by Sandy Lowe
“It started out okay, even though I felt pretty stupid and wasn’t getting turned on. Then she started hitting me harder and with fewer breaks in between. I could have said no. I could have stopped her. But…”
The tears were rolling down Leah’s cheeks now and she wiped at them with the back of her hand. “I just felt so awful and she was really into it. Talking dirty to me and telling me how wet it was getting her, how much she liked seeing my thighs pink up. I just couldn’t deal, you know? If I told her to stop, we’d have to talk about it and she’d probably be mad. I’d said yes, I’d agreed, and she was so into it, I felt like I had to stick it out.”
“Oh, babe.” Ashley stepped into her, wrapping her up in a warm hug, rubbing her back. “It’s okay. It’s over now. She’s gone. I’m so sorry this happened.”
Leah shuddered in her arms.
Ashley took a breath and eased back. She fought to keep her tone gentle, her touch on Leah light and soft. Her words were going to cut. She hated being bad cop, but Jesus, what had Leah been thinking? It could have been so much worse.
“You put yourself in a dangerous situation. Dark-and-Broody probably isn’t a psycho, but you shouldn’t have let a stranger handcuff you, and you should have told her you didn’t like it, and to stop, as soon as you felt uncomfortable. If she had that paddle with her, carried it in her bag all night, it wasn’t spur-of-the-moment for her.”
Leah’s shoulders drooped and Ashley pulled her into another hug. She was never so powerless as when Leah cried. “So what if she was pissed, she’s practically a stranger. You’d never have to see her again, and there’s a chance she would’ve been okay with it. Or at least okay enough to leave.”
“I know,” Leah mumbled into her hair, her lips brushed the side of Ashley’s neck.
Ashley shivered, the skin on her neck starting to tingle. She pushed the reaction away. She was so sex starved a gust of wind going in the right direction could have gotten her off. It took her a few more seconds to realize Leah was still talking.
“I just freaked out and froze. So I made up some lame excuse about needing to use the bathroom so she’d undo the cuffs, then grabbed my phone off the nightstand when she wasn’t looking.”
“It’s okay to say no, to tell people how you feel, what you need. You should never be afraid to tell the truth.” Ashley’s words rang in her ears and the silence left in their wake was deafening. Nice one, Ashley. Go on, preach about telling the truth to the almost-naked crying girl, who just had an embarrassing sexual experience. That’s totally classy.
“Thanks,” Leah said. “I’ll be okay. Just kind of shaken. I’d better put some sweats on.” Leah glanced dubiously over her shoulder. “Does it look as bad as it feels? It hurts like hell.”
Ashley winced sympathetically. “Do you have any lotion?”
Leah tilted her head toward the bathroom. “Sure.”
“Good. Stay there.”
She walked into the bathroom and located a bottle of St. Ives in the cabinet under the sink.
Walking out, she frowned. The backs of Leah’s thighs were going blotchy. Ouch. Warming some lotion between her hands, she kneeled behind Leah and pressed her palms to the tender skin. Leah jumped. “This is probably going to hurt, sorry.”
“Just don’t tell me how much it’s turning you on.”
Ashley snorted. Leah was back. “I’ll try to restrain myself. Though, I have a seriously excellent view of your ass right now, and you are almost naked, so that’s asking a lot.”
“Oh, shut up, you perv, I’m injured.”
Ashley smiled and carefully and gently worked the lotion into the backs of Leah’s legs, using the tips of her fingers in a small circular motion with only the barest pressure, not wanting to cause her more pain. When she reached the inside of Leah’s thighs, she stopped. Her pulse quickened. She’d never touched a woman there before, even if she had thought about doing so a million times. She was going to say that Leah could moisturize there tomorrow, but Leah widened her stance just a fraction and glanced at her over her shoulder.
“Would you mind? It’s actually helping a lot.”
Ashley sucked in a shaky breath. Leah didn’t know she’d never touched a woman before, that she’d never been this close to a woman’s ass, a woman’s…God. She had to get her shit together. It wasn’t like that between them, no matter how much she wanted it. Leah was hurt and she needed her help, and here Ashley was making it into something it wasn’t, because she was a virgin. A screwed-up virgin.
Warming more lotion, she ran her palms up the inside of Leah’s thighs. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until it came whooshing out, the tips of her fingers inches from Leah’s satin-covered center. She worked slowly, unable to help herself. Leah’s skin was so incredibly smooth. She brushed her fingers back and forth across the same perfect spot, mesmerized by the texture. Had she ever felt anything so soft? Her fingers trembled slightly, and she felt herself start to get wet. Was this what it was like to touch? What would it be like to touch her everywhere? She could touch Leah here forever. She wanted to touch Leah…
“Ash…” Leah’s voice broke whatever spell had been cast and Ashley realized she’d been caressing tantalizing skin nowhere near where the paddle had landed and far too close to places she had no business being. She snatched her hands away and stood up so fast she almost face-planted.
“Sorry. I should go. I need to go.” Face burning, Ashley spun around and headed for the door. What the hell had she been thinking, feeling Leah up? She had to get out. To go home and to somehow not have done what she just did.
“Wait.” Leah caught her wrist and tugged. “What just happened?”
Ashley didn’t answer. What could she say? I got turned on touching you because I have the hots for you and I’m a total innocent, which, by the way, I’ve been lying to you about. Oh, and, Sorry, you’re hurt and upset, guess this was a bad time to grope you.
She just couldn’t. “I have to go.”
Ashley twisted her arm free and ran for the door, feeling Leah’s eyes on her all the way.
When her condo door closed behind her, she slid slowly down the wall in her hallway. Her heart was racing, her body wet and needy. She could still feel feather-soft skin against her fingers. She rested them gently on her lips.
Leah’s words pounded in her ears. Just don’t tell me how much it’s turning you on.
She was in big, big trouble.
Chapter Two
Ashley sat slumped in her seat in the enormous lecture hall, dubbed the coliseum for its stadium-like seating arrangement. She should have been listening to Professor Nickels go on about Goffman and Foucault and other old white guys Ashley knew would probably rise from the dead to haunt her final exam. She just couldn’t muster the energy to give a fuck.
She hadn’t slept after fleeing from Leah’s. She’d paced a track through her condo. Around the couch and coffee table, into the tiny-as-a-fly-in-a-saucepan kitchen, back out to the couch, and around again. How on earth was she going to explain herself? And if she did, if she told the truth, would Leah forgive her? Would she be grossed out? Would Leah pity her?
Leah hadn’t called. Hadn’t texted. She was pissed. And who wouldn’t be, after asking for help and being inappropriately fondled. Ashley groaned and let her forehead drop onto the brick of a textbook in front of her. The girl one seat over raised her eyebrows and smiled slightly. She probably thought Ashley had a killer hangover. She wished she did. It would be the perfect accompaniment to her killer mood.
The hour felt like three but when the class was finally dismissed, Ashley dragged her ass out of the building, thinking only of coffee and a quiet place to mope.
“You look like crap.”
Ashley turned around so fast a muscle in her neck twinged. Leah leaned against one of the pillars that held up the entrance to the sociology department. She looked casually stylish in navy jeans and an oversized long-sleeved white top with lace cutouts along the sh
oulders. Her hair was a perfect windblown tangle, and she had done something with her makeup that made her dark eyes smoky. She looked hot. She didn’t look like she’d been up all night pacing.
“Thanks.” Ashley shifted, playing with the strap on her shoulder bag. She knew she was supposed to say something else, to make it better, but no words came out.
Leah sighed. “Lets get you some coffee before you fall over.”
Ashley followed behind her, too miserable to appreciate the perfect sway of Leah’s backside in skinny jeans that were God’s gift to lesbians.
The campus Starbucks was jammed with students who considered caffeine second only to oxygen. When they had their drinks, they snagged a high top table just as a harassed-looking girl with a laptop and a bunch of notepaper was hurrying away.
Leah sat and stirred her chai latte. She said nothing. She wasn’t going to make it easy for her.
Ashley took a few gulps of her red eye and felt her eyes water. It was strong enough to wake a coma patient. “I’m sorry.”
Leah gave her a hard look. “For what?”
Was she really going to make her say it? In public? Ashley could feel the heat rising up her neck just as it had the night before. “For acting inappropriately. I shouldn’t have touched you like that. You didn’t ask for it.” And I should have known better.
An awful churning clawed at the pit of her stomach. Whatever Leah said next, at least the wondering would be over. She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
“Seriously?” Leah’s voice rose slightly on the question.
Ashley shrugged. Okay, so she’d gotten a bit carried away, a bit caught up in the moment. But it was embarrassing enough knowing Leah didn’t see her the same way—did she have to draw it out? “Look, I said I was sorry, okay? I am.”
Leah kept stirring her drink in a way that made Ashley wonder if she was imagining poking the small plastic stick in her eye. Leah wouldn’t look at her.
“What you did…touching me”—Leah paused to take a deep breath—“I didn’t ask for it. But I didn’t say no.”
Ashley stared at her. What the hell did that mean? Was that a yes or a no? An I forgive you or a Never speak to me again? Some freaking girl-code she had yet to figure out?
This was all too confusing. Six years of fatigue washed over her. She had loved Leah for too damn long. It drained her in a way not even coffee could revive. She was sick of speculating, sick of the self-recrimination, and sick of wanting someone who didn’t want her back but, when push came to shove, was obviously too polite to say so. Defeated, she put her coffee cup down and went with the only emotion that didn’t make her feel like shit.
“I’m not some casual hookup. You don’t have to pretend to like it.” The words that had promised to make her feel better when she’d recited them in her head had the opposite effect coming out of her mouth.
Leah’s eyes widened and she flinched as if they’d actually hit her. “Did you really just say that to me?”
Ashley hadn’t thought she could feel worse. Wrong again. “I’m really sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. I’m fucking up all over the place.” She wanted to melt into the floor.
“You’re my best friend.” Leah’s words were soft, almost lost in the din of chatter around them.
Best friend. Ashley looked away, afraid of what would show on her face.
Leah reached across the table and took her hand. She brushed her thumb back and forth across Ashley’s knuckles in a way that should have been comforting, but wasn’t right at the moment.
“Ash, look at me.” Leah’s voice was halfway between exasperated and consoling.
Ashley looked, resigning herself to the I just want to be friends talk.
“You did fuck up. You left without talking to me. You just ran away without any explanation and without giving me a chance to respond. That’s incredibly annoying. We could have resolved all of this last night.”
Wait. That was what she was upset about? That she had left? Not that she had crossed the friend line by making a move on her? She was never, ever going to understand girls.
“I was embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Because we went out together to have a good time and instead you brought that girl home to fuck her. Because I wanted to slip my fingers under your panties to see if you were wet and I thought, if you were, it might be because of her.
She shrugged. She couldn’t say that. If Leah had liked her the way Ashley wanted her to, she would have kissed her back when they were sixteen, and she wouldn’t have brought Tiffany home last night. She wouldn’t have fucked the four girlfriends she’d had before, girls who looked nothing like Ashley.
“I took things too far. I shouldn’t have.” Ashley stood up, unable to sit another second and rehash what had already been said and done. It wasn’t fair to burden Leah with feelings that were all one-sided. She’d coped with the rejection, and she’d told herself to be satisfied with friendship. She’d almost convinced herself she was. Until last night.
Ashley picked her shoulder bag up off the floor and looked Leah straight in the eye. “I’m really sorry for running away. That was cowardly.”
Then she headed for the door. She wanted Leah to want her and no one else. Leah didn’t. That’s all there was to it.
She kept her head up. She wouldn’t run this time. She had some pride after all.
*
The pale blue cotton duvet cover had Tinker Bells scattered over it and was fraying around the edges. Ashley poured a capful of liquid into the grubby dispenser and stuffed the sassy fairy into the ancient washing machine. She’d had the thing forever. Carting it to summer camps, sleepovers, and the occasional pitch-a-tent-in-the-wilderness family vacation she hadn’t managed to worm her way out of. A little piece of home she never considered leaving behind when she’d moved out. So what if she was a little old for a security blanket. At least it wasn’t embarrassing. She was smart enough to keep Chunky the stuffed monkey hidden on the top shelf of her closet.
Slamming the top shut, she punched buttons to start the cycle. It rumbled to life with the force of a 737 taking off. Turning around, she began hauling warm clothes out of the dryer and into a plastic basket. She wasn’t sure if the laundry frenzy could achieve what the cleaning frenzy and the cooking frenzy hadn’t, but she had to try. Leah hadn’t talked to her in over a week. Complete radio silence. Their decade-long friendship was over and somehow she had to survive without her. It was a tiny bit easier if she kept busy. Kept moving. Stopped thinking. Some hurts never healed and simply had to be endured.
There was no point waiting for the wash cycle to finish. Who the hell would steal Tinker Bell? Grabbing the basket, she headed for the door.
Two feet from the exit she stopped dead. She would have run the other way, but Leah was blocking her only escape. And running hadn’t exactly worked out the last time she’d tried it.
“Hello.” Leah shifted a canvas tote on her hip.
Ashley opened her mouth but had no idea what to say. After a few tense seconds, she closed it again. Leah looked fantastic. The black yoga pants covered everything important but somehow managed to leave nothing to the imagination, and the storm-gray T-shirt dipped in a suggestive V down her front before clinging indecently to the swell of her breasts.
“Hi,” Ashley said lamely. She felt as if she was coming to life and dying at the same time.
“You haven’t called.” Leah moved into the suddenly way-too-small laundry room and dropped the tote on a bench.
“You haven’t called,” Ashley said before she could stop herself. Jesus. How old was she, twelve?
Leah spared her a pitying look before pulling laundry out of the tote and dropping it into the nearest machine.
Ashley swallowed hard. Not just any laundry. Panties. Lace ones where she couldn’t tell which end was front and which was back. Satin ones with thin strips laced together in a sexy pattern along the ass. A generous handful of tin
y patches of cotton held together by tinier strings in a rainbow of colors, including, she noted—losing what little breath she had left—leopard print and pink camo. Just how rigorous was Leah’s personal grooming to pull off panties that small?
She had no right, no right at all, to be furious that Leah had what looked like Fredrick’s of Hollywood’s entire collection. But love made fools of those stupid enough to succumb, and she was no exception.
“You’ve sure been busy.” The sarcasm all but dripped from her lips. She tilted her chin toward a semi-transparent blue pair with Fanta-orange lace trim that was caught on the edge of the washer. Just how many were there? She absolutely did not want to know, but like a gawker at a car crash, she couldn’t look away.
“Oh, yeah.” Leah snatched it away and slammed the top down with more force than was strictly necessary. “I’ve been fucking every woman I can get my hands on, ’cause that’s just my style.”
Ashley felt herself flush. So, technically, she shouldn’t care how many pairs of ridiculously suggestive panties Leah had worn recently, but there was no need for her to be a bitch about it.
“Good to see you’re enjoying the cliché college lifestyle.” Ashley spun around. The comeback was lame, but she wasn’t going to stand there and make small talk while three hundred dollars’ worth of Leah’s sex-wear began the wash cycle.
She was almost to the door when small hands grabbed her shoulders and twisted her around. Caught off guard, Ashley dropped the basket and clothes scattered everywhere. She barely noticed.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me again. You’re such an idiot.” Leah was up in her face, all five feet of her bursting with indignation. “Can’t we just have a conversation without you turning into Princess Jerkface?”
“Princess Jerkface? Really?” Ashley had to fight a smile. Even with her heart breaking, she loved everything about Leah.
“Princess Jerkface. The heiress to Jerkdom, where douchebags and dumb-asses roam.” Leah gripped her shoulders and glared. She was damn cute when she glared.