by Sandy Lowe
Ryan eased down her body, pulling Sarah’s dress along with her, down her hips and off. “Do you think she knew that she’d been making you crazy?”
“I think that was her plan when I walked in. She sauntered over to our table, asked if we liked the show. Her voice was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. Like the purr of a Jaguar at eighty miles an hour.”
Ryan lifted her ankle and kissed her toes. “Were you wearing these fuck-me heels?”
“Not this pair.”
“You have others?”
“I may have a slight weakness. I’m in recovery. It’s under control.”
Ryan snorted. “You like the way they make your ass perky and your legs endless, even though you’re short.”
Sarah didn’t like being called short, but she couldn’t deny it. No woman would walk around in five-inch heels unless they made her feel good about herself. Ryan ran her hands slowly up the insides of Sarah’s thighs, and everything inside her clenched like a fist. Pulsed. When Ryan brushed her fingers against the silky material of Sarah’s panties, the fist melted and her muscles pooled to sticky honey. She fell back against the blanket, her thighs falling open. She was completely helpless against the tide of need. “Please, Ryan.”
“You’re not finished yet. When you’re finished, you get to come.”
Sarah whimpered. The scent of her arousal perfuming the air. “I said something stupid, like, for sure, or something like that. I couldn’t think. I looked at Avery for help. What I saw in her eyes made it worse.”
Ryan pressed a finger to her clit through her panties, and the sound Sarah made was pitifully needy. She shuddered. “Please hurry.”
“What did you see on Avery’s face?”
“That she liked it. She knew I was turned on and enjoyed watching me try to keep it together. We’re friends and nothing like that had ever happened before. I was surprised.”
“And aroused.” Ryan hooked a thumb around the ribbons holding her panties up and tugged, dragging them down her legs.
“Yes.” She blushed. So wrong in the very best way to find Avery watching her. She had a poker face Sarah could only dream of mastering, but her eyes were bottomless. Avery was turned on by watching her get turned on, and that only made her wetter. The need to come, for this sexy stranger, for her best friend, ticked mercilessly close to detonation. “The stripper asked if I wanted a lap dance. My mind just about exploded. No way would I survive a lap dance. I just stared at her.”
Ryan stroked a finger from her clit all the way down her pussy.
“Oh yes. That. Just that.”
Ryan’s hand stilled. “Tell me the rest.”
“When I couldn’t speak, Avery asked me if I wanted the dance. She was really asking if I wanted the stripper to make me come, right there at the table, while she watched. My face was on fire, but I was so hot I didn’t care. I told her yes.”
Ryan groaned, circled her clit. “So. Fucking. Sexy.”
Sarah canted her hips forward, wanting more, wanting Ryan inside. “I have to come.”
“As much as you had to come with the stripper in your lap and Avery watching?”
“So much more. Please. I can’t wait.” Ryan’s mouth covered her pussy. She thrust her tongue inside Sarah and her body bowed, her pussy gushing her desire directly on Ryan’s tongue. “Oh, fuck yes.” Color exploded behind her eyelids as Sarah shoved her fingers into Ryan’s hair and rode her face. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.” So close.
“Finish it.”
The words were barely audible as Ryan licked her pussy in fast strokes, ratcheting up the sensation until she was sure she’d shatter from the tension twisting every muscle in her body. “They exchanged cash and the stripper sat on my lap. Not all the way, that just barely touching thing they do. Her breasts were in my face and she was too tall so her ass stuck up in the air every time she moved. It was filthy. It felt so good. I heard Avery’s quiet gasp, and knowing that she was watching, that she was probably wet, made me crazy, brought me right to the brink.”
Past talking now, Ryan sucked Sarah’s clit, her breath coming out in pants and washing over Sarah’s thighs.
I’m going to come any second. The knowledge came right on the heels of I haven’t finished the story, and she hurried to tell the rest, her words tumbling over themselves as her mind began to shut its doors, all her circuits in crisis mode, alert and focused on the rhythm of Ryan’s tongue and the impending destruction of her sanity. “Then the stripper broke the rules, she sat fully in my lap, her pussy pressed right against my crotch, and whispered, ‘Are you going to come, sweetheart?’ I wanted to, I wanted to, but…” Her heart started to pound, the memory of the anxiety she’d felt at being disloyal to Melinda pushing its way into the present. “Ryan, I…”
Ryan lifted her mouth for barely a second. “Tell me what you wish happened, Sarah.” She parted Sarah’s folds and buried her fingers deep inside her pussy, curling them a fraction and thrusting. Not a patient, gentle lover now. Not a woman intent on making her admit her secrets. This was instinctual. Carnal in the most basic way.
“‘Yes,’ I whispered back, every roll of her hips driving me higher. I looked over her shoulder and came hard, my hips jerking up into her body and my knuckles white from gripping the chair. I came looking into the bottomless depths of Avery’s eyes.”
Then she forgot about Avery, about the stripper, about the story, and let her own eyes close, her mind click off. She sank into pleasure, reveling in the joining of their bodies. Her hips rose to meet Ryan’s demand. She surrendered. She cried out when she came, she knew she had, but it seemed far away, like a voice at the end of a long tunnel. Only pleasure existed, hitting her like the sharp snap of a rubber band and then fanning out in molten ripples until she was limp and worthless for anything but gasping in air.
Ryan pulled her into her arms and held her, rocked her, whispering things she couldn’t quite decipher over the roaring in her head. Well, one thing is for sure. That was worth the wait.
She rested her forehead against Ryan’s and murmured, “You’re pretty okay at that.”
Ryan groaned. “You’re hell on my ego, Aphrodite.”
“You know better. Thank you. Really. That was…just exactly what I needed.”
“Anytime.” Ryan’s lips brushed her forehead. “It’s getting cold. We should head inside.”
Sarah froze. A twinge of unease twined itself around her post-sex haze. “You’re done?”
“No. I mean, I want to see you again. But the party is half-over, and you haven’t even entered the ballroom.”
Ryan had dropped a bucket of ice water on her head, only the chills were on the inside. “I see. That’s it then. I’m the do-ee and you’re, what? Just going to take care of that little problem in your pants later? Find some other girl to get you off? Plenty of willing bodies just inside the ballroom, I suspect.” Sarah pushed away. As close as she’d felt to Ryan, as open as she’d just been, she now wanted to be as far away as possible. Ethiopia wasn’t far enough.
“No. I didn’t mean it like that.” Ryan grabbed Sarah’s wrist before she could escape. Run away. Freaking fly a UFO out of there if she had to.
Sarah didn’t trust herself to speak, all her mental energy focused on not crying. She’d cried for Melinda. She wasn’t going to cry again.
Ryan picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “I don’t want to assume reciprocation. You’ve been through so much tonight.”
“And that impedes my ability to bring you to a screaming climax?” Sarah asked.
Ryan had the decency to look sheepish. “I almost lost it when you did. Without being touched.”
Sarah softened a little. “So why are you sending me away?”
“I wasn’t. Okay, I was. But I didn’t mean it like that. I just wanted to give you a night you’d always remember. A night just for you.”
Sarah thought for a moment. “We could pretend I’m some narcissistic fairy-tale princess who desires
to be pleasured and isn’t fussed with getting my hands, or mouth, dirty by returning the favor. Or you can be honest and admit you’re scared to be vulnerable in front of me.”
Ryan’s head whipped up. “What?”
“You’re telling me that you can’t trust me, too. You’ll shoulder the responsibility of my fucked-up past, of my need to feel good about sex again. You’re quite the hero coming to my rescue. But when it comes down to the wire, you can’t admit you want to lie back and let me rock your world. Do I have that about right?”
Ryan groaned. “It’s not like that.”
Sarah wanted to smack her. Instead of giving in to it, possibly proving the kitten versus elephant theory correct, she pushed against Ryan’s shoulder. Hard. The fact that Ryan didn’t so much as flinch made her even madder. “Lie down.”
“Listen, I—”
“Shut up. You’ve said more than enough already. Just lie the fuck down.”
Ryan did as she was told.
Sarah straddled her, buck naked, and more annoyed than she could ever remember being. If Ryan hadn’t pushed her to face what Melinda had done to her, if she hadn’t made her feel safe enough to get past it, she might never have been able to have sex again. Not the kind of sex where you come so hard you can’t hear your own voice. Ryan had done that for her. There was no way Sarah was going to let her go back to work with a terminal case of blue balls. She wanted her, dammit.
“Tell me that you want me to make you come.” Sarah kissed her. A kiss fueled by frustration as much as need. She shoved inside Ryan’s mouth, took what she wanted with lips and tongue, and barreled through any defenses Ryan might construct. They came up gasping.
“I like feisty. You’ll have to take what you want. Let’s see if you can break me,” Ryan said, her tone teasing.
Making Ryan come wouldn’t break her; it would bind them together. That’s what made it scary. That it was hard for Ryan to let go only made Sarah more determined to make her beg. To be the one who showed her how exhilarating falling could be when you had a net.
Sarah ripped open Ryan’s shirt. She pulled her sports bra up and off before Ryan caught up and tried to stop her. She palmed Ryan’s breasts, rolling small pink nipples between her fingers. She was rough, but Ryan didn’t need gentle. She needed Sarah, and Sarah she was going to get. “Tell me you want me to make you come.”
Ryan’s head tipped back, her eyes fluttered closed. “God. That feels so good.”
“So good you’re going to come. Tell me you want it.”
“I do.”
“Not good enough. I want to hear you say it.”
Ryan’s chest flushed, her breath wheezing as Sarah handled her breasts, tweaking and rolling and pinching her nipples until Ryan started to rock under her. God, she was stubborn. An elephant was right. Sarah shifted down and tore open Ryan’s pants, shoving them to her knees. Ryan’s underwear was the next victim in Sarah’s battle to show her how powerful surrender could be. When she was completely naked, Sarah cupped a hand over her pussy. Her palm slicked instantly. No matter how much Ryan tried to fight it, her body wanted release.
“Tell me you want me to make you come.”
“Please.”
“You’re going to say it. You’re going to trust me to be the one who makes the world shatter when you come. You’re going to trust me not to let that break you.”
Ryan’s eyes bored into hers, and in them Sarah saw insecurity battle desire in a war only one would win.
Her heart was beating so fast she was afraid she’d have a heart attack. She thrust inside, burying her fingers in Ryan’s pussy as far as they’d go. Ryan cursed, her body bowstring taut, but Sarah didn’t stop. She thrust again and again. Sarah fucked her. There was just no other word for it. She drove her fingers into the most vulnerable and needy part of Ryan, her palm slapping against Ryan’s folds. “Tell me you want me to make you come.”
Sarah used her other hand to stroke Ryan’s clit. Gripping with fingers on either side, she jerked her off, working furiously. Everything, everything, rested on this moment. On Ryan’s ability to trust her.
“Sarah.” The word was a plea.
She had no patience for it.
She never stopped working Ryan’s clit, fucking her pussy shamelessly, but she freed a hand and levered herself over Ryan so they were nose to nose. “Say. It. Now.”
“I want you to make me come. Please. Please, oh fuck. I need you.” Ryan’s body seemed to liquefy and knot at the same time, her admission the key to her surrender.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” Sarah’s heart filled with emotion she wasn’t interested in examining right at the moment. She was going to make this strong, sexy woman come like the fate of the world depended on it. She was beginning to think the fate of her world did.
She focused on the tilt of Ryan’s hips into her palm, the pulse around her fingers. She concentrated on Ryan’s clit, using finesse now instead of fury.
Ryan moaned, the sound filling their garden sanctuary.
“That’s it. Moan for me. Show me how badly you want me to keep fucking you. How sexy you are when you come.” With one last precise stroke, Sarah sent Ryan over the edge, her moans the hottest damn thing Sarah had ever heard in her life. She held on as Ryan’s whole body quaked, her pussy banding tight around the fingers still buried inside her. Sarah breathed again. Thank God.
As destroyed as if she’d come herself, Sarah collapsed on top of her, as Ryan rode out the last of her orgasm.
So. Fucking. Sexy.
“I can’t believe I did that,” Ryan said. “Actually, I can’t believe you did that.”
Sarah brushed Ryan’s hair out of her eyes and grinned. “Believe it. This kitten whupped your ass.”
Ryan laughed and the sound was starlight in the night sky. “You absolutely did. Wow. Way to rock my world, Aphrodite.” Brushing Sarah’s lips with hers, she murmured, “Thank you.”
“I’d say we’re even.” Sarah mustered the energy to flop off of her and stare up at the sky. This party didn’t suck so much after all. In fact, it might be the best night she’d ever had.
Ryan staggered to her feet like a drunk and pulled her pants back on as if in slow motion. A mountain of effort, and no grace whatsoever. So, Sarah wasn’t the only one whose bones had melted to putty. Nice.
Ryan tugged her shirt in place and offered Sarah her hand. “Come on, Aphrodite, now that you’ve had your wicked way with me, want to head inside and find your friends?”
Sarah smiled, more content than she’d ever thought possible. “I’ll introduce you to Avery. You two have a lot in common.”
AVERY
Chapter Eight
No Princess Charming
The McGregors’ grand ballroom sparkled like a Tiffany jewel. Superbly tasteful, sleekly elegant, and absolutely dignified, it epitomized class in that understated way of really old money. As beautiful as it was, the space better suited the fifty- and sixty-somethings that comprised the majority of the party’s guest list. Avery Anders found it just a bit too refined, a bit too stuffy to be Elle’s taste. Elle might be heiress to a kingdom of riches, but Avery didn’t envy her for the compromises she’d had to make for the sake of the family image.
Huge crystal chandeliers spun their soft light into every corner, casting the partygoers in an eerie glow that magicked away a decade of flaws like a superhuman eraser. The photos in tomorrow’s society pages would be flawless. Avery was far from a society wife, but she was convinced all those long lunches were a front for super-secret perfect light bulb insider trading. They just had to be.
She perched on a stool at the bar, a ripple of richly grained wood and glass that slunk along one wall of the room like a sulky snake. She’d been nursing a glass of pinot noir for an hour and was already wishing she could call it a night. Sarah hated parties and was hiding in the kitchen. Kaitlyn loved them and had ditched Avery the moment their drinks had arrived. Avery found parties boring and sat people watching. In the wo
rld she’d been born into, parties were obligatory. She didn’t usually resent the call of duty, but this was the last place in the world she wanted to be tonight. Especially tonight.
“You get more delectable every time I see you.” Daniella Rosenberger, daughter of this week’s Wall Street kingpin, bestowed a smile so dazzling it could have melted stone. Had probably melted hearts just as hard.
Avery rose to hug her. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“Will it?” Daniella grinned, letting the silence hang just long enough to call Avery’s bluff.
Avery looked away. She flagged the bartender and ordered a Manhattan for Dani. She wasn’t going to go there. In fact, she spent a good portion of her time with Dani steering them away from exactly right there. The right there that was now, unfortunately, right here, right now.
Dani was the kind of beautiful people described as striking. Her mouth just slightly too wide in her narrow face, her eyes an unremarkable nut brown, framed by thick dark lashes. Her hair not quite the right shade of salon blond, but perfectly cut. Yet somehow, when you put it all together, she was striking.
Avery stifled a sigh. She shouldn’t be thinking Dani was striking. “What fundraiser are you neck deep in? Finding a cure for the liver disease all these cocktails will give you? Research for the next great scientific breakthrough? Saving cute, cuddly dolphins?”
Dani smirked as if cute dolphins were far too small a fish for her. “A dinner. St Peter’s is looking to add a new wing to the children’s hospital in the Bronx, with auxiliary apartments for families. We could go together.” She accepted her drink from the bartender, sipped, and waited for Avery’s reply. Dani enjoyed the witty repartee, edged with the keen blade of challenge that they always seemed to fall into. That Dani always seemed to maneuver them into. That Avery had to navigate around with the caution of an explosives technician.
