Amused, Jen said, “I won’t bite.”
Kade moved in roughly one inch.
Jen laughed. She got onto her knees, stretched across Kade’s torso, scooped her outer hip, and tugged. She knew Kade wouldn’t budge unless she acquiesced to the action, which she surprised Jen by doing. Now she was actually in a normal sleeping position.
“Do you usually sleep on your back?” Jen asked as she switched off the lamp.
“Yes.”
“Good, because I usually sleep on my side or stomach.” And with that, Jen snuggled against Kade and laid her arm across her waist. She figured Kade would have said “no” had she asked permission, and this way Kade would have to request that she move, if that’s what she truly wanted. Jen would do so, of course, but she left it up to Kade. Jen was exactly where she wanted to be. She nestled closer. “Thank you for tonight.”
Jen felt a tiny bit of movement that she took to be a nod.
“Thinking about your schedule tomorrow?” Jen asked.
“Maybe.”
Jen chuckled. So predictable. “What’s on tap?”
“Eight o’clock breakfast, nine o’clock spin class, ten thirty shower and change, Stanford recruiting event at noon.”
“Ha ha.”
Silence.
Jen lifted her head to look at Kade even though it was too dark to see. “You’re not serious.”
Jen felt Kade’s chest rise and fall and heard her exhale in short bursts. Laughing. “If you plan on leaving that early, be a dear and let yourself out.”
“No breakfast in bed?”
“I can set out a granola bar right now for you to enjoy first thing.”
“Nah.” Kade put her free arm around Jen. “I’m thinking I might not want to get up in four hours.” She kissed Jen’s hair. “Or ever.”
Once again, Kade surprised her with her sweetness.
Chapter Ten
Slightly disoriented, Kade woke to unfamiliar surroundings. But unlike waking up in a hotel, words that came to mind were homey and warm, not functional and efficient. She’d slept well, though it had taken a while to fall asleep, her body warring with her brain over what it considered reasonable proximity to Jen. Her body wanted to be in close contact; her mind preferred the couch.
Since Jen wasn’t in the room, Kade humored her body’s desire to soak up Jen’s scent while she had the opportunity, so she rolled onto her stomach and rested her face on Jen’s pillow. She recognized the hint of apricot from Jen’s shampoo. For another indulgent moment, she wondered what it would be like to wake up each day, enveloped in Jen’s fragrance, surrounded by Jen’s body, cared for by Jen’s heart. It would be pretty damn wonderful. But there was a pesky thing called reality, and she needed to get back to it.
After using the bathroom and brushing her teeth, Kade unhooked and donned the terry-cloth robe from the back of the bathroom door, swapping it for last night’s T-shirt. She padded down the hallway and into the kitchen. Jen was seated at the table, dressed in jeans and a Henley, sipping from a mug and reading The Wall Street Journal. Kade could happily wake up to this scene every day. Then again, if she was going to continue fantasizing about the perfect morning welcome, she’d scale back on the amount of clothing Jen wore and, for as much as she loved the Journal, opt for a greeting that didn’t involve leaving the bedroom.
Good thing she stacked her weekends to avoid the kind of temptation Jen represented.
“You get the Journal?” Kade asked.
Jen sat back, gave Kade her full attention, and unleashed such a beautiful smile that Kade felt her own face light up unexpectedly.
“Good morning. Not usually, but I know you read it, or at least you used to, so I went out and foraged. There’s OJ, milk, and cream cheese in the fridge.”
On the counter, Kade spied a bowl of fresh fruit, a bag of bagels, slices of tomato on a cutting board, and an empty mug. “How are you not married?” she said as she poured coffee.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Kade chuckled and grabbed the milk. Before adding a splash, she ticked off reasons, extending her thumb and fingers as she listed each. “Easy. Workaholic. Can’t cook. OCD about being on time. Intimidating. Inflexible. For starters.”
Jen took up the task and started counting. “How about helpful, sharp, insightful, sweet, and funny?”
Kade eyed her skeptically as she returned the carton to the fridge. “Sure, if we’ve moved on to you.”
“You’re very frustrating.”
“See? Another one. Add it to the list. Stubborn, too, while you’re at it.” She sat across from Jen and changed her tone. “How are you feeling today? Seriously.”
“Yesterday morning, Jeremy was ready to kill me because I was fluttering about the office like a moth on steroids, moving from person to person as if they were porch lights, checking their progress every two minutes. He sent me home. So seriously? I feel renewed, energized, and confident. All thanks to you. Seriously.”
Kade cupped her mug in her hands and smiled. She knew she shouldn’t put too much weight behind Jen’s words because Jen had most of the topics she needed to cover already in her deck, which merely required some rearranging, amplification, or subtlety, depending on the subject. Yet they filled Kade with genuine pleasure, like the first shafts of sunlight after a long snowstorm. “I’m glad.”
“You have a beautiful smile.”
Kade cocked an eyebrow in response.
Jen laughed. “Please add ‘great at accepting compliments’ to your list. Hey, I have a proposal.”
“Uh-oh.” Kade indicated the newspaper and the food. “Was all this to butter me up?”
“No, not especially,” Jen said, and then seemed to reconsider. “Is it working?”
Kade gave her a mock glare.
“Remember our two ground rules from Maui? A single day, no work talk.”
Kade nodded.
“Will you take today off and spend it with me?”
Kade shifted in her chair, and Jen seemed poised to deflect potential objections.
“Hear me out. You could easily get one of your ambitious, anxious-to-prove-themselves underlings to cover for you at the recruiting event. Why don’t we go to San Francisco, walk along Crissy Field, have lunch in the Marina—”
“Wait,” Kade said with a raised palm. “Let me get my phone.” Kade dashed to the living room and shuffled through her clothes pile. Besides the Stanford shindig, something else was slated for that evening, something she couldn’t remember offhand but would leverage to politely decline. Jen’s offer was far more appealing than anything she had lined up, but she needed to be able to defend against it. All it would require was a quick reminder of her schedule to fend off Jen, say her good-byes, and get back on track. While she consulted her device, Jen continued.
“I don’t want to see everything on your plate. It’s Saturday. My presentation’s in much better shape than it was before you got here, I’ve got a clear path forward, and I…what’s wrong?”
Kade couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Then again, considering her assistant, she could. All obligations had been adroitly removed from her calendar, and in her inbox was an email from Holly detailing extremely plausible yet incredibly convenient reasons why she was suddenly completely free this weekend. She didn’t even have time to concoct a viable story, since Jen was standing next to her.
Jen took the phone Kade was handing her. “What?”
“What does it say?” Kade asked, waiting for Jen to read the screen.
Jen shifted her gaze to the calendar on display. The entire day was blocked off. Jen appeared confused. “It says, ‘Day with Jen’ question mark.”
“Right.”
“Wait. This is your schedule today?”
Kade nodded and slid into her chair. “Apparently. Holly rearranged things.”
“You’re not working?”
Kade shook her head and thought she could tell the exact moment the coin dropped for Jen. Jen tilte
d her head and graced Kade with a slow smile that took hold of her whole face. Then she squealed like a schoolgirl and practically jumped into Kade’s lap, throwing her arms around her neck and hugging her. When she pulled back to look at Kade, she was grinning.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Jen asked.
Kade shook her head, all thoughts of excuses becoming jumbled and incoherent with Jen this close, the unbounded joy in her eyes intoxicating.
“It means I must kiss you.” And she did.
At first, it was only a firm press of her lips on Kade’s, barely longer than sisters or friends might exchange if they hadn’t seen each other in years. Then Jen bussed Kade’s lips a few more times in quick succession. And then it all changed.
Jen quickly shifted from having both legs to one side of Kade to straddling her instead. She ran a hand into Kade’s hair, starting at the base of her neck. Then she caressed Kade’s cheek before sliding to her chin, which she gently cupped. She dipped her head until her lips hovered against Kade’s upper lip, which she softly teased with her tongue. By the time she followed suit against Kade’s bottom lip, Kade longed for more contact.
Kade slid her hands down Jen’s back and lower, between denim and cotton, cupping her ass and pulling her close. Impatiently, Kade surged forward, her mouth and tongue demanding more from Jen—more contact, more pressure, more everything.
Jen’s hands moved to her neck and then snuck inside the open collar of the robe. She smoothed her fingers beneath the swell of one breast, then glided her thumb over the nipple, teasing it to attention.
It felt so good, almost as if Kade had never been touched before. She seemed ready to justify anything in order to have this day with Jen, this intimacy. They were talking about only one day. What could go wrong? But something niggled at the back of Kade’s mind. Kade desperately did not want to hurt Jen. They couldn’t continue down this path.
With effort, Kade broke their kiss. She gazed at Jen, blown away by how attractive she was with swollen lips and flushed skin, and unsure as to why she was on the receiving end of her attention. With the pad of her thumb, she brushed Jen’s bottom lip. “You’re beautiful,” she said, hearing the conviction in her own voice, knowing the inadequacy of her words.
She reached for Jen’s hands, then kissed each one before holding them in the small space between them. “As much as I want this, I don’t think we sh—”
Jen shushed Kade with an index finger to her lips. “No thinking. A single day, no work talk,” Jen said again. She ran her fingers through Kade’s silky strands and shifted her gaze to follow her hands. “That’s the deal.” She found Kade’s eyes once more, as if to convey unhesitant and complete acceptance of the terms. Then Jen climbed off Kade and held her hand out, the invitation clear.
Kade took it and followed her to the bedroom.
* * *
Jen found it difficult to take the short path to her room. Her legs seemed rubbery, the journey long, the path fuzzy, as her brain struggled to impart instructions to her lust-filled body. Kade was behind her, their destination and its implications unambiguous. They were going to have sex—finally, Jen thought—and she couldn’t be more eager or willing. Yes, it came with caveats, but Jen wasn’t the planner Kade was. She would rather take what she could today than push it off to an unknowable tomorrow.
She stopped them at the edge of the bed—Kade’s side, Jen thought happily. She had a moment of inaction, feeling nearly overwhelmed by all the choices they could make over the next few hours. But as she looked at Kade and saw her unmistakable need, her unflinching eyes, Jen felt grounded, sure. She took Kade’s face in her hands, lingering several moments to simply enjoy and absorb the affectionate gaze being leveled at her by the woman who had captured her heart. Jen didn’t need to dissect that last thought, to overanalyze the conclusion. It was there, nothing frightening or worrying about it.
She kissed Kade with every ounce of devotion she was feeling. She wanted to show Kade that while she was more than ready for this, it was uniquely Kade with whom she wanted to share it. And then she purposely shifted into a different gear, one she hoped would encourage the hunger between them and not stifle it with too much emotion. Jen knew what was in her heart, but she suspected Kade wasn’t yet there. Moreover, Kade might never be. So Jen decided to do all she could, which was to give of herself in this moment.
Jen broke the kiss and led Kade’s hands to the edge of her shirt, folding her fingers over the hemline, a clear signal of what she wanted. Kade didn’t disappoint, inching the material upward, exposing first the top of Jen’s jeans, then her stomach, then her bra, before tugging the shirt over her head and tossing it onto the corner of the bed. The thought flicked across her mind that Kade probably had a thing against throwing clothes on the floor. She’d find out soon enough.
Grabbing the lapels of her own robe, which she concluded looked far better on Kade than her, Jen tugged Kade forward for a bruising kiss. She wanted to claim, to possess. Their tongues danced and dueled, jockeying between dominance and submission. Jen felt behind her for Kade’s hands, which were on her back, and again positioned them where she wanted, this time at the clasp of her jeans. Kade broke the kiss and focused on Jen’s face as she unbuttoned and unzipped. “Take them off,” Kade said once she lowered the zipper.
The command sent a jolt of arousal to Jen’s center, and she inhaled sharply. She wriggled them down and stepped out of them, holding them up to Kade by a finger through a belt loop, interested to see what Kade would do. Kade threw them on top of the shirt, and Jen wondered what it was costing her not to fold them first.
Kade advanced on her then, caressing the exposed skin, running her hands along Jen’s back and waist, arms and neck, sides and stomach. Then she squatted, moving them from Jen’s calves to the backs of her knees to her thighs, first one leg and then the other. As she rose, she nudged her nose in a line over Jen’s bikinis, starting at the lowest part of the front-facing fabric and tightening her grip on the backs of Jen’s thighs as she seemed to sense the sudden weakness in Jen’s legs. Jen gasped at the contact, steadying herself with her hands on Kade’s shoulders, wild with desire as Kade stood to face her.
Jen again took Kade’s hands and brought them around her body, setting Kade’s fingers at the clasp of her bra to complete the command.
But Kade shook her head. Instead, she took Jen’s hands and led them to the knot in her belt. “Take it off,” she said as she slid an arm around Jen’s neck, while the other caressed the curve of Jen’s breast beneath the sheer fabric. Jen didn’t think Kade was playing fair, and she liked it. How was she to concentrate on disrobing Kade, with Kade touching her this way?
Jen kept her eyes on Kade’s as she worked the simple tie, enjoying the concentration on Kade’s face to try to control her breathing. Once the robe was unfastened, it fell open, revealing the lacy bikinis she’d only glimpsed beneath the T-shirt last night. Her eyes never leaving Kade’s, she bent her knees, sliding the underwear down long legs as she went. The dark curls at the juncture of Kade’s legs signaled a playground Jen wanted to explore, and she could hardly contain her desire to tug Kade forward and stroke her with her tongue until she cried out her pleasure. Instead she stood, laid her palms on the skin above Kade’s sternum, and slipped them beneath the thick fabric. She glided them up and over Kade’s shoulders, the movement further parting the robe to completely reveal her breasts. With one more upward motion, the robe fell to the floor, and Kade stood naked before her.
Jen stopped and stared. Kade’s body was near perfection, exceeding Jen’s greatest fantasies about it, fantasies that had begun as soon as she’d seen Kade wearing a jade bikini over a year ago, images that had only grown in number since meeting Kade again. She licked her suddenly dry lips, almost unsure of where to start with the things she wanted to do. The only thought that materialized was that they were too far apart, so Jen crushed her body to Kade’s and kissed her, surrendering to the feel of skin against skin
.
But barriers still separated them, small yet unacceptable ones, which needed tending to. Body still flush with Kade’s, Jen fumbled for her bra clasp. But Kade’s hands were suddenly there, and she whispered against Jen’s mouth, “Let me.” Kade undid the clasp, slid her fingers up Jen’s back to the straps, and gently pushed them off her shoulders. She moved just enough that the space she created between them allowed the bra to fall, and it dangled from one end by Kade’s fingers. With the swing of her arm, Kade added it to the growing clothes pile.
Kade’s mouth traveled along Jen’s neck in a sensual exploration. Her hands went to Jen’s waist, and she dipped her fingers in between bikinis and skin, tracing along the edge of the fabric. She brought them around to the front, her knuckles grazing the hair between Jen’s legs. Then she slipped back around and worked her fingers lower, barely dipping into Jen’s wetness from behind.
Jen whimpered, her breath coming shallowly. If Kade stroked lower, she’d be well on her way to orgasm. But Kade went back to the waistband and slid the bikinis down until they fell. Jen stepped out of them, and Kade bent to pick them up—at least that’s what Jen thought initially. Once Kade’s hands and nose started reacquainting themselves with Jen’s lower body, Jen quickly discovered Kade wasn’t too concerned about leaving clothes on the floor.
This time, after Kade’s nose nudged at Jen’s center, her mouth followed. She traced her tongue into the shallowest of Jen’s folds, enough to tease and extract another whimper. And then she shifted gears. With her mouth still against Jen, she prodded her backward until Jen’s legs hit the mattress, and then she gave her a light shove, sending her prone on her back. On the floor on her knees, Kade spread Jen’s thighs and plunged her tongue into her, using her upper lip to keep pressure where Jen needed it. Jen felt stirrings of her orgasm, and Kade seemed to sense it, too, shifting to take Jen fully into her mouth while delving into her with her fingers. She pulled out to the very edge before pushing deeply into her, repeating her motions, maintaining pressure with her mouth.
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