Dru pursed her lips and gave Amie a second of side-eye. “I’m not. I already knew it was Chris.”
“You . . . Oh.”
“But I’m really glad you told me. Thank you.” Another sip.
Amie couldn’t read Dru’s expression. If she was mad, she wasn’t showing it, and that seemed like a good thing—but her unearthly calm made Amie nervous. “Fuck. I should’ve said something sooner. I shouldn’t have let it go this long.”
“Yeah. But you were worried about your job. And a few days probably wouldn’t have made much difference. All the damage was done while the hack was still active.” Sighing, Dru put the glass down on the coffee table, toed her shoes off, and tucked her feet up under her. She shifted to the side, her elbow on the back of the couch, so she could face Amie. “I get it.”
“Still. I’m sorry.”
Dru nodded. “I know. So, you want to hear about my night at the club?”
Amie was no longer sure she wanted to hear about that, since it had clearly been horrible, but it seemed rude to say so. “Sure?”
“So, first of all . . . nobody but the home team showed.”
“Nobody?”
“Goose egg. Bagel. Total ghost town.” She leaned over and took another large swig of wine.
“Fuck.” That was worse than Amie’s worst fears. “So I guess that explains closing early.”
Dru’s glass was mostly empty by the time she put it down. “Not closing early. Closing. Indefinitely. Put a sign on the door and a statement on the web page. Tomorrow I want you to take the whole scheduling part of the site down. You know . . . turn it off or whatever it is you do. The staff just got paid, so most of them want to ride it out a few days and see what happens. Which is really, really nice of them. I hope they are all actually at home right now looking for new jobs, though.”
Amie chuckled. “I have been.”
“Smart. Yeah, I . . .” She shook her head and closed her mouth. “Anyway, that part of the night was fairly uneventful. It was later that things got interesting. When I walked out to find Hayden flinging empty cleaner jugs from his trunk into the dumpster.”
“Whaaaaaaat.”
“Mm-hmm. So I assume you knew he was with Chris—I’m sorry, Master Cool . . . my God—and that they broke up?”
“Um.” Amie squirmed uncomfortably, taking her own shoes off to buy herself a moment to try to remember. “I guess, maybe? Honestly, I tried not to look at Chris whenever we were there at the same time. I’d seen him playing with Hayden a few times because Hayden’s kind of hard to miss, but I didn’t know they were an item or anything. Onyx can be kind of like . . . high school levels of relationship intrigue? I tried to ignore as much of that as I could.” Especially when it came to the gay male regulars, who simply didn’t interest her at all unless they were fine with being beaten by female tops.
“I’m getting more wine.” Dru rose, scooping her glass up and heading for the kitchen. “Top you off?”
“No, thanks. When was the last time you ate?”
Dru paused with her hand on the bottle, looking thoughtfully into space again. “Good question. I guess I might want to do that.” She refilled the glass first. Then she grabbed a plate from the cabinet and rooted around in the refrigerator and pantry for a minute or so, quickly arranging some grapes, three strawberries that looked like they were on their last good day, and a large handful of buttery crackers. The pièce de résistance was, to Amie’s horror, a can of spray cheese.
“No. Dru, No.”
“Oh yes.” She stuck the can under one arm so she could free up her other hand for the wine. She snagged the glass between two fingers, then managed to grab the bottle by the top with her ring and pinky finger, and bring it along to the coffee table as well.
“That isn’t food.”
“It says it’s food right on the label.” Dru pointed. “‘Cheese food.’ Right there.”
Amie shook her head adamantly. “That is not what that means.”
“It’s going in my mouth and you can’t stop me.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Do you want to hear the rest of this or not?” Without waiting for an answer, Dru popped the top off the cheese can and started decorating crackers with the slimy golden goo. “So Hayden is throwing these cleaner jugs in the thing. And he hears me come out and freezes like a puppy you’ve caught peeing on the rug. At first I admit I was kind of freaked out, because it’s a dark alley, I’m alone, he’s enormous. And I think, ‘Hey, he’s the bad guy.’ But it’s Hayden, you know?”
“He can kick ass if he must, but unprovoked he is one hundred percent a fluff nugget.”
“Yep. So after he stammers his way through some words, I realize he is saying he didn’t do it, his ex did. His ex, Chris, who wants Hayden to come back to him and to Onyx, not necessarily in that order. Did you know you were working with a crazy, stalking motherfucker?” She shoved half a “cheese”-laden cracker in her mouth and munched with an expression of polite inquiry on her face.
A crazy motherfucker but with better eating habits than some, I bet. “I did not. I thought I was just working with an enormous asshole. But that’s good to know, obviously.”
“Mmph. Mm-hmm.” Yeah, Dru washed the cracker and noncheese substance down with some of the decent sauvignon blanc. Being an adult was so riddled with contradiction sometimes. “Anyway. He shows me these texts from Chris telling him that Escape is done for, and also to look in the trunk of his car. Where Chris had lovingly left the empty cleaner bottles from his prank with the cans, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. And also telling Hayden, in this text, that he should be thankful Chris didn’t contact me first and tell me to look in there.”
“That guy is a prince.” Ignoring the fake cheese, Amie took a cluster of grapes. “But what was he hoping to do? Set Hayden up to get fired?”
“At first. He thought Hayden would get the blame for the canned food thing because he was the one cleaning the bathrooms that night. But when it seemed like that hadn’t worked, I guess he decided he wanted to shut the whole club down. Hence the hacking.”
“Fuck. What an evil, malicious fuck.”
“Yes.” Dru raised her glass. “To the people who finally let me know about the evil fuck. And now you’ll have to give me about ten minutes to send Gavin a fairly epic email, since I think it’s kinda late to call him. Unless you need to get home?”
“No, no. Go right ahead.”
It took closer to thirty minutes. Amie played a game on her phone while waiting, and ate fruit—and even, finally, a few crackers coated with swirls of cheese “food”—and Dru ate many cheesy crackers and drank about three-quarters of the bottle of wine. By the time she hit Send, she was the tipsy Dru that Amie remembered from college. Flirty and amorous.
“We could fool around before you go,” Dru suggested, returning to the couch and practically bouncing when she sat. She still wore the loosely draped, halter-topped black jumpsuit she’d had on at the club. With no bra under it, bouncing caused a dangerously tempting amount of jiggling.
Amie shook her head sadly. “Not if you’ve been drinking. You know better.”
“I don’t mean a scene, silly. I said fool around.” Dru leaned in with a catlike smile, running one hand from Amie’s knee to her hip. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”
Even through her jeans, Amie had felt the sensual tug of Dru’s touch, as if her nipples and pussy were connected to that patch of thigh. She wanted more. Hours of it, days of it. She wanted Dru to be in pain for some of it, yes. But not necessarily for all of it.
This was a thing people did. Fooling around. She could do this. Just because she hadn’t been successful with it in the past didn’t mean she could never become successful at it. And what was the harm in giving it another shot?
“So we . . . jump in and make it up as we go along?”
Dru snickered. “People don’t usually negotiate before fooling around.”
Amie thought they maybe did somet
imes. But, like her, they did it in subtle ways and reaped the unspoken rewards later. Still, she was willing to go along for the ride once. She trusted Dru.
Like a lightning bolt, that hit her again hard. She trusted Dru. She’d been through some disappointments, some betrayals, but Dru had never been the one to let her down. Dru, who was currently sliding her hand up Amie’s side to fondle the underside of her breast, had never taken advantage of Amie’s vulnerability to screw her over. All that Dru had ever done was this—open the door and invite her in. Offer herself with an honest heart and a smile.
Amie swallowed, then layered her fingers over Dru’s, tracking the progress of her hand toward her nipple. “Okay, then. Let’s do this.”
Three glasses of wine, even on a somewhat empty stomach, were not enough to impair Dru very significantly. Certainly not enough to cloud her judgment about sex. But it did give her a warm glow, and add a hint of spice to what she’d already decided to do anyway. The feeling of recklessness, without the stupidity or danger.
She was tired, and sad, and lonely, and anxious, and she wanted a warm, affectionate body on hers. It had been a horrible week, and she wanted to snuggle into somebody, drown her sorrows some other way than by drinking. And she didn’t want the work of a scene, the thinking, the parameters. A wave of nostalgia—not sad, but poignant—washed over her. If Padma had still been alive, this would have been one of their nights to read or mess around on laptops in front of the fireplace, gently playing footsie on the couch, hardly talking, taking comfort in the quiet company. That same mood would have followed them into bed, resulted in a gentle make-out session, nothing like a scene.
But Padma was gone, and Dru could even think about her without crying now, most of the time. And she was learning new ways to cope with things like bad days, because that was what you did. You moved on, whether you thought you were ready for it or not. Your heart decided things all on its own.
What she wanted, ideally, was a good, uncomplicated fuck. Amie was not the best place to go for that, because nothing about Amie was uncomplicated. But she was the only one who felt right. Smelled and tasted right. Said the right things, even when it wasn’t exactly what Dru wanted to hear. She was more than merely the one who was closest. She was the one Dru’s heart had decided on. It had taken so much willpower not to climb into her lap earlier and cling to her and cry.
It was possible Amie only agreed to try the no-parameters fooling around out of guilt. Dru pushed that thought aside. She couldn’t see into Amie’s brain. If she started second-guessing motives, she’d drive herself nuts. And the events of the last few months were already conspiring to do that; no further help was needed. Right now, the only thing Dru wanted to think about was whether to keep them on the couch for a sense of spontaneity, or move to the bed for more space and comfort.
A bed. Amie in an actual bed. God, had that ever happened? Dru couldn’t remember a single occasion. Not lately, not back when they’d first known each other. There had to have been times, but nothing came to mind. Once upon a time she’d dreamt of it, long convoluted dreams that left her with emotions upon waking that she’d been too uncomfortable to examine closely.
“Hey.” She stood up and held out her hand. “C’mon.”
Amie clasped her hand and stood as well, looking puzzled. “What?”
Dru nodded toward the bedroom and started walking. “C’mon.”
“In there?”
“Yeah. More room to roam. Blankets. Pillows. It’s great, you’ll love it.”
Amie followed, but stopped a few feet from the bed when Dru dropped her hand. She watched as Dru stripped the throw pillows and comforter away and threw them on the floor under the window. She was still rooted there when Dru came back and cupped Amie’s face in her hands.
“Do you really want to do this?” She expected hesitation, but Amie didn’t show any.
“Yes.”
Dru leaned in to kiss her, starting slowly. Lingering at each stage before sinking deeper into things. Lips, soft and giving, parting just enough for a heated breath to escape. Tongues, questing for one another, velvety explorers. Teeth, restrained this time, only exerting the gentlest pressure. Dru thought Amie would give in and bite, but she didn’t. She undressed Dru instead, quickly and efficiently. Easy enough to do since the jumpsuit had only one clasp at the neck, and one hook and zipper at the waist.
It took Dru more time to get Amie’s clothes off. The T-shirt first, uncovering an adorably lacy turquoise bra. No industrial-strength hooks this time.
“That’s super cute.”
“Thanks. I didn’t plan for anyone to see it, just got lucky.”
“Well, not yet,” Dru said with a grin. “But soon.” She reached around Amie to unhook the bra, let it slide to the floor, then spent some quality time fondling and plumping and kissing and sucking, because boobs were so much fun. But eventually she got around to the jeans, skinnies that Amie had to wriggle out of. Amie’s thong was plain beige, a mild disappointment after the turquoise bra surprise. They took their underwear off in tandem, then hit a lull in the proceedings.
Amie cleared her throat and gestured toward the bed. “You first.”
Dru raised her eyebrows. “God, you’re a goober. Come on.”
She took Amie’s hand again and pulled her onto the bed, until they were lying side by side, facing each other, legs interlaced. Then Dru preempted any further awkwardness with another kiss. Then another. And another, until Amie started to melt into her, and their hands and mouths began to roam freely.
Still, Dru could sense a lingering tension, something in the set of Amie’s shoulders or the feel of her lips. She knew it was probably pointless to demand more—that she could fuck it all up, scare Amie off, ruin this one chance at messing around for the hell of it, with no expectations to live up to. But she couldn’t help herself.
“So.” She slung a leg over Amie’s hip and rolled her onto her back, gently weighing her down. “Vanilla people don’t negotiate, it’s true. But. But. They can still tell each other what they want.”
“Okay,” Amie said hoarsely, moving her legs restlessly and arching into Dru. “What do you want?”
“Nuh-uh.” Dru braced her arms and lifted her upper body, using the angle to press her hips down into Amie’s. “Tell me what you want.”
Comprehension dawned behind Amie’s eyes. “Ahhh. Your evil master plan. Seduce me, then get me to give up my secrets, huh?”
Nodding, Dru ground her hips, shifting her legs, playing with different points of contact. Amie’s body felt so different under hers than Padma’s, but that awareness didn’t carry any sorrow with it now. A physical adjustment, a fond memory, a recognition that one thing wasn’t replacing another—that she could enjoy this and not lose any of what she’d had with Padma. She had room enough in her heart for both. “Yeah, I’m pretty fucking nefarious. How about this? I’m always telling you what I want. What my limits are. How about you tell me . . . three things you want. It could be something you want me to do to you. Something you want to do to me. Something you’ve always wanted to try. Whatever. Not kinky stuff.”
Something like panic flickered over Amie’s face, but she shook it off. “This feels surprisingly kinky, though.”
“You sure it doesn’t just feel novel?”
“What, grinding and talking while naked? No, I’ve done that plenty.” Amie put her hands on Dru’s shoulders and lifted her hips, countering Dru’s movements. The sudden change turned Dru’s arousal up a notch.
“Depends on what you’re talking about, though, doesn’t it? Three things.”
“Or what?”
Dru shook her head, refusing to dignify that with a response.
Amie sighed. “More topping from the bottom.”
“Nope. I’m topping from the top. But not really, because it’s vanilla, right? There is no top. There is no bottom.”
“There is no try?”
The line was enough to startle Dru into momentary stillnes
s. “Oh my God. Did somebody finally get you to watch the Star Wars movies?”
Amie rolled her eyes. “Mara. So many times. She has T-shirts. And . . . action figures.”
“I like her. Okay, three things.”
“Are you really going to make me do this?” Amie went for a pout. It was cute, but not enough to sway Dru.
“I wasn’t at first, but the more you resisted the more determined it made me,” she confessed. “So now it’s a must.”
“Vanilla is stupid.”
Dru laughed. “Oh, nothing with you is ever really vanilla.” She bent and kissed Amie firmly. “Take a risk. Come on, hotshot. Do it for the team.”
“Don’t—you’re terrible at the sports thing, don’t try to do that. Okay. Let me think a second . . . Well, one, if this isn’t really vanilla, then I want to be able to hurt you at least some. Like, a little biting and some spanking. Cheesy vanilla-style spanking, I guess. Not enough to leave marks.”
“Okay, sure.” This was turning into the most-negotiated session of fooling around ever, perhaps, but it was still sort of fun. She worked her hips some more, keeping things at a simmer. “Two?”
“Two. Anything I want? It’s . . . No, never mind. It’s weird.”
“Ames.”
Amie squirmed, trying to roll them and get on top, but Dru managed to keep her spot. Finally Amie stopped struggling with an ugh. “Fine. I want to . . . come first.”
“Okay. You mean like . . . Is this getting into orgasm denial? That isn’t very van—”
“No, no,” Amie reassured her, stroking down her sides, then fondling the outer curves of her butt. Digging her nails in, but only lightly. “I mean I want to get off first. I never do that, or not on purpose. If somebody else is there, I mean. I want it to be its own . . . thing.”
The nails were good, a perfect nip of discomfort. Enough to let Dru know she was being touched, but not so much that the pain became the main feature. “Mmm. Fair enough. You come first. And number three?”
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