Just when Laura was sure there was no way she could take any more, that she was quite simply going to die from the pleasure, Sophie took mercy on her. Finally, thankfully, she sank into her and covered Laura’s center with her entire mouth.
Laura’s groan of relief rumbled through the pillow and Sophie almost laughed when she heard it. She used the flat of her tongue to stroke the oversensitized flesh beneath it and circled her fingers inside. She felt the contractions begin almost immediately, grabbing at her fingers and trying to hold them within Laura’s body. Laura let go of Sophie’s hair, using both hands to keep the pillow clasped tightly over her face as she cried out her orgasm, her thighs clamping warmly over Sophie’s ears as her hips rose off the bed.
Sophie remained still as Laura relaxed. She could still feel the aftershocks pulsing against her tongue, her fingers. She gradually withdrew, grinning at the small gasps Laura let out as she did so. She sat up, running the palms of her hands along the outsides of Laura’s thighs, reluctant to stop touching her. She felt like something that had been locked up within her had just been set free. Laura’s chest was heaving as she pulled the pillow away from her face, dropping her arm to the bed like the dead branch of a tree. Her face, neck, and chest were flushed, the rosy tint visible even in the moonlight. Sophie continued to stroke her flank and when Laura’s eyes met hers, they were full of gratitude and contentment. She smiled, giving Sophie a shot of her dimples. Sophie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen something so gorgeous.
“Wow,” Laura commented, her voice a whisper.
“I’ll say,” Sophie replied, smiling down at her. She reached back and pulled the disheveled covers up from the foot of the bed.
“I can’t move any of my limbs,” Laura said with wonder in her voice.
Sophie chuckled. “I’ll take care of it.” She gathered Laura in her arms and shifted their bodies so Laura was cradled along her side in the small bed. She pulled the quilt up over their bodies.
“Wow,” Laura said again.
“Feel better?”
“Better? I feel unbelievable. That was amazing. You were amazing.”
Sophie felt her cheeks heat up and was glad Laura couldn’t see her face. “I was just obeying orders.”
“You follow direction well.”
“That’s what all my old report cards say.”
They lay quietly for a long while, listening to the silence of the wilderness around them. Ricky dropped to the floor from Sophie’s bed and then she felt him jump up onto the bed the two women now shared. He turned in a circle several times before settling between Laura’s ankle and Sophie’s.
“Laura?” Sophie whispered after a while.
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
Laura lifted her head from its spot on Sophie’s shoulder and looked into the rich, brown eyes as best she could in the moonlit darkness. “For what?”
“For trusting me to…help you.” At Laura’s embarrassed grimace, she rushed on. “It’s been a really long time since I was able to just let go, to just focus on the moment. You know? It felt good.”
Laura nodded. “I should be thanking you.” She smirked. “I think I got the better end of the deal.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.”
Laura blushed and settled back down into Sophie’s arms.
“Laura?” Sophie whispered again and she felt Laura smile against her skin.
“Hmm?”
“What were you dreaming about?”
Several beats went by before Laura finally asked, “What do you mean?”
“You were having a dream just before I came over here. You were whimpering and kicking the covers. What were you dreaming about?”
Laura pushed herself up once more and gazed down into Sophie’s face. “You really want to know?”
Sophie blinked several times to focus, still amazed to be holding such a beautiful creature in her arms. She stroked the warm, smooth skin of Laura’s arm as she nodded. “Tell me.”
“I was dreaming that I was in bed with you, that you were making love to me and taking your time and driving me absolutely insane.”
“Seriously?” Sophie couldn’t keep the shock from her voice.
“Seriously. And just when I was about to have an orgasm…”
“You woke up.”
“I woke up.”
“Man, that sucks,” Sophie sympathized, shaking her head.
“Actually, it worked out quite well, thank you very much.”
Sophie chuckled and rolled her eyes at herself. “Oh, yeah. I forgot for a minute.”
“Well, then, allow me to refresh your memory.” With that, Laura leaned forward and kissed Sophie with such tenderness and passion that it made her toes curl.
Ricky snuffled in disgust and made his way back over to Sophie’s empty bed.
Sunday, January 1
Fresh Tracks
Jo stood in the dining room holding a hot mug of coffee and looking out the window as the recently stoked fire crackled in the fireplace. A fresh blanket of crisp, white snow covered the land and made everything look sparkling and new. The sun had just broken over the horizon and the virgin snow glittered like tiny diamonds had been sprinkled across the ground. It was the one thing about winter that Jo loved the most…waking up to such beauty, as if the world had been scrubbed clean overnight. She sipped, watching the tail end of a doe disappear into the woods, and felt her heart swell as it always did for her love of nature.
She felt Amy’s approach before she heard her, so she was not surprised when arms wrapped around her from behind. Amy stood on her tiptoes and kissed the side of Jo’s neck, then rested her cheek against Jo’s shoulder blade and squeezed.
“Happy New Year, baby,” she said quietly, not wanting to disturb Darby, who was still sleeping on the couch.
Jo shifted her mug to one hand and turned slightly so Amy could duck under her arm and tuck herself snugly against Jo’s side. “Happy New Year to you.” They stood together, wrapped up in one another, gazing out the window. Jo kissed the top of Amy’s tousled red head.
“God, it’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Amy said. “I know I complain about winter sometimes. That I don’t like the cold or the driving. But it’s so pretty…it takes my breath away when it looks like this.”
She took Jo’s mug from her hand and sipped, not wanting to leave the view or the warmth of Jo’s embrace to get her own coffee. They watched a pair of chickadees at one of Amy’s many birdfeeders stuff themselves with a breakfast of sunflower seeds.
After a companionable silence, Jo commented, “Our friends all leave today.”
Amy sighed. “I know. I’m kind of bummed about it.”
“Me, too.”
“You are?”
“Sure. I’ve liked having them here.”
Amy squeezed her wife. “So have I. Do you think they had a good time?”
Darby’s voice surprised them both as she spoke from her cocoon of blankets on the couch. “If the noises I heard last night are any indication, they all had a good time.”
Jo laughed and Amy turned to regard her niece. Darby sat up and stretched, her dark hair sticking up at all angles. “What do you mean?” Amy asked.
“What do you mean ‘what do I mean?’ I mean there was a lot of sex going on in this house last night. You didn’t hear it?” Darby stood in her sweatpants and T-shirt and began folding her blankets. “Apparently, I’m the only one not getting any,” she muttered, making a face.
Amy crossed the room so she could interrogate Darby without others in the house hearing her. Jo rolled her eyes and went to get more coffee.
“What did you hear?” Amy demanded, her voice hushed. She huddled close to Darby as if about to receive a cryptic, secretive message.
Darby grinned and shook her head. “You are such a gossip, Aunt Ame. You’re worse than my mother.”
Amy slapped at her shoulder. “Tell me!” she hissed.
“Two of them were
going at it right after we went to bed. Then when I got up around three thirty to get a glass of water, somebody else was doing some heavy breathing.”
“Who do you think it was?”
“I don’t know!” Darby feigned indignence at the line of questioning. “It’s not like I was watching. But the math isn’t that hard. Add up the panting and squeaking bed springs…a groan here and there.” She shot a look at Aunt Jo when she returned from the kitchen with a fresh cup of coffee. “And when you two started in, I wanted to kill myself.” She shuddered. “Please. It’s like listening to my parents. Blech! Thank God for thick pillows.” With a teasing glance at Aunt Amy, she said, “You make a lot of noise.”
Amy had the good sense to blush and scratched her forehead in the hopes of covering it up.
Jo laughed outright. At Amy’s glare, she shrugged. “Sorry, honey. Truth hurts.”
The expression on Amy’s face told the other two that she was searching hard for a witty comeback. Failing, she sighed and headed for the kitchen to make breakfast. Jo followed.
Darby smiled and shook her head as she continued to neaten up the couch. She supposed it was a good sign that her aunts apparently had a healthy sex life. They’d been together forever and a day and she didn’t see any hints of the dreaded lesbian bed death that her older friends had mentioned or suffered from. It was easy for Darby to imagine becoming tired of the same woman day after day, night after night, and she wondered what that said about her. Her aunts evidently didn’t have that problem. Good for them, she thought with unexpected pride.
The sounds from the previous night really hadn’t bothered her all that much. What was so awful about listening to a woman’s pleasure, after all? She did wince when she’d picked out Molly’s, though. Darby had found herself torn between the stinging fact that it wasn’t her causing Molly to make such sounds and the fantasy of pretending she was causing it. She simultaneously envied and hated Kristin.
Rifling through her duffel bag, she thought about her cell phone for the first time since her arrival. It made her shake her head in wonder when she realized that she’d barely thought about Rebecca—the reason she was hiding out here at the cabin in the first place—at all in several days. Her cell phone was like an extension of her body, and it was highly unusual for her to just put it out of her head like she had. She was sure Julie must have left her a message or two.
“Or twelve,” she muttered in disbelief as she powered up the cell and noticed how many missed calls she had. Julie was going to skin her alive. She took a deep breath and dialed, resigned to her fate, as Kristin and Molly appeared from the stairs, hand in hand. Darby looked away, their tousled appearance and the glow on Molly’s face too much to take in at the moment.
“Morning,” Molly said cheerfully as she and Kristin entered the kitchen.
“Happy New Year,” Amy said, hugging one and then the other.
“Yes, it is.” Molly grinned as Kristin pulled her closer.
“Coffee?” Jo asked, holding up the pot. At the nods of consent, she pulled down two mugs and filled them.
“Looks like we got a little bit of snow,” Kristin observed, pushing some blond hair out of her eyes as she gazed out the window.
“Not a lot. Couple inches,” Jo said. “I’m going to go out and snow-blow in a few minutes. Do you two have a time in mind that you need to head out?”
Molly and Kristin looked at one another and Molly frowned. “We’ve got two cars. I totally forgot.”
“That’s okay,” Kristin said. “I’ll probably start out fairly soon. I have a couple stops to make.” Feeling Molly stiffen next to her, she squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. It’s okay. I’ll get a head start, make my stop, and still beat you home. It won’t take ten minutes.”
“Promise?” Molly’s voice was soft and her voice imploring.
“I promise.” Kristin kissed her tenderly on the mouth and her body sent her several sizzling flashbacks in quick succession...Molly waking her earlier by whispering in her ear, Molly’s knee nudging Kristin’s legs apart as Kristin lay on her stomach, not quite awake yet, Molly’s fingers slipping over Kristin’s ass and down to the wetness that awaited them between her thighs, Kristin pressing her face into the pillow to muffle her sobs of ecstasy.
It certainly was a hell of a way to welcome in the New Year. It also made Kristin 100 percent sure that it was the way she wanted to be with Molly from that moment on. Close. Playful. Sexy. Loving. All the things they used to be. She’d missed Molly so much. She hadn’t even truly realized it until that morning, and she was going to do everything in her power to keep from missing her again, even if that meant stomping into Jack Reeves’s office on New Year’s Day and telling him she quit. Which was exactly what she planned to do on her way home.
She was scared to death.
“Molly?” Kristin’s voice was barely audible, quiet enough for only her wife to hear her.
“Hmm?”
Kristin took a deep breath. “I need your help.” There. She’d said it.
“Sure, baby. With what?” Molly’s green eyes were open, curious. Just the sight of her gentleness and willingness to offer assistance made Kristin’s eyes well with tears.
“We’ll talk about it tonight.”
Molly studied her carefully, squinting and then nodding. “Okay. Tonight.”
Kristin let out a breath, surprised by how not hard it had been to ask Molly for help. She shook her head. God, I’m an idiot.
The ticka-ticka of canine nails coming down the bare steps interrupted any further conversation and suddenly, Ricky was jumping at Kristin’s legs. Then Molly’s. Then Amy’s. The group chuckled, each woman squatting to the level of the dog to lavish attention on him. Amidst the cooing and fur-scratching, Laura appeared, looking tired, disheveled, and smiley.
“Morning, everybody,” she said, her voice hoarse. She grabbed a jacket off the hook and stepped into her boots.
“Good morning, Laura.” Amy eyed her suspiciously.
As Laura and the dog headed out into the sunny, snow-covered morning, Jo nudged Amy and said, “You were staring at her.”
“Did you see the red mark on her neck?”
Jo burst into laughter.
“Told you.” Darby’s voice held a smile as she finished checking her messages and joined the group.
“Told you what?” Molly asked.
Jo raised her mug to her lips and just before sipping, said, “Apparently, you and Kristin weren’t the only ones getting it on last night.”
“Getting it—oh, God.” Molly clamped a hand over her eyes. Cheeks flushed bright red, she buried her face in Kristin’s shoulder.
Kristin held her tightly, enjoying the moment. Over her head, she regarded Jo and Amy. “Laura and Sophie? No way!”
“Unless you two were making the rounds up there last night,” Jo said with a wink.
Kristin laughed. “Afraid not. Good for them,” she said with satisfaction.
When Sophie came down the stairs a few minutes later and approached the chatting cluster, all five women did their best to look at anything but her. Sophie furrowed her brows. “All right. What’s going on?”
At the various murmurs of “nothing,” the five scattered in different directions. Amy and Molly hit the kitchen to start breakfast. Jo and Kristin dressed for outdoors. Darby busily dialed her cell. Sophie’s eyes darted around the room and she pressed her lips together to stifle a grin. We must have been louder than I thought.
She glanced out the window and saw Laura and Ricky wandering in the snow, leaving twin tracks in the otherwise untouched white. Surprisingly, waking up in the same small bed, wrapped up in one another, hadn’t been at all embarrassing. As a matter of fact, it had been nice. Very nice. The truth had given Sophie a minor bout of heart palpitations, but Laura’s reassuring smile had put her at ease.
“I’m not going to ask you for a thing, so don’t worry,” she’d said gently as if reading Sophie’s thought. The dimples were promin
ent in the morning light. “I just want to say thanks and that I’ve really, really, really enjoyed the past three or four hours with you. Happy New Year, Sophie.”
Relief had flooded Sophie’s system, along with…something else. “Happy New Year to you,” she’d said, kissing Laura warmly on the forehead.
“And right now, I really, really, really have to pee.” With that, Laura had struggled out of the too-small bed, hit the bathroom, and then taken Ricky downstairs.
Now, as Sophie finally tore her gaze away from the window, Darby was chatting on her cell. They made eye contact and Darby winked at her with a knowing smile.
Yep. Definitely louder than I thought.
*
Molly tried to tamp down the hint of panic that began to surface the second Kristin keyed the ignition of her Lexus. The window of the driver’s side slid down silently and Kristin smiled at her, blue eyes twinkling in the bright sunshine.
“You look worried,” Kristin pulled off her leather glove and stroked Molly’s cheek with her fingertips. “Trust me?” she asked quietly.
“Always.”
“Good.” She pulled Molly’s head partway through the window and kissed her soundly on the mouth. “I love you. I’ll be home before you get there. Please drive safely, okay?”
“You, too. Precious cargo.”
Molly stepped back as Kristin donned a pair of black sunglasses and rolled up the window. She looked so damn sexy, her blond hair loose around her shoulders and her face seeming more relaxed than it had in months, she took Molly’s breath away. Kristin followed the freshly cleared driveway in reverse out to the road. As she shifted into drive, she waved through the window at Molly and at her friends, who were gathered in a clump at the front door. She tooted the horn twice and was gone.
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