Chapter 23 #2
Rowan leaned in until her nose grazed the shell of Juniper’s ear. She pitched her tone quiet and low. “Contrary to your wild imagination, there are women in this city I haven’t slept with.”
“Hmm.” Juniper smiled, and she knew Rowan could feel the movement brush her cheek. Her own cheek prickled.
“Were you up there stewing the whole time?”
Juniper turned to whisper in Rowan’s ear, barely brushing her lips against the corner of her mouth on the way. “A little. I was also thinking about how hot it was watching you move like that, seeing you dominate. I also thought about all the ways I wanted to take your clothes off of you.”
“I did tell you there are locker rooms here, right?”
Hands sliding, squeezing, climbing, tangling, Juniper was voracious as they fought for control in the locker room shower.
Barely concealed by a cheap, thin shower curtain, Rowan’s eyes darted to the sliver of opening, which gave Juniper the perfect opportunity to sink to her knees on the shower floor.
“Spread your legs for me, Birdsong.”
Rowan closed her eyes and licked her lips as she balanced her foot on an inner ledge of the shower.
Juniper grazed her teeth up the line of muscle along Rowan’s inner thigh in tiny successive bites as her other hand glided up and over her other thigh to hold her hip in place against the shower wall.
“You’re going to give me what I want, but you have to do it fast.”
Rowan ran her hands through Juniper’s hair, lovingly at first, to clear her pathway and see her face. But as she made eye contact with her, she entangled her fingers into her hair and brought her face tightly to her center.
“You’re the one teasing me to the point of exploding.”
Then with a hunger she’d never known herself to possess, Juniper began devouring Rowan’s pussy. The first swipe of Juniper’s tongue caused Rowan’s body to tense. Her hips shot forward, and Juniper had to balance her hands against the wall.
“Fuck,” Rowan hissed.
Then Rowan took Juniper’s face with her as she sank her trembling hips back into the shower wall behind her.
Her hands struggled to find balance on the slippery shower walls as she continued to shake against Juniper’s mouth, so she rested her head against the wall again and scrunched her fingers through the hair on the top of Juniper’s head instead.
Juniper applied firm pressure as she glided her hands up the front of Rowan’s wet body, garnering Rowan’s attention as they locked eyes.
She watched Rowan bite back a whimper. Without stopping, Juniper lightly shook her head to reprimand that behavior. Rowan squeezed her eyes together, so Juniper sucked her clit into her mouth and sucked hard.
“You’re going to make me come like that,” Rowan exhaled over a shaky whisper as her eyes shot back open.
Juniper hoped her eyes reflected what she wanted to say as she kept her eyes locked on Rowan’s.
Just want to make you come over and over again for the rest of your life.
Rowan squeezed her bottom lip between her teeth as she silently came against Juniper’s face.
Juniper sat back to admire the way she’d made the flesh in front of her glisten. She held Rowan’s gaze as she stood up, licking her wetness from her mouth. Then she pushed her tongue into Rowan’s mouth as they lost themselves in the moment.
Juniper leaned back to catch her breath. She smirked as she looked down, encouraging Rowan’s eyes to follow. She swiped her finger leisurely back and forth between Rowan’s lips. “Clean up, Birdsong. You’re a mess.”
Rowan captured her wrist, and her eyes darted toward the crack in the curtain. She pushed Juniper’s hand further down. “I need more, Junie.”
Juniper grabbed Rowan’s hair to bring her mouth to hers as she slid two fingers inside her.
They never broke their kiss as Juniper worked her fingers in and out, over and over, to give her very hot girlfriend her second orgasm in the gym locker room shower.
Rowan whimpered her orgasm into Juniper’s mouth, and Juniper smiled into their kiss with self-satisfaction.
Manny shook his head mirthfully as they emerged from the locker room, freshly showered, clearly culpable.
“Do I want to know why Juniper needed a shower too, when she didn’t play?” He asked as they approached.
“Oh, Juniper played, just not basketball.”
Juniper elbowed her in the ribs. “Anyway,” she sighed elaborately, “time to eat?” She caught herself and looked right at Rowan and pointed her finger into her chest. “Stop, before you even start.”
“It didn’t even need to be said.” Rowan smirked.
“Gross. Happy for you, but gross. Let’s get out of here.”
They exited the gym and walked side by side down the sidewalk. Manny regaled Juniper with different stories of his and Rowan’s escapades in the city, and Juniper drank in everything she never knew about the woman she loved.
Manny turned toward them as they stopped at a crosswalk. “So I was thinking ramen? Yeah?”
“Ramen?” Juniper’s expression was equally disbelieving and shocked.
Manny attempted to level with her. “This is not 10 cent dollar store ramen, Junie. This is actual ramen. It’s an art form in Japan with actual ramen chefs dedicated to making just ramen.”
They crossed the sidewalk and stopped at the restaurant door to look at the menu posted on the window beside it. Juniper scanned it, and although the ingredients looked delicious, her eyes widened. “For $21?”
Manny chuckled. “I know, I know. Just trust us.”
After being seated and giving their drink orders, Manny excused himself to use the bathroom.
Juniper took the private moment to lean into Rowan and whisper, “Maybe, you order for me?”
Rowan looked at her with confusion until realization flashed in her eyes. “Of course. Do you want me to order two different kinds so we can try both?”
Juniper nodded and Rowan planted a sweet kiss on her cheek. She wrapped her arm around the back of Juniper’s chair, and Juniper settled in more.
“Anything you like or don’t like?” Rowan asked.
“Nope, I’ll try anything once.”
“My girl.”
Juniper wasn’t sure she’d ever get over the thrill of hearing Rowan say ‘she’ll have’ and order for her.
Not normally one to ask someone to help her out, or even accept it when it was offered, she relished in that little moment when it was Rowan doing it for her.
After even more stories from Manny, they received their food and dug in.
“Fuck, that’s good,” she looked at Rowan as she dabbed some broth from the corner of her mouth.
Rowan laughed, adding more spicy chili oil to the other bowl. “Right?”
“It’s… incredible.” Juniper shifted closer to Rowan, and she took a bite of the spicy one. “Wow. Please tell me there’s something like this near us.”
Rowan sighed, “Nah. I looked. But – we could always visit whenever you want.”
“Or you could just move heeere,” Manny lilted in a sing-song voice, then slurped a mouthful of ramen.
Juniper had never really thought about that before. She’d been so caught up with trusting whether Rowan would stay that she hadn’t considered if they would both want to move somewhere else, together. Would her life allow something like that though?
“I don’t think so.” Rowan’s answer interrupted her thoughts. “Junie’s program is really successful. I don’t think she can run the whole program from several states away.” She squeezed Juniper’s thigh.
Oh.
Juniper tried to conceal her frown. That made sense, but was that the full story? Was that what she wanted to be her full story?
Manny looked up expectantly. “So, are you excited for the conference? Are you going to be on your best or worst behavior?”
Rowan shook her head and chuckled. “I guess that depends.”
Juniper looked between them both in confusion. “What does that mean?”
Manny set his sake cup down. “You know how conferences exist in an alternate universe. Nothing matters.”
“No, not really.” She looked between them both again. She’d never been to a conference as large and well-attended as this one was anticipated to be.
Rowan clarified, “It’s like all sense of reality suspends when you go to a conference. People say and do things after hours that they wouldn’t do in the light of day in the ‘real world.’ People get together that haven’t seen each other in a while. People get together.”
“Did she ever tell you about the time we made a bet to see how many women from different countries we could numbers from?”
“Ah, Manny,” Rowan sighed and rubbed her forehead.
Juniper, intrigued, leaned her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “She did not. Please, do tell.”
“I’m going to get in trouble for this–”
“Yeah, you already are.”
“It was one of our first times traveling internationally to go to a conference.”
Rowan interrupted, “To be fair, we were like 25, okay, so just…”
Juniper cut her eyes at her and smiled at the pleading look at them, then looked back at Manny.
“Rowan had finally gotten out of her awkward stage and had been hit on enough to realize she wasn’t awkward anymore.”
“Manny,” Rowan groaned as she sunk her face into her hands.
Interrupting his own story, Manny added, “When I first got to know her, she had a really unfortunate utilitarian short haircut since she was eighteen, but then her girlfriend–” he looked at Rowan “in 3L?”
“Yes, third year,” she sighed.
“She convinced her to grow it out some to get this 90s Johnny Depp panty dropper thing she has going on now.”
“I do not slick my hair back, Manny,” she scoffed.
“Oh no,” he gasped, “it’s too ‘just fucked’ for that.”
Juniper laughed at his hilarious characterization and Rowan’s subsequent cringing.
But then she briefly narrowed her eyes in confusion before schooling her face again.
She skimmed right over the girlfriend comment and right to wondering when she’d cut her hair the first time – obviously sometime before undergrad?
Rowan had told her the significant importance she’d felt about cutting it, but she’d never known the timeline.