Party of Three

by Sandy Lowe

  Kaitlyn let her head rest against the chilly window and brought her fingers to her clit. She was so wet she slid easily against the silk of her panties, a sensation that both excited and frustrated. So good, yet so much less than what it would be if there was no barrier. She traced the line of her panties down the crease where her thigh met her center. Stroking there, dipping the tips of her fingers under the edge of silk. Teasing herself. Teasing Beck.

  “Take them off.” Beck’s voice was full of gravel. It made Kaitlyn burn hotter. This was what she’d wanted, to make her suffer, make her want. She hadn’t considered how much it would make her want in return, though. Beck’s breathing was unsteady, her pale blue shirt wrinkled from where she’d leaned into Kaitlyn to kiss her. She looked about as undone as Kaitlyn could remember seeing her, and it made her want to keep applying pressure to Beck’s composure until it snapped in two.

  “You’re not in charge right now.” Kaitlyn pressed her thumb to her opening. It felt amazingly good and she couldn’t stop the sigh. She pressed deeper, stretching the material of her panties as far as they’d allow.

  Beck’s expression was caught between that of a voyeur who never wanted her to stop and a predator about to seize control. Kaitlyn didn’t know which she liked more. She smiled to herself. She’d tempted Beck. She could read it on her face clear as a book. Beck wanted to rip her panties clean down the middle and shove inside her, but she was reeling herself in, allowing Kaitlyn the pretense of control. Because they both knew that’s what it was. A pretense. An act. Make-believe. Beck had always been the one to call the shots. The control had always been hers. Even when Beck had used it to hurt her beyond reason, and Kaitlyn had let her.

  “Take. Them. Off.” Beck enunciated each word carefully, like a drunk trying to act sober.

  Kaitlyn opened her mouth to toss back some cutting reply, but Beck yanked on her ankle just hard enough to jolt her. Her head slid down the window just a little and she gasped, heat flooding her pussy. God. They both knew that if Beck wanted to, she could have Kaitlyn’s panties on the floor and her body halfway to orgasm in less than thirty seconds. She wasn’t asking.

  Kaitlyn brought her foot up from the floor and worked her panties down her thighs; the smell of her arousal filled the confined space.

  Beck took the ball of pink silk from her before she could toss it. She brought the panties to her face, breathed them in. “Look at these, they’re ruined. You’ve soaked clean through them.”

  The words weren’t even particularly dirty, but Kaitlyn went molten. She was slick and needy, on the verge of not caring if she had to beg Beck to touch her. Revenge was fast becoming the last thing on her mind.

  “You’ve teased me all night.” Beck tucked the scrap of silk into the pocket of her pants like it was a slutty souvenir. “Making up stories about your vibrator, using me to distract Peter, displaying yourself, touching yourself. You’re a vicious tease, do you know that?”

  Kaitlyn whimpered. God. She was so into this. “I’ve been called worse.”

  Beck frowned at that. She put a hand on Kaitlyn’s knee and used it to pry open her legs. Not that Kaitlyn needed encouragement. She was debating whether or not to sit on her own hands to stop herself from rubbing her clit to orgasm. “Look how sexy and wet you are already.” Beck’s hand was still maddeningly on Kaitlyn’s knee. “You’re such a good girl, ever the lady, always in control, always rational, but you can’t hide that your pussy is begging to be fucked.”

  The words landed like a hot caress on her skin, igniting her. “Speak for yourself. Don’t try to convince me you go around using words like pussy on a daily basis. You’re a politician in training.” Kaitlyn had no idea what she was saying. Complete sentences were impossible right now, and why hadn’t Beck touched her yet? Why was her hand still on Kaitlyn’s knee, for God’s sake?

  Beck’s smile was devious. “Oh, you’re right. I don’t. Not at all. I’m using them now because every time I do, you get wetter. You like it, don’t you, when I explain to you how brazen you really are underneath all the polish?”

  If Beck was expecting an answer to that question, she wasn’t going to get it. But Kaitlyn’s center was wet, swollen and pulsing with need. That was answer enough.

  “I think,” Beck started to slide a hand down the inside of her thigh, and Kaitlyn thought briefly that she might pass out, “it’s sexier when it’s not one’s natural style, and you know underneath all those social niceties lies an audaciousness that’s just for you.” Her fingers reached the crease in Kaitlyn’s thigh and stopped. “Are you audacious?”

  What was with all the questions? She shouldn’t be required to think right now. Not with Beck’s hand so close and every fiber of her being zeroed in on what was about to happen next. “Yes.”

  “Only for me?” Beck pressed fingers firmly into the softness of her thigh, a reminder. A mark.

  “Only you.” Please. Please. Please.

  Beck leaned in closer, almost directly between her legs now, and slid a finger on either side of Kaitlyn’s lips, spreading her open. Kaitlyn’s head dropped against the window again and her eyes closed. She was so ready for Beck’s fingers on her clit she could feel them there already. Except they never came. Beck hadn’t moved since spreading her open. Kaitlyn opened her eyes.

  Beck raised her eyebrows. “Did you really think it would be that easy?”

  Kaitlyn groaned. “I’d hoped.”

  Beck laughed at that, her sexy as hell dominant role cracking for a second. “I suppose it was worth a shot.” They grinned at each other. Kaitlyn wanted to hug her. She wanted Beck to screw her senseless too, but there was something comforting about knowing the sweet, always ready for a laugh Becca was still there, waiting for her on the other side of her orgasm.

  “Maybe I should have you call me mistress,” Beck mused, using her other hand to circle lazy patterns on Kaitlyn’s thigh.

  “Over my dead body,” Kaitlyn said automatically.

  Beck tilted her head as if trying out the title in her head. “I suppose you ought to be grateful it’s not to my taste then.” Beck perused her slowly, from the top of her head all the way down to where Kaitlyn was displayed between her fingers like diamonds in a showcase. “Show me what I’ve been missing.”

  Kaitlyn blinked. “What? You’re not going to touch me?”

  “That’s not what you said you wanted.”

  Kaitlyn bit her lip. Okay, maybe five minutes ago, before Beck had demanded she strip off her panties, before she’d said pussy, Kaitlyn had wanted to draw things out and tease her. But now? Her own hands were a pale imitation of what Beck could do to her, and they both knew it. Kaitlyn just couldn’t admit how desperate she was, even when the centerpiece of her desperation was currently snuggled between Beck’s fingers. Ugh. Sometimes she was her own worst enemy.

  Kaitlyn reached between her thighs, access easy with Beck holding her open. God, she was wet, slippery with it. She caught Beck’s gaze and, holding it, stroked her clit once. She made a choked sound halfway between a groan and a whimper as pleasure spiraled. If she wasn’t careful she was going to come in three seconds, the fastest tease in the history of the world. Her libido on steroids. Avoiding her clit for now, she dipped fingers into her opening and her sex clenched around them. She wanted to climb into Beck’s lap, wrap her legs around Beck’s waist, come with her lips against Beck’s throat. But Beck wasn’t letting her change her mind.

  Kaitlyn took a long, slow breath. She could do this. It took the average woman ten to twenty minutes to come, for God’s sake. She could make it at least two. She pulled her fingers out, slid them back in, fucking herself slowly and watching Beck’s eyes darken. The fingers holding her open tensed, the hand on her thigh stilled. It was like everything inside Beck froze, like all her insides had gone on strike and gone home to put their feet up. Oh yeah, Beck liked this. Kaitlyn smiled. Maybe she’d last three minutes.

  She pulled her fingers out and offered them. “Taste me. Let’s s
ee if you remember.”

  Beck’s eyes fluttered shut when the pads of Kaitlyn’s fingers hit her tongue. She didn’t just lick them clean, she worshiped them. Rolling her tongue up and down Kaitlyn’s fingers and sucking thoroughly before letting her go. Kaitlyn’s stomach quivered. If Beck’s tongue on her fingers felt this oh-my-God-amazing, what would it feel like when Beck finally touched her? The question was moot. She knew exactly how Beck’s hands, and mouth, and skin felt on hers. The knowing made her want it even more.

  “Even better than I remember.” Beck placed Kaitlyn’s fingers back at the apex of her thighs. “Keep going. Show me how you pleasure yourself.”

  “I don’t know if…I’ve never actually…not in front of anyone.” God, she was pathetic. She was the one who’d initiated this little game of show-and-tell, but she’d never expected Beck to actually keep her hands to herself long enough for Kaitlyn to follow through.

  Beck leaned forward and rubbed at the spot between her brows where Kaitlyn knew she had a premature worry line. “Trust me?”

  She nodded. She had a million and a half reasons not to trust Beck, but inexplicably, none of those mattered right now.

  “Then touch yourself, honey. Show me how it’s done. Close your eyes if it helps.”

  Kaitlyn nodded. Closed her eyes. Focused on her body. She traced fingers up and down her entrance, casting a wide circle around her clit, making it ache. A flood of arousal hit her. She slid the fingers of her other hand inside herself as she made the circles around her clit smaller and smaller, closer and closer, until she was stroking herself exactly where, exactly how, she needed. Every muscle in her body tightened, every sense sending out an alert, her whole body readying for the orgasm she wasn’t sure she could hold back for much longer. She took it all in, the scent of her passion, the spark and swirl of pleasure coming from her clit, Beck’s ragged breathing so close she could feel it against her skin. It was all at once too much, and not enough. She pumped her fingers faster inside herself and the sound they made was wet, crude, obscene in the near silence. Kaitlyn gasped and her eyes flew open. “I want—”

  “Come,” Beck said instantly, her body tense and leaning toward Kaitlyn like a runner at the start of a race. “Come for me.”

  Every cell in Kaitlyn’s body exploded at once. Bam! Her moans ricocheted around the tight space as she rocked her hips and rode the wave of her orgasm from a trillion straight down to zero.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Long Way Home

  It was a good thirty seconds before she had the energy to open her eyes. Okay, so maybe ten of those thirty were because looking at Beck after doing that was a feat of self-confidence she wasn’t sure she possessed. “That was—”

  “Amazing,” Beck supplied for her. “I take back everything I ever said about knowing what you like. I have amnesia. You’ll have to remind me of every one. Next time, with props.”

  Next time. Beck seemed to take for granted that there would be a next time. That this strange night in this cramped car was the start of something, or rather, the continuation of something. Beck had taken her for granted once. Had considered her replaceable, even disposable. She’d thought ambition, and work, and women would somehow replace Kaitlyn’s love. If this night was something, and she wasn’t saying it was, how was she ever supposed to believe she mattered at all, let alone that she mattered the most?

  She sat up and pulled her dress down to cover herself. Without the rush of desire to distract her from reality, her cheeks burned. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  Beck laughed. “Now you’re embarrassed? After you just gave me the performance of my life?”

  “Was it the performance of your life?” Surely there’d been other women much bolder than her.

  “I couldn’t have looked away if a Krispy Kreme truck had pulled up alongside the car,” Beck said.

  Kaitlyn made a shocked face. “Wow, better even than a raspberry filled? Now I know it must’ve been good.”

  Beck scooted closer until she’d maneuvered Kaitlyn around so they were shoulder to shoulder, Beck’s arm tucked around her. “It was perfect. You’re perfect.”

  Perfect. Such a bland little word. Cardboard cutouts were perfect. Sex wasn’t supposed to be.“Does perfect mean sexier than all the other women you’ve been with?”

  Beck gave her a don’t-be-such-a-girl look. “Come on. You know I wasn’t thinking about anyone but you.”

  “But you’ve been with other women.”

  “As have you,” Beck said in an oh-so-reasonable tone.

  It was true. She couldn’t be mad at Beck for getting laid. But that wasn’t the point.

  “Okay, yes, but I didn’t leave you for them.” Kaitlyn winced. Her anxiety had just showed up out of nowhere and sucker punched the sexy revenge girl that she tried so hard to cultivate. She’d told Beck to leave the past in the past, and here she was bringing it up again. A sore tooth she couldn’t help niggling, rotting just beneath the surface.

  “Is that what you think? That I left you for some girl I hadn’t even met yet?”

  Kaitlyn shrugged. “A girl, a job, a chance to prove yourself. It’s all the same thing, isn’t it? You wanted different. You wanted someone, something, that wasn’t me.”

  Beck huffed out a breath and tugged at the collar of her shirt like it was choking her. “I’ve always wanted you. I went to DC for something. Something that turned out to suck in comparison with what I left behind. I’m sorry. Sorrier than you’ll ever know. But I never left to leave you, to get away from you. Leaving was the hardest thing I ever did, and the worst mistake I’ve ever made. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  It was the second time Beck had told her she loved her, but Kaitlyn shoved aside the flutter of she likes me best that was making her heart pitter-patter. I love you used to fill her to the brim with mushy goodness, but love wasn’t ever forever.

  “You don’t leave the people you love. You don’t choose your career, your dreams, yourself, over the people you love. I believe you believe you love me. But if you love me now, and you loved me then, what’s stopping you from walking away again, when some other opportunity comes calling?”

  Beck’s eyes were a fierce swirl of brown, like autumn leaves in a hurricane. She shifted her weight and none too gently grabbed Kaitlyn under the arms and hauled her into her lap so they were nose to nose. The warmth of Beck’s skin bled though the material of her clothes, and the heat of her made Kaitlyn’s mouth water. Shivers traced over her skin everywhere they touched. Twin surges of need and adrenaline skated up and down her body, wrapping themselves around her brain, poking into her belly, pooling between her legs, making her ultra-aware Beck hadn’t bothered to give her back her panties. OhdearGod.

  Kaitlyn went to speak, but Beck shook her head. “No. You’re not hearing me. The difference is that I came back for you. I recognized my mistake and I came back. I was seventeen and I screwed up. I was selfish. I didn’t know what I had. But I’m here now. I’m yours, and I want the whole shebang. All the stuff we talked about once upon a time. Marriage, family, the clomp of little toddler feet. But most of all, I want you. I’m moving back to New York, and I’m staying. I’ll wine you, dine you, and beg for forgiveness as much as you need. But these are my cards. I’m laying them all out, Kait. This is what I want. You are who I love, and I’m not going anywhere ever again. Believe it.”

  When Beck said things like that, things she so badly wanted to be true, Kaitlyn could feel herself start to waver. But love wasn’t a four-letter word bandied about on Pepto-Bismol pink Valentine’s Day cards. Love was a verb. It was a day-by-day set of commitments. It was that kind of love, that side of Beck, that she didn’t know if she could trust again.

  “For now.” Kaitlyn didn’t even realize she’d spoken until the words were already out of her mouth, Beck’s passionate declaration no match for her inner cynic.

  “I don’t remember you being this persnickety.” Beck frowned at her.

  “
Well, I don’t remember you manhandling me into sharing personal space either, but here we are,” Kaitlyn shot back. She was not persnickety. Persnickety was a stupid word, anyway.

  “No? You’ve forgotten the homecoming game when I cornered you behind the bleachers and slid my hand up your skirt?” Beck raised her eyebrows. “That’s a shame. That memory has a prime spot in my lonely nights fantasy bank. Okay, well, maybe you remember the time you got ridiculously mad because some forgettable brunette flirted with me at a party? You sulked the entire way home. Do you remember that I threw you on your bed? How I tore your panties? Do you remember how wet it made you? How prettily you begged? How hard you came?”

  Kaitlyn couldn’t speak. She just didn’t have access to the part of her brain that handled words. Her body, however, was screaming. Get over it. Hurry up. Give in. Her skin felt too tight and her center throbbed.

  “Tell me you forgive me.” Beck clamped a hand to the nape of Kaitlyn’s neck and held her as if she owned her. “Tell me you trust me.”

  When Kaitlyn didn’t respond, the silence stretched. Beck’s eyes went bleak like the last dead leaf falling from a tree. Her hand fell. It was the utter defeat that flicked across her face that forced Kaitlyn to conjure words, any words, anything to change that look.

  “It’s not that.” Her heart constricted. But of course, it was exactly that. And why should Kaitlyn trust her? Beck hadn’t given her any reason to. Well, except coming back, seeking her out, explaining her side of things, telling her she loved her, kissing her with blow-her-to-smithereens intensity, with melt-her-bones tenderness. Except for making her feel special, and beautiful, and one of a kind. Except for those little things.

  Except that Beck was her everything, dammit.