Their lovemaking was wonderful and hot and awkward all at once. They started out quickly before stopping to breathe and then resuming at a more reasonable pace, taking the time to explore one another’s bodies, to figure out what each of them liked and what didn’t work. Jillian came first, gasping for breath in Angie’s ear, gripping Angie’s shoulders as Angie’s fingers moved through her wetness. Angie closed her eyes as it happened, thinking the sound of Jillian having an orgasm was the most beautiful music she’d ever had the privilege of hearing.
She had little time to revel in it, though, because Jillian had barely caught her breath before she slid her own hand down Angie’s stomach and into the slickness that waited there. “Don’t look too satisfied,” she teased in a whisper. “I give as good as I get.” Angie wondered if she should tell Jillian that just the sound of her voice—all sexy and bossy like that—was making her think she’d sprung a leak between her legs, but all coherent thought was driven from her mind when Jillian slipped inside her.
“Oh, my god,” Angie ground out, her hips moving of their own accord. Patti had never been there—inside. She’d never let her get that far. But with Jillian, she not only wanted that, she wanted more.
More.
She wanted to give more. She wanted to take more. She lifted her head and kissed Jillian deeply, pushing her tongue in as far as she could, wanting to devour this woman, heart and soul. Then she pulled back to look her in the eye. Picking up the rhythm, she rocked on Jillian’s hand, felt Jillian’s thumb pressing against her, and kept their eyes locked together. It was only a matter of a few short moments before Angie tipped over the edge into oblivion, crying out Jillian’s name, one corner of the couch’s throw pillow crushed in her fist.
They lay for a long while, until their ragged breathing returned to almost normal. Worried about squishing Jillian, Angie lifted herself up enough to roll off the couch onto the floor, taking Jillian and the afghan with her. Jillian tucked her head under Angie’s chin as Angie covered them with the blanket.
“Wow,” Jillian said.
“I second that.”
Angie smiled against her hair, and they lay quietly, the only sound the ticking of the wall clock. Jillian’s breath became even; Angie was sure she was asleep. That’s when it felt safe to say it.
“I’ve never done that before,” she whispered.
“Done what? Slept with a woman on the first date?”
Angie swallowed, caught. “Or that.”
“I’m not following.”
“I’ve never done . . . that. Felt that.”
Jillian lifted her head so she could look at Angie. A mischievous gleam appeared in her eye. “Had an orgasm?”
“Well, no. I’ve had an orgasm before.” Angie cleared her throat. “Not from somebody else, though.”
Jillian’s eyebrows flew up. “Really? Never?”
With a shake of her head, Angie said, “No. I never let Patti get that far.”
“Patti?”
“The woman I dated in college. She was nice, and we made out a lot, but I was always just a little bit too scared to go any further than that.”
Jillian nodded thoughtfully. “And did you date guys?”
“I did, but you know.” She shrugged. “They were guys.”
Propping her head in her hand, Jillian asked, “So. I’m the first woman you’ve been with? Like this?”
“Yes.” Angie tried to tamp down the panic that bubbled up. “Is that bad?”
“No, of course it’s not bad.” Jillian brushed a strand of Angie’s hair off her forehead. “In fact, it’s really kind of awesome. I’ve never been somebody’s first before. I’m kind of liking that.”
Angie chuckled, hoping her relief wasn’t too obvious. “I think you’re letting this go to your head.”
“Oh, I totally am. So have you never given a girl an orgasm before? Because you seemed to know exactly what you were doing, let me just say.”
“Well, thank you. No, you’re my first there too.”
Jillian shifted, moving her body atop Angie’s, and took one of Angie’s nipples into her mouth, nibbling playfully. “If you’ve never gone all the way with any girl before me,” she began, shifting across to the other nipple and sucking hard enough to make Angie catch her breath. “Then oh my”—she rocked her hips a little, forcing Angie to open her legs to accommodate her—“how lucky am I?” With that, Jillian raised herself to her knees, pushed Angie’s thighs as far apart as they’d go, and leaned down. At the first touch to her center, Angie sucked in every particle of air her lungs would hold. Her hips lifted as if trying to reach more of Jillian’s mouth. The hot wetness and probing tongue set her heart to racing and her fingers to grasping at Jillian’s head, fisting handfuls of her blonde hair as a groan ripped up from deep in her throat.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Angie whispered. “Oh my god, Jillian. Oh my god.” She swore she could feel Jillian smiling against her own wet flesh. It became impossible to tell exactly where Jillian’s tongue was touching her, where her lips met Angie’s own skin, how much moisture was her and how much was Jillian. Angie knew nothing but sensation. Hot, beautiful, sensual sensation. And just when she thought she might spontaneously combust, when she was sure her arousal couldn’t possibly surge any higher, Jillian pushed her fingers inside—deep inside—her tongue playing over the hot, sticky wet, and Angie exploded.
The clock on the nightstand read 3:24 as the two of them lay spent in Angie’s bed, having finally abandoned the living-room floor for something more comfortable. The intention had been to get some sleep, but they’d made a mutual decision that one more orgasm was necessary first.
Now they lay entwined with one another and Angie’s limbs felt like they were made of pudding. Very heavy pudding. Jillian’s blonde head was pillowed on Angie’s shoulder, her breathing deep and even. Angie stroked her fingertips absently along the smooth skin of Jillian’s shoulder as she lay awake, reliving the night in her mind and trying to analyze the surprising emotion simmering inside her.
Was it possible to fall this quickly? She didn’t really know Jillian, and yet she felt like she did. Was that weird? Was it simply because of the sex? The awesome, limb-melting, mind-blowing sex? Was that obscuring the logic with which she should be looking at the situation? Was she being a U-Haul lesbian cliché? Because at that moment, she never wanted to move a muscle again. She would be perfectly content to stay in her bed with Jillian’s warm, naked body wrapped around her own forever and a day.
Angie mentally shook herself, told herself to stop being so silly. She was twenty-five years old, not sixteen. Fairy tale romances happened only in trashy novels, and love at first sight didn’t exist. She needed to just take a chill pill or she’d send Jillian screaming into the street to get away from a crazy, clingy lesbian.
Jillian shifted slightly in her sleep, and then a tiny grin turned up the corners of her mouth, causing just a teasing peek of her dimples. Angie swallowed hard, and in her mind, threw in the towel. It was over, and she knew it.
She would do anything to see that smile.
Anything.
1991
Love Will Never Do (Without You)
Five
The entire house shook, causing Jillian to fly down the stairs, worry etched on her face. Something had obviously fallen, she just didn’t know what. “What was that? What happened?”
Shay and Laura looked like they’d collapsed onto the couch, Shay sprawled like a rag doll, Laura with her legs hanging over the arm.
“Your couch weighs a fucking ton. That’s what happened.” Laura groaned. “I think I broke my spine.”
“Good thing your girlfriend’s a doctor, then,” Angie commented as she came around the corner from the kitchen to grab another box, looking only slightly frazzled.
“You are due for your rabies shot, aren’t you?” Jillian teased.
“Oh, har har,” Laura said. “By the way, why don’t you guys buy a house and move in the dead of
fucking winter? That’s a good idea.” She rubbed her hands together.
“You know what?” Angie said. “I think we will. And you know what else? We’ll ask our closest, dearest friends to help us.”
“And they will. Because they’re giant suckers.” Shay winked at Jillian, then hauled herself off the couch and swatted at Laura. “Come on, baby. Just a little bit more left in the truck.”
“I think my ears might have frozen off. Let me know if you see them on the ground outside.”
“I told you to wear a hat,” Shay scolded her.
“I’ll order the pizza in twenty minutes,” Angie called to them as they headed out the front door. “Promise.”
Jillian noticed the big furniture truck pulling up out front. “Honey,” she called into the house. “I think the bed’s here.”
Angie gave a little girl squeal as she came up next to Jillian.
A big, burly man with shoulders as wide as both girls standing side by side knocked his snowy boots on the front steps, then came up to the door. “Ms. Clark?”
“That’s me,” Jillian said.
“I’ve got a queen-size bed and box springs?”
“Yup.”
“Can you show me where it’s going?” He bent to untie his boots.
“Oh, no,” Angie said. “Please. Don’t worry about that. We’ve been tracking in and out all day.”
They led him into the house to the stairs. Before he even took a step up, he made a sound in his throat and shook his head.
“What’s wrong?” Jillian asked.
He took his tape measure out and measured the stairway, the wall, the ceiling. He continued to shake his head and finally announced, “The box spring won’t fit.”
“What?” Angie looked crestfallen, though her voice hitched up a notch.
“See this angle here?” He pointed to the space between the ceiling and the half-wall that formed one side of the stairway. “The angle’s too extreme. Box springs don’t bend like a mattress.”
Jillian glanced at Angie, whose eyes were filling with tears. She always cried when she was frustrated or stressed, and moving had proven very stressful. Jillian squeezed her forearm and said to the man, “What are our options?”
“Well, I’d suggest you order a split foundation. That’s a box spring, just in two pieces instead of one.”
“Can we do that with you?”
“Sure. Could take up to four or five days to get it.”
Angie made a sound in her throat. Jillian squeezed her arm harder. “But you can bring the mattress in right now, yes?”
“Sure can.”
“Perfect. Let’s do that.”
He gave one curt nod and went outside to get the mattress.
Taking Angie’s chin in her hand, Jillian looked her in the eyes.
“Baby, it’s fine. No worries. We can sleep on the mattress until the box springs get here. Okay?”
Angie cleared her throat and nodded. “Okay. Sorry. I’m freaking a bit.”
“I know.” Crisis averted, Jillian kissed her quickly on the lips and went to see if Shay and Laura needed more help. Another car was pulling up out front. “Looks like your parents are here, sweetie.”
Angie went through the kitchen to open the side door for her mother and father, Jillian right behind her. “Hey, you guys.”
“Angelina,” Angie’s father said in his signature, singsong way. Nobody said Angie’s name quite like her dad. “We come bearing gifts.”
“Oh, my god, Pop,” Angie said over her mother’s shoulder as she hugged her and sniffed the air. “Is that your pizza?”
“You know your father,” Alice said. “He was afraid you’d order from those Parelli brothers around the corner. You know how he feels about them.” She turned, and held her arms open to Jillian.
“They wouldn’t know how to make a good pizza sauce if my own grandmother taught them,” Joe muttered, his disdain for the local pizza chain always clear.
“Your timing couldn’t be better,” Jillian commented, her voice muffled by Alice’s shoulder. “Our box springs won’t fit up the stairs, and our movers are starving. Food will definitely help everybody calm down a little bit. Just”—she slid boxes and papers and garbage around on the counter to make room—“here. Put it here.”
Alice came up behind the two of them and held out a bottle of champagne. “This is for you to celebrate. It’s not for everybody. Just the two of you. Later.”
Jillian’s heart warmed, and Angie kissed her mother on the cheek. “Thanks, Mama.”
“I’ll put it in the fridge.”
“Doctor Jackson,” Joe called as he headed into the living room. “I thought you were above all of this. How did they rope you in?”
Jillian smiled, watching as Angie’s mother dodged the bed guys and joined her husband in the living room, to talk to the women bringing in the final boxes from the truck. A surge of pride and thanks washed through her. The house was small but adorable, and just right for her and Angie. Their furniture was mismatched, their dishes were all hand-me-downs from family members, and their hodgepodge of blue and yellow towels didn’t come close to matching the green and beige bathroom. But the house was theirs. They were moving into their own place. Together. They’d been squished into Angie’s tiny one-bedroom for nearly a year, and there just hadn’t been enough room. Angie wanted a bigger kitchen. Jillian needed a place for her art supplies.
“I can’t believe how fast this has all happened,” Angie’s mother was saying as Jillian tuned back into the conversation. “It seems like you just decided to move yesterday.”
“Two months,” Angie clarified. “Started looking, found this house, put in an offer, closed. All in the space of two months. I can’t believe my head hasn’t exploded clean off my body by now.”
“Neither can I,” Jillian agreed with a wink.
“It was utter insanity.”
“But it’s the perfect house for us and worth all the stress. Admit it.”
“I admit it,” Angie said with feigned reluctance, her arm around Jillian’s shoulders.
The house was more than they had hoped for. Small, only two bedrooms, but gorgeous hardwood floors, gumwood trim, an enclosed front porch, and a master bedroom with a vaulted ceiling and skylights. With Jillian’s regular teacher income and Angie’s commission (getting better and better the more sales she made), things might be a little tight to start, but the two of them would be okay.
Forty-five minutes later, delivery guys gone and a lone mattress on the floor upstairs, the six of them sat in the living room, paper plates of Joe’s homemade pizza in their hands, bottles of Bud Light all around.
“Thank you all so much for your help,” Jillian said, holding up her beer. “We so appreciate it, and we couldn’t have done it without you. We owe you.”
They all held up their bottles.
“And we will collect,” Laura said. As the crew chuckled, she added, “And Mr. R.? This pizza? To die for.”
“You remember that the next time you want to order from Parelli’s,” Joe told her.
Angie shook her head with a grin, watching her parents, while Jillian watched her, searching for words but unable to describe the love and thanks in her heart at that moment. Emotion clogged her throat, and she swallowed it down.
“Jillian,” Alice asked, breaking the spell. “Have your parents seen the house yet?”
Jillian shook her head. “No. Not yet. Maybe next week.” Alice nodded, but made no comment.
They finished up their meal, the time peppered with much laughter. Afterwards, Joe offered to take the moving truck back so Angie and Jillian could rest and Shay and Laura could be on their way.
“You’re the best, Pop,” Angie said, hugging her father. “Thank you.”
“I can’t believe my little Angelina owns her own home now,” he said, and the seriousness in his voice was a testament to the emotion he was feeling. “You kids are all growing up so fast.” He reached out and pulled Jillian int
o the hug. “My girls.”
“Don’t go getting all sappy on them, Joe,” Alice said, grabbing his shoulder. “Leave the poor girls alone. They’re tired.” Over his shoulder, she winked at them. “I’ll be over tomorrow to help you with the kitchen.”
Angie nodded. “Thanks, Mama.”
“Thanks, Mama,” Jillian echoed. Alice’s grin widened, and she patted Jillian’s cheek.
Jillian and Angie stood on the porch and waved as everybody pulled away. Then Jillian closed the front door and turned to Angie.
“So. Here we are,” she said. “Alone.”
“Finally,” Angie said, opening her arms, then wrapping them around Jillian. “In our house.”
Jillian smiled, placed a kiss on the side of Angie’s neck. “Doesn’t it feel weird?”
“It kind of does. I mean, I feel like a grown-up now.”
“That’s exactly it,” Jillian said. “I feel like this is the final step from old teenager to real adult.” They stood quietly in each other’s arms. “We own a house.”
“We do. Together.”
Jillian pulled her head back to look at Angie. “I think it’s time to pop that champagne.”
They grabbed the bottle, two plastic cups, and headed up to the bedroom. In the doorway, they stood looking down at the mattress. When their gazes met, they each burst into laughter.
“Just our luck, huh?” Jillian said, shaking her head.
“I’m getting some sheets.” They quickly threw some bedding on and pulled their down comforter out of the garbage bag it was packed in.
Looking down at the bed, Jillian said, “Well, it’s bigger than that double we had at your apartment.”
Olive Oil and White Bread Page 5