Far from the World We Know: A Lesbian Romance Novel

by Harper Bliss

  She’s had her eyes closed since my finger slid inside of her, but she opens them now. She fastens her gaze on mine, her hands still curled around my neck, and it feels as though she’s looking straight into my soul. As though, maybe for the very first time, she’s seeing the real Laura Baker—the one with all her defenses down. The person I was once and I’m becoming again, with her.

  “Oh, Laura, I’m—” Her breath stalls in her throat and her inner walls clamp around my fingers and I’m there with her all the way, as though I can feel her climax shudder through my body as well.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  TESS

  Laura’s fingers dig inside me and I can’t keep my eyes off her. I look into those mysterious, wounded eyes of hers, wanting so desperately to take away a little of her pain, of her guilt. She narrows her eyes in supreme concentration, and a climax is already engulfing me, spreading its warmth through my flesh, its tingle through my belly, and all I want to do in that moment, when our bodies have come together, is tell her that I love her. Because I think I do. I know I do. I love Laura Baker, no matter how unlovable, and damaged, she considers herself. What is happening in this bed here tonight is nothing short of love.

  I draw her close, the aftershocks of the orgasm rippling through me and whisper an appropriate version—for the moment—of I love you into her ear. “You’re amazing,” I say. “Jesus Christ, you’re amazing.”

  Laura lifts up her head and beams me the widest smile. Slowly, she slips her fingers out of me and, already, I want them to return. I don’t need time to recover. I’ve wanted Laura for months and, although there were times I believed this moment would never come, now that it has finally arrived, I never want it to end.

  She leans in to kiss me again and I melt into her, holding her close, and I want to touch her like she just touched me, but I still feel I need to ask for explicit permission first. “Do you want me to…” I whisper in her ear.

  She pushes herself away from me and smiles down at me. “God, yes,” she says. “If you don’t I may spontaneously combust.” She’s so different now, so much more free and relaxed. I can’t wait to get those pajama bottoms off her, so I do. They look brand new as well, like all the other items of clothing she owns. It’s probably the first time she’s worn them. To keep a safe barrier of fabric between us. That didn’t work out then.

  I pull her close again and when we break from this kiss, I cling to her bottom lip with my teeth, give it a little tug. After I let go, I grin at her, then push her off me so I can be on top.

  “Come here,” she says, when it’s my turn to gaze down at her. I bring my ear close to her lips. “You’re beautiful when you come,” she says, and it ignites a fresh tingle in my stomach. And a burst of happiness. And the distinct feeling that I’m on top of the world, that nothing or no one will ever harm us ever again. For a brief moment, I can’t help but wonder how this is making Laura feel. Her experience can’t be the same as mine, but when I look at her, into those sparkling eyes of hers, and her features that have gone soft and become more open, I know it can’t be far off.

  “Is there anything in particular—” I start to ask.

  But she cuts me off, curls her lips into a smile and says, “Stop thinking, Tess. I’m all in. I made the choice. I took the leap. Just be you.” Her voice is tender in the night, like music to my ears. And then I do as she tells me.

  I let go. Having her fingers inside of me, and coaxing that orgasm from me, was one thing—a spectacular, glorious thing—but I want, more than anything, to be the cause of Laura’s pleasure now. It’s a privilege, an honor. A testament to how far we’ve come. And, also, the finish line to this test of my patience. Yes, I asked her out too soon, and I kissed her a little too passionately too quickly, but I pulled back, adjusted, and waited. I always knew she would be worth it, this moment alone is already more than worth it, although I know, already, without a shadow of a doubt, there will be many more to come.

  I kiss her lips, her cheeks, her chin, then, ever so slowly, make my way down. I intend to savor every single second of this, of my most intimate acquaintance with the woman I’ve fallen in love with. The woman who arrived in my town out of nowhere, and changed everything.

  I taste her skin, let my tongue dip into her belly button, which makes her squirm a little. I move one hand to her breast, and realize that I was so focused on my journey down, I neglected them gravely. I kiss my way back up her chest and marvel at the sight in front of me. Laura wasn’t lying when she said she was all in, because that’s exactly what I see in front of me: a woman ready for anything I’m willing to give.

  I let my tongue dart over her nipple while I squeeze her breast. And oh, the softness of another woman’s breast in my hand. I can’t help it, it makes me think of everything I missed during my years of unintended celibacy. Though, of this I’m certain, Laura was the one to wait for. Having her here now, her body squirming with pleasure at the touch of my tongue, was worth every minute of being single. Of making the choices that I made.

  I feast on her nipples, take my time with them, before meandering down again, my lips now on track, no more diversions allowed. I settle between her legs and just gaze in front of me for a few seconds. It’s too dark to see much, but I see enough. With Laura, I always saw enough to know I was looking at someone special. This is no exception. I bow down to kiss her there and, instantly, I’m entranced. For the Laura I know to allow me to do this, although I easily, and greedily, allowed her to do the very same thing to me earlier, unleashes a warm blend of love and lust in my flesh, all the way into my bones.

  I lick along her lips, avoiding her clit at first, still savoring, until I can’t take it anymore. Seeing Laura spread wide in front of me has destroyed the last ounce of patience I had left. I launch a full-on onslaught of licks onto her clit, while I press my fingers deep into the flesh of her behind. I lick as though my life itself depends on it. I lick until Laura goes stiff underneath me and her thighs push against my ears, and she lightly taps me on the head.

  I look at her from between her legs, at that big grin on her face and I can’t help but break into a wide smile as well. I climb up to meet her anew, because this time, when I look into her eyes, we’ll both be a slightly different version of ourselves. We’re lovers now and, no matter what happens in the future, nothing or no one can ever take away this night from us.

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” Laura says, which, in the sentimentality department hardly rivals my heartfelt ‘you’re amazing’ from earlier, but Laura and I are so different in so many ways that I can easily recognize it as her way of saying that she cares for me deeply.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  LAURA

  When I wake up, my bedroom is brightly lit from the outside. Socks pushes his nose against my cheek, his insistent purr loud in my ear. Next to me, Tess is still sunk into sleep, her breath coming slowly and from a deep place within her.

  “She’s sleeping the sleep of the utterly satisfied,” I whisper to Socks as I pick him up and put him on my chest, which makes him purr even louder. “Keep it down, Socks. You’ll wake my lady friend with your enthusiasm.”

  He gives one of his high-pitched kitten meows. His food bowl is probably empty.

  “I’m sorry I had to kick you out of bed, buddy.” I pull him a little closer. “It was for your own good.” Talking to my kitten, who has wormed his way into my heart from the very first second I laid eyes on him, fills me with a ludicrous sort of happiness. It doesn’t matter if I need to kick him off his preferred sleeping pillow to engage in night-time activities, he still seems over the moon at seeing my eyes open in the morning. “We may have to find you alternative sleeping accommodation because that pretty lady over there”—I glance over at Tess, who doesn’t stir—“might make a habit of spending the night.”

  I try to remember the last time I woke up in the same bed as someone else. After that fatal night with Tracy, I slept on Rachel’s sofa for more than a month. She invited
me to—purely platonically—share her bed, but I couldn’t bear crawling under the covers with another human being, not even with my best friend. The last time I woke up next to someone else like this, was the morning of the day I killed my wife. A day I’ll never forget.

  I had known from the moment she woke up that it would be one of those days. One of walking on egg shells, of my gut gripped by the terror of saying the wrong thing, the one sentence that might provoke her to action. Whereas she would start most days—99 out of a 100—by giving me a big hug in bed, that day she jumped out as soon as she woke up, as though I wasn’t even there. It was a Friday, and she often worked from home on Friday and I remember hoping, as I heard the water cascade down in the shower, that she’d be going into the office anyway. Because I always worked from home and, no matter what mood she was in, the energy in the house was always different when she was there as well. I never got as much done as I wanted to because, I realize now, my subconscious was too busy being afraid of what might happen.

  “Morning.” Next to me the sheets rustle and Tess turns toward me. Her face is all smiles and happiness and joy. “You completely exhausted me last night.” She shuffles a little closer, her knee touching my thigh with a little more force than she had probably intended. And I can’t help it, but I flinch. I always do.

  “I’m sorry,” Tess is quick to say. “Let me make that up to you.” She ducks under the covers and plants a slew of kisses where her knee landed against my thigh. “Is that better?” she asks when she re-emerges, her eyebrows drawn up, her face serious.

  “Come here,” I say, pushing all thoughts of Tracy to the back of my mind.

  “There’s no room for me up there,” she jokes. “You already have someone there.”

  “This little pussycat?” I scratch Socks behind the ears. “He was traumatized during the night by your uncontrollable moaning. I’m just comforting him.”

  “I guess Socks and I can share your affections.” Tess presses herself against my flank and kisses me on the cheek. “Did you sleep okay?”

  “I did.” I slip an arm underneath her neck and pull her close to me. “Though I was kept awake for a large part of the night by this woman who couldn’t keep her hands off me.”

  “Oh really?” Tess’s hand finds it way to my belly. “Like this?” She runs a finger around my belly-button, waking up all the parts of my body that were still slumbering. Her finger travels up and circles a nipple. “Tell Socks it’s my turn again,” she whispers in my ear, while two of her fingers clasp themselves around my nipple.

  “He’s not going to be happy,” I protest meekly. “Why don’t you tell him?”

  Tess pushes herself up and looks me in the eyes. “I want you, Laura. It doesn’t matter that we were up half the night. Having you hasn’t stopped my hunger for you. On the contrary. I want you even more now.”

  I put Socks on the floor and give him a little pat on his tiny body, then pull Tess close for a deep kiss. When she says things like that, I can feel her love for me radiate off her, can see it blazing in her eyes.

  “I want you too,” I say when we break from our kiss.

  Her fingers find my other nipple now and she clamps down hard, making my breath hitch in my throat.

  “Good.” She squeezes again, then throws the covers off us and trails her lips downward again the way she did last night. She halts at my breasts and swirls her tongue around my nipples and I glance at her mane of wild hair that spreads across my chest and I think, yes, I want this, I want this so badly, but I can’t be a hundred percent sure yet. It’s impossible. Being in a relationship again is bound to bring back memories, is bound to have me slip back into old, defensive behaviors. And there’s the ‘unknown’ factor. Though Tess is very different from how Tracy was, the enthusiasm of their affections from the very beginning is something they have in common. My relationship with Tracy started like a too-good-to-be-true fairy tale as well. I can never be certain.

  Because I’m thinking all of this while Tess’s fingers meander down and her lips stay fastened on my nipple, my body hardly responds when her finger circles around my clit. Yet, I don’t stop her. I want this. Not just for me, but for her as well. Tess is not Tracy, I repeat to myself, Tess is not Tracy.

  She must find wetness when her finger trails along my lips, because she easily slips in, which just goes to show that what the body does isn’t always aligned with what the mind is thinking, but I know from the first split second she’s inside of me that it will be a lost cause. I’m in my head too much and as much as I want to—so desperately—let go, I know I ruined it before she even started.

  “Tess.” I bring a hand to her hair, stroke her, while my other hand finds hers and I stop her motion. “Please.”

  She retreats instantly and looks up. “What is it?” Nothing but worry in her glance. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, absolutely not.” I curl my fingers around her wrist, not wanting to let go of it ever again. I feel foolish and stupid for ruining a beautiful moment. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

  “Tell me.” She shuffles upward until our gazes are aligned. “Talk to me, Laura. I want to know what you’re thinking.”

  Tell me what you’re thinking. One of Tracy’s classic lines when she was in full-on restitution mode. “I’m sorry, I just—it has just been a bit much.”

  “It’s fine,” Tess says, her hand lingering just above my breasts. “I understand.”

  Do you? I want to ask. How can you possibly understand? But this is not Tess’s fault. Maybe I’m just not ready for the light of the day to shine upon me when we do this.

  I shake my head, not as an expression of dismissiveness, but because I want to shake the self-pity off me. The one thing I’ve always tried very hard not to wallow in. Yes, bad things happened to me, and marrying Tracy was an awful decision in hindsight, but I didn’t know. If there were ever any clues as to the person she really was, I can’t hold it against myself any longer for not spotting them. I’m not psychic. I can’t read people’s innermost thoughts. I’m just a regular woman. I was a victim, but I’m not anymore.

  “Why don’t we take a shower?” I trail my finger through Tess’s hair. “You and me together.”

  “Okay.” Tess nods solemnly. “But, Laura, please know that you can talk to me about anything.”

  “I know. I do know that.” Here I go again. If there’s one thing that annoys me most about myself it’s this line that I keep repeating endlessly. “I will when I’m ready.”

  “And another thing.” A smile breaks through the grave expression on her face. “You’d better get used to me because I’m not going anywhere.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  TESS

  “Are you ready for this?” I ask Laura. Although she has come to dinner at the Douglas house a dozen times by now, this time is different. This time we’re together. A fact I wasn’t able to hide from Mom and Dad for one second when I came home after spending the night at Laura’s.

  “Of course I am.” Laura looks more scrumptious than ever, despite her wearing the same kind of white t-shirt she always wears. How would she react if I bought her a blue one as a present, or a red one? Her hair has grown back to the same length as when we first met. And every time she pulls back from me—every time the past catches up with her—I remember how she was when we first met. Her body language all defensive, her words not much more inviting. When she retreats in on herself and goes all silent, I hope she doesn’t blame herself for holding back on me, because, every day, I am witness to how much she has changed already.

  Moby sniffs her shoes and jeans, probably smelling Socks on them.

  “We should go inside,” Laura says, leaning into me a little.

  “I know.” I cup her cheeks in my hands. As soon as we go inside I won’t have her to myself anymore. There is so much still left to discover, so much left to learn. “Dad made a cake.”

  Mom hugs Laura like she is a long lost daughter returning home. “We w
ere so happy when Tess told us,” she says. I probably didn’t warn Laura enough about this, about how they can be. I should have known that their single daughter finding love would send them into overdrive. I’ve learned how to rein in my Douglas enthusiasm a little around Laura when the circumstances call for it, but my parents don’t know about Laura’s secret and Mom is extra switched on today.

  Laura smiles at her but then I have to look away because Dad thrusts me in the biceps with his elbow. I glance at him but he doesn’t say anything, just stands there giving me a thumbs-up with a big grin on his face. If I weren’t raised in this family, I’d surely be rolling my eyes at him but, unlike Laura, I’ve been blessed with the most supportive family that ever lived. And always, as has become a habit over the past few weeks, I can’t help but wonder what Laura’s thinking. Is it too late for her to experience the warmth of unconditional parental support the way I have? Does being here with my Mom and Dad remind her of her parents and how awfully they’ve treated her?

  “Sorry we’re late.” Megan and Toby barge in. “Emma and Max both have colds and Scott seems to be coming down with one as well.”

  Toby, just on the cusp, I think, of being too old to let us all kiss him, makes the rounds. I kiss him hard on the forehead.

  “I’ll make chicken soup,” Mom immediately says. “It will cure them in no time.”

  “Thanks for feeding us, Mommy.” Megan kisses Mom on the cheek. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  Once we’ve all sat down to dinner and drinks have been poured and plates filled, Dad raises his glass and says, “To Laura.”