Chapter 29 Forbidden Fruit
FORBIDDEN FRUIT
When Catherine awoke, her lips were already curving into a smile before her mind had caught up. Within seconds, her evening with Jules flooded back and it felt like her whole body was grinning in the afterglow. She stretched languidly and glanced at the phone still curled in her fingers.
No new messages.
But it was early, and they’d had a late night after all.
Shaking off the restless energy, Catherine set out on her usual morning walk.
As if manifesting her mood, another glorious spring day bloomed.
With an extra bounce in her step, she power-walked three laps around the park.
She’d only meant to do two laps, but she’d lost count because all she wanted to do was charge home and consume the woman who lived above her.
She couldn’t wipe the dopey smile from her face at the thought of lazy Sunday mornings in bed with Jules.
A breakfast of coffee, croissants, and delicious orgasms. Yes, they were taking it slow, but her mind kept racing ahead, wanting to skip to the good parts, even though this was dangerous.
She hadn’t let herself get swept up in someone like this since… Francesca.
Had Francesca showing up the other night really brought the closure Catherine had needed all these years? Or had the arrival of Jules into her life altered Catherine’s brain chemistry?
Perhaps it was a bit of both. Either way, it felt good; and far from the usual heaviness that followed a date with a woman who wanted more, at which point Catherine always stepped back.
Measure and poise were her whole personality, which had been good for her career, but not her love life.
She’d never allowed the temperature with anyone to rise above tepid, lest she get burnt…
again. Even on the odd occasion when she’d been tempted to turn up the heat, she’d steadied herself.
Measure and poise. But Jules shone hot and bright like the sun, and it seemed worth risking a little sunburn just to bask in her warmth for a while.
On the way home, Catherine swung by Snoots for a coffee and a croissant.
She contemplated returning with the same for Jules, then decided against it.
Best not to seem too keen, even though she was itching to see her, imagining her with mussed hair and a sleepy grin draped over her kissable lips.
Besides, Catherine didn’t know how Jules took her coffee yet.
A fact that would have usually dampened her mood — another surface-level connection with a stranger, but with Jules that part made Catherine almost giddy with excitement.
She couldn’t wait to peel back the layers and discover all of her.
Catherine caught herself whistling as she turned her key in the lock. After a cursory glance up the stairs, she retired to her own apartment.
The day passed in a tedium of chores, which although mundane, Catherine was grateful for — a way to pass the time and busy her fidgety hands.
Several times she caught herself freezing at a sound from above, sending her thoughts skittering like marbles — What’s Jules doing right now?
Is she thinking about me too? Does she regret last night? Why hasn’t she texted yet?
To stop herself incessantly checking her phone for messages, Catherine pushed in her earbuds and listened to one of her favourite well-being podcasts, which she often drew inspiration from for Om-the-Go.
After a short while, the usually calming chatter was putting her on edge, so she shuffled a playlist of recently added music instead, only to be confronted by Spice Up Your Life.
She smiled, turned it up, and sang along as she flung open the windows and dusted the lounge. It was in the briefest pause between tracks that she heard the faint thudding. She pulled out her earbuds and turned her ear.
“Sounds like you’ve been taken hostage by the Spice Girls! Should I send for help?”
On hearing Jules’s muffled yell, Catherine spluttered a giddy laugh.
“Hold on,” she called out, gathering enough restraint to steady herself before flinging the door open.
The sight of Jules leaning against the banister dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans made Catherine’s stomach flutter.
She’d pulled her hair up into a neat ponytail, accentuating her neck and jawline.
One side of her mouth ticked up, which was probably in response to the way Catherine was eye-fucking her.
“I was beginning to worry Ginger Spice had you tied to a chair or something.”
Catherine clicked her tongue. “No such luck.”
“Oh, you like a bit of Ginger, do you?”
“What’s not to like?”
Jules conceded with a slight nod and held out a cup to Catherine. “I brought you some sugar.”
Catherine smiled and shook her head. “Why? I don’t take sugar.”
“I know, you said. But I do, and I was hoping you might invite me in for a cuppa.”
Catherine tensed, but the silence that followed wasn’t awkward — it was charged, like the pause before a song’s chorus.
Here was Jules, attempting to blithely crash through another boundary wall. And whilst the woman had freely waltzed in to retrieve Juni a few days ago and came in to pick wine the other night, this was different because Jules now knew what it meant to be invited into Catherine’s space.
In the seconds that followed, uncertainty crept into Jules’s posture. “Too soon?”
When Catherine didn’t answer, Jules shuffled her feet.
“I wondered if I was pushing my luck, but I really wanted to see you, and I finally came up with what I thought was a good enough line… you know, with the sugar.” She held out the mug again, a soft, hopeful look replacing her cocky grin from before.
Catherine had built her walls so high, others rarely expended the effort to climb over. But here was Jules, persevering.
“Come on in.” Catherine stepped aside, the move so out of character even the voice in her own head gasped.
Jules raised her eyebrows. “Really? You’re sure?”
“Yeah. I’ll get the kettle on.”
As Catherine prepped tea, Jules leaned against the kitchen counter and gently plucked threads of conversation.
The words were mostly lost, like Catherine was hearing them underwater, but she noticed how Jules’s lovely face lit up as she recounted an anecdote about Will falling in a muddy puddle at a music festival.
“You’re not really listening to me, are you?” Jules exhaled a soft laugh.
“Sorry. I, er…”
“I’ve been told before that I talk too much.”
“No, I like it. I got distracted thinking about just how much.”
“Is that really what was distracting you?” Jules stepped towards her and leaned in so close her breath felt warm on Catherine’s cheek.
Catherine swallowed as her pulse picked up pace. “I was also distracted by how much I like having you here.” Her gaze dropped to Jules’s mouth, and the air between them thickened with want.
The kettle clicked off, breaking the spell, and Catherine moved to pour the tea, grateful for the excuse to steady her hands and slow down the moment.
Jules didn’t press, only smiled and stepped away.
“Why do you have wooden fruit?”
“Huh?” Catherine glanced around to see Jules leaning over the decorative wooden fruit she kept in a bowl in lieu of the fresh stuff. “Oh, that! I guess it doesn’t go bad.”
“It doesn’t taste good, though.” Jules ran her fingers over the curve of an everlasting apple.
Catherine shrugged. “I’ve never tried it.”
“It’s the ultimate forbidden fruit.” Jules smirked.
In the lounge, they relaxed side by side on the sofa. Amidst the comfort of the cushions, the tension eased from Catherine’s muscles, and yet again Jules slotted into a space Catherine hadn’t perceived as empty before.
Jules’s fingers brushed the rim of her mug. “So, should we talk about what ‘taking it slow’ actually means for us?”
Catherine squinted into the rose-tinted light of the afternoon flooding through the windows. “Yeah, because so far all we’ve done is the opposite of taking things slow.”
“All things considered, I think we’ve both shown admirable restraint.”
Catherine’s laughter rang out. “I’m not sure all that kissing and then sexting each other until the early hours quite ticks the ‘restraint’ box.”
“Well, you’ve clearly no idea how close I was to coming down here last night.”
Catherine tried to hide her grin behind the steam curling from her mug.
“It’s going to take the self-control of a saint, but I’ve given it some thought and I’d like us to get to know each other before we… you know.”
Catherine slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. We should date each other properly and see where things go. And not that I, er… regret last night, but perhaps we should avoid sexting for now.”
Jules placed her mug down and edged closer, so close Catherine caught the spicy scent of her perfume. “Do you want to avoid kissing too?” she asked in a low voice.
“No, that would be…” Before she’d finished her sentence, Jules had closed the distance and crushed their lips together in a rush of warmth that had Catherine’s pulse whooshing in her ears.
Catherine set her mug of tea aside, freeing her hand to clutch at Jules’s shirt and pull her closer. Jules responded by deepening the kiss, her breath hot and uneven as she tilted her head to capture Catherine’s lips more fully.
Heat surged between them, and they’d cross the line if they didn’t stop now. They parted, breathless and grinning, because they’d broken the rules before they’d even finished making them.
“So much for having the restraint of saints,” Jules said.
Catherine released a shaky laugh, her fingers still curled in Jules’s shirt. “We just failed spectacularly.”
Jules leaned back against the cushions, creating space between them, though her hand stayed close, her fingertips grazing Catherine’s knee.
“It’s the first day of my new job tomorrow.”
“Oh! Why didn’t you say?”
“I just did.”
Catherine leaned to pass Jules her mug before sipping her own lukewarm tea. “Are you nervous?”