CHAPTER 12
She stood in her window and watched Violet freak out at the fact that she was still naked, standing at that window, which faced the street.
It was pretty adorable. Stella then took a step back and thought about how she’d never thought of Violet Russell as adorable back in school.
The words she’d most commonly associated with the woman had been annoying, frustrating, hot but unaware of it, pompous, rich bitch, and more along those lines.
Hot but unaware of it didn’t make Violet adorable, but her standing in Stella’s bedroom, half-naked, with a ruined shirt in her hand, and then tossing one of Stella’s on instead, did.
Violet running out of the house to get to her car because she’d been so turned on last night that she’d left her whole damn purse and phone in her car, when she had probably never forgotten anything in her life before, also made her adorable.
Stella headed into her bathroom to start the water for her shower to warm up before she went around the bedroom, finding her clothes from the previous night strewn about the floor.
She also found something else. Handprints.
There were two handprints, spaced just wide enough for Stella’s head to fit between them.
She pictured Violet riding her face, falling forward, and making those prints, and that had her wishing that Violet would’ve stuck around for round number eight, or maybe it was nine after their morning quickie.
She saw a couple of other spots that looked like they could’ve been knee prints, maybe, made with sweat, but Stella wasn’t sure about those.
She did know that she’d have to clean the floor because it was likely that if she flipped the light on, she’d also find ass prints down there somewhere.
That would have to wait until later because she needed to get ready for work.
While she could work from home today, and maybe she should because she was very sore in all sorts of places, Stella found that she actually wanted to go to the office, and that absolutely had everything to do with the fact that she wanted to tell Jen all about last night.
Would she be bragging? Yes. Was it a little about fucking the woman who annoyed the crap out of her in Amsterdam?
Definitely. Did she think that Violet would probably want to keep this a secret?
Possibly. Did Stella care? Not really. Jen was her best friend, and they told each other pretty much everything.
Jen could also keep a secret, so Violet never even had to know that she’d told Jen about the best sex of her life and how it had been with the woman she’d least expected.
◆◆◆
“I’m still mad at you,” Jen told her instead of greeting.
“What? Why?” she asked, leaning over Jen’s desk.
“You invited me to drinks knowing she’d be there and then ditched me. With the check, Stella.”
“I didn’t know that she’d be there. And I’ll get it next time and buy you two drinks. How about that?”
“You’re getting me two drinks and food. Plus, you’re driving or paying for my Uber home.”
“No problem.” Stella chuckled. “Got a minute?”
“Oh, you want to give me details, don’t you?” Jen asked, leaning back in her chair.
“Not the specific details, no. Just a general play-by-play.”
“A play-by-play is detailed. That’s the whole point, Stella. You’re a sports gay. You should know this. It’s literally one thing after the other.”
“Anyway…”
“Fine, but you’re buying lunch, too.”
“I can do that,” she agreed with another laugh.
They left the office because conversations like the one they were about to have were friend conversations and not co-worker conversations.
Since Jen joined the company, they’d done their best to keep the two separate as much as possible.
Just a little chit-chat about a date wasn’t a big deal, but anything that involved more than that, like mentioning Stella’s sex life in this case, was something they both wanted to avoid talking about between those four walls.
Jen wasn’t on Stella’s team, which also made a difference.
Had Jen been in sales, Stella wasn’t sure any conversation about their personal lives would’ve been appropriate at that point because, despite tech start-ups having a pretty laid-back approach to work relationships, she would’ve been Jen’s boss in that situation, and she was pretty sure HR would’ve frowned on her telling Jen that she’d slept with Violet Russell last night.
When they arrived at their usual restaurant down the street from the office, Jen held her hands in front of her and moved them downward. Her expression went from serious to more relaxed, and Stella laughed and shook her head.
“Friend Jen is now present.”
“Friend Jen wasn’t present on the walk over?” Stella joked. “When she told me about the very attractive woman she saw at Buddy’s last night and thought about flirting with her?”
“That attractive woman was there with a not very attractive man, so I thought about it but didn’t for that reason. And I suspect that you’re about to talk to me about sex, so I wanted to make it clear that friend Jen was here now. So, did you?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“And?”
“Amazing.”
“Yeah? Really?”
“Best sex I’ve ever had.”
“Shit. For real?”
“Yes. I had at least nine orgasms. Maybe more. I honestly lost count. We just kept going and going until, like, three in the morning. I’m not sure exactly what time it was. Then, we sort of passed out at some point after I convinced her to stay.”
“You had to convince her?”
“Not like that. We were in a… lull, I guess, or taking a break, at least, and she mentioned that it was getting late and that she should go. I told her to stay because it was late, and I didn’t want her to get into an accident on the way home.
Bars would still be letting people out around that time. ”
“Well, that’s nice of you,” Jen teased. “So, you didn’t exactly want her to stay; you just didn’t want her to get hit by a drunk driver?”
“No, and you know it.”
Their waiter arrived then and took their usual order before quickly walking off, leaving them alone once more.
“I didn’t want her to get into an accident, yes, but I also wanted her to stay. We did it again when we woke up.”
“So, you wanted her to stay for the possibility of morning sex?”
“That too, but I also wasn’t kicking her out, Jen. It’s not like I had an orgasm and expected her to leave or wanted her to go. I wanted her to stay.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess it means that the sex was really good, and I’d like to do it again. If I let her crash, the likelihood of that happening goes up a lot, don’t you think?”
“So, it’s not a one-time thing, then?” Jen asked.
“I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it.”
Jen laughed and asked, “Did you talk at all?”
“Some. Mostly during, so that’s not what you mean.”
“Oh, yeah? She’s a talker?”
“We both are. Mostly me.”
“I could’ve predicted that.”
“Shut up.” Stella laughed.
Their waiter dropped off their waters with lemon and told them that their salads would be out in a few minutes before he left them alone again.
“So, what made it so good, exactly? Is she just that good in bed or something?”
“There’s like this crackle to it. It’s hard to describe. It’s like all this tension we had ten years ago just exploded, and, well, so did we.”
“Oh, come on. You’re better than that,” Jen joked with a laugh. “So, it’s just the fact that you hated each other? You had hate sex basically?”
“I don’t know what to call it, but it was good.”
“And you’re sure you want to do it again?”
“Why wouldn’t I want to?”
“Because it’s not likely to be as good the second time.
Or is it the tenth time? I don’t know how you count it.
Either way, if you were getting out all that frustration with her, it’s probably dissipated, right?
I mean, you’re not college students vying for the attention of some professors to earn top marks in classes and get a good job or whatever anymore, and now that you’ve done it, maybe that tension is all gone, and it’ll suck this time. ”
Stella thought about that for a moment while she stalled by taking a drink of her water.
“I guess we’d have to do it again to know for sure, but there was something there this morning, too.”
“What do you mean? Another orgasm? I’m not jealous, by the way,” Jen said and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, I’m totally jealous.”
“Not another orgasm.” Stella chuckled. “And I would be, too, if I were you. When we woke up, it was awkward, because, of course, it would be, but it also wasn’t at the same time.
I could tell that she wanted to leave, but we were joking around while she was getting dressed, and she wasn’t trying to flee this time.
Well, she wasn’t until she remembered that she’d left her purse and her phone out in her car overnight, at least, and she needed to make sure that no one had broken into her car to steal it. ”
“She left her–”
“Yes. Violet Russell, the woman who brought six pens to every class because they each had a purpose, was so turned on by the thought of us having sex that she left her phone and purse in her car. It was there, by the way.”
“Six pens?”
“I overheard her telling someone in the class once. One black one for her to use. One blue one in case she didn’t want to use black that day. A backup of each, for obvious reasons.”
“Obvious to whom?” Jen asked.
“In case one of them stopped working, so her.” Stella laughed.
“Then, one to loan out in case a person in her class asked, and another had to be red in case she needed to mark something in a different color. I should mention that six was the fewest number of pens she’d bring to any class.
According to her, she also needed extras. ”
“Because the other five weren’t extras?”
“The other five had purposes. These would be superfluous pens without purpose.”
“That’s sort of sad; pens just lying in her purse, living a purposeless life.”
Stella laughed a little and said, “You know the best part?”
“Well, it’s not the purposeless pens.”
“She used her laptop.”
“What?”
“We all carried our laptops with us and used them for notes and stuff. In five months, I’m not sure that I saw her use a pen once. Maybe when we took tests, but that was it.”
“So, this woman carried a bag full of pens to never use them?”
“Yes.”
“And she forgot to bring her purse inside your house last night?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, she wanted you, Stella.”
“I know. I wanted her, too. Her shirt even got ruined because of it. Buttons can still be found on the sidewalk outside of Buddy’s. If you see one, let me know. I might want it as a souvenir.”
“Don’t make it weird,” Jen said, laughing. “And don’t get cocky. It doesn’t look good on you.”
“Fair, but she still had to wear a shirt of mine home this morning either way.”
“I bet you loved that,” Jen said.
“I made sure to lend her one of my favorites, so I have an excuse to text her later to ask for it back.”
“Sneaky,” Jen replied as their waiter arrived with their salads.
Jen had gotten the steak salad, while Stella loved their marinated chicken one, and they focused on their food for a few minutes since they both had meetings soon and couldn’t stay too much longer.
“So, when you text her, will you make it just about the shirt, or are you going to tell her what you really want?”
“Maybe a combo of the two. I don’t know yet.
I haven’t decided when to text her. And knowing Violet, she’s probably freaking out at work right about now, trying to just bottle up everything she’s feeling, pretending it didn’t happen.
If I text her now, she’s going to say no to anything I suggest, even if it’s just her giving my shirt back.
” Stella considered. “Actually, I think I’ll do that. ”
“Huh?”
“Foreplay,” she said. “I bet it would make great foreplay.”
“You two are weird.” Jen laughed again. “You’re going to freak her out so much, she’ll offer to ship that shirt to you just so she doesn’t have to see you again.”
“Oh, there’s a chance still that she might want Cerebral for her company. Maybe I go that route first.”
“I wouldn’t. That’s a serious decision that she needs to make for her business, Stella.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed and took another sip of her water.
An hour later, Stella was back at her desk, responding to a few emails and messages.
Then, she picked up her phone and thought about how best to message Violet to achieve her desired outcome, which was another night like the previous one and maybe getting her shirt back, but she didn’t really care much about the shirt.
Stella Ross: Hey, I had a great time last night. I didn’t say that when you had to run out this morning, but I wanted to make sure you knew. If you want to get together again, I’d be down. Your handprints are still on my floor.
She smirked as she hit send, figuring that made things pretty clear.
She had enjoyed their night. She wanted another one like it again.
When there was no quick reply, she assumed that Violet was busy, so she put her phone down and got to work herself, but by the end of her workday, she still hadn’t gotten a response.
“Maybe you overplayed your hand there,” Stella said to herself and set her phone down again.