by Sandy Lowe
“Tell me what you want.”
When Emma didn’t reply Lauren trailed kisses along her jawline and down her throat. “Tell me. We both know we can’t stop what we feel. Anything you want.”
Emma remained silent and Lauren almost let her go. Almost walked away despite the way Emma had moaned and melted and rocked against her. But then she had an idea that just might work. If she could do it. If she could trust Emma the way she had asked that Emma trust her. If she had the guts to show her how it was done. They were in this together.
All the moisture evaporated from her mouth until she was sure her throat would crack in two if she dared swallow. Still, she had to go for it. The alternative was unthinkable. “Maybe you’d like it if I was the one to surrender. Would that turn you on?”
Emma went still. “What?”
“Maybe, what you want, at least for now, is for me to surrender to you. To show you what it means to be vulnerable. To trust you like I asked you to trust me.”
“Would you?” Emma’s question sounded more skeptical than eager, but the look she gave Lauren burned from the inside out.
“Yes.” For Emma she’d be willing to do just about anything. Emma thought that surrender took something away from you, that it made you less. That it made you what Jessica thought it did. Desperate and needy and out of control. But Emma didn’t realize there was power in surrender, too. Power in desperation and need and not being in control. That letting go could be the very thing that saved you. It might be the thing that saved them, if Lauren led the way.
“Come with me.” Lauren tugged Emma along behind her until she found what she was looking for—a snow-encrusted alley between the bookstore and the café. At close to five, the night was already near black, the moon rising to take its place in the sky, darkness spilling into the light. Darkness was exactly what she wanted.
Halfway down the tight walkway, she pressed her back to the brick wall. Her blood beating in her veins made her skin feel too tight. On a deep breath, she said what she’d never thought she’d have any reason to say. “If you want my surrender, you’re going to have to take me.”
“Here? Right now?” Emma twisted her hands in front of her, glancing up and down the alley.
Lauren could tell Emma’s breath was seizing from the way her chest rose and fell. “Please don’t make me wait. If we wait, we’ll rationalize this. We’ll figure out that it’s a terrible idea and we’ll convince ourselves not to do it. Please.”
She’d thought it would cost her to be the one with nowhere to go, to be the one who begged, but she’d been wrong. It hadn’t cost her a thing. Strangely, it felt right. Not because she found it all that sexy to say “please,” but because she really did want this. If it made Emma hot, if it got Emma to trust her, then she wanted it more than she wanted her next breath.
“We’re outside, in public, in a dirty alley.” Emma stated the obvious like she was ticking things off a list. She licked her lips, twisted her hands, stared at Lauren as if doing so would make Lauren change her mind.
“We are.” Lauren stared right back. She pressed her hands to the wall to prevent herself from hauling Emma into her arms and making her forget her anxiety. “But it’s dark. No one can see us. You can do whatever you want.”
We’re in this together.
Emma stepped closer and fingered the collar of Lauren’s shirt, dipping her fingers inside. “The possibility of having sex in a semi-public place makes me nervous.”
“I know. It’s a risk. But it’s also just a little bit thrilling, isn’t it? My heart’s pounding and my breath’s unsteady. I’m so wet.”
“God.” Emma breathed the word into her neck. “When you say things like that everything inside me goes desperate. I’m not sure I can do this.”
Lauren pushed off the wall, but Emma held her back with a hand on her shoulder. “Stay there.”
“Okay.”
Emma worried her lip between her teeth until Lauren thought she’d bite right through it. “I’m not going to take my clothes off and neither are you. We’ll get hypothermia.”
“Okay.” Emma Prescott, prim and proper librarian, laying down her terms for fucking outside, in public, in the middle of winter, was ridiculously hot.
“And you’re going to have to keep quiet. I don’t want anyone rushing up here, so no screaming.”
Lauren’s knees went a little weak. “Okay.”
Emma pressed her body against Lauren’s and whispered against her ear, “And you can’t touch me.”
Lauren groaned, her fingers digging into the mortar between a row of bricks as Emma shifted against her, pressing their breasts together. The back of Lauren’s head tapped the wall as she moaned. “No fair.”
Emma’s lips on her ear felt like a smile. “Do you think I’m stupid? That I don’t know what you’re doing? That I don’t know why we’re in this far-too-dirty-for-me-to-be-thinking-about-right-now alley instead of in a nice comfortable bed?”
“Because you said we don’t want the same thing there?” Lauren said hopefully. She was too preoccupied with the way Emma was moving like liquid heat against her to be having this conversation. God, she hoped Emma would touch her soon. Surrendering was killing her. She wasn’t scared of the fall, but the wait was crazy-making.
“No,” Emma said. “You know as well as I do that having sex when there’s a possibility of getting caught takes trust. That it pushes boundaries.” Emma kissed her way down Lauren’s neck, opened her coat, and unbuttoned the first few buttons on her shirt. She slid her hands under the collar and cupped Lauren’s shoulders to hold her in place.
“That’s a total coincidence,” Lauren said with approximately zero conviction.
“I bet.” Emma stroked her shoulders, managing to open the last few buttons.
The freezing night air hit Lauren’s bare skin, doing absolutely nothing to cool her raging need.
“Is this what you do at Kink’s? Do you push people’s boundaries? Do you earn their trust?” Emma asked.
“Yes.” Lauren tilted her hips into Emma’s. So hopelessly wet, she almost reached for Emma, more than prepared to beg shamelessly. Only Emma’s command not to touch her kept her in place. “Though usually from where you’re standing.”
“Mmm.” Emma slid a palm down her belly and cupped Lauren’s pussy through her jeans. “You like to be in control.”
“Usually.” The night was starting to fade. The scrape of the brick against her back, the chill of the air, the faint glow of a streetlight, all being slowly but surely obliterated by the pleasure that arced through her. Emma’s touch ignited a wet need that she had no hope of containing. “Right now, I don’t seem to mind you being in charge.”
“Am I really in charge?”
Lauren tried to rein in her rampaging heartbeat and ragged breathing. This was too important to fuck up by getting so turned on she couldn’t think. So fucking desperate to come the answer to every question was “yes.” That’s what she wanted from Emma, but Emma wanted to talk it through. Just because she had her back to the wall didn’t mean she wasn’t trying to pull Emma’s strings just a little. This was about trust, and it was time she showed up for it. “There’s only one way to find out. Take me however you want.”
Emma’s eyes were just a little glazed as she rubbed her palm against Lauren until the seam of her jeans pressed against her clit and Lauren groaned. “Do you trust me?” Emma asked.
“Yes.” The word was a gasp, Lauren had no air for words, only for soft throaty noises and fighting the desire to come in her pants.
“Are you ready to surrender?”
“Yes.” She’d had never been readier for anything in her life. Ready for this woman, this moment, this trust. “Please.”
“Turn around.”
Willing to do anything, Lauren faced the wall. Emma reached around her to unbutton her jeans and slid them and her underwear down only far enough to ease a hand between her legs. When Emma found her clit, Lauren whimpered and thru
st into her fingers.
Emma pressed along her back, pushing Lauren against the wall and preventing her from getting what she was sure would’ve been a very embarrassing case of butt frostbite. Lauren’s cheek hit the brick, her bare belly meeting the rough surface, as Emma crowded her from behind, cupping her pussy and discovering just how very, very turned on she was.
“Oh,” Emma said. “Look how wet you are. You like this.”
The unmistakable confidence in Emma’s voice, sent desire snaking in Lauren’s belly. Emma’s nervousness still showed in the stiffness of her body, but she wasn’t unsure, she wasn’t scared. She was in control.
Lauren’s thoughts tripped over themselves as her brain went into emergency shutdown mode. “I didn’t expect you to do it like this.”
“You mean that you didn’t expect that I’d want you turned away from me, shoved up against a wall in this alley you’re making me fuck you in?”
Colors swirled behind her closed eyes as Emma’s words hit her like a punch to the solar plexus. She’d add talking dirty to the list of things Emma was goddamn brilliant at. “Yes.”
“But you still did it.” Emma’s voice held a note of amazement riding on the edge of wonder. This was new for her. Emma wasn’t used to putting her faith in the unexpected. She didn’t leap into the unknown.
“I trust you.” Unable to help herself, Lauren ground into Emma’s palm. The heat of Emma along her back was seeping into her even through her coat, the unyielding freezing roughness in front of her almost painful. Everything inside coalesced into a well of need so deep she worried that if she jumped, she’d never stop falling. “Please.”
“Please, what?” Emma stroked her folds, pushing inside her and then backing off, pressing a finger to her clit and letting go. Torturing her with infinite patience and maddening gentleness.
“Please. I need you to make me come.”
“We’re in this gross alley because you need to come? Because you couldn’t wait until we got home?”
“No.” Lauren whimpered. The word sounded wrong when every circuit she had was flashing yes signals.
“Please what, Lauren?” Emma pressed the tips of her fingers inside her. “What do you need?”
“I need you.” The truth of her words nearly stopped her heart, but she had no time to think about it because Emma thrust inside her.
“So wet and ready for me, aren’t you? So hot you’re going to come all over yourself.”
Emma fucked her, rocking against Lauren’s ass. “You’re very good at being in control, but I’m in charge now. You’re going to surrender. You’re going to come.”
Lauren rode the wave of sensation that skated across her skin and filtered into her bones. She was losing it. She rocked into Emma’s thrusts with an abandon straight out of her most private fantasies. Desire filled her head, wrapped around her body, bled through her veins until her belly quivered. “Oh God. Yes. Please.”
“Go over for me. Give it to me,” Emma ordered against her back, thrusting in and out of her with sure, steady strokes, propelling and curling and pumping her fingers just right. Not hard or urgent, but strong and commanding. Emma fucked her with no fanfare. She fucked as if she knew she didn’t need to go deep, to go hard, to make Lauren come. She just needed to never stop. Never never never stop.
Emma hit that perfect place inside her for the last time, and Lauren splintered into a million pieces, breaking her promise to be quiet and crying out her pleasure. Her cries didn’t even sound human, completely foreign to her ears. Reckless and heedless and just a little bit wrecked. She was achy and needy and throbbing. Falling into the well. Falling so fast that landing was all but impossible.
She’d led them to the dirty alley no way good enough for Emma, to earn trust, to break apart and come together and finally, finally sate the need that had her by the throat. She’d agreed to surrender. She’d wanted Emma to take her for all the things it would show Emma, for all the ways it would build a bridge between them.
Oh God, had Emma delivered. She’d faced her anxiety and won the battle. She’d plowed ahead when she wasn’t sure she could. She’d accepted Lauren’s trust and honored it by delivering an orgasm that just about blew her head off.
Lauren stayed pressed against the wall as her heartbeat slowed and her breath returned. Eyes closed, she focused on the pleasure still throbbing in her pussy, on Emma’s fingers still inside her. “That was amazing.”
Emma made an appreciative noise behind her. “You’re amazing. Thank you.”
Lauren didn’t turn around when Emma pulled out. She didn’t drag Emma into her arms and kiss her the way every fiber of her being was screaming at her to. She didn’t tell Emma that she’d never done this before, never given herself over to a woman, never wanted to the way Emma made her want.
She focused on pleasure and struggled to ignore the truth that lurked at the edges of her brain. Emma had accepted her trust. Emma’d been brave. But Emma hadn’t looked at her. She’d turned Lauren to face the wall. She’d commanded Lauren not to touch her, and given herself a way to hide, behind Lauren’s shoulder. Just as she’d hidden behind her closed eyes, behind her anxiety.
Emma had taken one step, and Lauren had fallen.
They weren’t really in this together.
Chapter Twelve
At noon on Sunday, Emma pushed open the door of the Grumpy Goat and stopped just beyond the threshold. Funny how you could live in the same place your entire life, drive on the same roads, walk down the same streets, eat at the same restaurants, and you just took it all for granted until something special happened and everything came alive. Until someone special imbued a place with racing hearts and trembling hands and that wonderful, indescribable feeling of being singled out, of being chosen.
That place was this place, right inside the door of Grumpy’s where she’d almost fallen and Lauren had caught her, where she’d talked to Lauren for the first time ever, where Lauren had called her beautiful and asked her to dance. This spot right here. Their spot. Where special had happened.
“Hey, it’s the nerdy book lady.” Doug French picked her up and spun her in a circle before depositing her back on her feet, effectively ending Emma’s daydreaming. “Thanks for coming. I know all this was last minute.”
“Hey yourself, recently engaged dude.” Emma smiled. “I’m always up for celebrating happiness. How’s the whole stupid in love thing working out for you so far?”
Doug rolled his eyes, but even that looked cheerful. “Susan’s already sent me five links to venues, three for caterers, and we absolutely must have the flowers done by Holly Thomas because she really is the very best in the business, and her little girl deserves the best on her big day.” Doug shook his head. “Let me ask you, do you know any guy who gives a fuck about flowers?”
Emma laughed. “You should’ve told Susan that her little girl is getting the best because there’s no better guy than you.”
Doug managed a scoff, but he looked pleased. “Says the lesbian who wouldn’t go out with me in middle school.”
“That only means I’m objective. I can say you’re good without being blindsided by those contractor muscles of yours.”
“Speaking of being blindsided.” Doug took her arm and led her away from the crowd that had gathered to celebrate his engagement. “I wanted to catch you before anyone else did.” His blue eyes turned serious and the smile faded from his face. “What’s going on with you and Lauren?”
Oh boy, that was a loaded question. Did he want to know how every time Lauren looked at her she felt seen in a way she’d never before experienced? Or maybe Doug was asking if she was possibly, maybe entertaining the idea of asking Lauren over for dinner tomorrow night so she could cook for her. Or, hell, maybe Doug wanted to know how incredibly sexy Lauren had sounded last night when she came all over her. How Lauren’s pussy had pulsed and tightened around her fingers, how wet Lauren had been. How wet she had been. With so many possibilities the question needed clarif
ying.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you dating her?” Doug asked.
“I’m…” Were they dating? Not really. Dating was plural, and they’d had exactly one not-a-date. “Yes, we’re dating.”
She was clearly delusional and should probably run that statement by Lauren before she started advertising it to the whole world, but she’d deal with her masochistic streak later.
“Emma.”
His tone was so world-weary her back was instantly up.
“What? Please don’t tell me you’re going to scold me because of what’s been reported in the media. I’m an adult. And anyway, you know Lauren. She’s not who they say she is.”
Doug’s concerned expression didn’t waver. “I used to know her. Once upon a time. But she changed in middle school, Em. She’s guarded and has a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas.”
Emma flashed to last night in the alley—Lauren pressed against the wall like it was doing all the work of holding her up, admitting that she needed her, that she wanted Emma to take her. Emma remembered tracing Lauren’s tattoo and wondering what it was that hadn’t killed her. If Lauren had changed in middle school, Emma had no doubt there was a very good reason. “She isn’t guarded with me. She’s the opposite.”
Doug shoved a hand through his blondish-brown Ken doll hair. “She’s not right for you.”
“Didn’t she have that whole thing with Gayle a bunch of years back?” Emma’s near obsessive interest in everything-Lauren was about to come in handy. Normally, Emma wouldn’t have brought it up. Ancient history tended to be buried for a reason, but Doug was starting to piss her off. “Perhaps your judgment is clouded because your fiancée and Lauren got hot and heavy?”
Doug laughed. “It was one kiss. Plus, I’m a guy. Hot girls kissing is, well, hot.”
She couldn’t argue that point, so she raised her eyebrows and gave disbelieving her best shot. “Sure this isn’t all because you’re worried Gayle might still hold a torch?”