Chapter 34
Rachel
She heard the door open, sitting as she was on the couch, breakfast eaten and washed up. “Penny? Is that you?”
“Who else are you expecting?” teased the blonde as she entered the room and flomped down on the sofa next to Rachel.
“Just you,” said Rachel, and leaned over and kissed her. She tried to infuse it with all the care and affection she held for the other woman, and when she drew back, Penelope moved in to kiss her again.
“I like kissing you,” Penny murmured against Rachel’s lips.
Rachel liked kissing Penelope too, and she gave Penelope a final firm kiss before moving back. They both knew that they could get carried away far too quickly, and she’d been gearing up for this conversation ever since her call with Elisabeth and Lyra. She wasn’t going to bottle it now.
“So,” she said, releasing a sigh.
Penny leaned back against the arm of the couch and let out a sigh that echoed Rachel’s.
“How about I start?” Rachel suggested.
The other woman nodded.
“So I said ‘my love’ last night.”
“You did.”
“And I imagine that you’re wondering what that means about how I’m feeling, what this means for us, etc.”
“It had crossed my mind.” Rachel watched as Penny shuffled in her seat, before smiling shyly at Rachel. “It’s okay, Rach. I promise.”
“I’ve liked you for a long time, probably had a bit of a crush on you since the moment I met you, if I’m honest. But I figured that you weren’t looking for anything more than scening, and I was determined to respect that.”
Penelope nodded.
“And then you asked me to come here, and we started… expanding our repertoire, kink-wise.”
“You mean, you started calling me your Strawberry Moo and indulging my breeding kink.” Penny was pink as she spoke, but she didn’t mince her words.
Rachel huffed a laugh. “Yes, all of that. And it’s been…
Penny, it’s been fucking awesome. You make me feel things I could only have dreamed of, and the fact that you’ve been trusting me with your wants and desires…
well, it means a whole lot to me.” She took a breath.
“So yeah, when I said ‘my love’ last night, it was a casual term of endearment, but I don’t mean it casually.
I’m falling for you, and I know that might be scary, and I’m so terrified of fucking it all up.
But I’d like to learn to love you, if you’ll let me. ”
There was a long silence that felt excruciating. Rachel was tempted to try and speak again multiple times, but instead she tried to calm her pulse and wait for Penelope to gather her own thoughts.
“I like you too. I don’t think I can really pinpoint when that started, but I suspect it might be earlier than this week.
And yes, having someone fall for me again is scary.
I’m not perfect; I’m fallible, human, and I don’t want to be put on a pedestal and then tossed on the ground when I don’t live up to some great expectations.
But I like you too. That’s the thing I keep coming back to, over and over again. ”
“I know what my expectations are,” said Rachel. “That we’re honest with each other, and we respect each other’s boundaries. Everything else, I think we just kind of work out as we go along. Kind of like we have this holiday.”
“I can do that,” said Penelope.
Rachel’s heart felt like it might burst out of her chest and go on flying down the street.
“You really are a good person, Rach. And I trust you.”
“I’m glad,” said Rachel. “That’s all I want for us.”
T hat evening, they ate dinner by candlelight at the Italian restaurant. They ate homemade farfalle pasta with the sauce that apparently Tay had been making that morning. And then Penelope extolled the virtues of Guilia’s ice cream so that they both tried a variety of different flavors.
Tay came out to speak to them before the end of their meal. “Everything good?”
“Delicious,” replied Rachel, and then noticed Tay giving Penelope a significant look.
“Everything’s all good,” said Penelope, and she reached out to hold Rachel’s hand, squeezing her fingers.
Tay glanced down to look at their hands, and then back up again. “Excellent,” they said. “Told you it would be.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow as they headed back to the kitchen and Penelope shrugged. “I spoke to them about… everything. They give good advice.”
“Well, I can’t exactly complain,” said Rachel, “considering I called Elisabeth to ask her for some advice.”
Penny choked on her water. “You called Elisabeth? To ask for advice on relationships?”
“She seems very happy with Lyra.”
“Yes, and I can almost guarantee that’s because Lyra is a very direct kind of person. Elisabeth didn’t even know she was a pleasure Domme before Lyra.”
Rachel scoffed, and then saw that Penelope was dead serious. “Wait, what?”
“I know! Ridiculous, right?”
They laughed then. “Well, if our messy friends can work shit out, then we definitely can.”