Chapter 14 #2
Jo had spent the entire taxi ride home trying to think about anything else.
She’d rolled the window down, asked the driver to turn the music up, but nothing had helped.
Nothing had erased the image of Amelia lounging on that bed in her black lace lingerie, her robe discarded and her long legs crossed like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Like she wasn’t absolutely wrecking Jo’s mind, body, and soul without even trying.
Jo had never seen her like that before, and now she could never unsee it.
She walked slowly into the bedroom, losing her dress as she reached her bed. She climbed onto the mattress and lay back, placed one hand over her eyes, and settled the other low on her stomach.
What the fuck are you doing?
It didn’t matter what she was doing. Her body was restless and starved, and Jo needed a release.
She slid her fingers beneath the waistband of her underwear, teasing her lips without going any further. She needed time to enjoy this. She needed to sink in slowly. Fuck, she needed to let that image of Amelia fully reveal itself in her mind.
That soft, glowing skin. That black lace cupping her breasts and hugging her hips. The way she sat up and looked at Jo as though she’d just won a game Jo hadn’t even realised she was playing.
Her touch. Her mouth. Her quiet confidence.
Jo’s fingers moved lower. She exhaled sharply as she brushed them over her clit, already dripping wet…
already aching. Her hips shifted, her back arching slightly as she dragged her fingers in lazy circles, chasing the relief she hadn’t even known she was craving until she’d stepped into the club and saw her.
“Amelia,” she whispered into her painfully lonely bedroom. “O-oh, fuck. Y-yes.”
The sounds and smells in the room blurred as Jo’s breath quickened and her thighs opened a little more, her fingers slick with need. She pressed harder, faster, her other hand fisting in the sheet beneath her, her head tilting back against the pillows as her pulse thundered in her ears.
It was wrong. It was so wrong. But all she could see behind her closed lids was Amelia in black lace, her legs spread just enough to undo her completely.
“Fuck,” Jo whispered as her body jerked under her own hand.
She was close, right on the edge, and the thought of Amelia’s voice in her ear, low and steady as it urged her on, tipped her further.
She moved faster, her breath hitching as her stomach tightened. Fuck, she was going to come harder than she had in a long time. Nights with Lia included. As she sank two fingers deep inside herself, her phone buzzed.
Jo froze, her entire body trembling and begging for release. Her phone vibrated again, so she reached blindly for it on the bed, knowing full well it would be Ada. She’d want the gossip. She always wanted the gossip.
But the name on the screen wasn’t Ada.
It was Amelia.
Jo stared at it, her body on fire and her thighs still trembling from where she’d hovered just a breath from release.
She didn’t have time to think. She answered it, almost whimpering as she did so. “H-hello?”
“Jo?”
Jo pressed her fingers harder against her clit, desperate, reckless, but unable to stop even if she tried. “Y-yes?”
“I’m sorry…is this a bad time?”
“N-no.” Jo bit her lip as she sank back inside herself. “No. It’s not a bad time.”
“You just sound…” Amelia’s voice faltered, then softened as she said, “Are you okay?”
Jo closed her eyes, her hips rocking in time with the hand she couldn’t keep still. “I’m…fine.”
There was a pause on the line, and then a light gasp from Amelia. “Jo, are you touching yourself?”
Jo didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The silence said enough; she was certain of it.
“Oh, God,” Amelia breathed…moaned. “That’s…”
Jo let out a broken whimper as she pressed her head back harder into the pillow. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“Jo…”
“I-I came home.” Jo panted, forcing her fingers deeper. “And I couldn’t stop seeing you in that fucking lingerie. I tried to forget. But it’s just…you. It’s always you. You’re not a woman to forget.”
Amelia let out a shaky breath on the other end of the line. “Jesus.”
Jo gasped as she spread her legs wider, her fingers pounding inside of her. “I was already close when you called. I almost didn’t answer.”
“Why did you?”
“Because it was you.”
The softest moan escaped Amelia’s lips. “Let me help you.”
“N-no. This…isn’t right.” Jo took her bottom lip between her teeth and listened to every breath Amelia took. “Please, tell me to stop.”
“I can’t do that, I’m sorry.”
Jo scrunched her eyes shut tighter. “Why? Why can’t you tell me that I shouldn’t be doing this? Why can’t you tell me that I disgust you and what I’m doing is going to end everything we’ve ever shared?”
“Because,” Amelia whispered. “I’d give anything to be there with you right now, fucking you myself.”
The heat that had been building inside Jo had now spread like wildfire. “N-no, please.”
“Touch your pussy for me, Jo.” Amelia whimpered. “Go on. I’ll bet you’re real tight and aching to come.”
“F-for you.” Jo was in a state of euphoria now. It didn’t matter what happened next; they’d well and truly crossed the line. So, she would enjoy this, knowing she could never have the real thing. “Can I come…for you?”
“Oh, it would make me so very happy to hear you come for me.”
The tension snapped through Jo’s body in a violent, breathless rush, her back arching off the bed, her hand stilled against herself as the waves of release rolled through her.
“Mm. That’s it. Give it to me.”
Her mouth fell open, but no sound came. Just a sharp intake of breath, a whimper that barely made it out, and a rush of heat that left her blinking up at the ceiling, completely ruined.
She could still hear Amelia’s breath on the line as her body relaxed into the mattress. Steady. Listening. Most definitely aroused.
“Feel better?” Amelia asked.
“I-I can’t believe you’re even still on the line.”
“Oh, I’m here,” Amelia said, her voice hoarse and laced with desire. “I’m definitely still here.”
Jo let out a strangled laugh and covered her eyes with one hand. “Well, none of that was supposed to happen.”
“Are you sorry that it did?”
“No.” Jo hesitated. “Just…a little embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. You sound fucking beautiful when you fall apart.”
Jo’s heart clenched as a beat passed…then another. Still, neither of them spoke.
Not until Amelia said, “Get some sleep. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”
They had so many things to discuss, but Jo knew exactly what Amelia was doing. She was giving Jo space to process whatever the hell had just happened. So she simply smiled and whispered, “Okay, goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Jo.”
The call ended, and Jo lay there in the dark, her heart still racing and her soaked fingers resting gently over her bare stomach. She didn’t know what that had been, but she did know that she was in deep.
And getting out wasn’t going to be easy.
Amelia stared at the screen as the call ended, her hand still wrapped tightly around her phone as though Jo’s voice may somehow whisper through again if she held it long enough.
But the silence that followed was absolute.
She swallowed and set her phone down on the coffee table, her fingers trembling as they released it.
Her chest was rising and falling in slow, uneven breaths, like she’d just run a mile uphill without stopping, so she leaned back on the plush couch cushions and closed her eyes.
What the hell had just happened?
Her thighs were pressed together tightly beneath the robe she’d changed into when she got home, the soft black silk still clinging to her skin.
She hadn’t even taken off the lingerie she’d worn at Satin.
Not after seeing Jo. Not after that look in Jo’s eyes when she’d walked in and caught her with another woman on the bed.
Amelia had spent the rest of the night trying to pull herself back together. To…try and stay cool. And then Jo had answered the phone like that. Breathless, shaky, and undeniably aroused. She’d known straight away what Jo was doing. Or rather…what Jo had been doing before she’d picked up.
But she hadn’t expected the honesty. She hadn’t expected that. Jo’s voice in her ear—panting, desperate, raw—was now etched into her mind.
I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I tried to forget. But it’s just…you. It’s always you.
Amelia pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and forced down a groan. Her entire body throbbed with arousal, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t. She was too caught up in everything the moment had meant.
Because it hadn’t just been phone sex. It had been Jo, and it had been real.
That woman—that complicated, tender, brilliant mess of a woman—had spent over an hour talking about Lia with Amelia…and Amelia, she was just sitting there holding the mask, pretending it wasn’t burning her fingers every time she slipped it into place.
She sat forward and rested her elbows on her knees, dragging a hand through her hair. She couldn’t stop thinking about Jo’s voice. The way it cracked as she fell apart. The whimper that had slipped out before she’d tried to swallow it back.
The way she’d whispered, ‘because it was you.’
Did she mean it? Did she know? No, she couldn’t possibly. Jo still thought she was chasing two women. She still thought Lia was the escape, the freedom, the release.
But it was Amelia’s mouth she moaned for whenever she was in that room. It was Amelia’s hands that had made her come in the dark. And it was Amelia’s voice in her ear…her breath against her throat.
All this time, Jo hadn’t really been falling for Lia.
She’d been falling for her.
Amelia stood up abruptly, needing to do something to silence the rush of emotion building in her chest. She crossed the living room and paced into the kitchen, flicking on the kettle with more force than was necessary.
This couldn’t keep happening. She couldn’t keep showing up at Satin, she couldn’t keep hoping that Jo would look at her like she meant something more, and she couldn’t keep holding her breath every time her phone lit up with a message.
And yet…she didn’t want to stop.
She braced herself against the counter, her fingers gripping the edge tightly. Her eyes burned, her body ached, and her heart…God, her heart felt full.
She wanted Jo. Not in the dark and not with secrets. Just…Jo. Maybe that was the most terrifying part. Because if she told the truth, she could lose her forever, and if she didn’t? Then maybe she could keep her. But at what cost?
The kettle clicked off behind her, but Amelia didn’t move. She stood there, her arms braced on the counter, and her head bowed. Then, for the first time, she whispered out loud into the silence of her kitchen, “I’m in love with her.”
Those words hung in the air, dangerous but undeniable.
And with them came the smallest, most brutal truth of all.
Loving her doesn’t make this right.