by J J Arias
George nodded and tried to take her advice, but the jockstrap contraption was tight and impossible to ignore. Mila’s lips on hers helped, and climbing on top of her, she threw herself into the act.
“Let go,” Mila whispered against the shell of her ear before leaving soft kisses against her jaw.
It was only then George realized she was so tense she was practically planking on top of her.
“Come here,” Mila said softly, turning her body so she could switch places with her.
The spot Mila had been laying in was warm on her back. It was easier to relax without the added task of holding up her body weight. After a sweet sensual kiss, Mila’s lips found the base of her neck and worked the sensitive area while her hands followed the curve of her hips and then between her thighs.
By the time Mila’s fingers slipped inside her, George had forgotten about her purple friend as she squirmed and writhed. When she was near the edge, Mila pulled away and reached for a little bottle on the nightstand.
George watched in unsated hunger as Mila straddled her hips and lowered herself slowly until the toy disappeared from view. Each soft moan coincided with a slow, deliberate swing of her hips.
The dryness in George’s gaping mouth was a sharp contrast to the wetness pooling beneath her. She’d never seen anything more excruciatingly erotic than Mila grinding above her so slowly and sensually that she was sure she could have an orgasm just from the sight of her.
“Touch me,” Mila demanded in a whiny moan that set the entirety of George’s body on fire.
Snapping out of her trance, George reached up to feel Mila’s chest before sitting up and crossing her legs so she could press her body against Mila’s as she moved.
With her hand on the back of Mila’s neck, she pulled her in for a desperate kiss. Mila was more than ready to oblige and plunged her tongue deep in George’s mouth, eliciting a throaty moan.
Guiding Mila’s hips, George found a faster rhythm and slipped her hand between them to use her fingers where she knew Mila needed her most. On contact, Mila threw her head back and rolled her hips to increase the friction against her thumb.
“Don’t stop,” Mila warned as her body trembled in a way George had learned was a very good sign. With her mouth all over Mila’s sweaty chest, George felt her own peak rising. Mila ground against her, sending a new shockwave of heat pulsating through her.
“Wait,” she managed breathlessly. She was close but knew Mila was closer.
With a whimper, Mila pulled herself back from the edge, bent forward, and took George’s lips in hers. After a lingering kiss, she pressed their foreheads together as she swung her hips slowly and moaned.
George knew Mila had figured out that she was very susceptible to auditory stimulation, but she didn’t care that she was exaggerating for her benefit. The groans, cursing, and occasional filthy talk sent her flying off the edge just as Mila couldn’t hold back for another moment.
“Not bad for your first showing,” Mila joked as she landed on top of George in a sweaty heap.
“I can’t take credit for that,” she said with a laugh as she pulled the covers up over her waist while Mila situated herself at her side.
“Well, I hope you learned a thing or two, because next time, it’s my turn,” she added with a wink.
George chuckled as she promised to try and match her, though she wasn’t nearly as flexible as Mila. In the still silence, George ran her fingers through Mila’s hair when she laid her head on her chest. In such a short time it had become her favorite ritual in the world.
“So, you and Nathan really never slept together?” she asked, catching George off guard.
“God no. He’s handsome and all, but we’ve always been good friends. I could never see him as any more than that. Even after a bottle of tequila,” she added. “What makes you ask?”
Mila shrugged. “I suppose I would have thought that at some point maybe you’ve thought about having a kid or something. Called in the services of a sturdy turkey baster maybe,” she said with a smile.
George swallowed hard. This was not a topic she’d ever broached with anyone outside the confines of her own mind. “There was a time I really wanted a child.” The emotion forced her voice into a higher pitch.
“Why didn’t you go for it? There are so many options available for baby making,” she asked without looking at George. She appreciated the lack of piercing blue eyes making it easier to discuss the sensitive topic.
George thought about it. It would have been so easy to respond with the usual, You can’t really have it all. I chose my career, or, it was never the right time, and complain that men didn’t get asked those questions, but she’d promised herself to be more honest with herself and Mila.
“Deep down, I don’t think I wanted to bring a child into my loveless marriage,” she confessed to herself for the first time. “This is a life I chose, but how could I explain that to a baby? What kind of role models would we be? We are wonderful friends, but over the years we’ve pretty much established parallel lives. I don’t want anyone to aspire to that.”
The truth of the words wounded George even as she spoke them. She’d never stopped to consider what their choice had done to them. “What about you?” she asked, desperate to move the topic away from what felt like a spotlight on the worst mistake of her life.
“I’ve always wanted to be a mom,” she replied mercifully. “I was adopted by such loving and wonderful people. They were so embarrassing when I was younger. Holding hands everywhere like teenagers. In my house, no one could eat until we were all sitting together at the table. No eating at friends’ houses or in my room,” she complained with a smile. “And every day my parents and I talked about our days in the morning and at night. My dad brought my mom flowers every single Friday and then they went on a date.” She rolled her eyes. “One day, I hope to give that kind of mortifyingly beautiful life to some other kid. . . or kids.”
George’s chest tightened as she felt the sting of tears in the back of her eyes. After she’d turned forty, she’d considered adopting, but all roads led back to the challenge of her unconventional life and specter of public scrutiny, so she’d abandoned the idea.
“That sounds like a truly charmed life,” George replied as she held Mila tighter against her chest.
A while later, Mila’s breathing grew heavy, giving away the fact that she’d fallen asleep. It didn’t stop George from running her fingers through her hair. The act soothed her as she pondered the possibility of a life she never thought possible.
Their week of physical and emotional intimacy had been the best of her life, but how long could they go on like that? Mila hadn’t left the room once, and she was sure that was starting to get old. Even George’s absence from the office was starting to look odd, and Josephine’s strained tone clued her in to how much commentary was probably spreading. If she kept this up it wouldn’t be long before the wrong people started asking questions.
George looked down at the woman sleeping on her chest. How could she possibly leave her? How could she let her go home with nothing but the hope that she’d be able to see her again at some unknown point in the future. That was no way to have a relationship. Mila deserved better than that.
Nausea turned George’s stomach. There was no good option. It was only a matter of deciding what she really couldn’t live without. Her life and career as she knew it, or Mila. George shut her eyes so tightly she developed spots in her vision.
Counting the way Mila had coached her in the panic room, she settled herself down until sleep came for her too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“You okay?” Nathan asked after he’d been sitting across from her in the back of the limo in silence for twenty minutes.
“Yeah, fine,” George replied with an encouraging smile.
“You don’t look fine,” he countered as he narrowed his eyes as if he could see into her head if he tried. He watched her for another moment before taking the seat n
ext to her and raising the privacy glass between them and the driver. “What’s up, Georgie?”
She took a deep breath and tried her best not to cry while she filled him in as best she could.
“Whoa,” he replied when she’d finished explaining. “And you’ve been hiding her in your room all that time?”
George winced. It sounded so bad when he said it like that.
“You love her, don’t you?” he asked after a beat.
“What! No. I mean, I don’t know. What?”
Nathan giggled. “You’ve got it bad, my friend.”
George couldn’t find fault with that assessment. Whatever she had, she certainly did have it bad. “What am I going to do?” she asked herself as much as she was asking him.
“I don’t think you really want my advice,” he said sadly. “Ask Josephine. She’ll tell you to think about the campaign, about how hard you’ve worked.”
George looked up from her beaded evening bag. “She’s the one that set us up.”
“No freaking way,” he said, his mouth falling open in shock.
George nodded but didn’t explain that Marcel was sick. She’d tell him herself if she wanted him to know.
“Shit,” he said, shaking his head. “Then she might not give you the advice you want to hear either.”
“Tell me the truth, Nate. Tell me what you really think. I’m trying this new thing called radical honesty. I’m ready,” she said as she hyped herself up like she was getting ready to skydive without a parachute.
“If you really wanna know,” he said, turning his body in the seat to face her. “I say you have to follow your heart, babe. You only live once. If this girl is making you feel so alive and present, and she’s half as awesome as you make her sound, then I say fuck it. Do what makes you happy. What’s the absolute worst that can happen? I’m sure no matter what you picture, death and destruction are not on that list. Anything short of that is survivable.”
George let his words sink in until the car stopped and the police escort opened the door for them.
“Thanks, Nate,” she said, kissing his cheek before stepping out to a volley of flashing cameras.
* * *
The evening had been unbearably long. George had spent every moment of the event thinking about Mila and wondering if she would still be there when she came back. A terrifying image continued to repeat in her head of Mila’s things gone. Of nothing left of her but a warm spot in her bed and her perfume on her sheets. She’d never wash them again for fear of losing what little she had left. The intrusive thoughts made engaged conversations impossible, and she relied on Nathan and Josephine more than usual.
Once back in the mansion, George carried her heels in her hand and raced up the stairs to her room. With her heart pounding, she shut her eyes tight as she turned the knob slowly. She was equal parts desperate to see whether Mila had stayed and dreading what it would feel like to see her bags no longer piled in the corner.
Each squeaky creak of the door raised George’s blood pressure several points. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, she strained to see, but it was too dark; she’d have to walk in for confirmation.
George cursed in her mind as she tiptoed into the room, fully aware of how insane she looked if she was indeed alone. She approached the bed, unsure whether the bulge under the covers was a person or a pillow. Then she heard it. The sound that sent her heart soaring right out of her body. A light snore.
In her life, George never imagined that a snore could possibly bring her such intense joy and relief. Without wasting another second, she pulled off her dress and jewelry and slid under the covers behind her. She didn’t care if the makeup ruined her sheets or what a fright she’d look in the morning.
Mila’s nude body was warm against George’s clammy skin. Instinctively, as if they’d done this all their lives, Mila reached back, grabbed George’s arm and wrapped it around herself as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be her little spoon.
It was the nail in George’s coffin. She held her tightly as a swell of emotion threatened to break her apart. “I know you may not want to hear this given the night’s events, or maybe it’s worse that I feel this way,” she rambled as her heart ripped open and feelings gushed out. “But I realized tonight that I don’t want to be apart from you. I was so afraid you wouldn’t be here when I came back, and the thought of that had me sick all night. I don’t know how to do this, but all I know is that I can’t lose you. I just can’t. So whatever it takes, we’ll come up with some way to be together.” She poured out her truth as the tears she’d been holding back rushed out with it. “God, this sounds like such a stereotypical thing to say, but it’s the truth. I know we’ve only just started to get to know each other, and it’s definitely too soon, but I think I’m falling for you.”
Silence followed George’s confession. The disconcerting kind that makes a person regret everything they’ve ever said or done to lead them to that moment in time. But Mila turned in George’s arms and before she said anything lunged into a deep kiss.
George wanted to enjoy it. To take it as a sign that she felt the same, but it could so easily be a consolation prize there was no way to relax into it. Emotional honesty and vulnerability were so new, that as the kiss went on, she become more convinced that she’d gone too far, freaked Mila out, and now the poor woman was buying time as she thought of what to say.
When George finally broke the contact, she stared at the sleepy-faced woman, waiting for a response to her declaration. “You don’t have to say anything,” she said when Mila still hadn’t spoken. “There’s no pressure. I know I’m an idiot, and it’s too soon to even be thinking—”
“How did someone so bad at reading people, at least women who have been very interested in her since the moment they met, ever get so far?” Mila asked with a throaty chuckle. “Are you really so blind? You don’t see that I feel the same way you do?”
George’s heart soared to an impossible and terrifying place.
“With one major difference,” she added after a long pause. Her unspoken caveat was the rip in her hot air balloon. “I don’t think I’m falling for you,” she said sadly. “I know I am.”
There was no way to stop the enormous grin on George’s face.
“I love you,” Mila confessed with confidence as she peppered George’s face with kisses.
“I love you, too,” she replied in a voice strained by the happy kind of tears she’d never once in her life shed.
Chapter Twenty-Four
After weeks of captivity, Mila had been forced to emerge from their love nest. Moving back into her condo had been sad, but after much conversation, they’d both agreed it was necessary. Once she’d left the mansion, she’d let Tim organize a farewell happy hour with some of the other staffers. Much to her surprise, it seemed that he and Jetsam, or Maggie, as Tim insisted she call her, had become something of an item. Flotsam had been poached by some lobbying firm in DC, so Mila didn’t have to worry about anyone harassing Tim.
Amanda had stayed for a few more weeks before realizing too much time together led to bickering and then Mila had her place back to herself.
Seeing each other had been tricky. Daily video calls had been okay for the first month and a half. It led them to the kinds of all-night conversations usually reserved for teenagers, but it was no replacement for in-person connection. Josephine had managed to smuggle her into the mansion twice, but the subterfuge had made Mila feel dirty.
Given George’s campaigning schedule and Mila’s ability to take her online LSAT prep class anywhere, they’d come up with a way of seeing each other a few times a month at hotels outside of Tallahassee. Although they were limited to room service, board games, and movies, it was the closest thing to dates they’d been able to have.
By July, Mila had hit crunch time for studying and George was working nearly nonstop on the campaign and actual governing. Even after she’d taken the test and was only occupied with teac
hing pole dancing classes and waiting for her exam results, George was too busy to sleep, much less plan a hotel stay. Her schedule had her traveling back and forth from every event the same day; it had gotten to where even a few minutes of video chat before bed had become difficult. They’d taken to sleeping with the video call going so they could at least spend time together. Even if they weren’t awake for it.
“Doesn’t it drive you nuts?” Amanda, her violet hair shining in the sun, asked as she sipped on a peach bellini, her brunch time favorite. “You live in the same city but you’re dating like she’s on the other side of the world.”
Mila shrugged as she picked at her food. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t understand. She really is doing the best she can. We talk every day.”
“I bet you wish you’d stayed her little sex slave up in that mansion,” she whispered loudly in the way only drunk people can.
“God, don’t even mention that,” she groaned, resisting the urge to slam her head against the table. She’d grown accustomed to mind-blowing sex followed by a night spent holding each other. Sleeping with her was what she missed most. At least orgasms she could give herself. Spooning herself was another matter entirely. In a desperate attempt to recreate the sensation and actually get some rest, she’d bought a body pillow and sprayed it with Chanel Chance, but it only made her miss George more.
“Does she know it’s your birthday?” Amanda asked, breaking her out of her sad thought spiral.
Mila shook her head. “You know I’m very good at avoiding that information.”
“You should tell her,” she replied with certainty. “Maybe she’ll be able to make room to see you on such a special occasion. I’m sure if she saw how much you miss her—”
Mila shook her head again. “She’s going to Naples today for a rally. I don’t want to mess with that.”
