It was a dramatic shot. Kaoli had her lips partly puckered, moving in for the kiss. Except Rae wasn’t there. Instead, her hair was a blur of movement near the ground.
“Can I see?” Jori said.
She leaned across Rae to get closer to the phone and Preston angled the screen toward her. Jori snaked her arm across Rae’s back and clasped her shoulder, hanging on for balance as she leaned even farther. It was like a dance hold, only better. Better because it was real—something she was doing because she wanted to, not because a choreographer had told her to. She could have seen the photo without sprawling across Rae’s lap and claiming her with the warmth of her body. She could have simply asked Preston to pass the phone.
“I’m impressed,” Jori said.
“What happened?” Sylvie demanded.
“They immortalized her good side,” Preston said.
“Shut up,” Rae said.
“Looks to me like Rae kissed the pavement to avoid a lip-lock,” Jori said, moving away, giving Rae her space back.
Rae didn’t want her space back.
Sylvie sucked in her breath. “What did Kaoli say?”
Rae shrugged. “She didn’t fire me.”
Jori stole a roll of injera from Rae’s plate. “She wants you, Rae. She’s throwing herself at you. Just like all the girls.”
“Yeah, right.” If Jori only knew.
“One day that’ll be you and me, Chloe,” Preston said, draping an arm over Chloe’s shoulder.
Chloe removed his arm the way she would pick off a spider and flicked invisible germs off her shirt. “You mean I’ll be avoiding you?”
“Avoiding?” Preston said. “You’ll be dropping to your knees in front of m—”
Chloe snatched the phone out of Preston’s hand and suddenly no one was paying attention to Rae anymore. No one but Jori.
As the others picked apart the photo, Rae bent her head toward Jori and lowered her voice, low enough that even Jori might not hear. “You should have seen me in high school. I was so desperate for some girl—any girl—to notice me, and…that’s why it was so easy to fall for…” Kaoli. She wasn’t saying that in front of her coworkers no matter how quiet she was or how much they seemed to be ignoring her. “…for confused, unavailable straight girls.”
“Forget those girls,” Jori said softly. “You have better options now.”
Rae stared into her lap and fought the heat that rose to her cheeks. Why had she spilled that? She’d never told anyone. Although she hadn’t given away any details, even that vague admission made her uncomfortable.
“I make an excellent boyfriend,” Preston was saying, pressing his case and yanking Rae’s attention back to the table. “It’s just like being an excellent dance partner. I know how to make my partner look good. I’m strong, I’m considerate, I’m respectful.”
“Until you open your mouth,” Chloe said.
“Verbal skills are overrated,” Preston said. “There’s no need to talk when you’re dancing a horizontal pas de deux with me.”
Chloe made a rude noise.
“Your dancer’s body and my dancer’s body? I don’t see the problem here.”
Poor Chloe. Maybe she should step in and help. Rae cleared her throat. “What about wanting someone for their personality?” Wait, that was Jori’s theory. Okay, so she agreed with her. So what? It was okay for her to agree with Jori. Especially if it meant needling Preston.
“Those people have never had sex with someone who can do the splits,” Preston said.
“Can we not talk about this while we’re eating, please?” Chloe said.
Preston gave her a huge grin. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was someone at this table actually eating? I think I missed it.”
Chloe looked like she wanted to kill him, but Preston kept grinning.
“It’s not about acrobatics,” Rae said. “It’s about love.”
“What would you know about it?” Preston said. “You’re a dancer. You’re incapable of being non-acrobatic.”
“I’m capable of it right now,” Rae pointed out. “I can barely walk.”
“No need to do any walking,” Preston said. “Let lovergirl carry you around.”
Rae leaned forward. “She’s not—”
“Show her how high you can get your toes over your head and she’ll be all yours,” Preston added.
Rae covered her ears, then covered Jori’s, worried about what might be coming next. “I don’t need relationship advice from you, thank you very much.”
“More like sex advice,” Chloe grumbled.
“What? That wasn’t sex advice,” Preston said. “Sex advice would be—”
“I have to go the ladies’ room,” Rae announced, sliding out of her seat. It was the only way out. She figured her friends didn’t know Jori well enough to tease her if Rae wasn’t at the table, and a few minutes away would give them time to change topic. Because she couldn’t listen to this. What she had with Jori was confusing enough without their well-meaning input, and turning a spotlight on their as-yet-nonexistent sex lives was only going to make things awkward later in the night.
Jori stood up, too. “Is your ankle okay? Do you need help walking there?”
“She definitely needs something,” Preston said.
Rae pushed Jori toward the restrooms.
“Sorry about them,” she told Jori when they were out of earshot. “After a show, we’re all kind of high on adrenaline.”
“They’re sweet.”
They wove their way around tables to the far end of the restaurant. Rae reached for the restroom door, but as she did, the door punched open from the inside. She hopped out of the way, but after sitting at the table, and sitting through the concert, and sitting in the car, her body was stiff, and she stumbled. Jori grabbed for her to keep her from falling and Rae slammed into her. They both lost their balance. Rae put her weight down hard on her bad leg and somehow twisted it wrong. She gasped. Then Jori was steadying her, locking her into the support of her body as Rae instinctively threw her arms around her neck. Chest pressed to ribcage; hip jammed against thigh. Rae’s breath came loud and fast, and she pretended to herself that the reason she was panting was that her ankle hurt, pretended to them both that it hurt more than it did so she’d have an excuse to stay in Jori’s arms.
There was no excuse for her to rest her forehead on Jori’s shoulder or turn to bury her face in her neck, but that didn’t stop her. She couldn’t get enough of how good she smelled. She shifted more deeply into Jori’s warmth. If this was Jori’s Bat-Signal, it was working.
Once Rae had her footing, Jori should have let go. Instead, Jori became noticeably still, her only movement the rapid rise and fall of her ribcage. Rae could guess what she was thinking, because she was thinking the same thing: That when they left this restaurant, they were staying at the nearest hotel they could find. And neither one of them was going to fight too hard to get separate rooms.
Chapter Sixteen
The hotel room had two beds.
When Rae emerged from the bathroom after brushing her teeth, Jori was settled in the closest of those beds, slouched in plaid pajamas against a stack of inviting, soft-looking pillows, the covers pulled to her waist.
Jori’s gaze lingered on Rae’s bare legs. “That’s what you’re sleeping in?”
Rae tugged at the fraying hem of her faded black Kaoli Morgenroth: Alpha in Heels: the Tour T-shirt to make sure she was decent, but no amount of tugging was going to help. It barely covered anything. “What did you expect? A tutu?”
“I was picturing shorts.”
And Rae would have brought some along if she’d thought of it.
“With or without a—”
“With a shirt,” Jori said quickly, correctly guessing how Rae had planned to finish that question.
“You’ve been picturing what I look like in bed?”
Jori slid down the headboa
rd, sinking farther under the covers. “Not every night.”
Oh God. Rae flipped off the light by the door and made for the empty bed by the dim glow of the slacker bulb in the bedside lamp. She was sure there was some way she could finesse her way into sharing Jori’s half of the room, but her blood was beating too loudly in her head for her to figure out how. Maybe it was just as well. In a few weeks she would be rejoining Kaoli’s tour—sooner, if she was lucky—and sleeping with Jori would only make it harder to leave.
Unfortunately, Jori’s shapeless plaid pajamas looked comfortable and homey and way sexier than a straight woman would ever understand.
“Shouldn’t you keep your brace on?” Jori asked.
Weren’t they done yet with discussing what she was wearing? “I’m not sleeping in an ankle brace.”
“Were you planning on sleeping?” Jori snagged a free pillow from the mound on her bed and used the pillow to cover her face as if she expected to have to duck out of the way of a projectile.
Rae reached the gap between their beds and paused. Jori peeked out from behind the pillow. Smiled. This was crazy.
“You think you can say whatever you want and I won’t take you up on it.”
“Actually, I’m dying over here, waiting for you to make a move.”
Rae swallowed. She wanted Jori so much, and at the same time she didn’t trust herself to want the right thing. “Sweetie, only straight girls lie back and wait for it.”
A wrinkle appeared between Jori’s eyebrows. She looked serious and intent. Almost as serious and intent as Kaoli, trying to convince her to give her another chance.
Rae kept her sigh to herself. “Good night.”
“If you dream about me tonight, feel free to come up with a good pet name for me. You know, to protect the identity of the innocent party when you moan my name.” Jori wasn’t ready to quit, was she? And yet she wasn’t crawling out of bed to come get her, either. “I like sweetie, by the way.”
Yeah. That had slipped out, hadn’t it? Great.
“Although I also kind of like the sound of love muffin.”
“I’m not going to dream about you.” She was pretty sure that wasn’t a lie, if only because she wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep knowing Jori was in the other bed. No chance of dreaming if she was awake.
“Just keep it in mind.”
“Not necessary.” Rae hesitated at the side of her bed. Why hadn’t she detoured around to the other side rather than into the gap between the two beds? She could have squeezed around the dresser and the bed and the armchair and put a little distance between them, even if it was only for a minute. She needed to just jump into bed and get it over with, but the love muffin was watching, and she couldn’t move.
“You say that now, but—”
“Believe me, there is no way I am going to cry out your name in my sleep.”
“That’s just as well,” Jori said. “Women who want a man to scream their name when they’re making love? That’s just weird.”
A man? “Women who want a woman,” Rae corrected. And how did they get from talking about dreams to talking about sex?
“Whatever,” Jori said.
Rae shook her head in disbelief. Substituting man for woman wasn’t a whatever to her. “Saying your lover’s name proves that you’re not fantasizing about someone else, or hung up on an ex,” she said, not sure why she was letting Jori lead her down this road. The thing to do was get into bed and pretend she was asleep and not talk about…what they were talking about.
Jori turned to her side and propped herself up on her elbow, eager as always to discuss another one of her theories. “Anyone who sleeps with me knows exactly who I am. I don’t need to hear my name. I don’t want to hear my name. If you’re coherent enough to remember my name and you’re capable of forming actual words, then the sex is just not that good, sunshine.”
Rae’s mouth went dry.
Jori’s gaze locked on to hers and Rae got the disconcerting feeling that Jori was picturing her naked and breathless beneath her.
“If I’m doing my job right,” Jori continued, “you won’t remember your own name, let alone mine.”
She didn’t mean you, personally. She meant you, a random girlfriend.
Or maybe not. Because the way Jori was looking at her—eyes dark, pupils wide, like she could see through her and read her thoughts, and those thoughts were turning her on—it felt like she meant her.
Rae needed to sit down. She needed to get into bed and shove a pillow under her head and remind herself she didn’t sleep with women who said man when they should mean woman and then dismissed it with a whatever.
She meant to do all those things. Really. Which was obviously why she yanked the covers off Jori’s bed and scrambled on top of her on her hands and knees.
* * *
Jori sucked in her breath so hard she might have strained her lungs. Rae was on top of her, one knee on either side of her waist, smiling down at her in the shadowy darkness like a demented angel.
Her blood pounded in her ears as she stared up in awe, unable to move. Rae was finally in her bed. On her. With her. And she didn’t want it to end. Ever. She wanted to appreciate every rise and fall of Rae’s ribcage and every burning point of contact for as long as possible. They could stay motionless like this all night and she’d never get tired of it.
Rae laughed. “You look shocked.”
Jori stroked Rae’s lean, strong legs in wonder, soaking in the warmth of her bare skin, discovering every curve, finding the crease where her thighs ended and something even more interesting began. “Not shocked.”
Rae squeezed her thighs together and trapped her with a strength Jori wasn’t easily going to escape, even if for some insane reason she wanted to. She was never going to watch Rae do that open-and-close leg exercise the same way again. Seeing her coworkers wrap their legs around stripper poles that descended from the ceiling during the concert had given her some idea why Rae needed strong inner thighs, but feeling her strength in action brought it home. She’d imagined Rae up there in mid-air, moving her torso in ways Jori couldn’t manage even on the ground, wiggling the way she’d wiggled against the doorframe, performing in front of thousands instead of flirting for an appreciative audience of one. She hoped one day she’d see her dance up there. She’d look amazing. Almost as amazing as she looked right now.
“Shit.” Rae rocked back on her heels and hissed in pain, knocking Jori out of her reverie.
“Your ankle,” Jori guessed.
“Knee,” Rae said. “Damn it, I thought my knee was okay.”
“Are you all right?” She didn’t need to be straddling her, for God’s sake. She should be on her back or something, taking the pressure off. “Don’t you want to—” put on your knee brace, she was going to say, but Rae was pulling her T-shirt over her head and the words died in Jori’s throat.
Rae was incredible. The graceful curve of her neck. The vulnerable boniness of her elbows. The glint in her eyes, daring her to look at her breasts. And then there was that sexy navel…
“Rae,” she breathed, forgetting her own theory about names. Maybe, just maybe, she’d been wrong about what it meant to use a person’s name in bed. Maybe she’d never understood what it was like to feel smiled upon by the gods and want to put a name to the miracle in her hands.
Rae leaned forward and got rid of Jori’s clothes, got rid of the last scrap of her own. Then she was straddling her again, rising on her knees and arching effortlessly into a backbend. Her breasts thrust skyward, her head dropped back, and her hands reached behind her, landing on Jori’s thighs. What the…?
“You don’t have to…” …do all that bendy stuff, she tried to say, but seeing her so open made it impossible to speak. What was it Preston had said at dinner? That he liked being in bed with a dancer who could do the splits? All she cared about was Rae, not her flexibility, but that didn’t mean she didn
’t look amazing. The splits were nothing compared to this.
But hadn’t Rae replied that acrobatics weren’t important? Apparently her definition of acrobatics was a bit different than Jori’s.
“Your knee, sunshine.”
“My knee’s fine.”
That was hard to believe, but if Rae was going to insist on crazy circus moves, the least Jori could do was make her forget the pain, obliterate it with something more pleasant.
She had a pretty good idea how to do that.
She reached between those flexible legs and Rae’s hipbones jutted forward in invitation, her knees skidding out, her breathing harsh with anticipation. Jori stroked into her moist heat and her own breath came faster, matching Rae’s rhythm. Rae moaned and arched her back even more, arms stretched behind her, the hollow of her navel taut, her fingers digging into Jori’s thighs. Jori’s core pulsed with need. Heat shot upward and without even meaning to, Jori’s hips rose, straining against the pressure of Rae’s hands.
It ought to have been impossible, but Rae dragged her palms up Jori’s thighs as easily as if she were right-side-up. She wasn’t seriously going to…
Jori tensed, bracing herself, wondering how close Rae was planning on getting. Could she really reach anything? Rae hit her goal and Jori gasped. Yes, she could. Yes…she…holy fuck, she totally could. Jori panted. A wet, aching urgency welled up. Except this wasn’t how she’d meant this to go…
With Rae rocking above her, Jori shuddered and pushed her way farther in, past slick, contracted walls that relaxed and welcomed her in a rush. Rae’s smooth, sensuous rhythm became jerky and uncoordinated. She was no longer in control, no longer graceful. Rae’s hand between Jori’s legs flailed, missing its target. Her focus was shot.
Jori’s body went tight. Just knowing that Rae was losing it was enough to make her clench so hard she almost came. She needed to be on her, under her, inside her. She couldn’t get close enough.
Rae’s hips jerked forward and Jori pressed her advantage, grinding into her, staying with her as Rae convulsed uncontrollably, spasming on her fingers.
Rae straightened from her backbend, trembling the whole way up. She collapsed forward onto her hands and knees, her ribcage heaving with frantic gasps for air.
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