Chapter 14
Jamie turned the card she received in return between her fingers. Every few minutes she giggled, and Etta – who was nose-deep in her emails – asked her what was going on.
“Oh, just stuff,” Jamie would reply.
That either bored or satisfied Etta every time, because she went right back to her phone.
“You know,” Jamie said, halfway home. “It’s been a while since we…
” She sidled up next to Etta and curled a hand around her leg.
She hadn’t forgotten how Etta touched her, whispered in her ear while the show went on earlier.
Neither of the subsequent shows was as engrossing as the first one with Varen and Nala.
But they stayed and watched them before the party at the table broke up with half the people disappearing to go talk to others or, if one was named Kathleen or Ira, fool around in some dark corner somewhere.
“Wouldn’t be a night at Midnight if I didn’t see Kathleen’s breasts at least once,” Monique had said when she came back from the bathroom.
If Etta ever cared about watching her friends and business partners have sex, she never said. She was more likely to do exactly what she did in that limo, such as glance at Jamie with the smallest, slyest smile in the universe.
“Indeed it has been. It’s also been a while since I’ve seen you this happy.”
Happy, huh? I guess. Happier than she had been, yes. “We move on, I suppose.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.” Etta nipped the bottom of Jamie’s ear. “I’ve been worried about you, though.”
“Worried? About me?”
“Mmhmm.” Etta coiled her arm around Jamie’s shoulders and brought her into a light hug. “I know you took this past week rather hard. I wish I hadn’t been so busy so I could pay more attention to you.”
“You pay plenty.” Jamie wanted more, yes, but she knew that dating a busy businesswoman meant sitting on the sidelines once in a while.
Jamie may be her girlfriend, but Etta’s empire was her mistress.
Rather it be her than some other woman. Jamie intercepted Etta’s lips for a kiss.
Their hug tightened. “But we’ve been lacking recently. Dunno what it could be.”
“When you told me you wanted to go to that club this weekend, I was hopeful that it meant you were feeling better. Or at least were in the mood for a distraction.”
“You’ve been busy. I haven’t been feeling well. It happens.”
Etta gave her one last kiss on the cheek and went back to her phone. “I hope I can finish this up before we get home.”
Jamie nodded, pretending to understand.
Unfortunately, Etta was not finished by the time they got home.
She announced she was going to finish up in her office, so there would be no distractions.
Only fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. Jamie nodded once more, but now she knew better.
Etta would be out half an hour to an hour, depending on how deep she got.
Could get deep into other things… Jamie didn’t care how long she had to wait. She was going into their bedroom, kicking out the cat(s), and doing everything in her power to make sure she got laid that night.
“Etta is easy,” she told herself, opening a bureau drawer and searching through her lingerie.
“The easiest of them all.” Jamie knew her ticks, her kinks, and what she responded to the best. The idea a woman like her could resist her girlfriend…
Jamie pulled out the crimson negligee she bought at Monique’s behest.
“Etta would love it.”
Well, she better. As Jamie dropped her dress and shimmied into the lingerie, she thought of nothing but her girlfriend’s reaction the moment she came through that bedroom door.
She smoothed out the bed covers, ignoring her cat on the other side of the door, mewling and scratching.
She thinks she owns this room. When she first moved in, Barbarossa refused to leave the bedroom.
Then she started wandering the wing, claiming this windowsill and that chair in Etta’s office.
Yet her favorite place, especially at night, was the bedroom, curled between Jamie and Etta’s bodies – regardless of how close they were too.
That fat asshole was not above sitting at the end of the bed and staring at them while they engaged in foreplay.
Jamie had learned how to ignore her, but Etta still got up, plucked the fucker right off the bed, and unceremoniously plopped her on the other side of the door. Now Jamie had done it prematurely.
“Sorry. This is an emergency,” she mumbled, going to a vase full of fresh flowers from the garden. Beatrice always put them there, and for that, Jamie was grateful because it meant a lovely early spring bud for her to bring to bed. She picked up her phone and texted her girlfriend.
“You should come to the bedroom. It’s an emergency.”
It took no fewer than ten seconds to receive a reply.
“An actual emergency? Or did the cat get trapped in the shower again?”
“You could say this emergency involves…” Jamie had to decide how dirty she wanted to get. Grinning, she typed a word she didn’t often let be stored in the phone. “Pussy.”
“Give me five minutes. Finishing up this email.”
“You better finish up that email before I finish myself off.”
“Now, let’s not get hasty.”
Jamie put her phone on the nightstand and rolled onto her side. She didn’t have a mirror, but she had a woman’s intuition, and it told her that posing herself on the bed so her breasts bulged from the negligee and her thighs poked out from beneath was her best shot at getting what she wanted.
She had just decided to fix her hair when the door handle turned. Open, damnit. The door couldn’t decide. Open? Shut? Etta’s foot and a tuft of orange fur appeared in the crack.“No, no,” Etta muttered, followed by an insistent yowl. “You were left out here for a reason.”
Another yowl, this one almost violent. My freakin’ cat.
Finally, Etta won the battle with the beast and managed to sneak into the room without the cat stealing in behind her. Pitiful scratches appeared at the door; pink paws appeared beneath the crack. But the moment Etta turned and saw the treasure on her bed, everyone ignored the demanding furchild.
“Wow.” Etta had left her jacket in her office, probably draped across the back of her chair. The first two buttons on her white shirt were unbuttoned. Jamie kissed the flower she held and let it hover above her cleavage. “Look at you.”
“You haven’t forgotten that you live with this, have you?” Jamie tossed her hair back, letting her thighs slide together and catch Etta’s attention. That’s right. Get ready for me. “Been a while since Ms. Coleman paid proper attention to the pretty girlfriend she keeps cooped up in her bedroom.”
“Indeed, it has. Sometimes, Ms. Coleman forgets she’s got a life outside of work.” Etta approached the bed, rolling up her sleeves and gazing down at the length of Jamie’s curving body. “Hello. Come here often?”
“Only when Ms. Coleman pays on time.”
Jamie extended the flower to her, running it down the seam of Etta’s trousers and teasing her thigh with the precious petals.
“You are a convincing lady when you put your mind to it.”
She scoffed. “And you are a domineering woman when you put your mind to it.”
“You think my mind isn’t going there right now?”
“I should certainly hope so… ma’am.”
The flirtatious countenance Etta sported quickly disappeared. “Is that what you want?” She leaned down, hands bracing against her knees. “Because I know what would look very nice with this skimpy nightgown you’re wearing.”
Jamie rubbed the flower petals against her face.
Etta did not flinch. “What’s that?”Fingers walked from her cleavage up to her throat, lightly touching her skin.
Shivers rippled through Jamie’s body. It’s been too long since she last touched me like this.
To be fair, it had been too long since she welcomed this kind of touch.
“You know what, my flower.”
That voice. So calming. So powerful. Jamie could practically feel the desire emanating from her girlfriend. Give her to me. She had missed Etta on top of her, owning her, possessing her. That was what she wanted now more than anything else. “Kiss me, Etta.”
She did, her mouth shoving Jamie onto the bed while her hands touched whatever they pleased.
Anything that had been asleep within Jamie those past several weeks suddenly woke up again.
Holy shit, do I love her. Grunts of rising need reverberated through her as Etta kissed, grabbed, and filled Jamie’s mouth with everything she had.
When Etta finally pulled off her, the flower was crushed against the bed.
“Look what you did,” Jamie reprimanded. “How very dare you.”
Etta stood, taking the crumpled flower petals and sprinkling them on her girlfriend. “How dare I, indeed. Wait here, Jamie. I’ll be right back. For you.”
She waited until Etta left the bedside before chomping on her lip and kicking her legs out behind her.
It’s about damn time. Etta wandered to her side of the room, tugging at her collar as she poured herself a drink at a small wet bar.
She didn’t offer Jamie any, but she often didn’t.
Jamie stole shots here and there when necessary, but for the most part, drinking a shot of hard liquor before sex was an Etta thing, not a Jamie thing.
It’s damn hot, too. Especially the look she shot her through the corner of her eye as if to say, I’m coming for you.
Etta opened the top drawer of the bureau next to the bar. From it, she withdrew a few things Jamie couldn’t see, but she knew only good things came from that drawer. Just like the drawer next to her side of the bed, from which she withdrew her navy, sapphire-studded collar.