by Tara Wimble
Janice whispers something to Jesus when Hope slips her hand over her stomach. She feels the tiny hairs stand to attention as Janice’s lower body arches up, waiting for the first touch, only to be disappointed when Hope skims off to her ribs.
She’s in control of this. When she kisses her just as she grinds her hips down and slips her arm behind Janice’s back. The weight of her whole body rests on her forearm as Hope bears down rolling against her. Janice is light and small and shuddering. Hope’s jeans play a cruel friction trick on Janice’s nerves. Small whimpers collapse into her mouth.
Hope wants her warm and wet for that first touch. She wants Janice’s anxieties to fall away with each turn and just let herself feel her body snap like a band.
“Wait, your jeans-” Janice plucks at the top button. Hope waves them away. Not yet.
She wants her to go first in this high heat. Her shirt sticks to her back from the sun gleaming through the windows. Janice’s breath against her cheek is stuffy, her palms sweaty and god, she’s beautiful.
Hope bucks against her suddenly as Janice comes to her in this light. Red, flushed and unwilling to take her eyes away from Hope.
Come on. Yes. Like that. Again.
Janice alternates biting her bottom lip and scratching at Hope’s stomach. The backs of her knees shake and Hope remembers how they swung as she sat on the stool. Building and swaying, building her up with her rolling hips, swaying for that sweet burst.
Hope sweeps her thumb over Janice’s hip. Janice grasps out for the back loops on Hope’s jeans and pulls almost violently, keeping Hope pressed against her, and then the gasp. The gasp turns to shuddering and to Janice sucking her lips in with a delayed groan that rocks Hope into her. A little, a little then a lot.
Janice winces in the aftershock but her face relaxes into that explosion of reality. Pleasure. Hope wants to taste that.
The longer she looks at Janice and the shivers that bounce over her face, the more she wants it. Hope pushes up enough to grab the collar of her shirt at her neck and pull. Janice finds her stable arms to help.
“Hey, stop a sec-” Quick heartbeats battle against the stillness that Janice asks for. Her voice is soft, in that post-orgasm stage Hope wants to hear all day, and pleading.
Hope sits back on her knees. The top of her jeans are undone where Janice tore them open. The inside of Janice’s thighs are redder from where she’s touched. That self-consciousness has flown from her.
Janice does swallow at the sight of her. Hope is more battle scars than smooth, more defined than Janice’s nineteen years, and harder. She’s always been a sight for those who got the chance to see. To be able to see her tense and flex and be pressed when touched.
When the awe fades, replaced by want, Janice’s shirt is flung and forgotten. She’s by no means soft but Hope is solid against her, unhooking her bra and running her hands over her ribs. She counts goose bumps and freckles until Janice finds her zipper.
She pants out when Hope’s warm mouth covers her nipple.
The lead is still hers. Flicking her tongue for the arching back. Feeling the softness of Janice’s skin under her thumb. The panting drives her. When her lips beg for south, Hope teases north. Janice’s impatient response to her kisses show her youth and Hope forgets not to smile into them.
“Touch yourself.” Hope murmurs against her mouth. There’s no remark, nothing, other than Janice’s immediate obedience to get ready and relive the first.
Janice’s knuckles brush against her stomach. She waits. Janice finds a pace and keeps to it. Hope bides her time, kissing her lips, nipping her teeth along her jaw while Janice’s chest heaves up and down. Waiting.
Hope stops her hand. “I want you to look at me.” She says and Janice knows exactly when she means. “I want you to look. You can pull my hair or move or beg or be as loud as you want.” She doesn’t have any neighbours, she means even as she whispers. “But you have to tell me where-”
Janice’s absent confidence is somewhere there, laying in wait for Hope to say the right thing and as much as she wants to strip Janice down until there’s nothing but a mess of naked heat, she wants Janice to go willingly and honestly.
“Where what?”
Hope brings Janice’s hand from between her legs and takes the two fingers into her mouth. They pop from her bottom lip a second later. “Where you want my mouth.”
A split second of Janice, her open mouth and a whine, passes before she takes her hand from Hope’s grip and lets that confidence slide over her stomach and down until it opens where she wants her.
“Right,” Janice finds her eyes. “There.”
She doesn’t ask Janice if she’s ever had a woman go down on her before, the noise she makes when Hope tastes her for the first time is telling enough. Although she told Janice to keep watching her, Hope closes her eyes.
She knows what she’s doing. Skimming her hands either side of Janice’s thighs, she tickles the soft skin between switching the easy strokes of her tongue to a more needed press.
When Janice remembers this she wants her to remember everything. Not just how Hope looks taking her into her mouth but how her hair felt between Janice’s fingers when she pulled, the material of the sofa, the warmth of the final moments of the sun still covering them in orange and feeling Hope swallowing against her thigh.
Especially that.
Most of all though she wants Janice to remember the thoughts, whatever they are, running through her head. Whatever breathless fantasy being played out. Whatever repeated word or triggering jolt. Hope wants her to remember this, now, here and how she feels coating her chin.
It’s not one she’s going to forget.
A murmur buzzes from Janice’s mouth. She repeats ‘fuck’ over and over like she’s lost all other words. Hope swipes her tongue over her clit. No, too much. Janice’s face falls back against the arm of the sofa when Hope taps instead. A beat rushing through her.
Janice’s hand pushes her hair back from her forehead, wanting to see her face clearer, and one settles on the back of her neck. The lightest push comes. Hope’s chin bumps. Close again, sooner.
She’s never been one to believe all that talk about coming undone but when Janice’s hands disappear from her head to fist into the sofa, she feels the girl come crumbling down. She shatters into her mouth with a moan. Arching before collapsing until Hope’s hands gripping her ass are the only force keeping her close to her mouth.
Hope works her down while Janice struggles to look at her. Her eyes are wide and her smile comes and goes like she can’t get it to switch on with all the ringing going around her body. She’s naked and gorgeous and falling apart because of her. Hope has never wanted her more.
“Jesus fuck.” Janice breathes out all at once. Her smile rockets back when Hope leaves a last kiss to her clit, leaving her to ride out the fading wave without her. “You’re good at that.”
She’s excellent but Janice’s too lost for words to express it better.
It’s blue outside now. The last of the sun died with Janice’s second and the dark hides the floor around them.
“I can hear the waves.” Janice whispers. “Or is that just the blood rushing around my head?”
Hope laughs until Janice is sighing to the sound and joining in. That confidence is coming to her. The ease and comfort of laying there with her is bringing it out with her.
“I wan- I want to- god.” She’s eye level with Janice again. Her laughs are pants of jolting nerves that Hope kisses to calm until Janice is begging off her orgasm and reaching for Hope’s jeans. “I want to touch you.”
She shivers and wants until her eyes open again and Janice’s determination hasn’t wavered. And it’s all it takes for her to say yes, and yes again between kisses and pushing them down over her ass.
Hope has been getting coffee at King’s for about three years since the place opened and they hired that freshman that hates the same type of people she does. It could have been any other girl. Sh
e could have missed Janice completely.
Her jeans come off with Janice’s eager hands. Scratching at her ankles before she steps out of them. Hope undresses completely before Janice can do it for her. There’s something about watching her eyes widen even more that hits her even lower.
She could have walked out before Janice had the chance to introduce herself with that god awful joke.
“C’me-” Janice scoots up as Hope climbs over her again. A hand touches her hip. Janice wants her on her back.
Where would she be if things hadn’t gone this way?
Hope freezes and resists Janice’s leading touch without thinking. She’s open but not ready to be vulnerable to her like that. Control lies with her as long as she lets it.
Instead of questioning it, Janice adjusts. “Hey, like this,” Janice doesn’t mention the sudden way her back straightened when Janice tried to straddle her. She just adapts. The control eases from one hand to another hand.
Janice lays on her left side facing Hope. The front of the sofa tickles Hope’s back and the small space keeps Janice flush against her. Everything feels warm and Janice’s chest sticks to her skin.
Hope let’s her touch. Janice takes her time and avoids her eyes for the first time tonight. There’s no sun to help her look but she kisses a map of her neck and draws lines with her short nails against the blades of Hope’s shoulders.
She gives her freedom for as long as she can. This is new and a first. Janice touches her with a hesitance that tells her this might be the last to. She’s not too proud to dread the thought but nothing is certain.
It’s when she feels Janice press a kiss to her collar that she brings her hand up to cup her cheek. Each bump on her face could be a freckle that she traces with her thumb. Janice moves her lips to her throat, pulls back and looks into her eyes.
If there was something she could say, she would.
“Woah.”
But Janice captures it the best either of them can she thinks.
Their skin parts with a hiss as it unsticks and Janice gasps for the both of them when her fingers sink between her legs.
“Slowly.” Hope mumbles. It’s hard, she knows, when all Janice can feel is how wet she is and fumble for the friction she wants to bring her. She needs it slow, to watch Janice catch on and for the moment that things fall into place. “Harder.”
Her knee presses into Janice’s hip when her want is fulfilled. Janice cups and slides through her bringing her to a surprising building pressure. It spikes each time Janice rubs against her clit.
They’re so close, pressed together like this, that Janice can’t keep her neck pulled back to see her but has to brush her lips against her throat. Her sharp breaths paint her neck with warmth against the blue light.
Things fall from her mouth. Soft orders and her nails digging into Janice’s side. Janice finally pushing inside of her. Hope feels Janice’s mouth drop open against her collar. A second later, hers follows too. There’s clenching in every part of her. Her ankles and toes feel tight, while her knees and shoulders harden like they’re waiting to break with the next wave.
She curls around Janice, bigger and stronger, but is at her knees while Janice thrusts. That close cliff comes up and she can just see off the edge when Janice lets out a blissful cry that comes with Hope stiffening around her.
The cry drives her over. The glimpse of Janice looking like this is what she’s wanted all along sees her through it. “Are you, you-?”
Janice hasn’t even given her a second. She hasn’t even stopped drumming between her legs. “Just-” Hope gasps.
“Stop being cute?” Janice taps her fingers to the aftershock.
“Damn it-” Hope is that snapped elastic band flickering across a room. She’s open and laughing. “This is serious.”
Janice’s wonder is written all over her face. “You’re seriously laughing.”
“Yeah.” So she is.
“So you’re good?” Janice fumbles with her hand until Hope clutches it and places it on her hip for her. “I’m good?”
“Very.” Hope feels the laughter and the moment swell up and then fall when she closes in on Janice and brushes their lips together. Nothing but this, she thinks, nothing but.
Janice’s leg is still trapped against her and when she returns the kiss, opening her mouth, groaning, Hope reacts.
“You still hear the waves?” She whispers.
“They’re crashing.” Janice steals her affections once, twice. “I’m glad I’m here.”
Nothing but this.
Hope smiles. She holds onto the next embrace. “Me too.”
Janice nudges her way on top of her with a wry smile that disappears with a kiss. Hope doesn’t feel as vulnerable seeing her above her this time, even if it doesn’t stay that way for long.
They move when the last traces of warmth die against their skin and Janice wakes up shivering in her search for her pants. Hope pretends not to see how she attempts to cover herself before dropping all pretenses. Against the windows she can make out Janice’s figure and her body, though tired, aches for it again.
She moves while Janice is still searching and calls to her. In the dark she presses against her back and hums when Janice stretches upwards.
They still have all morning.
Chapter 9
SOMEWHERE between tying up her headphones and finding her passport again her coat zipper catches in one of the bands on her wrist. The only problem is she can’t tell which one.
It’d been a long wait in the airport in Stuttgart followed by the nine hours it took to reach New York. Through baggage and connections and the same lunch and dinner combination from JFK to LAX. Her sketchbook is brimming with her boredom, tucked under her arm as she finally makes it off the airline bus and into the terminal.
As Sara struggles to walk and detach herself from her clothes she’s hit by the warmth of the open airport. She feels like she’s home. Not shivering on buses in Germany because she can’t afford a car or struggling to keep up with the language barrier outside of the classroom to make friends all so she can come off with a more impressive Masters degree. No, here in L.A, far away from her Florida family, she feels at home.
Why?
Because of the girl in the soccer shirt trying to stop herself from running over to her when Sara finally makes her way through security.
Damn she’s a sight for sore eyes. .
Sara loosens her coat from the bands and shrugs it off and tucks it under her arm with her sketchbook as she jogs the short way to her girlfriend. They don’t grow tired of the over dramatic leaping into each other’s arms but they manage it without Sara dropping everything this time.
She smells like angels ought to-
“Shut your internal monologue up.” Vianne playfully growls. “You think too much.”
“Never thought someone would say that to me.” Sara hugs her tighter. “I missed you.”
Vianne moves her head just enough to press a needed kiss to her. Months of pent up emotions flood in that tiny contact. She pulls at the back of Vianne’s shirt until they’re lightly tapped.
“What?” Sara questions. She looks at the shirt. “Oh that’s classy.” Seattle Reign is not her team but Sorenson insists on converting her girl to the teal green of Seattle.
Vianne laughs. “Hope thought it was appropriate.”
“Remind me to make fun of her.” Sara murmurs. Her mumbles ache for another kiss.
“I’m sure you’ll remember.” Vianne pulls back. “Where’s your bag?”
Sara spins the tiny bag on wheels from behind her. “Packed light. Didn’t want to wait.”
“You might have thought to get a flight that didn’t come in at 3 in the morning though.”
9 hours from Stuttgart. 7 from New York. The minutes of impatience between all that. Sara pulls Vianne into her and just holds her tightly. “Nah. I was only thinking about you.”
Happy to be home.
***
JANICE
stares at the photo of them both sitting on the beach for a long time on the way home. She might have walked into a few things or people as she did so but the high she was riding on was too much to stop her. She’d leaned into Hope’s shoulder as she took the photograph with her phone, getting sand on the screen as she did. Hope wasn’t wearing sunglasses for the first time in a photo so Janice could see Hope’s eyes, and the direction they were looking in.
She didn’t take her eyes from Janice’s face.
She hadn’t taken her eyes from her face when she’d taken her to bed either.
Janice shivers before the bus arrives at her stop and she quickly picks up the bag before jetting off it. She’s late enough as it is but she’s hoping that all will be forgiven if she explains later. The dorm is still lit up and music can be heard from inside as she comes home.
After sprinting up three flights of stairs, Janice somehow manages to jiggle the door to the common area open whilst holding Laurel’s present in one hand, beaming face first as she steps in.
“Happy Birthdayyy-what the hell happened here?”
Wrapping paper is strewn everywhere and several people are hiding behind the sofa all looking at Laurel who seems to be covered from the neck upwards in cake. Robin stands next to her, frosting handed, is scraping some out of her hair.
In the battle of Laurel vs Food, food apparently won.
“Wow.” Janice ponders. “So that’s what it feels like.”
It’s hot and stuffy and there are balloons everywhere she tries to stand. People push past her, and Janice isn’t sure who are Laurel’s friends and who are Amy’s. There’s a mesh of people standing in the corner with drinks while a solid group of people look like they’re dancing in the area where the sofas used to be. It’s by the food set up, that she’d helped to pay for, that she finds Laurel.
“You’re here!” Laurel throws her arms open and advances towards her. Her face is covered in frosting, the one that Lexie ordered from Press’ Place, and Janice wants no part of that sweetness.
