Chapter 15
Juniper heard the door swing open and angled backwards to watch as Rowan walked in, in a navy blue suit with a white button down open at the neck.
The part where Juniper fully lost it though?
The sexiest, nerdiest tortoiseshell glasses.
Juniper had no control over her lips parting, her eyes transfixing themselves on Rowan, on literally every part of Rowan.
Oh, fuck me.
A look of anxiety crossed Rowan’s face.
“What? Do I look okay? Did I spill something on myself?”
Rowan adjusted the cuff of one of her shirt sleeves while she looked down at her shirt and pants and then back up to Juniper’s eyes.
“Yes.” Juniper knew she was practically panting.
“Shit, where?”
“Huh?” Definitely panting.
“I asked if I spilled something on myself, and you said yes.”
“Oh, I meant yes to you looking good.”
“Ah, got it. You look… great,” Rowan added.
She felt Rowan’s eyes scan over her entirely, from her heels, up her bare legs, across the curves of her hips emphasized so obviously by her black pencil skirt.
Juniper cleared her throat out of self-consciousness, a good kind of self-consciousness.
She finally caught Rowan’s eyes dart back up to hers.
“Um, do you feel ready?” Rowan asked, attempting to clear the air.
Juniper was ready for so many things. “More than you know.”
Rowan smirked. “No, I think I know.”
Juniper adjusted the waistband of her skirt and made sure her silky lilac top was still in place as it should be before she joined Rowan at the table.
She watched Rowan greedily track every movement.
Juniper sat in the chair angled toward the chair Rowan sat in.
She pressed her thighs together before crossing her legs.
She was fairly certain her heart was no longer beating at all in her chest and instead had found its new forever home between her legs.
Rowan sat forward, her elbows resting on her spread-out knees, while she reviewed some printed notes probably for the hundredth time.
Juniper loved this new way she took up every inch of space she wanted to.
Sure she was still on the quiet side, more introspective and reflective than most, but what she exuded now was like a quiet dominance.
This assertiveness, this confidence was brand new to Juniper, and it was hot.
Oh god. But it was. It was really fucking hot.
It made her want to be near her, like the proximity to her alone could create a change within Juniper herself.
It made her want to reach out and touch her. And be touched by her.
“Hmm?” Juniper hummed, snapping out of it at the realization she had totally missed what Rowan had said.
“I said I tore a contact lens in my last pair, so I had to wear these glasses.” Rowan repeated without looking up, shuffling through her papers.
“Oh,” Juniper breathed out, thankful that it wasn’t something more.
“I like them. They suit you well,” she added, reaching out to touch the side of the frames.
And because she couldn’t imagine not touching her in some way in this moment, she let her extra fingers rest on Rowan’s cheekbone momentarily before grazing the side of her face all the way down until her hand found her own lap again.
“Thanks.” Rowan’s eyes flickered up to hers. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Rowan blinked and looked down at her papers again. “The tracking number says the contacts will get here Friday, because of course.”
“You know everything takes an extra week to get to us all the way out here,” Juniper added.
Rowan set the papers on the table and canted her head as she looked back at Juniper. “Are you okay? You seem nervous.”
“This…” Juniper paused. “You…” Her breath quivered. “How forward can I be right now?”
“I hope very forward?”
Juniper swallowed. “Everything about you is making everything in me want to scream at you to fuck me right now.”
Rowan’s little grin curled up on the side. “I hope to spend a lot of time making you scream.”
“Rowan!” Juniper’s laugh burst forward.
Rowan’s grin turned devious, and she shrugged. “But maybe now’s not the time to get even more worked up. Sorry, let’s focus on the next couple hours.” She slid her pinky into Juniper’s. “Do you remember how we used to do this?”
Juniper looked down at their linked pinkies and smiled at the tenderness as she begged her clit to stop throbbing.
Rowan brought their joined hands to her lap and used her free hand to trace lines over Juniper’s fingers. “I loved doing this so much.”
“You did?”
“I always loved feeling connected to you. Even like this.”
Overwhelming feelings rioted, ricocheted, and burst inside Juniper’s chest. There was no way she was already in love with this woman again, right? In the subsequent years after Rowan left, Juniper felt adrift. Disconnected. Lost. But this? Now? She was alive again.
“I know it got so complicated, and I haven’t done a great job explaining why I did what I did.”
Juniper silenced any lingering confessions as she pressed her lips softly into Rowan’s.
Maybe it was impulsive, but she didn’t want to ruin the moment.
She let go of constantly trying to tame herself to fit into anyone’s else’s expectations of her and allowed herself to feel exactly what she wanted to feel without hesitation.
And that feeling did actually feel a lot like love.
Rowan stopped tracing lines over Juniper’s hand and instead reached over to possessively pull Juniper’s chair flush against hers. Their knees bumped and spread around each other and Rowan’s hands tangled themselves in Juniper’s hair to pull her even closer.
Juniper rested her forehead against Rowan’s and tried to steady her breathing. “I thought you said we shouldn’t get worked up.”
“Don’t listen to me. I’m an idiot. I take it back.”
“Let’s get a full vote of yeses and then we celebrate.”
“You’re an evil woman.”
“You started it.” Juniper stood up and skittered backwards to the door.
“How did I start it?” Rowan stood with her, gathered her papers, and followed behind.
“You’re the one who wore the fuck me glasses and fuck me suit.”
Rowan crossed towards her as Juniper edged open the door and slid herself into the crack. Rowan stopped her from escaping by gliding her hand down Juniper’s rounded ass.
“Says the woman who wore the fuck me against a desk secretary skirt.”
“You want to fuck me against a desk?”
“I will fuck you against a desk.”
Juniper’s heart hammered against her rib cage at the idea of Rowan pulling her skirt above her ass and pushing her against a desk. She licked her lips at the way she imagined Rowan’s fingers would feel curling into the edges of her panties to yank them down her legs.
“Be professional, Birdsong. What’s gotten into you?”
“Hopefully you, soon.” Rowan nudged her the rest of the way out the door and closed it behind them. “We should go. Be professional, Junie.”
On their way across the building to the Tribal Council chambers, they managed to review their plan for who would field which questions.
Juniper would focus on the gardens and plans for food distribution and Rowan would focus on the land expansion and construction.
Even though they were trying to keep it professional, they couldn’t help stealing sidelong glances at each other.
“Stop it,” Juniper whispered.
Rowan smirked. “You first.”
Rowan shifted her papers to one hand to hold the door open for Juniper who strode confidently into the chambers.
She sat first and waited for Rowan to be seated before she cleared her throat to garner her attention.
Rowan turned to face her but immediately looked down to watch Juniper seductively cross her legs and begin nudging her foot up and down the back of Rowan’s leg.
Rowan leaned forward and pretended to read the proposal again. She reached down and lightly, slowly traced two fingertips up and down the back of Juniper’s bare calf. “You need to stop it, Ms. Banks,” she whispered.
Juniper flushed at the slight fucking on the desk callback and bit back a groan as she imagined those two fingers stroking somewhere else. “You need to stop it.”
The both straightened up as the room was called to order. The back two doors to the Chambers opened up and Council members filed in one by one to sit at the long table that flanked the back wall.
“There she is,” Juniper murmured as Councilwoman Lightfoot shut the door behind herself and took the final seat at the table just to the left of center.
Beckett Lightfoot was dressed in a crisp white button down shirt, sleeves perfectly and meticulously cuffed just below her elbows, exposing chiseled forearms that Juniper suspected were part of the overall package, judging by the strain of fabric around her biceps and shoulders as she situated herself.
A full sleeve of tattoos unfurled down the skin of her exposed right forearm.
On her left wrist, an aviation watch with a black frame and tan leather band.
Hands a little rough around the edges, but neatly trimmed bare nails nonetheless.
Her black hair was parted directly in the middle, pulled tight, and slicked back into a very tightly coiled low bun, strands of silver just starting to show around the edges of her face.
No matter when Juniper had ever seen her, she always wore her hair like that, military regulation style.
Even if Beckett unclenched her jaw, Juniper was pretty sure her jawline could still cut through glass.
She looked downright unfuckwithable. And she doubted anyone had ever tried.
Or at least they learned very quickly they shouldn’t have.
She was certainly striking, and Juniper imagined she likely made some woman, or many women maybe, very happy.
After a slew of formal proceedings and other proposals, Beckett reached for her next stack of papers in front of her, and judging by the height of the stack, Juniper was sure it was their proposal. She nudged Rowan’s knee with hers.