by Malone, Cara
“Thanks.”
She picked it up but didn’t put it on. When she shivered, Chloe said, “You’re soaked. Let me find you a towel.”
“I should go-”
“You can’t walk home like that,” Chloe insisted, opening a few boxes and searching for her towels. “You’ll get pneumonia.”
The comment momentarily cut through the tension and Ivy smirked, then admonished her. “Come on, Chloe. You know that’s an old wives’ tale.”
“It’s an expression,” Chloe said, pulling a plush yellow towel out of a box. She crossed the room and handed it to Ivy, adding, “It means I’m worried about you. Now dry your hair. I’ll let you borrow a t-shirt.”
Ivy didn’t object this time. She was shivering a lot now that she was out of the rain and her wet shirt clung to her skin. She pulled her long hair out of its neat ponytail and scrunched the towel around it, then took a bubblegum pink t-shirt that Chloe offered her and went into the bathroom to change. Her bra was soaked, too, and if she kept wearing it then she might as well not even change shirts. So after a moment of consideration, Ivy took it off and stuffed it into her jacket pocket. Then she put on the pink t-shirt and looked at herself in the mirror. It had Greek letters printed across it and her nipples were conspicuously visible through the thin cotton on account of the cold.
“That’s not going to work,” she muttered. She did a dozen jumping jacks to try to raise her body temperature, but in the end the only way she could leave the bathroom was by putting her jacket back on and zipping it up.
When she came back into the living room, Chloe had shoved the futon up against the wall and pulled the back up so that it was in couch form. When she saw Ivy, she said with a frown, “Are you leaving?”
“Those medical journals aren’t going to read themselves,” Ivy said.
“I was just about to order that pizza,” Chloe said. “Do you want to stay for just a little while? It’s dinner time and I know you haven’t eaten.”
“Okay,” Ivy said. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to the walk back to her apartment in the rain, and the longer she stayed in Chloe’s apartment, the less she wanted to leave regardless of the weather.
“Yay,” Chloe said with her signature smile. “What do you like on your pizza?”
“Pepperoni and mushroom. Is that okay?” Ivy asked.
“Sounds good to me,” Chloe said. While she placed the order, Ivy walked slowly around the room, trying to decide what exactly she was doing here. She was just coming into Chloe’s orbit near the futon when she hung up the phone and said, “It’ll be here in twenty minutes. We could run some practice case studies until then if you want.”
“No thanks,” Ivy said, pulling her into a kiss.
Chloe melted easily into her, as if it was what she’d wanted all along. She put her hands on Ivy’s waist and her tongue slipped between Ivy’s lips. She felt her legs turning to jelly and she sat down on the futon, surprised and delighted when Chloe straddled her hips and sat in her lap. Ivy wrapped her arms around Chloe’s tiny waist and felt the closeness of her body in a way that she’d never done before, not even when they had been alone in the call room and the locker room.
Her heart was pounding and Chloe’s body, her lips, her hands felt so good Ivy could hardly think. The same thought recurred in her mind again and again – I want more. I want her all the time. It wasn’t just in these rare moments when she couldn’t force herself to walk away from Chloe. It was every time she was in the same room with her, every time their eyes locked.
Ivy kissed Chloe and where her hands rested, she could feel the softness of Chloe’s curves and the faint outline of her hip bones. In an intense surge of bravery, Ivy moved her hands upward over Chloe’s ribs, and then she gently rested her palms on Chloe’s breasts. She paused there and even her heart stopped beating as she waited for Chloe to bat her hands away.
But she didn’t.
Instead, Chloe let out the most perfect, spine-tingling sigh and brought her mouth down to Ivy’s neck, her tongue swirling over her skin as Ivy grew bolder with her hands. Chloe’s bra was padded but Ivy could feel the fullness of her breasts. She wanted to kiss them, or bury her face between them and breathe in Chloe’s essence.
Then Chloe put her hand on the zipper of Ivy’s jacket and her heart leapt into her throat. Chloe inched the zipper downward and spread the jacket open, revealing the twin outlines of Ivy’s pert nipples. Chloe wasn’t shy about it, like Ivy had been. A playful smile came to her lips and she ran her finger over one of Ivy’s nipples, tracing a circle that lit a fire in Ivy’s belly.
Then she put her hands on Ivy’s small breasts, the intensity of the contact drawing an involuntary moan from Ivy’s mouth and filling the room. Her body was turned on like it had never been before and her heart was pounding so fast she thought it was a miracle she hadn’t lost consciousness.
She was saved, in the end, by the pizza delivery guy.
They heard him clambering up the metal staircase and Chloe reluctantly slid off Ivy’s lap to answer the door. Ivy zipped her jacket back up and waited on the futon, then Chloe came back with the pizza. She pulled the small parson’s table over to the futon as a makeshift coffee table and set the pizza on it. Then she set up her laptop and they watched a sitcom while they ate, but Ivy could not have named the show because the whole time, she was thinking about how surreal and incredible the last twenty minutes had been.
* * *
After they ate, Chloe had taken Ivy’s arm and wrapped it around her shoulder, snuggling into her side. Ivy just sat there, surprised at the assumption of intimacy and pleased with the feeling of Chloe’s body pressed against her. Every thought of escaping the apartment – to avoid this moment or to squeeze in a few more hours of studying – had evaporated the moment her lips touched Chloe’s, and Ivy couldn’t think of a single place she’d rather be.
Chloe had been right about the surprising comfort of the futon and Ivy felt her eyelids growing heavy before long. The next thing she knew, the room was dark and the laptop had gone into power-saving mode. Chloe was still curled against Ivy’s side, a little ball of warmth that Ivy had wrapped her arms protectively around in her sleep.
She turned her head carefully, not wanting to wake Chloe as she looked around the unfamiliar room. There was a window to the right of the door where a little bit of light came through. It was impossible to tell if it was the subtle light of early morning or the artificial light of a distant street lamp, so Ivy gently adjusted Chloe beneath her until she could free her arm and dig her phone out of her pocket.
She winced at the brightness of the screen, holding it high to keep it from disturbing Chloe. Five-thirty in the morning. Ivy had just about two hours before her next shift at the hospital and she still needed to go home, change her clothes and take a shower. She couldn’t believe she’d spent the night.
“Mm?” Chloe murmured in her sleep, her head nestling against Ivy’s chest.
“Go back to sleep,” Ivy whispered. She slid her phone back into her jacket pocket and tucked a tendril of blonde hair behind Chloe’s ear.
It didn’t work, though – the spell had been broken. Chloe sat up, blinking the sleep from her eyes, and even though she had to struggle to see her in the low light, Ivy thought she’d never been more beautiful than when she was fresh out of a dream.
Was it of me? Ivy hoped for a fleeting second as Chloe asked, “What time is it?”
“Five-thirty,” Ivy said. “We fell asleep.”
“That’s early,” Chloe said with a yawn.
Ivy’s old self wanted to apologize for overstaying her welcome, then head for the door. The Ivy that ceased to exist the moment she climbed the staircase last night would have been disappointed in her for this indulgence when there were never enough hours in the day to read up on the constant deluge of new medical literature.
The version of her that had been born last night in that moment of passion, however… she had no intention of apologizi
ng for anything. She wanted more.
Ivy hooked one finger under Chloe’s chin and tilted it so she could see her better in the low light. Then she said, “You’re so beautiful.”
What she really wanted to say - what she was thinking - was a thought that had struck her last night while Chloe was sitting in her lap and they had their hands on each other. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. But that sounded too cheesy, too hyperbolic even though Ivy was quite sure it was true. What she had managed to say still sent a little shiver through her. She’d never said anything like that out loud before, even though she’d been thinking it ever since she first laid eyes on Chloe.
“Shut up,” Chloe said, taking Ivy aback. “It’s dark. You can’t even see me right now.”
“I have a good memory,” Ivy said, her nerves catching up to her and taking away the smooth words that were running through her head. She didn’t have to think of anything else to say, though, because Chloe kissed her.
Her lips were more insistent this time, pressing more urgently against Ivy’s. She slipped her hands inside Ivy’s jacket and wrapped her arms around her waist, and before Ivy could overthink it, she slid down the futon to lay beside Chloe. Their hips met and their thighs pressed together on the narrow cushion – it would have been more comfortable if they turned the futon into a bed, but Ivy didn’t dare suggest it because she loved the way Chloe’s body felt against hers.
She thought this must be what all those sexual awakening stories she’d heard in high school and college had been about. She used to listen to them clinically but they always seemed so unrelatable. Now, as her body filled with a radiant, tingling heat everywhere Chloe touched her, Ivy understood what the fuss was all about.
Chloe straddled Ivy again, sitting up as she pulled her t-shirt over her head and Ivy ran her fingers tentatively up Chloe’s arms, surprised at the muscle tone she found there. Then she traced the faint line of Chloe’s abs down the center of her stomach, blushing in the dark as her finger hit the waistband of Chloe’s jeans and she backtracked upward again.
Then Chloe unhooked her bra. She tossed it aside and it hit something, but Ivy didn’t see where it fell. She couldn’t look away from the perfect suppleness of Chloe’s breasts, bathed in the faint light from the window.
Chloe took Ivy’s hands in hers, kissed her fingertips, and then put Ivy’s hands on her breasts. Ivy bit her lip and let out a tortured breath. If this was doing to Chloe even a fraction of what it was doing to her, then Ivy would be the happiest girl alive. She wanted to return every shiver and jolt of pleasure.
She sat up and slid her hands around Chloe’s back, pulling her close so she could do what she’d desired last night. She kissed Chloe’s breast bone, her mouth inching closer with every kiss until her lips found the softness of her breast. She kissed Chloe’s nipple, then gave it a tentative swipe of her tongue.
Chloe let out an encouraging noise so Ivy did it again. She put her mouth around Chloe’s nipple, rolling her tongue in circles until Chloe arched her back and pressed herself against Ivy. It ignited the fire in Ivy’s belly all over again, something urgent pulsing between her legs and fueling her desires.
Chloe pulled Ivy’s jacket off, then the pink t-shirt, dropping them on the floor beside the futon and wrapping her arms around Ivy to kiss her passionately. Her breasts pressed against Ivy’s chest, the wetness from where she’d licked Chloe’s nipple transferring onto Ivy’s skin.
It was a lot of different sensations – Chloe’s body and her incredible curves, her tongue in Ivy’s mouth, her hands on her chest, and the wetness that was growing in Ivy’s panties. It all felt incredible, but she found herself a bit frozen, struggling to process it all and do the right things to make Chloe feel good, too.
When Chloe pushed Ivy onto her back and put her hand on the waistband of her jeans, Ivy sucked in a breath and said, “I’ve never done this before.”
She shut her eyes, grateful that it was still too dark to read each other’s facial expressions clearly. She wondered if Chloe would be turned off by this admission, or disappointed, or frustrated.
But it was Chloe.
She said, “You mean I finally know more than you about something? I never thought I’d see the day.”
Ivy opened her eyes and could just make out the smile on Chloe’s lips. She was clearly enjoying this idea. She crawled back up to the head of the futon and lay down beside Ivy, giving her a soft kiss.
Then she said, “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for. You call the shots and I’ll take the lead. Deal?”
“Okay,” Ivy said. She wasn’t used to being this timid and vulnerable, and it was scary but she was glad that Chloe was the one making her feel that way. She kissed her and said, “I’m ready. I just figured you should know in case, you know, I’m no good at it.”
“Ivy Chan,” Chloe said with a grin, “I don’t think you’ve ever been bad at anything in your life.”
Then she got up, pulled the futon away from the wall with Ivy still on it, and turned it into a bed. Then she crawled back onto it and sat beside Ivy, running one hand up her pant leg and over her thigh.
“Let me know if you want to stop,” she said. Ivy nodded eagerly and Chloe popped the button on her jeans.
She pulled them off and then peeled Ivy’s wet panties away, too. A single moment of anticipation had never felt so long as Ivy tilted her head up to watch Chloe lay down on her belly and put her hand on Ivy’s thigh.
She looked up at her, those blue eyes sparkling even in the dark, and Ivy felt herself getting wetter even though Chloe hadn’t touched her yet. Then Chloe smiled and said, “Relax.”
Ivy put her head back. She closed her eyes. She felt every single touch and stroke of Chloe’s finger as it explored her - tight little circles that made Ivy think she might lose control, and longer, slower strokes up and down through her wetness.
Then she felt something soft and wet closing on her clit. She looked down and saw Chloe’s head bowed, performing magic with her tongue. It was impossible to pinpoint the exact motions, but every stroke intensified the sensation and sent pleasure rippling through Ivy’s whole body. After a minute or two, she got comfortable with the feeling and started moving her hips in time with Chloe’s tongue, learning how to respond and create a rhythm.
Before long, the feeling changed, becoming more urgent. Ivy grabbed Chloe’s free hand and squeezed it hard as something deep inside her built to a crescendo and she climaxed, her thighs shaking as she laughed with relief.
Ivy reached for Chloe, pulling her back to the top of the futon and wrapping her arms tightly around her. She felt embarrassed and self-conscious and more alive than she’d ever been before. She wanted to cling to Chloe and never let her go. She was also eager to have her turn and make Chloe feel this way, too.
She nudged Chloe’s head up, kissing her, while she slid her hand down Chloe’s smooth stomach and her fingers slid beneath the waistband of her jeans.
“Mm,” Chloe breathed against Ivy’s lips, sending a secondary shiver through her.
Ivy pushed her hand lower, found thin, lacy panties, and then warmth between Chloe’s thighs. Chloe moaned and moved her hips against Ivy’s hand. While Ivy moved her fingers and tried to get her bearings, Chloe did most of the work, rocking her hips back and forth against her. She tucked her head into the crook of Ivy’s neck when Ivy kissed her earlobe, sucking in breath at that particular touch.
They stayed in that rhythm for a minute or two, Chloe taking the lead as she said she would and moving her hips against Ivy’s hand. The fabric of Chloe’s panties constricted Ivy’s movement but that was just as well – if she’d had free reign to touch Chloe however she wanted, she wasn’t sure she would know what to do.
As the movement of her hips became more urgent, Chloe popped the button of her jeans and shimmied them down over her hips and Ivy pushed aside the fabric of Chloe’s dampened panties. There was so much wetness there, so much desire, and C
hloe cried out the moment Ivy’s fingers slipped between her folds. It sent a sympathetic wave of pleasure all the way through Ivy’s body.
Chloe was clinging to her now, holding her tightly and moving her hips in a rhythm that Ivy tried her best to match. She found the hard little nub of Chloe’s clit and tried to focus her fingers there, but that tiny spot was a moving target as Chloe let her body take control and Ivy was just along for the ride.
Chloe moved her hips back and forth over Ivy’s palm, pinning her hand in place for leverage, and faster than Ivy would have liked, she was crying out, her breath hot against Ivy’s ear as she came. Her hips stopped moving and she shivered against Ivy, then wrapped her arms around her.
“Wow,” Ivy said into the dark.
“Yeah,” Chloe agreed.
“Was it, umm,” Ivy asked, self-conscious all over again. “Was it okay?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Chloe asked. “You were there. You felt it.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” Ivy said. She hadn’t managed to do a whole lot and she wondered if Chloe was just being nice when she said it felt good.
“There’s only one remedy for that,” Chloe said. “Practice.”
Ivy nodded, then turned so the length of her body was pressed against Chloe’s. She wanted nothing more than to do this again and again until she’d mastered it. This was the happiest moment she’d ever experienced – even better than her first time scrubbing into a surgery – and she wanted to freeze time.
All good things had to come to an end, though, and when they both started shivering in the slightly cool air, Ivy reached for her jacket and pulled out her phone. Almost an hour had gone by and she’d have to leave soon if she was going to make it to the hospital in time for rounds. She explained that and Chloe agreed, saying, “I have to go, too. Dr. Thomas won’t be happy if I’m late for rounds after I already took a day off to move.”
She got out of bed and turned on her small desk lamp, which didn’t do much to illuminate the large space. Then she began to hunt around for their clothes. She handed Ivy her pants and Ivy went into the bathroom to wash up and take her t-shirt from the towel rack where she’d left it last night. It was stiff but dry and she left the pink sorority t-shirt neatly folded on the counter. Then she went back into the living room, where Chloe was buttoning her jeans.