’s how it’s going to be?” Jolie reached across her chest and twisted her nipple. Her hips began to move rhythmically against Ana’s pelvis.
Heat flooded Ana’s entire body. She’d never seen anything so devastatingly sexy in her life. Her breath sped up as she slid her hands underneath the dress, feeling the place where Jolie’s skin met her underwear. She moved her fingers across the fabric, along the slippery wetness that soaked through. Ana’s entire body radiated like a pulsar. Her instincts took over as she watched Jolie throw her head back in ecstasy. Her only goal was to make Jolie feel like this for as long as she could.
She slid her fingers beneath the hem of Jolie’s underwear and into her warm folds. Jolie looked like she wanted to scream, but she kept it at a medium groan. Ana stroked her inside and out as she watched her face twist from restrained pleasure to something more wild. She was transfixed, watching Jolie squeeze her breasts and play with her nipples roughly as she rode Ana’s hand. How could she possibly need anything more in life than moments like this?
Finally, Ana felt her tense against her fingers, and Jolie leaned down to kiss her so hard that she thought her lip might bleed. Jolie shuddered against her as she came, moaning into Ana’s mouth as their tongues clashed frantically. Ana caught her breath as Jolie came to rest on her chest. She smoothed her hair and stroked Jolie’s sweaty back.
“You’re really hot,” Ana said.
“You’re really hot, too. I’ve never done that before with anyone.” Jolie lifted her chin so that she was looking at Ana.
“What? Sex?” That didn’t seem right. She was way too confident with her body to have kept it all to herself. Ana wasn’t quite sure how hers would respond to another person touching it like she touched herself, but she knew she would never feel as unselfconscious as Jolie.
Jolie laughed, her breath tickling Ana’s neck. “No, dummy, sex in the cab of a truck in broad daylight with the whole town right outside.”
Ana lifted her head to peer outside the window. She could see the shadows of people as they passed, but their features were obscured by the window filters.
“You know, that was pretty amazing, but maybe we should take this party home.”
Jolie sighed contentedly. “I’ve got nothing to do for the rest of the day.”
“And there is the small problem of your leg. I might as well try to fix it to save you a trip.” As much as she wanted to continue this activity, part of her was suddenly nervous about baring everything. She needed Jolie’s mouth all over her, but the intimacy would threaten the only barrier she had left to protect her other life, and she was dangerously close to toppling it.
Jolie kissed her sweetly and put her dress back on. Ana watched her cover up with a pang of regret, then started the truck and untinted the windows, squinting at the bright afternoon sun. They rode back hand in hand, Jolie resting her head on Ana’s shoulder.
Chapter Twelve
To Jolie’s chagrin, Ana didn’t seem to want to continue what they’d started in the truck, so she showered and put on a clean dress, one that was a little too sexy for hanging around the house. Ana was waiting for her in the lab, so she took her sweet time brushing her hair, and even put on a little makeup. She needed Ana to feel the small rejection she was experiencing at her sudden disinterest.
Eventually, she made her way across the hall and into the small room crammed with machinery. The look on Ana’s face was worth it, annoyance at having to wait mixed with deep appreciation of her presence.
“You loo
k…really good.” Ana’s eyes darkened with desire.
Jolie ignored the compliment. “So where should I sit?”
“Um, over here. Just sit on this table.” Ana gestured to a clean work bench in front of her, then lowered her chair so that she was almost eye level with Jolie’s knee.
It was an interesting position for her to be in, and she was still feeling slightly cruel, so Jolie parted her legs a bit more than she needed to. She could see down Ana’s shirt, and watched her chest rise and fall rapidly.
Ana cleared her throat and gingerly touched the seamless area where the two parts of Jolie’s body, original and prosthetic, met. “I’m going to see if I can get a clean nerve map.”
She reached out and took a scanner off of the shelf, then touched her bracelet to bring up a hologram of the leg. As the scanner passed up and down the limb, the image became more complex, a web of veins, bones, and nerves that Jolie had seen many times before. Ana worked silently, her focus mostly on the image, every so often catching Jolie’s eye. Her plan was working, but she also wanted her leg fixed, so she temporarily suspended her slow seduction.
“Cassiopeia, analyze for abnormalities. And throw this on the wall in front of me.” Jolie saw the reflection from the screen behind her dance on the wall across the room. She turned her head to see what Ana was looking at.
“That’s cool,” she said as she watched the blood move through her veins with each heartbeat. The nerves didn’t look so good, though. The one that ran down the back of her leg appeared to have atrophied.
“That’s definitely not normal,” Ana said, looking around the room. She took another instrument from the shelf and held it near Jolie’s calf. “Okay, so they probably used Neuropten to regulate the nerve growth. It probably just needs to be replaced, since your body doesn’t produce it and the self-regulating mechanism seems to have failed.” Finally, she looked at Jolie. “Do you know if this Neuropten is supposed to be replaced every five years or so? That’s the standard these days.”
“I don’t remember. I just go to the lab when I need something.”
Ana chuckled and shook her head. “Okay. No problem. I just need you to get some saliva on this.” She held out a small plastic stick, which Jolie licked. “Give me a minute.” Jolie sat patiently as Ana put the stick in some kind of receptacle, which projected its reading back onto the screen behind her.
“Low on Neuropten. Good thing we did this today. Once the regulators fail, it only takes a day or two to completely leave the system. You wouldn’t have been able to walk at all.”
Jolie shuddered at the thought. That had been her reality for over a year as she’d dealt with all of the problems of an experimental limb, and she’d spent most of it on crutches or in a wheelchair, yearning to walk again.
“How do I get the Neuropten?”
Ana came over and kissed her gently. “Lucky for you, I work with it pretty frequently. I’ll have to modify it for your DNA, but shouldn’t take more than a few hours.” Jolie watched her gather everything she’d need for her science project, moving furiously around the lab to find the right equipment and chemicals. She loved the way Ana worked, so fluidly, like she belonged in the lab. “I even have regulators that will probably last ten years. Maybe more,” Ana said excitedly. “All experimental, of course, but the science is sound. They’ll work.”
Jolie caught Ana’s enthusiasm and laughed. “I bet you make a great teacher. You even have me excited about this.”
Ana shot her the cutest grin from across the room.
“What do you have to do to modify it?” Jolie asked.
Ana gestured to the saliva sample. “I just have to put it in this machine, get some of your DNA, and let it do its thing. You get a highly customized serum that we’ll inject later.”
“Not looking forward to that,” she mumbled as Ana connected the plastic stick to a small machine.
“Okay. We’re done here for now.” Ana stood before her with her hands on her hips, her face flushed from running around.
Jolie’s cheeks burned. “I don’t know if we are done here,” she said suggestively.
“What do you mean? We have to wait for—oh,” she said as Jolie hooked her fingers into the belt loops of her pants and pulled her close.
“What’s with the one and done attitude? You give me what was probably the best orgasm of my life, and then you’re not interested anymore?”
Ana looked away. “It’s not that.” She took a deep breath and squeezed Jolie’s shoulders. “I’m nervous, I guess.”
Jolie pulled her in for a kiss. “You, my gorgeous scientist, don’t need to be nervous. In fact, you don’t need to do anything at all.” A bold idea was coming to her, and she wasn’t sure Ana would be on board, but she had to try. “Do you trust me?”
Ana gulped. “I think so?”
“I need something like a tie, or a long ribbon. Do you have that?”
“Probably. Why?”
“Help me into my bed, find one, and meet me there. And take off your clothes, okay?”
Ana helped her hobble to her room, and then left to find the ribbon. Jolie reclined in her bed and took off her dress again. Today, it seemed that clothing served no practical purpose.
When Ana returned, she was holding some kind of fabric, and had taken everything off but her underwear. She glanced nervously between the floor and the bed.
“Underwear. Off. Now.” Ana reluctantly complied and Jolie took in the sight of her muscular body, feeling her own flood with desire. She pulled Ana into the sleeping pod, which was barely high enough to sit up in, and crawled onto her lap to kiss her. Ana’s thighs were warm and smooth, and Jolie ran her fingers to her hips and up her back. Ana smiled against her mouth and let out a sigh. She took that as her cue and gently pushed Ana back onto the pillow.
“Hands above your head,” she instructed, looping the fabric around a plastic component connecting the bed to the wall. Ana tentatively complied, watching Jolie as she tied snug knots around her wrists.
Ana chuckled. “Is this how you seduce all your women?”
Jolie tugged at her bound hands. “Only the ones I want to feel extra good,” she said.
If Ana was jealous, she quickly forgot as Jolie positioned herself on Ana’s torso and kissed her passionately. She felt her wetness against Ana’s stomach as she slid down to lick her nipples. Ana moaned loudly and pressed herself harder against Jolie’s tongue. She took her time with Ana’s breasts and stomach, drawing out her pleasure as if they had days to spend in bed like this.
“Oh my God, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” Ana groaned.
Jolie stopped her exploration of Ana’s lower stomach and met her lips. “What would you make me do if you weren’t tied up?”
“You’re cruel, you know that?”
“What would you make me do? Say it and I’ll do it.”
“Put your fingers inside me,” Ana said desperately.
Jolie did as instructed and Ana’s face twisted. “What else?”
“Move them in and out?”
“I’m going to take pity on you and not make you tell me anything else, but only because I don’t think you’ll ask for what I’m about to do.” Ana opened her eyes wide and stared as Jolie lowered herself between her legs. She heard Ana gasp as she touched her tongue to Ana’s clit. The taste drove her wild and she lost herself in Ana’s rhythm against her tongue. Jolie wrapped her arms around Ana’s muscular thighs and pressed her tongue harder against Ana, who gasped then came with a string of moans and expletives that made Jolie throb. Afterward, she untied Ana’s hands, falling against her lips in a sensuous kiss.
“I love how you taste,” Jolie said. She felt Ana smile as she buried her face in Ana’s neck.
A while later, while Jolie was drawing circles on Ana’s abs, she heard Ana clear her throat. “Do you think we should talk?” Ana asked.
Jolie propped herself up on her elbow. “About this?”
“About this.”
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Jolie took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to say except that I’m glad it happened. I had been thinking about it for a while.”
Ana nodded. “Me too. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”
Jolie didn’t really want to know what page that was, so she just nodded her head and kissed Ana’s cheek.
They didn’t talk for a while, only held each other as the sun cast a long glare into the sleeping pod. Finally, an alarm sounded and it was time to get up. Jolie took a deep breath and let it out in a groan.
“Your leg will be fine, don’t worry,” Ana said, kissing her forehead.
“I know. It just brings back a lot of memories. It’s not just that, though. I don’t want to get up. You feel too good.” She returned her head to Ana’s neck and inhaled deeply. She could get used to this, except for the lingering notion that she couldn’t let herself.
Back in the lab, Ana was more deliberate and much calmer. Nova always said you could never underestimate the power of a good orgasm, and right now, Jolie couldn’t agree more. She wanted to send her best friend a message and tell her everything that had happened, but she’d have to wait until Ana wasn’t in the room. No way was she going to discuss this anywhere within earshot.
“You’re going to have to take this pill, then I’m going to give you the shot, okay?” Ana had thrown on a tank top and some underwear, and Jolie was eyeing the way neither of them did much to cover her up. Ana put her hands on Jolie’s thighs and leaned in for a kiss. Jolie sucked Ana’s bottom lip, still swollen from before. “Did you hear me?” she whispered.
“Uh huh,” Jolie murmured. “Do whatever you want. I’m just enjoying the view.”
“Naughty.” Ana laughed. “Here.”
The pill went down easily, and the shot didn’t hurt as much as she expected. “How long?”
“A day or two until you’re back to your old self, but you should start to feel improvement right away,” she said, her hands grazing Jolie’s pale shoulders.
The Universe Between Us Page 9