Chapter 6
Taylor sank onto the couch, wine glass cradled against her palm, and listened to the muffled sound of Charlotte’s footsteps behind the bathroom door.
She still couldn’t quite believe it. When she’d suggested coming back here, about her couch being more comfortable, she’d braced for a polite decline.
Instead Charlotte had agreed. She was down the hall right now, taking off her wet slacks.
Taylor tucked one leg beneath her, testing the pose, then decided it might look too relaxed, too much like she was settling in for a lazy night on the couch watching a movie.
She straightened back out, planted both feet on the floor, and draped her arm along the back of the couch, forcing her shoulders to stay loose like a woman who did this all the time.
She took a sip of wine. Charlotte’s glass sat waiting on the coffee table.
Her stomach hadn’t stopped doing this low, pleasant flip since the beach. Taylor didn’t usually get nervous around women. She knew what she wanted, knew how to ask for it. But this wasn’t that kind of nervous. This was bordering on excited curiosity. She wanted to know more about Charlotte.
On the rock, she’d said something about being away from her normal life this weekend.
Taylor had let it slide past in the moment, too busy drowning in the low, careful timbre of Charlotte’s voice, but now the question kept surfacing.
Away from what, exactly. A house. A job.
Some life Taylor couldn’t picture yet, built somewhere far from this cramped apartment with its guitar in the corner and its mismatched mugs in the cabinet.
She swirled the wine, watched it climb the sides of the glass and slide back down before she took another sip.
Honestly, if Charlotte walked out of that bathroom and just wanted to talk, Taylor would take that too.
She caught herself grinning at the thought, a little embarrassed by how much she meant it.
She wanted to kiss her again, wanted it badly enough that her mouth still remembered the exact give of Charlotte’s lips against hers, but she wanted the rest of it more.
That voice. The hesitation before certain words, like Charlotte had no idea how attractive a woman she was.
It was late. Taylor knew that. She had to get her expectations right.
Charlotte would probably finish her wine, glance at the clock, make some graceful excuse about an early morning. And Taylor decided she was fine with that too, already rehearsing the easy smile she’d give her at the door and how she’d ask for her number.
Then the bathroom door opened down the hall.
Taylor’s fingers tightened around the stem of her glass as Charlotte came into the living room. The black yoga pants clung to every line of her hips and the long curve of her thighs, thin fabric pulling snug across the soft rise of her ass.
Taylor’s mouth went dry. Heat flooded through her.
Charlotte’s gaze found hers.
Whatever words Taylor had been rehearsing, offers of more wine, easy jokes about her heels nearly being washed away, fried out of her head.
Charlotte crossed the room and bypassed the couch without sitting. She reached down, gentle but sure, and lifted the wine glass from Taylor’s hand and set it down on the coffee table beside the other one.
Then Charlotte’s knees pressed into the couch cushions on either side of Taylor’s hips, and she sank down, straddling her lap in one smooth motion.
Taylor felt the impact. Charlotte’s warmth pressed through her jeans.
Charlotte’s thighs settled against hers, her weight sinking into Taylor’s lap.
The sudden, real weight of her settled into Taylor’s lap with a soft shock that vibrated straight down through her pelvis.
Charlotte shifted just a fraction to find her balance, and every muscle in Taylor’s abdomen pulled tight.
The sheer, deliberate solidness of Charlotte sitting on her, taking up all the space in her lungs and her mind, left Taylor’s breath stuck high in her chest. She couldn’t move.
She didn’t want to move, completely pinned beneath the incredible warmth of Charlotte’s hips.
Charlotte’s fingers trailed along Taylor’s jaw, almost curious, then cupped the side of her neck.
The pad of her thumb rested against the hammering pulse there.
Air left Taylor in a broken rush. She couldn’t speak.
Every nerve ending she owned had raced south and left her throat empty.
She just stared up, stunned and so turned on the air itself felt thick, while Charlotte leaned in.
Charlotte’s mouth sealed over hers without a single second of hesitation.
The solid pressure shut out the rest of the room and locked Taylor’s ribs in place.
There was no hovering, no tentative testing of boundaries.
Charlotte’s lips parted, the slide of her mouth opening against Taylor’s making her stomach pull tight.
Her bottom lip caught between Charlotte’s teeth for a brief, dragging second before Charlotte softened the grip.
She brushed over Taylor’s mouth with a slow, deliberate friction.
Every movement felt calculated, steeped in a grounded certainty that completely unraveled Taylor’s nerves.
The sheer confidence in the way Charlotte tasted her, mapping the seam of her lips like she had all the time in the world, made Taylor’s fingers twitch against the couch.
How had so much changed since they were on the beach?
Taylor’s hands found Charlotte’s waist on pure reflex, palms sliding under the loose hem of the blouse to the bare skin beneath. Charlotte made a low sound into the kiss and rolled her hips once, a slow grind that dragged the thin barrier of yoga pants across the seam of Taylor’s jeans.
Pleasure tore bright between Taylor’s legs. Her fingers dug into the plush curve of Charlotte’s hips, tugging her closer, needing more of that exact friction.
Charlotte’s tongue stroked into her mouth, and Taylor opened for it, helpless, the taste of salt and of her flooding every corner of her brain.
She could feel how wet she already was, and the knowledge that Charlotte had done this to her in under a minute only made her want more.
Charlotte’s free hand slid into Taylor’s hair, gathering a fistful, tilting her head back so the next pass of her mouth could go deeper.
Taylor let herself be pulled under. Her body arched up into the heavy press of Charlotte’s thighs, chasing the next grind of those hips, already aching for the moment the clothes came off.
Was she dreaming? The thought flickered and burned out.
She wasn’t. This was really happening.
Charlotte’s weight pinned her to the cushions, thighs bracketing Taylor’s hips like she’d claimed the space outright.
Every shift dragged the thin yoga pants across the zipper of Taylor’s jeans, friction that lit up the ache already building low in her belly.
Taylor’s palms moved under the silk blouse, skimming Charlotte’s waist, the dip of her spine.
Skin met skin and something electric jumped between them, the kind that made Taylor’s fingers tighten without permission.
Charlotte moved against her again, and Taylor’s head tipped back against the couch.
The pressure hit her clit through her jeans and the sensation bloomed hot and sharp, stealing the next breath right out of her lungs.
She chased it, lifting into the next grind, needing the drag of fabric and the solid heat of Charlotte working down against her.
“God,” Taylor said, the word scraped raw. “Charlotte—”
Charlotte kissed the rest of it away. Her mouth opened wider, tongue stroking deep while her hand stayed fisted in Taylor’s hair, holding her exactly where she wanted her.
The other hand slipped between them and found the button of Taylor’s jeans.
Charlotte popped it free with a practiced flick of her thumb.
The zipper followed, metal teeth parting under steady pressure, and cool air spilled across Taylor’s lower stomach.
Charlotte’s hand slipped lower, past the open zipper, and her fingers found the thin cotton of Taylor’s underwear.
She stroked once, over the fabric but right against Taylor’s clit.
The pressure sent a jolt so sharp it pulled a broken sound from Taylor’s throat and made her hips jerk up hard against Charlotte’s palm. Then the touch vanished.
Charlotte’s hand pulled free and went for the hem of Taylor’s shirt instead.
Taylor lifted her arms without thinking. The soft cotton dragged up over her ribs and off, dropping somewhere onto the floor. Coolness kissed her shoulders for half a second before Charlotte’s mouth covered hers again, open and hungry.
Taylor’s hands dropped straight to Charlotte’s ass, palms filling with the plush give of it beneath the yoga pants.
She squeezed, pulled Charlotte tighter into her lap, and rolled her hips up to meet the next downward grind.
The press of Charlotte’s hips dragged thin fabric against the soaked cotton covering her clit, and pleasure flashed bright behind her eyes.
They kept moving like that, mouths locked, bodies finding a rhythm that made the couch creak. Every shift of Charlotte’s weight rubbed her through the thin black fabric straight across Taylor’s aching center.
Taylor moaned into the kiss, the sound low and wrecked, and felt Charlotte answer with one of her own, deeper, vibrating against Taylor’s tongue.
Charlotte’s hand found Taylor’s breast, cupping the full weight of it through the fabric of her bra.
Her thumb scraped slowly across the stiffened nipple, the material dragging hot against sensitivity that shot straight down Taylor’s spine and pooled low between her thighs.
Taylor arched up into the touch, chasing the weight of Charlotte’s palm, while her own fingers dug into the soft curves of Charlotte’s ass to pull her down tighter.