Chapter 18
“Your dad was a hoot,” Justine said after sinking into Sienna’s plush couch.
“I get why you would say that, but that’s not how I see him.” Sienna looked a little tired—a day of playing Rochelle would do that to a person—but still resplendent and, frankly, good enough to eat. Justine couldn’t help but smile when she looked at her.
“He showed up. Doesn’t that mean he cares?” Bobby Bright had paid plenty to be in Justine’s good books for the foreseeable future. But Justine was also well aware that money could temporarily blind her to a person’s otherwise obvious flaws. “I’d really like to know.”
“Why do you want to know?” Sienna slung one leg over the other and leaned back, away from Justine. “You couldn’t get enough of him this afternoon.”
“I want to know because I care about you.” Justine had cracked much tougher nuts than Sienna Bright. She threw in her warmest smile.
“More than about Bobby’s money?”
“Oh yes.” It didn’t feel like a lie to Justine.
“I’d ask you to prove it, but I’m not that insecure.” Sienna smiled back.
“You can talk to me, you know. I’m a really good listener. It’s a big part of my job.”
“I’m not going to complain about my dad to you. That would just be inappropriate, really.”
“I don’t think so. We all have our own crosses to bear and there’s no point in comparing your pain to others.” That was a bit of a white lie. Compared to someone like Ashleigh, Sienna didn’t have much to complain about. But Justine had just claimed that comparison was futile, and it was in certain ways, but hearing stories like Ashleigh’s over and over—unbearably sad stories of abuse and harm and human cruelty—had made Justine immune to lesser, loftier issues, like the ones Sienna obviously had with her father.
“I don’t want to talk about my dad, anyway,” Sienna said, and glanced at Justine from underneath her long lashes.
“What do you want to talk about, then?”
“You,” Sienna said. “And how you felt when you were on set.”
“I don’t really feel like talking about that.”
“Yes, well, Rochelle told me, verbatim, I may add”—Sienna lifted a finger—“to call you out on your bullshit, so.” Sienna sat there grinning like someone who’d bet big on the winning horse.
Oh Christ. It was just like Rochelle to stick her nose where it didn’t belong. But Justine knew she had been wrong about something.
“I do apologize for leaving so abruptly. I should have come to see you before, but Ashleigh… she’s, well, I can’t tell you what she’s been through, but it’s a lot. An unimaginable lot and she’s really taken to me and?—”
“Babe, please.” Sienna calling Justine ‘babe’ easily stopped her mid-sentence—or should that be mid-excuse? “This isn’t about Ashleigh. It’s about you.”
“What about me?”
“Come on.” Sienna narrowed her eyes. “You were visibly shaken today. Your cheeks were wet with tears. This movie is about you, about your past, about all the shit you went through. Yet when I ask you about it, you don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s hard for me to talk about.” Justine averted her gaze. “It was hard for me to be on that set today. To see Alexis play me. It was like a punch to the gut, to be honest.” Like someone sharpened a knife and drove it right through the decades’ worth of scar tissue around Justine’s heart. “Like getting the wind knocked straight out of me.”
Sienna sidled up to her, but didn’t say anything, just put her hand, chastely, on Justine’s knee.
“As I said in your trailer. This fucking movie. ” Justine let her head fall back onto the couch. “I thought I only agreed to it for the money, but now that I’m actually seeing it being made, I’m suspecting some subconscious, ulterior motive, and I really hate that. The last thing I want to do is dredge up my past and all the nastiness with my parents and what happened to me after. I’m so done with that stuff. And I knew that about myself. But if I really did, why did I say yes?” All Justine could see—wanted to see—when the producers approached her was a big, fat check for the shelter. Because when it came to funding, tunnel vision worked wonders. Just not this time. Because this was about her life—the really wretched part of it before she and Rochelle had founded the shelter.
“Maybe it’s just like you say it is. Maybe you haven’t fully reckoned with your past and this is a good opportunity to finally do so.”
“Please don’t take offense if you don’t see me on that set anymore.” Justine turned to look Sienna in the face—always a comforting sight. “It’s not you; it’s me.”
Sienna smiled sphinxlike.
“What’s with that smile?” Justine asked.
“I think you’ll be back.” Sienna tilted her head. “And not just for me.” She shot Justine a wicked grin before she, finally, kissed her. And oh, if only Sienna’s divine kisses weren’t such a potent balm for just about anything. For forgetting about the day. For, just for the time being, putting Ashleigh’s troubles aside. For banning all the emotions being on set had stirred up inside Justine, even though Sienna was, of course, inextricably linked to that damned movie.
When Sienna kissed Justine, none of it mattered. Justine could disappear in the sensations created by the soft touch of Sienna lips on her own, in the levity it brought, in the downright silly belief that, when they kissed, everything would simply be all right.
So Justine happily surrendered to Sienna touch, to the tug of her hands as she pulled her on top of her. She gladly obeyed Sienna’s wordless instructions because she couldn’t get enough of her. Of the delicate features of her face, of that naughty twinkle in her eyes, of the addictive smoothness of her skin and, perhaps most of all, of how she spoke to Justine. With such confident directness—a trait she also possessed when doing this. Because Sienna’s fingers had already dipped inside Justine’s jeans, all the way into her panties.
Justine looked into Sienna’s face. That grin was enough to make her clit throb even harder, to make her want Sienna even more. Justine wanted Sienna inside her so badly. She wanted to feel all of her.
“Fuck me,” she sighed, her own words turning her on even more. “I want your fingers.”
Sienna didn’t immediately oblige—she was a tease like that. Instead, she gazed up at Justine, her teeth sank into her bottom lip, and slowly she withdrew her hand. Her eyes locked on Justine’s, and she brought two fingers to Justine’s lips. Instinctively, Justine opened her mouth and moistened Sienna’s fingers. She twirled her tongue around them and made sure they were plenty wet.
As she lowered her hand, the look on Sienna’s face changed to more solemn than smug, although there was definitely still a hint of arrogance in her gaze. And Sienna might have looked like a young Rochelle on set earlier, and she might have, impressively so, acted like Justine’s former lover in that scene, but in this, they couldn’t be more different. Being with Sienna wasn’t some sort of deluded nostalgic trip for Justine. It wasn’t some twisted way to make up for what she lacked when she’d been with Rochelle—what did she know back then, anyway? She was only twenty-five when they met. Even though she’d had to grow up hard and fast, in many ways, Justine had still been a child—an unloved teenager looking for love everywhere she could find it.
Justine was no longer looking for that kind of love. Yet, she was finding something with Sienna, something she couldn’t quite put a name to.
Ever so slowly, Sienna slipped her wet fingers inside Justine. The angle was difficult because of their position and the clothes they were wearing, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Sienna’s fingers slid inside her, and simultaneously made her feel, as well as forget, everything.
Later, in bed, both of them finally fully naked, Justine turned to Sienna and peered deep into her gorgeous eyes.
“I don’t know what it is about you that drives me so crazy, but there’s certainly something,” she said.
“Maybe you just like me.” Sienna smiled that unbearably seductive smile of hers. “I’ve been told I’m very likable.”
“If there’s such a thing as too likable, you’re definitely it.” Justine gently caressed Sienna’s cheek with the back of her fingers. “Too hot as well.”
“Is that why you left the set without saying goodbye this afternoon? Because I’m too likable and too hot?” Sienna was the only woman who could ask Justine a question like that without annoying the hell out of her. When Sienna asked, her eyes sparkling and her voice deliciously throaty, Justine didn’t mind at all. She even wanted to come up with a more elaborate excuse than the one she’d given earlier.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said again. “I get like that when I receive a call from the shelter. I go into a kind of panic mode and forget everything else.”
“Even me?” Sienna cupped Justine’s breast. “After all the sweet love we’ve made?” She grinned broadly, making her choice of words sound ironic.
“I’ve lost too many kids,” Justine said, unable to make light of what they were talking about. “By not being there.”
“I’m sorry.” Sienna’s face turned serious and she removed her hand. “Please never think that I take what you do lightly. To be honest, most of the time, I have no idea.”
“It’s good that you have no idea, because it means you didn’t have to go through the misery most of the shelter kids have gone through. That’s always a good thing.”
“And what you went through.” Sienna’s voice was soft, her tone understanding—even though she could never fully understand. “To think I wanted to complain about my dad.”
“I’m sure even the great Bobby Bright has his faults. We all do.” Justine swiped her thumb over Sienna’s cheek. “I meant what I said earlier.” Justine really did this time. “It’s not because my parents were awful that you can’t tell me about yours. That’s not how these things work.”
“What things?” Sienna’s lips drew into a smirk. “Relationships, you mean?”
“We do have a relationship.” Even Justine, with her obvious and many flaws when it came to them, could not deny that they were in some sort of deepening type of relationship. “You and I.”
“After the first time we slept together, and the little speeches both you and Rochelle gave me, I really hadn’t expected you to be so forthcoming with your subsequent affections.”
“To be fair, neither had I,” Justine admitted. “I blame this fucking movie and, for the record, that’s what I’m calling Gimme Shelter from now on.” Justine didn’t need to know a lot about closeness to know, in her bones, that this was what it felt like. This lying naked in bed together, touching each other with a lot more than body parts. This gentle sharing, this slow unearthing of what was important to the other person and what wasn’t.
“You should be really careful,” Sienna said, her voice all melted butter.
“Of what?” Something sparkled deep inside Justine’s core—something that had been dormant for long decades.
“I might just fall in love with you,” Sienna said, and followed up with a kiss so obliterating, Justine could only conclude that, despite herself, that feeling might be entirely mutual.