Beneath the Surface (Pink Bean Book 2)

by Harper Bliss

  Then there they stood. Naked from the waist up. Face-to-face. Two women who had only spoken on the telephone a short week ago. How quickly things could change. How the course of her life could be altered so drastically by one moment of bravery. Kristin reached for the button of Sheryl’s jeans, then let Sheryl slide them off her legs herself. Apparently, she hadn’t gone commando entirely throughout the day, because a pair of red panties were revealed. Kristin hadn’t expected the brazen color and the seductive cut, but what did she know?

  She pushed her own pants down. The linen slid off her legs easily and crumpled into a heap on the floor.

  “Come on.” Sheryl took her hand and together they walked the one step that removed them from the bed. They sat, awkwardly for a split second, until passion overrode all other emotions again, and they pressed their lips together as they tumbled down, their limbs all tangled up, onto the bed. Kristin felt every kiss in every cell of her body—and she hoped to soak up some of Sheryl’s experience by kissing osmosis.

  When they broke apart, Sheryl, lying half on top of her, said, “I’m so glad you came to that party.”

  “I’m so glad you were in charge of booze.”

  The skin around Sheryl’s eyes crinkled as she smiled down at her. The air grew silent around them. Serious. Sheryl leaned in and kissed her again, and this time, because of their state of undress and their position on the bed, it ignited a much fiercer round of fireworks in Kristin’s belly. She was ready to lose herself to this woman. To give herself up the way she’d never done before. It was time. And there was no doubt in her mind that she would, despite this being their first time.

  As Sheryl’s lips kept landing on hers, and her tongue slipped into her mouth, soft and sweet, Kristin was certain of so many things she had no right to be. She was a girl overflowing with common sense, with a clear head set upon her shoulders, who didn’t believe in things like this, until she lay kissing, half-naked, with Sheryl on the bed in a cabin in the mountains.

  Sheryl’s lips shifted to her cheek, then trailed a moist path down her neck, to finally stop at her breasts. Before taking one of Kristin’s peaked nipples in her mouth, she looked at it as though she had just unwrapped the greatest gift she’d ever received. When her lips did finally close around it, Kristin felt the their soft touch spread through her entire body, as though her blood had been set alight, and the touch of Sheryl’s tongue against her nipple was the match that had lit it.

  Sheryl divided her attention between both nipples and with one hand, kneaded Kristin’s small breasts, lifting them higher to her lips, drinking her in.

  She then lowered her attention, tracing her tongue to Kristin’s belly button, which she circled and flew right past, on her way down.

  Kristin’s clit pulsed hard against the fabric of her panties. How could she be so aroused so quickly already? Petra had never been able to do that to her. Then she stopped wondering about the how, and surrendered to the now, because Sheryl’s lips kissed a path along the waistband of her panties. Then her tongue followed the same line, moistening Kristin’s skin as she felt her pussy grow wetter and wetter.

  Kristin felt a finger flit along the panel of her panties, light and enticing. A split second later, her swollen lips were exposed to the air as Sheryl’s finger drew her panties down, pulling them off her in a swift movement.

  Kristin’s muscles tensed for a beat, then relaxed. What if this was the first time with the woman she would spend the rest of her life with? How significant did that make this moment of baring it all?

  Kristin lost her train of thought again when she felt Sheryl’s finger, for the very first time, run along the length of her nether lips.

  Kristin delved her fingers in Sheryl’s hair while she let her legs fall farther apart. For Sheryl, she wanted to spread herself as wide as possible, make her feel as welcome as she could.

  Sheryl’s finger flitted lightly over her lips, circled her clit, which was ready to explode with anticipation. They hadn’t talked much about Sheryl’s former lovers, but everything about her exuded a sort of confidence that Kristin believed could only come with vast experience. Sheryl knew how to touch a woman, that much was certain, and Kristin was a woman who had waited a very long time to be touched. In that respect, they were already perfect for each other.

  It wasn’t just Sheryl’s exploring finger causing Kristin’s heartbeat to skyrocket. It was, perhaps even more so, the position of her head and where it indicated her gaze was fixed.

  For a split second, Kristin wondered whether Sheryl was part of a group at university that huddled together in a circle and got their hand mirrors out to look at their nether regions, as an act of self-love or whatever they called it. Sheryl kind of struck her as the type. It came with the assuredness she displayed, and the light but deft touch with which her finger moved all over her, now applying some more pressure, its tip slipping slowly inside of her.

  Kristin bucked up her hips in anticipation. Somehow feeling Sheryl’s finger slide inside of her represented the pinnacle of this lovely day they had spent together. Perhaps Kristin would come, perhaps she wouldn’t—she didn’t have enough experience to predict the outcome—but it didn’t matter, because this moment, the one in which Sheryl, with a brand-new sense of determination about her, slid high inside of her, was already everything.

  Sheryl’s lips touched down on her skin again. Her tongue shot down. Another finger was added. Kristin had been so wrong. All her senses were flooded with exquisite sensation. The smell of the trees outside mixed with the scent of her urgent arousal. Sheryl’s one hand on her belly, the fingers of the other inside of her. The sight of Sheryl’s head moving gently up and down. And then, the best of everything, Sheryl’s tongue on her clit.

  “Oh Jesus Christ,” Kristin moaned. Sheryl’s fingers kept delving, causing a delicious tingle to run through her with every thrust, but what was really doing her in was Sheryl’s tongue flicking over her clit like that. She’d gone from gentle to frantic in a matter of seconds and Kristin felt it everywhere.

  Something inside of her belly started contracting, then spread to her sex, and though fully expected, the intensity of it surprised Kristin. She got a sense she was howling profanities but was deaf to the sound of her own voice as the climax tore through her. The very first orgasm delivered by Sheryl’s hands. God, those hands. The thought of them caused another ripple of pleasure to wash all over her. The ripples kept on coming, zapping all the energy from her, leaving her limbs loose and muscles drained.

  Sheryl crawled up to her, peppering her cheek and neck with the lightest of kisses, then gazing down at her again, the way she had done before her excursion south. There was a different kind of sparkle in the blue of her eyes. Perhaps caused by the shifting light outside, or perhaps by something else. Either way, Kristin interpreted it as the two of them being on the exact same page: the first one of their long history together.

  Chapter Seven

  “Hey.” No matter how many times she’d woken up in this very bed, Sheryl always seemed to forget the racket the birds made at first light—which came at an ungodly hour at this time of the year. When she’d opened her eyes a beat earlier, she’d found Kristin awake and looking at her already. “Sorry about nature’s alarm clock.”

  “Don’t be. It’s magnificent,” Kristin said. “It reminds me I should get out of the city more.”

  “It would be even more magnificent if they kept it down until at least after six o’clock.” Sheryl theatrically flopped her pillow from under her head and pressed it to her ears.

  “Don’t be such a drama queen.” Kristin shuffled closer to her, her warm body pressing against Sheryl’s underneath the sheets.

  “No one has ever accused me of being that before.” Sheryl looked at Kristin from underneath the pillow. At her sleep-crusted eyes, and the way the skin around her temples wrinkled ever so lightly. Crows’ feet so light, they were probably only visible in this light. Perhaps only at this particular time of the da
y, when the birds were chirping, and Sheryl’s eyesight might have gotten a boost from the massive orgasm she’d had only a few hours earlier.

  “There’s a first time for everything then.” Kristin pried the pillow from between Sheryl’s fingers.

  “Oh yes,” Sheryl said, “there most certainly is.”

  “Anyway, it serves you right. You shouldn’t have kept us up half the night with your… shenanigans.” Sheryl could feel Kristin’s breath on her cheek.

  “Is that what you call it? Shenanigans?” In one fluid motion, Sheryl pushed herself off her side and on to Kristin, her knee pressing between her legs.

  “How do you call it in the Gender Studies department? Making sweet, sweet love?”

  You would never know by looking at her, but Kristin had a sharp sense of humor hidden underneath that proper exterior of hers. And all the things she had shown Sheryl last night. If anything, it was Sheryl who felt she’d been left behind by Kristin’s abandon. Sheryl with her years of experience, who was out and proud, and who had at least one discussion about the female orgasm every week.

  Perhaps Sheryl had been too ambitious in wanting to add the gravitas this cabin gave to her actions. The memories she had here, though certainly not all good, were of such nostalgic force that they couldn’t be ignored. She’d been a fool to have tried. She also knew that there was only one way to dispel the power the cabin still held over her. She had to tell Kristin. She kissed her on both cheeks, then slid off Kristin’s body, keeping an arm slung around her waist.

  “We mostly just call it fucking,” Sheryl said, knowing how blunt that sounded.

  “How lovely.” Kristin was still smiling.

  “We can hardly call it intercourse when that doesn’t apply to a big percentage of people.”

  “So fucking is the politically correct way of calling it?”

  “It sure is.” How was Sheryl even going to broach the subject? She couldn’t say something like that while they were lounging in bed—and, quite possibly, about to fuck again.

  “I would never have guessed. Good thing I have you now to school me in all things PC.” Kristin ran her nails over Sheryl’s arm. “Good thing indeed.”

  “How about some breakfast?” Sheryl asked.

  Kristin shrugged. “Depends. Do I need to go outside and pick my own berries?” She clasped her fingers around Sheryl’s forearm. A sign Sheryl couldn’t—and didn’t want to—misinterpret.

  “You are a princess here. You don’t have to do a thing.”

  “I do hope that’s a declaration of intent for the rest of our affair.”

  Sheryl chuckled while being very aware of the warmth spreading through her flesh at the mention of the rest of their affair. “I mean here, in this cabin only, of course.”

  “I guess we’ll have to move here then once we—inevitably—move in together next month.”

  Sheryl laughed out loud. There was a lightness to Kristin, not only to her physical body, but to her spirit, that drew her in. Perhaps it was the sort of lightness that came with living a charmed life, which for Sheryl, was a life with two parents who loved you and were there for you.

  “I guess I’m more than you bargained for when you told me I was on the guest list for the LAUS party.” Kristin rolled on her side, facing Sheryl.

  “So much more.” Sheryl kissed her on the tip of the nose. “You’re a true delight, the likes of which I haven’t encountered in a long while, maybe forever.”

  “And you’re such a natural charmer.”

  They kissed and Sheryl forgot about what she wanted to tell Kristin, though, of course, it was a thing she could never truly forget about, no matter how many delightful women she kissed.

  Sheryl brewed coffee in the ancient coffeemaker. Surely it couldn’t be the same one that her mother had used when they came here together, but somehow her memories had blended together so that Sheryl believed it was. Her mother had pressed that button and the cabin had filled with the smell of coffee long before Sheryl had tasted it.

  She watched the water drip slowly into the filter. Kristin was in the shower, giving Sheryl time to lay out breakfast and contemplate why she wanted to tell Kristin. Why it felt like a hurdle she needed to jump over in order for the relationship she wanted to have with Kristin to be true. Perhaps being surrounded by self-proclaimed truth speakers for most waking hours of her life hadn’t missed its effect.

  “I like the smell of that.” Kristin walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her.

  “And I like the sight of that.” Sheryl felt a tenderness wash over her. An inclination to move forward, not only physically—as in take a few steps into Kristin’s direction—but forward with everything. She made a pact with herself that, before she allowed herself to touch Kristin, whose freshly-showered body held so much appeal, again, she’d have to tell her. She’d have to give up this crucial part of her. She’d have to share her burden. She squared her shoulders, as though the mere act of doing so could chase away the breaking waves of lust in her blood. But they were forging a connection, a bond not easily broken.

  “Come sit outside with me?” Sheryl asked. “The berries are picked and breakfast is ready.”

  When they sat, side by side, overlooking the vista in the golden morning light, Sheryl was struck by the beauty of everything, as if the same view she’d seen a hundred times had suddenly amplified its attractiveness. She could also hear Caitlin's voice in her head: Oh, what pheromones can do to you.

  “When I came here with my mother, she always sat right here, in this very chair,” Sheryl started. “When I was a child, I didn’t care much for the view. I was just running around between the trees, trying to get my mom to play with me, but she wasn’t really the playing type. She’d just sit here, smoking, watching over me.”

  “How old were you when she died?”

  “Twelve.” Sheryl tried to keep her voice free of tremors. She stared straight ahead. At the same tree her mother used to stare at endlessly. “She killed herself. It ruined my dad. Me as well a little, I guess.”

  “Oh no.” Kristin turned toward her. “I’m so sorry.”

  Sheryl kept looking ahead, but she felt Kristin’s gaze on her. “It was a long time ago. They didn’t tell me it was suicide at first. I only found out when my father blurted it out in a drunken fit a day before the funeral.”

  “Jesus.” Kristin shuffled in her seat.

  Sheryl felt the lightest touch of a hand on her knee. “I didn’t believe him at first. I didn’t believe my mother would leave me like that. I couldn’t understand why she would do that.” Sheryl believed she wasn’t doing such a bad job of recounting the facts. Her hands remained steady, her voice calm. “Officially, I lived with my father, but my Aunt Rita stepped in a lot. She came round all the time, often took me home with her, fed me, bought me a new school uniform once in a while.” She shrugged. “All things considered, I turned out all right.”

  “My goodness, Sheryl. No child should go through something like that.”

  “Yet children go through so many things.” Sheryl finally turned to face Kristin. “Many through much worse than I did.”

  Kristin shook her head. “It’s good that you told me.” She reached for Sheryl’s hand and held it firmly between hers.

  “It’s not something I go around shouting off rooftops, as you can imagine. Not many people know this about me, but ever since we arrived here yesterday, I’ve felt compelled to tell you. To explain myself to you better. Not to gain your sympathy. But I needed you to know this about me.”

  Kristin nodded. “This place must be full of memories.”

  “It was an impulsive decision to bring you here, but it felt right.” Sheryl squeezed Kristin’s hand. “So many things about you feel right.”

  “I know that feeling.” Kristin brought their hands to her mouth and planted a soft peck on one of Sheryl’s knuckles. “I feel like I should tell you something dreadful that happened to me in my childhood, but I was a pampered only chi
ld of Korean immigrants. My parents’ only fault is that they can’t really fathom the fact that their daughter might be a lesbian. It seems so foolish now. I feel foolish for not telling them.”

  “We all have our own cross to bear.”

  “Perhaps, but some are heavier than others.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything. This isn’t a quid pro quo. I just didn’t want this to be something I would tell you in a few weeks’ time. Didn’t want it to be something I had kept from you. But that’s all it is. As I said, I think I turned out rather well.”

  “You turned out one fine woman.” If Kristin scooted any closer, she’d be sitting on Sheryl’s lap. “Can I ask a follow-up question?”

  “Sure.”

  “You never see your father?”

  Sheryl felt her muscles deflate. “I haven’t seen him in years. I had to let him go, for my own sanity. I tried taking care of him for a long time, but nothing I ever did helped. When Mom died, he disappeared as well. He checked out.” Sheryl decided to keep that particular, equally painful conversation for another time. Out of sight was definitely not out of mind. She thought of her father often, of that shell of a man, drinking the rest of his life away. “I think I’m ready to change the subject now.” She tried a smile but didn’t manage to pull her lips all the way into one convincingly. “Let’s talk about you now.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kristin didn’t know how to keep a straight face, how to not communicate all these things she felt blazing inside of her to her parents, who were still the people who knew her best. Not in all ways, of course, but surely, in more ways than Kristin felt comfortable contemplating.