Uncommon Romance

by Belle, Jove

  “And you had to take it. You can’t be blatantly rude to a client in the middle of a meeting.” Ash’s voice was soothing. She spoke softly, carefully, and released her words like caresses over June’s skin. June never knew if Ash did it on purpose, if she knew how deeply it affected June when she adopted that tone, or if that was just her natural response when someone was distressed. Thank God she’d never seen her do it with anyone else. She’d have been arrested for assault after she punched the person out. This time with Ash wasn’t something she was willing to share.

  “Right.”

  “Did she touch you again?” Ash’s voice took on an edge, but was still low and melodious.

  “She pressed her leg against mine again, yes. This time she was wearing a skirt.”

  Ash’s breath hitched, but she kept stroking June’s hair. “Bare skin?”

  June’s eyes slipped shut and she nodded. The sense memory was too much to ignore.

  “What else?” Ash rested one hand on June’s thigh and teased the edge of her skirt.

  “I couldn’t focus again. I have no idea what was said, but she agreed to sign the contract, so my boss is happy. They served champagne.”

  Ash pushed the fabric up and urged June to lift her hips. She inched it up until it bunched around June’s waist.

  “Champagne?”

  “Mmm…It was good stuff, too. I should have paid attention to the brand. You would like it.”

  “You were a little distracted.” Ash moved her hand restlessly over June’s thighs, marking a random pattern with her fingers that occasionally dipped between her legs and pressed against the juncture of her thighs. She kissed June’s throat, her lips delicate and hot against her skin. “How many glasses did you have?”

  “Just one.” June eased her legs apart slightly. She knew Ash would let her know when she wanted greater access, but she’d been so frustrated, for so long, she couldn’t help but offer encouragement. “She poured me a second, but I didn’t drink it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wanted to be able to drive, to come home to you.”

  “And two glasses would have prevented that?”

  “Two glasses would have led to three and three would have led to four.”

  Ash pressed her lips close to June’s but didn’t kiss her. “And four would have led to?”

  Ash slipped her fingers beneath the fabric of June’s panties but didn’t move. June moaned. “She offered to give me a ride home. She has a driver.”

  “So four glasses would have landed you in her backseat.” Ash massaged a slow circle over June’s clit one time, then stopped again.

  “Yes.” June barely kept herself from begging.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “You wouldn’t have liked it.”

  Ash pulled her hand free and brought her fingers to June’s lips. She pushed them into June’s mouth and said, “I wouldn’t? Why not?”

  June licked and sucked Ash’s fingers but couldn’t track the conversation properly. Ash sounded disappointed that she hadn’t brought Kat home with her that night. “You want me to bring her here? To our house?”

  “Don’t you want to?” Ash replaced her fingers with her tongue. She kissed June deeply, deep enough, June thought, to find the answer to her question.

  They were off track. There was more she needed to tell Ash, and instead they were getting lost in the fantasy. She wrenched her mouth away. “She tried to kiss me.”

  Ash’s hand stilled, the tips of her fingers barely inside the lace of her panties. “What?”

  June looked into Ash’s eyes. “She tried to kiss me.”

  “Tried? As in didn’t succeed?”

  “Right. I didn’t let her.”

  “Good.” Ash started moving again. Her fingers brushed against June’s clit and slipped lower until they rested at the opening of her pussy. They glided easily through the moisture gathered there. “Did you want her to? Kiss you.” She rolled her knuckles through June’s desire, then over her clit.

  June bucked against her. “God, yes.”

  “Yes, you wanted to kiss her?”

  June gulped and nodded. “Yes.”

  Ash slipped her fingers inside June and curved them until she touched June’s G-spot. “Is that what made you this wet?”

  June shook her head and said, “No…yes…I don’t know.” She bucked her hips against Ash’s hand.

  Ash withdrew. “You don’t know? You don’t know if you want her? If she turns you on?”

  “She does, yes.”

  Ash slipped back inside and pushed until she bottomed out. “Good girl.”

  June groaned. “But not as much as you do.”

  “No?” Ash slipped out again and teased the tip of her finger over June’s clit. “Are you sure? You’re really wet.”

  June held perfectly still and whimpered as Ash fingered her clit until she was hard and balancing on the edge of orgasm.

  When Ash pressed her lips to her ear and whispered, “Next time bring her home with you,” June came with a shout. Her body drew tight and flew apart as Ash’s words traveled from her brain to her cunt with a visceral jolt.

  “God.” She curled up in Ash’s arms. “The things you do to me.”

  “I’m serious, June.” Ash pulled back until June was able to look into her eyes. “Bring her home.”

  “Are you sure?” They’d played in the past, but never quite like this. June stared hard into Ash’s eyes for some sign that this wasn’t what she really wanted. She found nothing but open, honest desire.

  “Oh yeah, I’m sure.”

  June curled back up in Ash’s embrace again. She nodded against her chest as she listened to her heart beat. Relief and excitement flooded her system. Thank God she wouldn’t have to fight her body when Kat was around anymore.

  Chapter Five

  June stared at the coffee machine and willed it to brew faster. Yes, the single-cup machine was brilliantly quick and produced a fabulous-tasting cup of coffee, but it wasn’t instantaneous. Ash had kept her up far too late last night, but her boss didn’t care about how late she was up the night before, only that she made it to work on time and prepared to function. For that she needed coffee. Lots of it. This would be her first cup of many today.

  “Hey, baby.” Ash hugged her from behind.

  “Hey.” June turned and gave her a kiss. “What are you doing up?”

  Ash rubbed sleep from her eyes. She wore a faded T-shirt that hadn’t fit since middle school and a lacy pair of panties that June had picked up during her last trip to the mall. It was a pretty good way to say good morning.

  “I wanted to talk before you left for work.” Ash reached around June and pulled the cup of coffee from the Keurig. She smiled and took a drink. June got down another mug and a new canister for the machine. She would never be so tired that she couldn’t share the first cup of coffee with Ashlyn.

  “What about?” She pushed the button to start the next cup. Ash held the first cup up to her mouth and June took a careful sip. She wasn’t awake enough to trust her lips to catch all the liquid while Ash was in control of the cup, and she didn’t have enough time to change before work if she spilled on herself. Not to mention she needed to stop past the dry cleaners. She only had one work-appropriate shirt left.

  “Your not-so-secret admirer, Kat.”

  “What about her?” For some reason, she felt dirtier talking about Kat over coffee than she did when Ash was pushing her fingers inside her.

  “I thought we should discuss her when we’re not filled with crazy sex hormones.”

  June palmed Ash’s bare thigh, then slid her hand up until it rested on her waist. She slipped her fingers beneath the bottom edge of Ash’s T-shirt and ran her thumb over the slope of Ash’s breast. “Speak for yourself.” She was pretty much filled with crazy sex hormones any time Ash even looked in her direction. She didn’t require much encouragement from her wife.

  Ash pecked her on the lips, then stepped out of
reach. “I’m serious.”

  The second cup of coffee finished, so June took it to the table and sat. She pushed the other chair out and invited Ash to join her.

  She waited for Ash to sit before she asked, “What about Kat?”

  “I really do think you should invite her over.” Ash said the words easily, like the concept of sharing June in their own home was something they did all the time. Yes, they’d played with other people, but never at home.

  “Why here? We could go to a hotel or something.”

  “We could.” Ash agreed. “But this is simpler. And I don’t have the same hang-ups I used to.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In the past it was important to me that we keep our home…ours. We were still new to each other. There were some things I didn’t want to share.

  “And now you do?”

  Ash laughed. “No, I still don’t want to share those parts of you. But now I know very clearly what I want for myself, and it has nothing to do with our house.” She slid closer to June and placed her palm flat against her chest. “Everything I want is right here. That’s mine, no matter what.”

  June kissed her impulsively. When Ash said overwhelmingly sweet, romantic things like that, June had no choice but to show her how happy the sentiment made her. Normally, she liked to show her for hours and in several different positions. Right now, however, she needed to leave for work very soon.

  “You say the nicest things.”

  “How do you feel about bringing someone else into our home?”

  June thought about that. She’d been so worried about Ash’s reaction she’d never really thought of how it would affect her. “I don’t know.”

  “No?”

  “Can I have some time to think about it?”

  Ash raised her eyebrow and smirked. “You need to think about it some more?”

  June laughed. She’d dedicated a lot of time, too much, really, to thinking about what they would all do together, but hadn’t thought at all about how she would feel about it afterward. Ash obviously had spent some time on both. “I don’t need to think about that.” June flushed with heat, then stammered, “Not that I won’t think about it. Obviously I will. I meant I need to think about the emotional impact. I don’t want to do anything that will cause problems for us. You’re more important to me than anything else. I don’t want to fuck us up.”

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, it won’t. You could bring a hundred other women home to me, and it wouldn’t change anything. I know you love me. And I know that if I asked you to be with me and only me, you would. But I don’t need that. I just need your love. That’s all I’ll ever need. And I already have it.”

  “I know. I just…” If she brought Kat home, that meant she’d know what she looked like when she came. And she’d be in their bed, the bed she shared with Ash, when it happened. She wasn’t sure that was a memory she wanted to have popping up randomly. When she went to bed with Ash at night, she didn’t want the vision of Kat joining them on a regular basis.

  “What are you worried about?”

  “Are you sure the thought of another woman in our bed won’t bother you? Like the actual memory of it.”

  Ash paused for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face. “No, I don’t think it will. Like I said, I know what it means and what it doesn’t mean.”

  June nodded. “Okay. You’ve obviously thought about this a lot more than I have. I need to think about it some more.” She hated that her brain was so clogged with desire for Kat that she hadn’t even considered the emotional side effects. It’d never been an issue in the past, but this was different. Not to mention that connection she shared at work. Kat had a great deal of influence over her career. She wasn’t sure she wanted to add sex to that relationship. Kat clearly did, and June’s body was definitely interested. But that didn’t mean her brain shouldn’t put the kibosh on the whole thing.

  “Take as long as you want. I’m in no hurry.”

  June sipped her coffee and stared at the wall over Ash’s shoulder. The thought of sharing Kat with Ash, of experiencing Kat with Ash there to guide her through the experience, was exciting to June, but what if Kat only wanted June? Alone. Blood pounded in her ears. The thought was a little too much to contemplate at six forty-five in the morning. She had to ask. “What if she doesn’t want to?”

  “Doesn’t want to…what?” Ash wrinkled her nose. It was early and she’d gotten even less sleep than June.

  “You know…come here…with us…” June was handling this poorly. There had to be a better way to say what she needed to say, but she couldn’t think of it.

  “She’s clearly interested.”

  “In me. Yes.”

  “Oh.” Ash spoke softly and held herself very still. “But she knows you’re married.”

  June nodded vigorously. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  “Are you asking if you can fuck her without me?”

  June swallowed hard. The words sounded much worse out loud than the idea did in her head. She nodded, the movement much tighter than before.

  “Is that what you want?”

  Once again June was forced to consider the differing desires within her. “My body does. But the thought of hurting you makes my heart ache. And my brain…”

  “Your brain checks out of the conversation when the hot woman presses herself against you.”

  “Pretty much, yeah.”

  “Go with your heart, June, because I’m pretty sure that would hurt me.”

  “Yeah?” June felt a strange relief. She no longer had to think about the rules of engagement with Kat. Ash, as always, gave her a clear path to follow.

  “I think so.”

  “Okay.” She exhaled in what felt like the first time since the conversation started. “Okay, that’s good. Good. I’m not okay if you want to sleep with someone else either.”

  “You can manage that with this woman?” Ash stared hard at June, her mouth curved into a small half-smile.

  “Definitely. No problem at all. I promise.”

  Ash sat back in the chair, the tension gone from her for the moment. “So, when do you plan to see Kat again? When’s the next meeting?”

  “God, I have no idea. I’m not even sure I’ll be included.”

  “But you think you’ll see her again?”

  “I don’t think she’ll let me off without it.” After June had fled her office and left Kat hanging there, she was absolutely certain Kat would seek her out again. Probably to tell her off.

  “Okay, call me if you decide to invite her home with you.” Ash stood and pulled June up with her and led her to the front door. “Now, don’t you need to get to work?”

  June grabbed her bag, kissed Ash good-bye, and headed to work with her thoughts clearer than they had been since she’d met Katerina VanderVort.

  *

  “Are you coming to the meeting later?” Robert stuck his head into June’s office, his body positioned in a way that said he wasn’t staying but had merely dropped in to ask the question.

  “Yeah, at two, right?” June held up the contracts. She’d been reviewing them for the past hour. Sometimes, the lawyers of the group drowned otherwise simple negotiations in overly complex language. She’d contemplated law school but ultimately decided on finance. Times like this she was thankful for that decision. “I’ll be there.”

  “I heard she’s already in the building. Wonder if they’re going to move it up.”

  “Who?” June didn’t understand why they were having the meeting in the first place. Typically contracts were signed and sent via courier. They didn’t have meetings with everyone in full attendance. It was weird.

  “Ms. VanderVort.”

  Kat was already here? June’s heart rate spiked. She’d gone two weeks without seeing her. She’d prepared herself for the group meeting that was scheduled for later that afternoon, but knowing she was in the building three hours early was not an eventuality she’d considered. “What? Why?”
>
  “I have no idea. I—” Robert stepped back. “I gotta go.”

  Kat walked into her office and closed the door. “Just the person I wanted to see.” She sat in the chair opposite June.

  June closed the file on her desk. “Ms. VanderVort, how can I help you today?”

  Kat raised an eyebrow. “Ms. Vandervort? Where did that come from?”

  “Since you’re not sitting in my lap, I can only conclude you’re here for official business.”

  “Do you want me in your lap?” Kat moved to stand.

  “No.” June spoke hastily, bordering on a shout. “At least not right now.”

  Kat settled into her seat. “That implies you will at some point in the future.”

  “I think we should talk about it.”

  “What’s to talk about? I find you very sexy. I know that attraction is mutual, and I’d really like to do something about it.”

  “And I’d really like to not get a divorce.”

  “Ah, yes, the good wife at home minding the hearth.”

  June laughed. The thought of Ash as a housewife was too shocking to be anything more than farce. “You know nothing about her.”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Would it make you more inclined to say yes?” Kat leaned forward, sharp, keen interest on her face.

  “Do you always do this?” June wasn’t a prude. She and Ash were adventurous with their sex lives, but she’d never encountered someone like Kat. She was blatant with her desire and open to the point of vulgar when talking about it. Yet she was pointedly matter of fact, like she didn’t know the passionate side of sex. June knew that to be untrue. Every encounter she’d had with her had been overwhelmingly, if inappropriately, sensual.

  “Do what?”

  “Approach sex like a contract negotiation.”

  “Are we negotiating? I’d resigned myself to your continued resistance. What changed?”

  Ash had changed, but June wasn’t ready to share that just yet.

  “Nothing has for certain. Before we get to that, let’s talk about my career. I like it. I don’t like how much influence you wield over my ability to continue it.”