by Harper Bliss
Chapter 23
Quinn’s half-naked body pressed against Maya’s side. Quinn’s lips were all over her, kissing their way from Maya’s neck to her breasts and then back up again.
“Before things get too heated,” Quinn whispered in her ear.
“Before?” Maya asked, barely still able to catch her breath.
Quinn pushed herself up and looked at her, a wide grin on her lips. She nodded, as if to say that merely taking off a few items of clothing was nothing compared to what was to come. Maya had always remembered how confident Quinn had been that night. A lot of things about her might have changed in ten years, but Quinn still had that same air of bedroom confidence about her.
“Do you have any lube?” Quinn asked, as casually as if asking for a glass of water.
Maya’s cheeks flushed but she guessed it would barely be visible because of the semi-darkness of her bedroom and because her skin had already been worked into a healthy blush. “In the bottom drawer of the nightstand.” Maya might not have a flourishing sex life with other people, but she knew how to take care of herself and lube had become indispensable for that purpose.
“Okay. Good.” Quinn’s eyes sparkled. “Everything’s better with lube.”
Maya chuckled. She was still a little too bashful to openly acquiesce, although she figured she might wholeheartedly agree with Quinn later. “I have a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
Maya had caught a glimpse of them earlier when she’d taken Quinn’s clothes off, but it had only left her wanting more. “Show me all of your tattoos,” Maya whispered. “Before things get too heated.”
“You have my full permission to discover them.” Quinn fell onto her back. Maya pushed herself up so she could explore Quinn’s body.
First, she had to see the tattoo on her lower belly again—the one that had haunted some of her more feverish dreams over the years. She pushed the waistband of Quinn’s panties down a fraction and there it was. Your secret’s safe with me. Maya’s secret had most certainly been safe with Quinn all these years. She ran her finger over it the way she had done ten years ago and, for an instant, it was as if time folded in on itself and she was back in her old bedroom on that hot summer night. She was that woman she’d been back then, stealing a night of passion with the neighbors’ daughter. Back then, she’d never have believed she’d one day see that particular tattoo again, yet here she was, running a finger over it. Quinn’s belly tensed under her touch—a sensation even more divine than seeing the tattoo again.
Next, Maya focused her attention on the side of Quinn’s torso, on the tattoo that said: Life is for living. It was far less cryptic than her other one. Maybe because she had acquired it later in her life, when she was older. Still, Maya was much older than Quinn and she could definitely do with a daily reminder to just live her life. How had Quinn figured this out at such a young age?
Maya wasn’t in the mood to answer philosophical questions like that. What she wanted more than anything was to discover Quinn’s other tattoo. She figured she’d need to shuffle downward a bit. She ran her hand from Quinn’s side to her lower belly again, then along her hip to her inner thigh. Maya had noticed something there earlier when Quinn had taken off her jeans.
Quinn spread her legs and propped herself up on her elbows. She probably wanted to witness Maya’s charting of all her body art.
Maya had to bend over a little to read what the small, curly text said on Quinn’s right inner thigh.
You take me to, Maya made out. Her gaze continued along Quinn’s panties. She had to turn her body so she could read the text that continued on Quinn’s left inner thigh.
A breathless place.
Maya didn’t know what to make of it intellectually but on a baser, much more primal level, seeing those words inked into Quinn’s flesh ignited something in her. The desire to trace her lips over those particular patches of Quinn’s skin, definitely, but Quinn’s tattoos seemed like such an elemental part of her, seemed to contribute to the person she was, made her special—then and now—and it made something unfurl deep inside of Maya.
She looked up at Quinn’s face. There was something almost triumphant in her gaze, as if having those tattoos, having chosen the words and the part of her skin where they would be etched forever, gave her an edge. As if she knew they made her more desirable to Maya. Or maybe that was just what Maya was reading into it.
“Come here,” Quinn beckoned her.
She scooped up Quinn’s wrist—the one that had Acceptance tattooed on it—and pressed her lips against the dark letters before moving closer to Quinn.
Of course, Maya wanted to ask what all her tattoos meant and why she had gotten them, but that could wait. Unlike last time, she didn’t know if there would be a morning after—because, this time, the possibility was there. Maya didn’t know anything, except for one thing: she wanted Quinn. Being with Quinn, or a woman like Quinn, hadn’t been the reason she’d moved to the city, but here she was, in her new home, with Quinn in all her glory in her bed. Sometimes, life threw you a curveball like that.
Quinn pulled Maya closer and kissed her again and again, soon making Maya forget where she was at all.
Quinn came to lie on top of her again, her skin hot against Maya’s. Her hands danced from her hair to her breasts to all the spots on Maya’s skin that mirrored the locations of Quinn’s tattoos—all very sensitive spots, as it turned out. Surely that was no coincidence. Unlike all those years ago, Maya burned to know more about Quinn, to find out who she really was, who life had turned her into. She didn’t just want Quinn’s hands all over her; she wanted to talk to her, get to know her, laugh with her and, more than anything, dance with her.
“You’re so fucking hot, Maya,” Quinn whispered in her ear just as her hand drifted between Maya’s legs.
Maya spread for her. Her skin had felt on fire for a long time, but now her clit was throbbing hard, aching for Quinn’s touch as well. Maya let her own hands roam freely over Quinn’s body, caressing her gorgeous breasts, her voluptuous ass. She couldn’t get enough of the feel of Quinn against her hands, of her soft skin against her own—making Maya wonder why she had felt so guilty for so long about something as beautiful as this.
“I’m going to get the lube out,” Quinn whispered in Maya’s ear. Before she did, she kissed Maya slow and long on the lips. Tonight, it felt as though they had the luxury of time.
When Quinn leaned away from her to open the nightstand drawer, Maya took a deep breath. When Quinn took a little too long for her liking, she found herself clawing for her, pulling her on top of her again.
“Got it.” Quinn flipped the lid and put the tube on Maya’s other side. She kissed Maya again, while her hand meandered down between Maya’s legs again, her fingers featherlight against Maya’s nether lips, carefully avoiding the ticking time bomb of her aching clit.
Maya got so lost in Quinn’s touch and even more so in her long, lingering, heavenly kisses, that she missed the moment Quinn squirted lube onto her hand. All she knew was that, all of a sudden, Quinn’s fingers against her were wet and slippery and ready for something more than the divine caresses she’d been bestowing onto Maya.
The addition of the lube heightened Maya’s senses. Her skin tingled. The heat in her belly intensified. Quinn broke their kiss and looked her in the eyes as her fingers dipped lower and deeper, until those same fingers were inside Maya.
Maya gasped for air. Quinn held her fingers completely still as she kept staring into Maya’s eyes.
Maya thought she might melt under Quinn’s gaze.
Then Quinn moved her fingers. Gently at first, until there was nothing gentle about it anymore. As if Quinn had known much more than Maya knew about her body and what she wanted in that moment. Quinn fucked her until all Maya saw on the backs of her closed eyelids were bright shooting stars.
Maya had no idea what acrobatics Quinn was performing with her hand, but while moving deeply and satisfyingly inside her, sh
e also managed to stimulate Maya’s clit in a way that made her arousal skyrocket. Maybe this was ten years of pent-up lust. Ten years of hankering for another woman’s touch—or maybe just Quinn’s touch. Maya had no way of knowing in that moment. All she knew, as Quinn touched her so deftly, so tantalizingly, as though her fingers had found their exquisite final destination, was that she was coming at the hands of Quinn Hathaway once again, and she wouldn’t be getting enough of that explosive sensation any time soon.
Chapter 24
How an evening could turn. How it could impact your thoughts, your actions, and possibly, ultimately, the course of your life. Quinn could hardly wrap her head around how, just moments ago, her fingers had been deep inside of Maya, and Maya had cried out her name as she clamped onto Quinn, and her fingers, for what seemed like dear life.
One thing was for sure. Morgan could not be further from her mind, because Quinn’s brain was suffused with all things Maya, who was still as gorgeous and elegant as ever. And as willing to play along.
“Jesus,” Maya said, as she pulled Quinn against her. “I can’t believe you just did that to me again.”
Just maybe, Quinn thought, as she nuzzled her lips against the warm skin of Maya’s neck, there had been more between them that night than they had allowed themselves to admit. If the passage of ten years, ten years of life lived to the fullest—at least for Quinn—hadn’t been enough to erase that spark between them, then what ever could?
“I did clearly state earlier that I wasn’t going to seduce you,” Quinn said. “So this is all your doing.”
Maya wrapped her arms around Quinn. “Believe what you want to,” she said. “I’ll always know the truth.”
“Which is?” Quinn asked.
“That you still have the hots for your neighbor, even after all these years.”
Quinn chuckled as she felt Maya’s body convulse with laughter against hers. “I plead guilty to the hundredth degree.” Quinn ran a finger over Maya’s belly. “Are you going to kick me out again in the morning?” Oops. Surely that was the wrong question at the wrong time. Quinn found Maya’s ear. “Forget I asked. It doesn’t matter right now.”
“It’s a fair enough question.” Maya pushed herself away from Quinn a little. She looked her in the eye. “You will have to leave at some point.”
“But not to go back to my parents’ house this time around.”
“You do know I never meant to hurt you, Quinn.” Maya took her hand and pressed a soft kiss to her knuckle. “There was just no other way.”
“I know.” Of course, Quinn knew. “I shouldn’t have brought that up just now. I’m sorry.”
“It must be on your mind. It’s on mine too.” Maya’s voice was soft, unthreatening, and very sexy. “For now, though, why don’t we just let this be what it is.”
“And what is it to you?”
“Two old friends having a gay old time.” Maya’s eyes narrowed as she lifted Quinn’s wrist to her lips and kissed the inside of it.
While it was impossible to ignore the history they had together, Quinn was more than happy to just let things run their course, because her skin was flushing with excitement, and Maya’s kisses weren’t helping to subdue her desire. She pulled Maya close again, her hands getting lost in her luscious mane of hair, as she kissed Maya’s lips. As she pressed her body against Maya’s, against the heat of her skin, Quinn’s knee pushed in between Maya’s legs again, because she couldn’t help herself. Maya drove her a little wild in a way that rarely happened to her. Maybe because part of her felt like she needed to make the most of it—that this, once again, could be over before it had well and truly begun.
Maya pushed until Quinn toppled onto her back so she could let her hands roam across Quinn’s skin. Her fingertips caressed the outside of Quinn’s breast.
Quinn’s nipple hardened with need. She gazed down, at the trajectory of Maya’s hand. She loved watching Maya’s hand, that nimble extension to her ever-graceful arms. Her fingertips circled Quinn’s nipple and Quinn let out a groan. She didn’t know how much more of this she could stand even though Maya had just begun. But that wasn’t entirely correct. They might only have been lying in Maya’s bed for a short while, but the flirting had started last week, and a whole lot of that flirting was rooted in something that had happened years ago.
At times, over the years, Quinn had indulged herself and allowed her mind to wander to thoughts of Maya. She imagined her walking barefoot by the side of the pool. She envisioned her dancing and, while doing so, looking deep into Quinn’s eyes, an inviting smile on her lips. She had even pictured Maya’s hands doing the very thing they were doing now: playing with Quinn, arousing her. Elevating her need for Maya with every flick of her wrist. Though potent enough for Quinn’s goals at the time, those fantasies had been just that. This was the real deal. It was all so unbelievable that Quinn buried her hands in Maya’s hair, dug her own fingertips into the flesh of Maya’s back, to ascertain her realness. But there was no question this was real. Quinn didn’t reach such sharp levels of arousal when she was on her own. She only burned like this under Maya’s touch—and burn she did.
Maya ran her hand over the tattoo on Quinn’s side.
It was always hard to predict how someone would react to the phrases Quinn had chosen to immortalize on her skin, but Maya seemed quite taken with them. When she’d gone on a little discovery tour of her body earlier, and had traced her fingertips over Quinn’s inner thighs, Quinn imagined it wasn’t just her blood pulsing with desire.
Maya’s fingertips meandered to the waistband of Quinn’s panties which, for some reason she couldn’t begin to fathom, she was still wearing. She pushed them down a fraction the way she had done earlier and exposed Quinn’s original tattoo—the one that had enthralled Maya ten years ago. How could ten years pass and not a smidgen of the attraction between them have diminished? At first thought, back then Quinn believed they’d ended up in bed because she’d been audacious enough to flirt with Maya and Maya had been in the right frame of mind to be receptive to it. Tommy had just left home. Quinn had instinctively known how to say the right things. All those years, she had believed that she and Maya sleeping together, the two of them sharing the most incredible night, had been mostly her doing. But, as Maya’s fingers disappeared inside her panties, she felt like she needed to reassess. It had been more than that. In fact, it was quite arrogant for Quinn to believe that the stars had aligned that night merely because she’d taken a fancy to seducing her neighbor. She knew better now. Both of them had played an equal part because both of them felt what had been growing between them over the course of that divine, sun-drenched weekend. Many outcomes had been possible but there had only been one that they’d both wanted equally that night.
The exact same thing could be said for this night. Quinn had met Maya with the possibility of something like this in mind. It had even made her much more nervous than she would usually have been, because it was Maya, and Quinn attached a different kind of importance to it—because it really mattered to her what Maya thought of her. This wasn’t some first date with a random person she had picked to help get her over Morgan. This was Maya Mercer, of whom the idea and the memory had had years to grow into something otherworldly in her subconscious.
“Ooh,” Quinn groaned as Maya’s fingertip skirted along the edge of her clit.
Maya craned her neck and looked back at her. In her eyes, Quinn believed she saw all her own desire reflected back at her. Then again, maybe what they had between them was just the very simple notion of two people madly, desperately wanting each other.
Maya hooked her finger underneath Quinn’s waistband and started pulling her panties down. Quinn gave her a hand and a few seconds of fumbling later, lay naked in front of Maya, her skin hot with need, her clit throbbing as though utterly beside itself.
Maya looked at her again, as though she couldn’t quite believe this was happening—again. Then, she leaned over Quinn’s belly, and kissed a sizzl
ing hot path along Quinn’s tattoo.
Maya’s lips on her there made every hair on Quinn’s body rise up in anticipation. Ever so slowly, Maya’s lips moved downward, until she was kissing the skin around Quinn’s other tattoos—the ones on her inner thighs. The ones Quinn had decided to get on a whim to break the predictable yet frustrating mold her life as Morgan’s mistress had become. And now, Maya was dragging the tip of her divine tongue along the words You take me to Quinn had tattooed there, up to the apex of her thighs and then, a delicious pause, before Maya’s tongue meandered down the other thigh, over A breathless place.
Morgan could go to hell and never return. Because Quinn was done with her. Her focus was on Maya now. She wouldn’t throw her heart into the game so foolishly anymore—and she most definitely would never be anyone’s dirty secret ever again. For all those reasons, Maya giving her this pleasure was at the same time safe and enthralling.
“Ah,” Quinn moaned as Maya’s tongue flicked against her clit. Oh, it was definitely enthralling and exquisite and utterly beguiling, because Maya was all of those things. She was excellent company, a treat to feast your eyes on, and she had some game. And she sure knew how to use her tongue in a most satisfying way.
Quinn gazed down at the mane of dark hair between her legs, and while teetering on the cusp of climax, an insuppressible smile broke on her face.
Chapter 25
Maya woke with Quinn’s body glued to her back. She’d only slept in fits and starts because she wasn’t used to another person in her bed, although that was far from the only thing keeping her awake. As soon as Quinn had fallen asleep, the old guilt had come for Maya again. It wasn’t exactly the same as back then because their situations were very different now, but sleeping with Quinn Hathaway had most decidedly not been part of any of Maya’s plans.
