Eighteen #4
“No, seriously. Does it feel amazing to always be clearheaded and put together? Do you sleep amazingly at night without the replay track that the rest of us live with, constantly playing back every awkward thing we said and did? Like, you probably never waved at someone who was actually waving at someone else. Or maybe you never have the dream about failing a class you didn’t even know you were taking, because you always knew what you were doing.
God, have you even ever stubbed your toe, or tripped over—”
“Daphne!” she raised her voice this time and broke through the rising monologue.
“What?”
“Shut up.”
Daphne stared at her, shock plainly playing across her features, but she didn’t argue.
Gillian felt a hint of power rising in her as this woman began to sputter.
“What, why do you … what makes you think—”
Gillian stepped forward and placed a hand squarely in the center of Daphne’s chest, and she froze, midsentence, holding very still except for the dramatic rise and fall of a sharp breath.
Dark eyes lifted to meet her own, full of questions, hesitation, and something more.
It was that unspoken something that took hold of Gillian.
A need welled up in her, but instead of being cowed by it this time, she allowed the desire to give her strength and a certainty she’d never possessed in Daphne’s presence.
This time she knew. This time she saw her clearly, maybe she saw both of them clearly, and she smiled slightly at the sudden simplicity of it all.
Daphne arched an eyebrow and looked for a second as if she might speak, but she didn’t get the chance before Gillian gave her a gentle shove, and she fell backward onto the bed.
It was a little push, but it felt much bigger. Gillian stood over her, enjoying the view, the pink rising in Daphne’s cheeks, the curves of her prone form, the way her softness contrasted with the sharpness she felt pressing against her insides.
Mostly, she relished being in control again.
It was a position she didn’t intend to yield or hurry through.
Shedding her jacket slowly, she folded it neatly in half and draped it over the back of the futon.
Then, kicking the door shut behind her, she flicked the lock without her eyes ever leaving Daphne’s.
They were wide, smoldering, mostly pupil now as they tracked her movements with rapt interest.
Slowly, deliberately, Gillian unbuttoned the cuffs of her white silk blouse, before running one finger along the crook of her own collar until she deftly popped open the top button there as well.
Daphne bit her lower lip and shifted on the bed. “You want any help with that?”
“No,” she said calmly. “I do not require any assistance.”
The corners of Daphne’s mouth quirked up. “Because you’ve always got everything under control?”
“I haven’t had almost anything under control since you arrived, but that’s about to change.”
Daphne’s body shuddered visibly, but her natural obstinance tried to rebound in the form of a half-hearted eye roll. “What makes you think that?”
“Wasn’t that the gist of your diatribe? You see me as good at everything, or if not everything, at least all the things that matter to me.
” Gillian paused to let her gaze sweep over this woman once more.
“And what I’m about to do to you matters to me a great deal, Daphne.
This matters to me on a great many levels, not the least of which is how much I want it. ”
“What about what I want?”
“You want this,” Gillian said matter-of-factly as she popped open enough buttons of her shirt to feel cool air on flushed skin.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because one of those many things I’m very good at is reading people.”
“And you think you’ve finally got me pegged?”
“Maybe not about everything,” Gillian admitted, “but I do know that, if I were wrong about this one, you would’ve already taken great pleasure in saying so by now.”
Daphne pursed her lips and stared up at her through thick lashes.
Gillian popped the final buttons. “Come on, Daph. Tell me, am I wrong this time?”
Daphne worried her lower lip with her teeth, and Gillian’s arousal ratcheted up several more notches.
“Or maybe you’d like to try something new.” Gillian stepped forward, allowing her thigh to slip between Daphne’s knees and press lightly into the side of the bed.
“What’s that?”
“You could do the unthinkable and tell me I’m right.”
Daphne laughed, but this time Gillian wasn’t a teenager. She understood where the impulse came from. She felt something similar rumbling inside her own core. This was absurd. It was unreasonable, maybe even unhinged, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t also right.
Removing her shirt completely, she lay it lightly atop her blazer before reaching for Daphne’s shoes. They slipped off easily, one in each hand, as did her socks. Gillian took a moment to cup one foot in both of her hands, working her fingers in a kneading motion from the heal to the toes.
Daphne squirmed and let out a whimper.
This was going to be satisfying. The woman had never kept a reaction to herself. While Gillian hadn’t seen an upside to the trait before, she anticipated being proven wrong on that point as she eased onto the bed over her.
Daphne wore her usual work attire, a baby blue, waffle-weave Henley, and soft, gray pants with a drawstring at her waist tied in a neat bow. Gillian tugged it loose, then slipping her fingers inside ever so slightly, thrilled at both the touch of skin and Daphne’s gasp.
Pulling the waistband over the lush curve of her hips and down her legs, she began to fold them.
“Oh my God, Gillian,” Daphne groaned. “I get it, you’re a very deliberate perfectionist here, but you’re killing me.”
Gillian smiled down at her. “You wanted something different from me?”
Daphne covered her face with her hand and rolled lightly from side to side. “You are really going to make me say it?”
“I wouldn’t make you do anything.” Gillian drew out the words from the pure pleasure of wielding her newfound power. “But we both know that the absence of a ‘no’ does not equate to a ‘yes.’”
“You are maddening.”
“You haven’t even seen the half of it.” Dropping the pants to the floor, Gillian ran her hands upward again, and when she reached the apex of those magnificent thighs, she slipped off the last barrier.
Sliding the purple underwear completely off, she had no urge to tuck them neatly away, not with the sight of Daphne splayed out before her, her top still fully clothed but her bottom half completely and gloriously exposed.
It was such a vulnerable position, but Daphne bore it like a work of art, and a tantalizing one at that.
Spreading her legs slightly, she said, “I can’t take this anymore.”
“It’s barely been five minutes.”
“It’s been twenty-two years,” Daphne said, her voice low and thick. “If this is how it ends—”
“Ends?” Gillian smiled down at her. “I’m only getting started.”
Daphne gave another little shiver. “God, I liked it better when I thought your confidence was put on.”
Now it was Gillian’s turn to laugh as she knelt on the bed between Daphne’s legs. “I think you’re also going to enjoy finding out that it’s not.”
Daphne seemed like she might have a comeback for that. She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever it was disintegrated into an unintelligible sound the moment Gillian’s lips pressed to her center.
The scent of her filled Gillian’s senses, making her dizzy with desire. How long had it been since she’d tasted a woman? It didn’t matter because she’d never tasted this woman, and right now Daphne was the only woman who had ever existed.
She’d filled her brain, her dreams, her physical space for as long as Gillian could remember, and now Gillian would fill her body.
Spreading Daphne with her tongue, she took her in, every curve, every ridge and dip, every swell and surge. She tasted like heat, like rain, like passion itself, and Gillian relished the rock of her hips rising to meet her.
“Gillian.” Daphne breathed her name, frustration blending into fulfillment. “Fuck.”
It wasn’t exactly the word she’d hoped to hear, but Daphne was getting closer, and Gillian was in no hurry.
She’d spent so long avoiding this woman, and now she ached to expend the same energy and attention to knowing her.
She wanted to memorize the way she smelled, the way her skin felt against her own, the way she moved to match the rhythm of Gillian’s mouth.
She pressed forward, her body begging in a way her mind wouldn’t let her voice.
Pressing, reaching, lifting, she silently asked for more.
Daphne had always asked Gillian for more, only now she wanted to give it.
She wanted to make Daphne ache the way she did inside, to feel her fall the way she had, to make this last long enough for both of them to drown in each other. Easing up slightly, she lessened the pressure and the pace, but Daphne closed her thighs against her, holding her in place.
“If you tease me now,” she panted, “I will choke you.” Gillian smiled against her but stayed still. “I’ve wanted to strangle you for years. Don’t make this the moment I snap.”
Gillian heard just enough gravity in the breathy comment to heed the warning and begin her exploration again in earnest. She’d never intended to tease.
She’d realized her own power early in this encounter, but she didn’t toy with women, certainly not this one.
She possessed the power to satisfy, to bend this relationship into something more, make something more of herself in the process.
She had the power to meet a need neither of them had the capacity to fully acknowledge, but she felt it to her marrow.
Daphne’s breath grew ragged, and she slipped a hand into Gillian’s hair, the pressure gentle but insistent as her hips rocked forward more frantically.