Seventeen #2
Daphne managed to breathe evenly through her session.
Thankfully, the client was relatively low maintenance.
She’d rarely been so grateful for an introvert who just wanted to be the small spoon.
All she had to do was keep her heart rate down and use a few meditative practices to keep her mind from wandering back to Gillian.
Normally, that would’ve been nothing, but today the work left her feeling depleted, or maybe that was merely the comedown from earlier.
Either way, her defenses were already low when Gillian came back through the front door looking every bit like a conquering hero, her long strides confident and her hair blowing back on the breeze she created with her own momentum.
Even in her ever-present annoyance, Daphne had to admit she cut a striking figure, and when Gillian smiled with genuine brightness, it reminded Daphne not all of her poise was put on.
She’d earned some of her self-assuredness by being good at so many things, like school and sports and juggling complex schedules.
And kissing.
The warning bells went off in the back of Daphne’s brain, and her protective mechanisms slid back into place.
“Thank you for letting me take Izzy.” Gillian opened graciously, because of course she did.
“I’d say ‘you’re welcome,’ but we both know you were doing me the favor.”
“Maybe at first, but the experience was absolutely delightful. Who knew Buffalo had such a thriving fencing scene dominated by two sapphic women? Izzy made beautiful introductions, by the way. She’s quite socially astute.”
“She gets that from her father.”
“I would’ve thought it came from her mother’s emotional intelligence and intuition, but clearly you and Hugh make a good team.” Gillian paused for a second, seeming to ponder something before adding, “Perhaps it comes down to balancing strengths, or absorbing them.”
Daphne sighed. She got the sense Gillian was trying to compliment her, but she didn’t need to feel anything more for her than she already did. It was hard enough staying aloof after everything that had happened. The last thing she needed was to start thinking of this woman as sincere or thoughtful.
“Are you all right?” Gillian asked softly.
Daphne closed her eyes and tried to ignore the concern in her voice. She told herself it was merely a trick of the trade for Gillian, a professional performance, but that argument got harder to believe every day.
“I’m free for the rest of the evening.” Gillian pressed. “If there’s anything more I can do for you …”
“You’ve done quite enough,” Daphne said, her voice sharper than she’d wanted, but not sharper than she felt.
Opening her eyes slowly, she noticed the concern in Gillian’s expression had only multiplied.
“Look, I get it. I’m a mess. And I’m sure you’re used to that.
You’ve probably known I was a mess since seventh grade, but that’s not how I see myself.
I’m a professional, a good friend, and a good mom.
I know my value and my values, and I trust my intuition … until I’m around you.”
“I never meant to—”
“Yes, you did. You ‘meant to’ so many times, and that’s fine because it kept me on top of my game. Our dynamic was steady, reliable, charged. Honestly, I like to think I landed as many barbs as you did.”
Gillian smiled fleetingly. “I agree with your assessment.”
Daphne took what little solace she could from the admission.
“Are you saying you’d like us to return to potshots and snide remarks?”
“No, but I don’t like this either. In fact, I think it’s worse for me.”
“I’m listening.”
“That.” Daphne pointed at her, then caught herself. “I know you’re listening. It makes you seem calm and reasonable, and I hate that.”
“You hate me listening to you because it makes me seem calm and reasonable?”
“Yes. No. I mean …” She blew out a frustrated breath. “I hate you getting to be those things when I’m falling apart. And I get it; you aren’t struggling with what happened. Well done, you. You win at kissing, and I’m struggling to put it all into perspective or compartmentalize.”
“Wait,” Gillian said softly. “The kiss experiment upset you?”
“Yes.”
Gillian blinked a few times. “I’m so sorry. I thought we were on the same page about reauthoring an experience—”
“We were. I was all for your little research project right up until your lips met mine and it didn’t feel academic anymore.”
“Oh,” Gillian said, not seeming to have much more to add.
“Yeah, clearly we’re on very different pages, and I hate it. I hate feeling like I’m seconds from slipping off some ledge I can’t see every time you’re around me, or even when you’re not, and I just remember.”
Gillian’s eyes lowered to her lips, and Daphne warmed all over. “Like that. All you have to do is look at my lips, and I get flushed. It drives me nuts, and it bothers me even more that it doesn’t seem to affect you at all.”
“No, it does.”
“What?”
“It affects me,” Gillian said softly. “Your mouth affected me before I kissed it. Maybe that’s the point.
It’s not that you don’t affect me. I’m just used to it.
Your lips caught my attention the first day you swept me off my feet.
You’ve been under my skin since the day we met.
You’ve flustered me every time we’ve ever spoken.
The kiss didn’t change that, because I was already there.
Hell, I kissed you because you’d had me tied in knots for years. ”
Daphne hadn’t thought of that, and the new information had a hard time penetrating her brain. “You’re saying the kiss didn’t change anything because you’ve been living where I am now?”
“I wouldn’t say the kiss didn’t change anything for me,” Gillian corrected.
“It made me feel a little safer being open with you. It helped me feel like I understood parts of myself, and you, better. It allowed me to open up the other night, which in turn allowed me to talk to Brooke in ways I hadn’t for a long time. ”
Daphne’s resolve began to melt. Then she caught herself. Gillian was saying a lot of new and endearing things, but she’d done so before only to leave Daphne more confused than ever. “I want to stay frustrated with you. It’s clear-cut, easy, familiar.”
“It is all of those things,” Gillian agreed, but then she undercut them both by letting her emerald gaze land on Daphne’s lips once more.
“I’m serious, Gillian. If you keep looking at me that way, I’ll lose all my will to fight with you.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
“Probably.” She wavered. “I’m not sure I could keep myself from kissing you, and this time there wouldn’t be anything academic about it.”
“Okay,” Gillian said slowly, “and that’d be complicating, obviously.”
“God, you have a gift for understatement. It would be bad, a disaster even. I mean probably not the kiss itself. I imagine the kiss would be very, very good.”
“That sounds like an idea we could test.”
Daphne held up a hand. “I don’t consent to any more experiments.”
Gillian smiled. “Not all my interests are intellectual.”
Daphne stared at her.
Gillian stared back.
Neither one shrank or stepped back as the tension and heat spread between them.
When had this turned into a game of erotic chicken?
Surely one of them had to blink first. There were two fully grown, emotionally aware women in the room with every reason to put an end to whatever train wreck they were speeding toward.
She could do it. Daphne could be the one to have it together for once.
She could be the one to set the boundary or define the limit.
Doing so would probably feel satisfying and mature and competent, all of which would pale in comparison to the feeling of Gillian’s lips on hers, but still, Daphne opened her mouth, fully intending to say something to right the ship, but she never got the chance through the impact of their mouths colliding.
She was pretty sure Gillian had started the kiss, but the argument seemed small and petty at this point, because Daphne was all in.
They were all over each other. Hands in hair, on waists, all hot breath and tongues and grasping for more. Daphne backed Gillian up against the wall and slipped a hand inside the hem of her perfectly pressed shirt, brushing against warm, soft skin.
They kissed with abandon, no longer testing or searching, so much as consuming. Oh, the things she wanted to do to this woman. Her brain flashed with a million images of her unraveled in Gillian’s arms, but her mind couldn’t fixate on any single one of them with her body in overdrive.
Her own pulse pounded so loudly in her ears she barely heard the front door open, but she definitely noticed it slam shut, followed by accompanying laughter in the hall.
The two of them wrenched apart, chests heaving, eyes wide, and faces flushed as Robin called, “Gilly Bean, boss time’s over. We’ve come to abduct you.”
“Or, you know,” Sawyer added, “take you out with your full consent.”