Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
The tips of my short black hair are still wet from my shower when I arrive, chilled by the night air and curled against my neck. That’s why I’m shivering at the door of Harlow’s Airbnb. Definitely not from pre-bad-decision nerves. Her texts swim over me again, sending heat prickling up the backs of my thighs.
FOR THE LOVE OF WINE, ZOE, HAVE SOME GODDAMN SELF-RESPECT
I have a proposition for you, darling.
FOR THE LOVE OF WINE, ZOE, HAVE SOME GODDAMN SELF-RESPECT
You, me, and my lovely friend from out of town. Two blindfolds. One king-size bed. Tonight.
Zoe
FOR THE LOVE OF WINE, ZOE, HAVE SOME GODDAMN SELF-RESPECT
Sending the address now.
A threesome . I’ve never had one before. So many breasts, one mouth. For once, the idea of multitasking thrills me.
But it’s still a threesome with Harlow .
My fist hovers near the door. I feel so sheepish for abandoning my promises. Defeated, once again, by the siren song of being held by someone who knows me. Even though I know how this story ends, with Harlow on a plane and me in my office, filling the relationship-size hole in my life with work until I forget it’s there again, I knock anyway. There are a million kinds of love, and this is one of the only kinds I get.
A soft, tinkling laugh answers from within, then murmured talk. Footsteps. I try to banish all my feelings with a short, sharp exhale. When Harlow answers, it’s with a smile so mischievous, so delightfully familiar , excitement stirs within my belly and my heart squeezes with fondness.
This is why Harlow’s so dangerous. The fact that her petite frame is dressed in nothing more than a matte gray silk slip, her cheek resting lightly against the door as her stormy eyes travel over me, doesn’t help.
“Come in,” she commands, and I step across the threshold. She wraps her arms languidly around my neck, chills traveling up my back as she brings my face down to hers and takes my bottom lip gently into her mouth. She tastes how champagne feels: bubbly, electric, bright. I sigh into her and wrap my own arms around her waist, bringing her hips against mine. The skin-warmed silk glides beneath my cold fingers that ache for the heat of another.
She tilts her head back, breaking our kiss with a sly grin, and holds up a long strip of black. “Are you ready to meet my friend?”
“Is this a—I mean, so we’re definitely going to wear—” My thoughts can’t seem to cohere into sentences as she slips the blindfold over my eyes.
“It helps, when it’s your first time.” She nips at my earlobe and finishes tying it on. “I’ll be there to guide you. You’re safe with me.”
And this is why I can never tell her no. I didn’t admit this would be my first threesome, but I didn’t have to. Harlow always meets me where I’m at, then gives me exactly what I need to escape my own skin. Like a rope thrown down into a deep, dark well, she rescues me from myself.
If only for a little while.
She leads me by the hand to the bedroom, her fingers entwined with mine. All I know about Harlow’s friend is that she’s a hot butch sommelier Harlow met out west on a “little break.” Lina. She’s amazing , Harlow had promised. You’ll love her.
I’m less sure. I don’t go for butches usually—not because I don’t find them attractive, I absolutely do—but Charlaine Woods has always occupied that spot for me. My first queer crush was also my first butch. Soft curves smoothed down by sports bras and boyish hips hugged by men’s denim, her high cheekbones kissed by sunshine and nothing else. She was beautiful on her own terms, not society’s, and it felt completely radical at the time. To be yourself, to like yourself , in high school? Unheard of. No one else could really compare.
Can this other she , this Lina, see me right now? I fumble for my blindfold, but Harlow catches my hand, bites my palm. I gasp, and she whispers in my ear, sending heat to my center. “Don’t worry, she’s wearing one, too. Tonight is for feeling each other. Not self-consciousness.” She pulls me inside the room and begins to undress me. “ Trust me .”
My black jean jacket clatters to the floor, louder than I expect, but all my senses are heightened right now. Harlow dips one small hand beneath the rim of my jeans, and a sweet, urgent wish blooms in my belly. She uses the other hand to unbutton my jeans and push them to the floor. Her hands ripple over my body, finding the tension in my muscles, the fear. “Let go .”
Maybe it’s because I’m the boss 24/7, in charge of everything in my life, making decisions and decisions and always more decisions nonstop. But nothing turns me on more than relinquishing my control to someone who’s going to boss me around for once.
Someone who’s going to make me come.
“Yes,” I whisper, relaxing into Harlow’s touch. She’s got me down to my panties and white T-shirt, the black-and-white image of Stevie Nicks stretched across my breasts. When I picked out what to wear, I felt like the matron saint of hot women with big fuck-it energy would watch over me tonight. No bra because Harlow loves the look of my breasts barely constrained by thin cotton. I can feel her staring at me, and it feels good . The thought of Lina waiting on the bed, warm and present and ready , electrifies my blood. I want to find her. Feel her, too.
So I’m a threesome person. I had no clue.
Harlow guides me to the bed. When my bare knees bump against the soft duvet, I reach out and find other hands waiting for me, new hands. They’re strong, supporting me as I climb onto the bed on my knees. Harlow groans softly.
“You two are so fucking hot.” I can hear the rustle of her gray slip sliding over her short, white-blonde hair, then landing on the floor with a whisper. She scrambles onto the bed, laughing as she jostles us both by accident. We’re facing each other, a triad on our knees. Harlow’s laugh stops short, turns into a sharp breath in, as my left hand lightly trails down the slope of her small, upturned breast. Her skin rises to meet the soft brush of my knuckles, pebbling tight beneath my touch.
“I’m a goddamn genius,” Harlow breathes, and whatever she’s doing to Lina on her other side makes her groan low in agreement. Then a mismatched pair of hands finds each of my own breasts. Lina’s strong hand is trembling and gentle, tracing the shape of my right breast, cupping it in her hand, while Harlow’s touch is fierce and sure, a sharp pinch followed by the soft suck of her mouth through the shirt I’m still wearing. Familiar meets unfamiliar. The dichotomy of sensation thrills across my skin, my belly levitating within me. I don’t have to touch myself to know that I’m slick and hot and ready to go .
Fuck New Year’s. Fuck resolutions. Fuck denying myself this one thing I can have. I rip off my shirt, and then both of Lina’s hands find me, palming my bare breasts with a gasp of desire. They fit in her hands almost perfectly, overflowing enough that her head dips forward into me; pressing her mouth against them in wild half-kisses, half-bites. My hands find the shaved sides of Lina’s head, smooth like suede until they reach a flop of soft length. I dig my fingers in, trawling down her scalp as she ravishes my chest. I arch my back into her kisses while Harlow moves behind me. Her hard nipples blaze into me below my shoulder blades, explosions of feeling emanating from where her peaks press against my skin. When her small hands slide over my hip bones, traveling at diagonals down my panties, my hips thrust forward involuntarily, a cry escaping my lips. The pressure on the bed changes quickly, and then I feel Lina’s soft hair brushing between my spread thighs, hot breath gusting upward before her teeth bite into my panties, pulling them down.
A liquid, molten tension tugs within me, begging for pressure, relief. Lina’s on her back, her head between my legs. And so help me, if she licks me gently right now, a soft swipe of beaded tongue flirting with my need, I’ll scream .
But Lina has mercy.
The ridge of her nose drives into me as she slides a finger inside, then two. I clench around them, crying out in gratitude while Harlow roughly yanks my panties the rest of the way off. The elastic band snaps against the tender flesh of my ass, and I like it so much, she does it again. Truly getting double-teamed right now, and I may not survive.
My hands clench into fists, needing to grab onto something—for balance, strength, the sheer desire to claim someone else’s flesh for a while. With one hand, I stroke Lina’s round, muscular shoulder, squeezing the firm skin hard, then running my hand across her chest. There the skin is slightly raised, my fingers unconsciously tracing the scar of a design inked into her skin.
Oh god , she’s got chest tattoos? I practically purr as she moans into my swollen clit. With my other hand, I find Harlow behind me and slide my finger along her wet split, already spread wide in her kneeling position. Her clit responds to me first, tensing before her mouth whispers yes, yes, yes against my neck. She writhes against my back as I stroke her rhythmically in the way I know she likes, and this is intimacy, it is . It fills me to the brim with heat and longing and joy, real joy , when she comes wildly against me.
“I’m about to fuck you senseless,” she rasps into my ear before standing. “I’ll be back—getting my favorite dick.”
I hear Harlow scamper out of the room, leaving Lina and me alone. For an instant, I hesitate—are we supposed to wait for her? The disappointing thought disappears, though, when Lina takes my entire clit into her mouth and sucks . It’s such a punch of pleasure, I fall forward, into her, between her legs, greedy to have her all to myself. I’m so used to my blindfold now, so aware of her , I yank off what feels like cotton boxer briefs without any trouble at all. She lifts her ass, helping me along, and I catch the first smell of her. I moan into her flesh as I lick, overwhelmed with the heat of this stranger whose touch ignites my every nerve ending. How can you know someone this intimately yet have no idea who they are?
Lina feels amazing, and I can’t help myself from exploring the hard planes of her stomach, the strong, thick thighs cradling my head. God, I’ve been an idiot avoiding butch women this long. It’s more than just looks, obviously—I can’t even see her. It’s the rough grip of her hands on my hips, guiding me with a confidence that tells me we will get to where we’re going. If Harlow’s movements are teasing and lush, Lina’s are commanding: focused, deliberate, burning with want. My body melts against her. I wrap my hands beneath her, and her ass is perfect in my grasp. I squeeze it again and again as I lick her front to back, learning where she likes my touch, then punishing her for giving me that knowledge. The way she vibrates against me, this butch wants to be teased. She’s in charge, but longs to be undermined, so I toy with her, my tongue so close to the ache I’m building that she whimpers. My fingers scrabble around the curve of her ass until they reach her wet pussy, tugging, pulling her apart, forcing her to give all of herself to me. She can’t help but obey.
It sends her flying over the edge. Lina’s tongue goes erratic against my clit as she comes apart beneath me, her groan ecstatic and furious.
She didn’t want to come first, and I am in trouble for it. I can tell by the renewed command she exerts on my hips, the frenzied determination with which she pins me down, making me squirm with want for her. Her strong hands put me exactly where she wants me, not playing now, and she attacks me with broad, fierce licks with the flat of her tongue and sharp, focused sucks, and then I am coming, too. Coming hard , relentlessly, grinding into her chin for relief. I cry into her, keening as each wave of electric pleasure travels from my epicenter in both directions, to the roots of my hair, the tips of my toes.
“Li- Lina !”
She laughs softly against me, her voice low and smug and husky. “It’s Laine, baby.”
Laine. Laine?
Ice-cold adrenaline shoots through my veins before my brain can pinpoint what’s freaking it out. So I didn’t get her name right, so I—
It’s Laine, baby. That voice plays again in my head, terrifyingly familiar. I gasp and roll off her, expecting the bed to catch me.
Instead, there’s a long fall to the wooden floor.
Oof!
I land on my naked ass, the cabin’s smooth, wooden floor spanking me hard like the gym coach’s paddle when he caught me skipping class with Rachel that time (corporal punishment in school persisted way too long in Georgia). Rachel had texted her sister to pick us up, but we got caught before Charlaine rolled into the parking lot.
I rip off my blindfold, breathing too quickly.
Lina—no, Laine —sits up, and I watch with horror as the absolute sex-bomb that just fucked me better than I’ve ever been takes off her own blindfold. Her soft brown eyes rove over me, concerned. “Shit, are you okay?”
“Oh. My. God,” I hoarse out, then scoot backward on my sore ass. “Charlaine?!”
Charlaine Woods, Rachel’s big sister, my first crush, the First Lesbian I Ever Perceived for God’s sake, stares down at me, confused as hell. Her eyebrows furrow as she tilts her head. “Do I … know you?” Her lips quirk to the side. “I mean, from before just now when I made you scream the wrong name.” She reaches down from the bed, offering a hand to help me up. Pure boss energy rolls off her, and I want to hide under something.
I stare at her outstretched hand, my mouth slightly open, unable to think of what to say. I couldn’t talk in front of Charlaine when we were in high school, either. She reduced me to a pile of jittering nerve endings every time, but I’m an adult now, and that quiet, insecure Zoe is years behind me. Come on, brain. Think!
But then Harlow bursts into the room wearing the most impressive strap-on I’ve ever seen outside of a catalogue, and modern language is out of my reach.
“Hey,” Harlow exclaims, putting her hands on her hips. “You took your masks off!”
Maybe it’s being eye-level with a giant rainbow dick, but that shocks me out of my stupor. I scramble to my feet.
“What’s your name again?” Laine squints as she tries, and fails, to place my face.
I momentarily consider lying. Lying could work. Then Harlow’s dildo grazes my ass, and I remember she’s here, too.
Lying won’t work.
“Zoe. Rachel’s best friend growing up?” The words fall out in a jumble.
Laine’s frown grows. She doesn’t remember me at all? I know she pretended we didn’t exist, but I was at her house every weekend of my young life. Laine drags a hand through her doe-brown hair, shaved on both sides. The move highlights the lean line of muscles in her arm, and my belly flips involuntarily. But her face remains firmly confused.
A piece of young Zoe’s heart crumbles inside of me.
I run my hands down my face because I know the one thing that’ll make her remember in an instant, and I don’t want to own it. At all. “Rachel’s friend that went to prom with Chance. The one who—who went to the after party and drank too much?”
Laine’s eyes widen with a jolt. “Oh fuck!” She covers her mouth and laughs. “Oh my god, I remember you now. Chop Chop, right? You’re gay ?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Harlow waves her hands at us. “You know each other?” She hiccups out a delighted laugh. “I didn’t know you were from Blue Ridge, Laine!”
“Yeah,” Laine says slowly, beginning to grin. “Zoe dated my twin brother in high school.”
“You what ?” Harlow’s laughing harder, and my whole body’s turning red, which everyone can see because I’m still naked . “I didn’t think you had a straight bone in your body, Zoe Brennan!”
“It was just prom the one time, and I— ugh —you told me her name was Lina!”
“No, I definitely said Laine. You must’ve read it wrong.”
Laine suddenly stops laughing, her face going pale. “Wait. Zoe Brennan ?”
There it is. She remembers who I am now, all right. All my personas have compiled. The adoring neighbor kid who stared at her like she held all the answers to every question. Rachel’s scrawny best friend. The confused drunk teen who humiliated herself in front of everyone at prom. Standing here naked, all the past versions of me that I’ve purposefully banished are pulled out on display once more in front of the perfect Charlaine Woods . I feel like the ground beneath an avalanche—breathless, cold, trapped.
“Zoe! Don’t freak out,” Harlow manages between laughs. “It’s just a funny coincidence!”
“I—I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Big morning tomorrow!” I stammer out as I jump up and down trying to squeeze into my jeans only to realize one leg’s half turned inside out. I throw my jacket on over my topless breasts and grab my T-shirt— thanks for nothing, Stevie Nicks —and step into my black boots, not bothering to zip them up. Harlow runs after me, but my last glimpse of Laine is her sitting with her back pressed against the headboard, eyes fully spooked. I can’t get out of here fast enough.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!