Cake (Bitterroot Saga Book 1)

by Jove Belle

  They should have finished hours ago. Kelly should be sleeping, or at the very least, driving back to Spokane. Instead, she was over-sensitized, slick, and swollen with need.

  “Again?” Elana asked without breaking the kiss. She slid her hand down the expanse of Kelly’s abdomen, not stopping until she made contact with Kelly’s clit. Kelly gasped at the contact, writhed with a need to be closer, yet, at the same time, farther away from Elana’s touch, and nipped at Elana’s bottom lip. Elana’s mouth stretched into a broad, full-face smile that Kelly could feel rather than see. With an easy laugh, Elana slid inside her. “Yeah, I think that’s a yes.”

  “God, how…” Kelly tried to ask how Elana made her feel so good, so ready, so soon, but then Elana lowered her head to her breast. She took Kelly’s nipple into her mouth and thrust hard into Kelly, and all of Kelly’s thoughts evaporated into a steady, thrumming, “Please.”

  Elana twisted her nipple gently with her teeth, then soothed it with her tongue, all the while stroking steadily in and out. Kelly’s body pulled tight. It was too quick. She shouldn’t be able to come from so little effort, but her body responded as though she hadn’t had an orgasm in months. Some part of her, the fuzzy outer reaches of her thoughts, was aware of her fingers as they dug into Elana’s shoulder, her nails raking furrows into the flesh there. Elana gasped, Kelly was almost sure, but then that part of her, deep, deep in her belly, sprung loose, unfurling outward like a spool of ribbon.

  She was still cresting when Elana’s mouth closed over her clit. She wrapped her hands around Kelly’s thighs and pulled hard. In one fell motion, Kelly lay gasping on her back, her legs splayed open, back arched, and Elana’s tongue stroking against her. With urgency, Elana pushed her even higher and, as her first orgasm ended, a second burst through her, splintering apart all the boundaries she thought she knew about her body.

  She screamed. Really and truly screamed. Screaming orgasms were something she joked about with her friends. They were the product of theatrics, not sex. At least that’s what she’d thought until that moment. The edges of her vision swam, growing dark and blurred until she clenched her eyes shut and focused on the stars behind her eyelids. Her body shuddered, and even though, logically, she had to be done coming, energy continued to spiral through her.

  “Jesus…fuck…” She wanted to say more. She wanted to erect a shrine to Elana and her tongue. She wanted to catch her breath. She wanted…so many things. She settled for collapsing against the bed, where she eventually slipped into sleep with Elana’s body curled protectively around her.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Why do you look so happy?” Reagan dropped onto the sofa in Elana’s office and kicked her feet up onto the coffee table.

  Elana smacked Reagan’s shoe with a notebook and said, “Off. Until you start paying me like a normal patient, the furniture is off limits.”

  Reagan stuck out her tongue, but slipped her feet off the table. Elana overlooked the fact that she remained seated on the couch. Reagan grabbed a banana from the bowl of fruit Elana kept on the table, again, for patients. She started to peel it before Elana could react.

  “I swear,” Elana grumbled, “you’re like a child.”

  “Whatever.” Reagan took an oversized bite and chewed exaggeratedly with her mouth open. “Stop ignoring the question. Why are you smiling? You never smile.”

  Elana drew her mouth into a tight line and stared at Reagan, unimpressed. “Did I tell you I had a camera added to my office? It helps patients to be able to review therapy sessions.”

  Reagan sat up straight, a look of panic on her face. “No. Where?” She glanced around the room.

  One side of Elana’s mouth curved up into a smile. That was the most she would allow herself, since it really was cruel to tease Reagan that way. As an associate lawyer, she was building a client list of her own. Her bosses would not approve of her being caught in all her digital glory chewing like an uneducated dullard. It went against their image.

  “Relax. Look around. You really think I can afford cameras?” Elana’s problem wasn’t billable hours. It was her damned bleeding heart. She believed mental health shouldn’t depend on annual income. Unfortunately, that philosophy had a direct negative impact on her own annual income. “I’m just fucking with you.”

  Reagan lunged across the gap between the couch and Elana’s chair and punched Elana in the arm. Hard. “Bitch.”

  “Jesus, lay off.” Elana twisted away and rubbed her arm. She didn’t know what it was about Reagan, but she always brought out the adolescent in Elana. Probably because she was her oldest friend, besides Bree. “That hurt.”

  Reagan sat forward on the couch, legs spread like a man, elbows on her knees, hands dangling in the middle space. She looked at Elana, tilted her head to the side, and frowned. “Tell me you didn’t.”

  Elana shook her head. “Didn’t what?”

  “I know that look. You got laid. Tell me you didn’t sleep with Bree again. You know how much that fucks you up.”

  Elana smiled wryly. “I didn’t.”

  Reagan narrowed her eyes. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” Elana wasn’t ready to talk about Kelly, about the time they’d spent together, and the way her chest ached with something indefinable as she watched Kelly drive away that morning. “She’s married now, remember?”

  “But isn’t that why you went to Spokane? To stop her with some grand gesture of love that would sweep her off her feet?”

  Elana wrinkled her nose. When Reagan said it like that, Elana sounded pathetic. “Yeah, I guess. But we both know that would never work with Bree. She knew…knows how I feel. I’ve done grand gestures and feet sweeping. It’s not enough. Never will be.”

  Reagan regarded her, her brow drawn down in a thoughtful expression. That was by far the most frank and honest Elana had ever been with herself about her relationship with Bree, so she wasn’t surprised by Reagan’s reaction. The sad truth was, Elana loved Bree with everything inside of herself and had given everything to make them work. And Bree had tried so hard to return her love, to be what Elana needed her to be. At the end of the day, though, she was just playing a part, and the veneer had worn so thin at times, Elana wondered what had made her ever think she and Brianna could be together.

  Knowing that they were wrong for each other didn’t make it hurt less when Bree finally told her about David. The look of joy on Bree’s face when she said his name, the same look Elana longed to have for herself, was too much to ignore. They were well and truly over.

  “So, you didn’t sleep with Bree?” Reagan looked at her hard, as if she was searching for signs that Elana was lying.

  “No, I didn’t sleep with Bree.” Elana tried to keep her expression neutral, but she smiled despite herself.

  Reagan slapped her leg and stood up. “I knew it. You had sex.”

  Elana arched an eyebrow. It was a look that had worked really well for her as a cheerleader in high school and with decreasing effectiveness in the years since. She waited for Reagan to calm herself. Finally, after several moments of Reagan staring at her with a what-the-fuck expression on her face, Elana gave in. “Is it really so hard to believe?”

  “Yes! You were at Brianna’s wedding.” Reagan drew Bree’s name out into three distinct syllables. As if Elana didn’t already understand the importance of that name. “And you had sex. With someone who wasn’t Brianna.”

  “Yes.”

  Reagan’s banana lay half-eaten next to the bowl of fruit. To give her mouth something to do besides charge off into a twitterpated babblefest about Kelly, Elana picked it up and took a bite.

  “No. No banana.” Reagan slapped the fruit from her hand and flung it across the room in a wobbly arc to smash into the bookcase.

  Elana swallowed her half-chewed bite. It went down hard and she nearly choked. “What the hell, Rea. You can’t just hit people like that. This isn’t second grade.”

  “I’m going to do a lot worse if you don’t talk to me
.”

  A knock sounded on the door moments before it opened. Her business neighbor, Louis, poked his head in. “Everything okay in here?”

  Louis was the main reason she hadn’t switched to a more modern office. She refused to go unless he did, because they looked out for one another. She felt safer knowing that he would come to her rescue if she ever really needed him to.

  Reagan waved. “Hey, Lou. We’re good here. I’m just about to kill El. No big deal.”

  “Oh, hey, Reagan. I didn’t realize you were in here with Elana. Carry on.” In the moment before he ducked back out, Louis’s face went bright red. He’d had the biggest crush on Reagan since he first met her. She’d been helping Elana schlep boxes up the stairs on day one in her new office. Louis had come out to introduce himself, and he’d been blushing in her presence ever since.

  “Bye, Louis. Thanks,” Elana called. As soon as the door closed behind him, she turned to Reagan. “You should go out with him.”

  “Yeah, that would be great. Except where he’s a man. With man parts.” Reagan made a gagging motion, which Elana thought was hysterical since she’d had a boyfriend all through college. She’d waited until law school before she took Elana’s advice and tried dating a woman.

  “There is that. But he’s so nice.”

  “So you date him. Right after you tell me about your slutty good time at your ex’s wedding. Stop stalling.”

  Elana relaxed back in her chair. She’d get the banana later, before a client showed up. She hoped. “What do you want to know?”

  “Am I right?”

  Elana nodded, a slow smile creeping over her face.

  “And? Where did you meet?”

  “At the wedding.” Elana went for the simple version. Reagan didn’t need to know how she’d ambushed Kelly at the church.

  “No shit.” Reagan sat back, mouth open. “Really?”

  “Yeah, her name is Kelly.”

  “Kelly. She must be friends with the guy, because I’d know her if she was there for Bree.”

  Elana flipped through the pages of the file she’d been holding throughout their conversation. She needed to prep for her upcoming appointment, but mostly she was trying to control the rush of heat in her face. Unsuccessfully.

  “Look at you. I can’t remember the last time I saw you blush.” Reagan laughed and Elana gave in to the infectious feeling. It felt good to think about Kelly, and it felt even better to talk to her best friend about her.

  “I like her.”

  “Are you going to see her again?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head, returning her attention to the file. “It’s complicated.” Elana almost laughed again. Complicated didn’t even come close to describing the fucked-up degrees of separation between her and Kelly and Brianna and David. She closed the file with a sigh and tossed it on the table. “I gave her my number.”

  “You didn’t get hers?”

  “I did.” Elana smiled. Kelly had written her number in blocky capital letters on the dry erase board in Elana’s kitchen. She’d circled it with a heart and wrote “for a good time call” next to it. Afraid she’d call before she even made it to work, Elana forced herself not to add it to her phone. Not that it mattered, she’d memorized it without even trying. Funny how good endorphins were for a person’s memory.

  “So what’s your hang up? How complicated can it be if she makes you smile like that?” Reagan always cut right to the heart of a matter, often without realizing it. Elana liked to call her a stumbler because she stumbled over the truth more often than she searched it out. She’d made the mistake of saying that within earshot of Reagan’s boss once, and Reagan had been mad at her for weeks after. Now, Elana kept the thought to herself, but times like this made it hard to do.

  Elana took a deep breath. “She’s David’s sister.”

  Reagan tilted her head, her expression thoughtful. “David? Why do I know… Oh! Shit. That David?”

  “Yeah.” Elana wished she hadn’t discarded the file. The way Reagan was looking at her made her want to hide. “That David.”

  “You fucked Bree’s husband’s sister?” Reagan gestured pointedly with each dot she connected. “You fucked Bree’s sister-in-law? Seriously?”

  Elana nodded tightly.

  “Oh, that’s…” Reagan shrugged.

  “Yeah, see. Complicated.” There really wasn’t anything else she could say. Elana stood and went in search of the banana.

  CHAPTER 11

  When Kelly had agreed to a late lunch with her mom, the cafe seemed like a great idea. By now, her mom had no doubt heard about her…whatever…with Elana. Her mom had a code of conduct, rules of engagement for social settings. That meant, if she lectured Kelly at all, it would be in hushed, urgent whispers peppered with disapproving looks. Given a choice, Kelly would have chosen to skip the discussion completely, but if it had to happen, this was the way to go. Or so she’d thought.

  So far, they’d sat in relative silence. Her mom asked her about work. Twice. Beyond that, she made polite conversation about the food, the weather, the traffic, but not a single word about David and the wedding.

  As Kelly ate her club sandwich, she forced herself to take small-ish bites and to chew carefully. She really wanted this whole thing to just be over, but didn’t want to appear as though she was in a rush. That went against her mom’s established rules and one lecture per day was all Kelly could take. The longer they sat there, the more her skin crawled with anticipation.

  And then, just as the waitress dropped the check face down on the table, her mom launched the opening salvo. “Your brother tells me you brought a friend with you to the wedding.” She twisted the word “friend” just so, turning it from an innocent statement to a weighted judgment. That wasn’t new for her, though. That’s how she always referred to Kelly’s girlfriends. As much as her mom tried to be okay with it, the whole lesbian thing made her uncomfortable. To her credit, Kelly doubted anyone else had ever picked up on it.

  To put off answering, Kelly thanked the waitress and asked her to wait while she dug out her debit card. Normally, lunch was on her mom, but Kelly was willing to pay the price of a couple of sandwiches if it meant the lecture would be kept just that much shorter. The waitress gave her a flirtatious smile and left with her card.

  “It was a last-minute thing, Mom.” Kelly sipped her water, the only thing left on the table.

  “Yes, your brother mentioned that, too.”

  Uh-oh. Here it was. “Did he?” she asked innocently.

  “Mmm.” Her mother collected her purse and slid her sunglasses out of their case. “Your father dropped me off. Give me a ride back to the house?”

  The waitress returned her card at that very moment, as well as the receipt with her phone number written on the back, and all Kelly could think was they should have skipped lunch altogether.

  * * *

  Kelly checked the time on her phone. The first fifty or so times, she’d tried to be discreet about it. If her mom was upset, which she clearly was, there was no reason to add any fuel. At this point, however, she’d wasted the past three hours sitting on the couch in the family room, waiting for her dad to show up. When she’d reached for the TV remote to help pass the time, her mom had swooped in and snatched it from her hands.

  “Nope,” she’d said, “can’t watch that. Cable’s out.” She’d left the room with the remote, and when she returned, it was gone. Knowing her mom, the timing had been planned out with Machiavellian precision, and this was her version of a grown-up timeout.

  “Mom, seriously, I have work I need to get done today. I need to get going.”

  “Just a few minutes longer. Your father said for you to wait until he gets back. He has something to show you.”

  As if choreographed, the garage door opener rattled to life, and a few moments later, her father entered through the side door. “Oh, good, I was afraid I’d miss you.” He kissed Kelly’s mother distractedly, all his attention focused on Kell
y. He sat next to her on the couch and dropped a manila file folder on the coffee table in front of her. “Take a look.”

  Her father made it a point to surround himself with people of influence. It was the reason his business had thrived, and it was that same relentless calculation of the odds that kept Miller and Son well in the black year after year, despite David’s rather bumbling approach to sales. All that focus and hard work meant that her father was now a person of considerable influence as well. There was absolutely no telling what might be in that folder.

  She nudged the corner with a flick of her fingernail. “What is it?”

  “Just some papers I think you should read.” He flipped the cover open. A glossy photo of Elana sat on top. Instead of the feisty, short cut that Kelly had spent hours running her fingers through, she had sleek, long black hair. Kelly tilted her head, contemplating which way she liked it better, long or short. She couldn’t decide.

  “Hmm. Nice picture.” She didn’t realize she’d said that aloud until her father huffed out an annoyed exhale.

  “Kelly, this is serious.” He jabbed the photo with his index finger for emphasis. Her mother settled quietly in the armchair to Kelly’s right.

  “Dad…” Kelly sighed. She had no idea what else to say.

  “Your father and I accept that you have certain…leanings, but this time you’ve really gone too far.”

  “Leanings?” Kelly stared at her mom, her mouth agape. She’d come out when she was fourteen, almost two decades ago. Granted, it hadn’t been by choice, but it’d still happened. Eighteen years should have been more than enough time to process it. Kelly couldn’t decide if she was more disappointed or hurt, so she split the difference and went with pissed off. “What does that even mean, Mom? That I like to fuck girls? Yeah, I do.”

  Her mom gasped and covered her mouth. Her father lashed out with, “Young lady!”