Chapter 12
Becca booked a room at a boutique hotel downtown, somewhere nice, a junior suite to make it feel like an occasion as well as covering the practicalities of space for Ellie to be comfortable in, but somewhere sufficiently low key to avoid the risk of running into someone they knew out for the night.
They arrived early, just the two of them, and stood at the window looking out at the city while the light faded.
The room was exactly right for their purpose: king-sized bed, decor and lighting that created a moody, expectant atmosphere, and a deep armchair near the window that Ellie had already firmly claimed as hers for later.
Everywhere, though, there was the shadow of what was to come.
Becca was in the bathroom getting ready.
She’d brought a zip up garment bag on a hanger, which was unusual.
Becca wasn’t normally a garment-bag person, she was a grab-something-from-the-closet-and-look-incredible-anyway person, and the garment bag had been zipped shut at home with a theatrical secrecy that did plenty to build Ellie’s anticipation.
When she finally came out of the bathroom, Ellie understood why.
The dress was silver, sparkly, long-sleeved and mid-thigh, and it clung to Becca in a way that made Ellie’s mouth go dry and her heart skip a beat.
She’d gone all out: heels, earrings, her hair down and styled in loose waves, makeup that was more than usual, the lipstick a brighter shade, eyeliner a little edgier.
She looked stunning, like she was about to walk the red carpet, or ruin someone’s life, or maybe a bit of both.
Ellie stared. She couldn’t help it. Seven years together and her wife could still stop her in her tracks with the right outfit.
“You look incredible,” she said, struggling to keep her voice level. And another woman is going to get the benefit. That jealousy-arousal loop revving up.
“Too much?” Becca smoothed the dress over her hips, a nervous gesture that she pretended was a practical one.
“You could never be too much. Though people have started wars over someone looking half as good as you do tonight.”
Becca smiled, pleased and a little shy. She knew exactly what she was doing with this dress and they both knew that they both knew, so there was no point pretending.
Contrast.
Ellie could tell that Becca wanted to be as feminine as possible tonight because the woman she was about to meet was the opposite, and the polarity of that was part of what she craved.
She wanted to feel soft against Cass’s hardness, small against Cass’s strength.
She wanted the difference, and she’d dressed for it perfectly.
Becca walked over to where Ellie was standing by the window.
Without either of them saying anything she reached up behind her neck and unfastened her necklace.
She held it in her palm for a moment, looking down at it, and then fastened it around Ellie’s neck alongside her own.
Two pendants resting side by side against Ellie’s collarbone.
*Look after this for me.” Becca smiled. “I’ll need this back later.”
I’m yours. I stay yours. I promise I’ll come back to you.
Becca kissed her, softly, and pulled back. “Ready?”
“Ready. Go start that war.”
***
The hotel bar was on the ground floor, through the lobby and down a short corridor, and it was far classier than Ellie and Becca’s usual haunts: low lighting, dark wood, leather seating, not to mention cocktails that cost considerably more than some of the meals that Ellie had eaten that week.
There was a jazz pianist at one end and a nice buzz of conversation around the room from the clientele, mostly older couples out for an expensive evening out and a few small groups.
It was very far from Cheer Up Charlie’s on a Saturday night, but then tonight was a long way from that night in many ways.
Becca went in first. Ellie waited two minutes, feeling slightly ridiculous about the choreography but also undeniably thrilled, then followed and took a small table where she could see the bar clearly without being in anyone’s direct line of sight.
She ordered an overly costly cocktail and settled in to watch.
Becca had taken a seat at the bar and ordered her own drink, and Ellie watched as she took a nervous sip, her eyes scanning the room until she saw where Ellie was sat and flashed a smile her way.
The silver dress caught the light every time she moved, her fabulous legs crossed on the barstool, and she looked exactly like a woman waiting for a date.
Several people in the bar had already noticed her.
A man at a nearby table had done such an obvious double-take as she walked past that his companion had elbowed him.
That’s my wife, Ellie thought, immediately followed by, but maybe not for the next few hours.
Cass arrived a few minutes later, and Ellie saw her before Becca did.
Black jeans, a fitted white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show her forearms, boots.
She hadn’t tried to femme up for the occasion in the slightest and Ellie respected that…
this was Cass as herself, and the contrast with Becca was almost absurdly perfect.
Dark and light, hard and soft, the two of them looking like opposite poles of something that had the potential to generate a very serious amount of electricity.
When Becca looked up and saw Cass, her reaction confirmed everything Ellie had teased her about and then some. Her eyes went wide. Her breath caught visibly, her chest rising under the silver dress. And she smiled then did the hair push without even realising it.
Twice.
Twice. Ellie nearly laughed into her cocktail. Her wife had it so bad it was adorable, except adorable wasn’t quite the word for the way Becca was looking at Cass right now. Hungry was closer. Starving, maybe. Famished.
Cass smiled, slow and confident in a way that said that she knew exactly the effect she was having on Becca and was in no rush to stop having it.
She sat down on the stool next to her. They were close immediately, closer than two people who’d only met once before would normally sit, the chemistry between them closing the usual social distance to almost nothing.
From her table, Ellie sipped her drink and watched, and felt the familiar engine start to turn over.
It was a different fuel this time… she wasn’t watching Becca with a soft, feminine woman who could plausibly be her girlfriend.
She was watching Becca with someone who looked like they’d walked out of every fantasy Becca had never quite admitted to having.
Different, but still potent, and Ellie settled in to watch, curious to see where it went.
The two women talked. Ellie couldn’t hear what they were saying over the jazz and the background hum of conversation, but she could read the body language like they had subtitles.
Becca was leaning in, laughing, tactile from the start…
her touch lingering far longer than necessary, her fingers tracing along the tattoo on Cass’s wrist while she appeared to ask Cass about it in a way that was so blatantly an excuse to touch her that Ellie wanted to applaud.
Becca’s flirting was normally playful, but tonight something about Cass’s presence had turned her shameless, and Ellie found herself grinning to herself watching it unfold.
Within ten minutes the energy shifted. Ellie saw it happen, there was a gear change, subtle but unmistakable if you were watching for it, which of course Ellie very much was.
Cass leaned in close, her mouth near Becca’s ear, and said something that made Becca’s cheeks flush a deep, visible pink even in the low light of the bar.
While she spoke, Cass’s hand moved to Becca’s thigh.
Not her outer thigh. Her inner thigh, high enough and confident enough that Ellie felt her own stomach lurch with jealousy in response.
Cass’s fingers rested there with a possessive certainty that said this was not a suggestion, it was a statement of intent, and Becca didn’t move the hand away.
She sat very still, lips slightly parted, flush deepening, listening to whatever Cass was murmuring against her ear.
Ellie gripped her glass and felt both the weight of both necklaces against her collarbone.
Watching Cass’s hand on Becca’s inner thigh while Becca sat there in that silver dress, flushed and breathless and completely captivated, it was doing things to Ellie.
Serious things. She shifted in her chair and tried to look like a woman casually enjoying a drink rather than a woman whose entire nervous system was currently short-circuiting.
Cass said something more, a question by the look of it, then leaned back just enough to look her in the eye, nodding when Becca nodded, Becca’s nod excited yet nervous, Cass’s nod firm and encouraging.
Cass pulled back and smiled at her, finishing the last of her drink in one long swallow.
It was the sort of move that looked rehearsed but probably wasn’t, but either way Ellie didn’t care because it was devastatingly effective.
They stood. Cass took Becca’s hand and led her away from the bar towards the lobby.
Becca glanced back once, finding Ellie immediately, and the look on her face was incandescent: arousal, excitement, a flicker of can you believe this is actually happening but with the reassurance of I’m yours, even right now, especially right now.
Ellie left a twenty on the table and followed, her heart hammering.