The Hummingbird Sanctuary, page 22
“Oh, Ellie, I would have never become the person I am today if I hadn’t broken you. I would have never realized how I needed to change and accept who I was. You know that, right?”
Small hairs have made their way out of the yellow scrunchie holding the mass of auburn away from her face. The humidity has made them curl, and all I can think is that I want to kiss her. I want to love her for the rest of my life because I wasn’t allowed to love her for the beginning and middle. “I know,” I say. She rests a hand on my knee. “I think about all the shit we’ve both had to go through.”
“Makes what we have worth it, don’t you think?”
“Please don’t hurt me again.” I’m ashamed of myself for even saying that, but if I didn’t say it, would I have ever learned my lesson? “I won’t survive it.”
“I won’t.” She pulls her hand from the water and places it, dripping and warm, on my face. “You are the loveliest part of my days. I don’t want to lose you or this feeling again.”
“Letting go of my hatred for you has been the hardest, and at the same time, the easiest thing I have ever done.”
“Yeah, I know,” she whispers. “Can I…” Her voice breaks, and I lean forward and kiss her like I’m drowning, and she’s my life preserver, and her lips taste like home and feel like cotton candy, and I wonder if I’m still high or if this is how kissing was supposed to feel. I want to crawl inside her, curl up and live right next to her heart as it beats like mine. She’s smiling into my kisses, and I hear her say, “Kiss you,” and my sensitive soul rejoices.
I manage to find a way on top of her lap, straddling her. Our lips never break contact, and when I feel her hands on my hips, heat flares inside my chest like a fire on the verge of raging out of control. “I’ve missed your kisses,” I say against her lips.
“Ellie?”
“Yeah?”
“Can we stop overanalyzing this and get on with it?”
Her bluntness has me chuckling. “Good idea.” And I lean to kiss her again as she slides her hands up to my waist. Her thumbs press gently into the sides of my breasts, and the urge to give in completely is strong. She bites my bottom lip, and I grip her face with care as I deepen our kiss. My brain is stuck between this moment and the first time she kissed me as we sat on the old burnt-sienna-colored couch in my basement, watching Jurassic Park for the hundredth time. She was wearing Vanilla Fields, and I was so in love with her. When she leaned into me, my entire world seemed to right itself, as if I had been living before that moment like a planet off its axis. And then I was fixed, able to spin correctly, orbit the sun without fear that I was going to crash and burn.
She breaks from our kiss. “This may be a little forward, but can we take this—”
“Upstairs to my room? Yes. One hundred percent yes.”
A giggle bubbles from her as she pulls me back into her. “I’ve missed you more than you know,” she says softly before kissing me again.
And I’ve missed her.
I’ve missed this.
I’ve missed us.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Harriet
Well, it’s four in the morning, and we haven’t slept at all. I’ve had all-nighters before, but holy shit, this was next level.
Judy is the best I have ever been with. Not only is she completely free in bed, but she is entirely comfortable in her own skin. I never once felt out of place or like I was doing something wrong. Always before, there’s been a moment, a very small moment, when nerves flare inside my chest. But I never once felt nervous with her.
I roll over to look at her wrapped in my white sheets. Her eyes are closed, a small grin stretched across her swollen lips, and my breath catches. I love her. And she leaves tomorrow.
My mind flashes to her riding my face, to the way she moved against me, to the way she was pinching her nipples, and the way she tasted as she came. The memory of her asking me to love her forever has tears welling in my eyes. Dammit, I can’t believe how this woman has gotten inside me.
And her whisper-asking if I had a strap-on?
Lord have mercy on my soul.
I absolutely do have one, lucky for her. And lucky for me, she let me fuck her three times in three different positions, and I swear to the heavens up above, I came every single time: up against the wall, straddling me on the edge of the bed, from behind.
Every muscle in my body is sore. Muscles I didn’t even know existed.
I slide my index finger over the sheet, the outline of her nipple, and when it instantly hardens, I find comfort in the predictability.
“Hattie,” she whispers, her eyes sliding open. “You’re not sick of me yet?”
I shake my head as I pull the sheet down and move so I can latch on. I suck, then bite, and she breathes in through clenched teeth.
“That feels amazing.”
“I want you.” My words are muffled against the soft skin of her breasts. I brush my fingers over her smooth side, hip to thigh, and dance my fingers across her skin until she moves the perfect amount, giving me access to her wetness. When I find it, she pulls in a sharp breath. “Are you sore?”
“Yeah,” she whispers, “but I want you, too.”
I lean into her, place my lips on hers, kiss her deeply, passionately, as she rolls onto her back, and I slip my fingers inside. She moans into the kiss. I’m in awe of her, of how much I love doing this, of everything that has to do with her. “I love you.” The words come out against her lips, and within seconds, she has her head arched back, her lips out of reach, her neck exposed, and she’s coming, moaning my name, whisper soft.
“Fucking Christ, Hattie.” Her thighs begin to relax around my hand. “Goddammit, I love you, too.” She lets out a giggle that warms my soul. “That’s, like, my fifteenth orgasm.”
“Sixteenth.”
“You kept count?” She picks her head up. “Like, seriously?”
I shrug. “Yeah.”
“You are incredible.” She places her hands on my face and pulls me into her, her lips finding mine with ease. “I don’t want to leave you. I want to stay with you forever.” Her words are said between kisses, between breaths, and then between sobs as she starts to cry.
I smooth my thumbs over her cheeks, over the tears as they fall from the corners of her eyes and run down to her hairline. “Let’s not freak out yet.”
“We should have thought about this before—”
“Before what?” I ask. “Before our eyes met and I felt that instant connection to you? You think a conversation about why this wouldn’t work would have made a difference?”
She shakes her head, a small chuckle escaping. “No, it wouldn’t have.”
“We will deal with it. Okay? Whatever it takes.” When I stop talking, she runs both hands down my back and drags her nails lightly across my bare ass. Goose bumps erupt all over me, and the grin that appears on her lips is magnificent. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I’m a horny middle-aged woman. You should take advantage of this. There aren’t many of us left.”
“Oh, so you’re an endangered species?”
She nods. “Yeah, and you’re getting to witness me in the wild.”
“In your natural habitat, hmm?”
She pushes me and with one fluid movement, has me on my back and is straddling my hips. “I think it’s my turn to fuck you with that strap-on.”
A zip of electricity shoots through me. Her? Fucking me? With a strap-on? “Sign me the fuck up,” I say with a chuckle as I point to the bedside table and prop myself up on my elbows. She dismounts me, slides across the bed, and stands. Her sliding the harness up her legs, then adjusting the tightness and maneuvering the dildo into position as if she’s done this a hundred times before, is one of, if not the, sexiest things I have ever seen in my entire life. I’m full of questions, but I decide to hold them in. I am not ruining this moment by asking where the fuck she learned to fuck a woman with a strap-on. After all, she didn’t ask me.
“How do you like it?”
“How do you think I like it?”
“From behind.”
Another zip of electricity courses through me. “You’d be right.”
“I think you like to move back and forth while I stay in place.”
I nod. “You’d be right again.”
“Which means you control the fucking.” She wraps her hand around the purple dildo. “Because you love to control everything.”
“You know me well,” I whisper because I honestly cannot find my voice. The way she’s speaking about me is such a turn-on. And watching her standing there with the black straps of the harness in stark contrast on her pale skin, the dildo eager and waiting, I wonder if I’ll ever be the same after her, or has she managed to change every part of me forever?
She kneels on the bed and moves closer on her knees, her breasts bouncing with the movement. She stops when she gets close enough to touch, reaches up, and resecures her hair. While she does that, her breasts are practically ordering me to play with them again. “May I ask you a question?” Her voice is softer than before but still full of determination.
“Absolutely.”
“Would you mind if I controlled the fucking?”
My mouth goes as dry as a four-hundred-degree oven. I shake my head because of course I don’t mind, but holy fuck, she communicated her desires. That is a first for me. I didn’t realize how much I needed that in a partner until she said it. She leans down and kisses me, and within seconds, I hand my entire body over to her. She kisses my chest, breasts, stomach, and every single part of me. She is driving this car, and I am so okay with being her passenger.
“Roll over,” she says softly, and I do. I feel her hand on my back, in the center, then both hands on my sides, then she kisses each ass cheek and drags her nails down the backs of my thighs, my calves. “Get on your knees.” Her gentle yet firm commands are a dream come true. She reaches between my legs, palm flat on my stomach, then drags it down to my wetness and slips her fingers inside. I’m sore, but something about being sore and being fucked is my jam. Clearly, I’m enjoying myself because I’m dripping. I can’t see what she’s doing, which would have made me nervous in the past.
“Are you ready for me to fuck you?” she asks.
“Yes, God, yes.” I barely recognize my own voice. I feel the tip of the dildo against me, and it slips easily inside. I moan. “Judy.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes.” I’m trying not to sound needy, but she cannot stop. I do not want her to stop. Her hands are on my hips, and she pushes harder. This is when I would typically take over and control the fucking, as she politely put it. But I said I’d hand over the reins and let her do as she pleases. And am I glad I did because the way she moves in and out of me hits my G-spot just right, and it feels fan-fucking-tastic. I have had G-spot orgasms before but never like this. Never with a woman. She’s moving at the perfect speed, the perfect intensity, the perfect everything.
My orgasm builds and builds, and when it hits, it hits hard. I can’t hold in my moan, and when I say her name way louder than I should, I hear her chuckle. I’m still coming, and knowing she’s loving every second of this is making it last even longer. She thrusts into me a few more times, the last time holding steady, and my arms start to shake. I can’t hold myself up any longer. I collapse, and somehow, she manages to collapse with me, the dildo still firmly inside me. I’m shaking, I’m near tears, and I’m completely fucking spent.
“Are you okay?” Her voice against my ear is lovely.
“I am very okay,” I answer, and I’m breathless.
“You were so loud.”
“Well, you were fucking me the best I’ve ever been fucked. What did you expect?”
“Oh?” The surprised tone of her voice is endearing.
“My God, yes.”
I feel her move. The dildo shifts, causing a moan to slip from my mouth, and she says against my skin, “I’m going to pull out.” The second she’s no longer inside me, I miss the sensation of her filling me up. She plops next to me on her back, and when I turn toward her, her entire body is on display, her breasts, the strap-on, all of it. I make a point to memorize this moment. The way the early morning light has started to sneak in my windows. The way gravity pulls her breasts the tiniest of bits to the sides. The way my skin looks against her pale white skin. The way her small hoop earrings managed to make it through the entire night without being ripped out.
Every.
Single.
Detail.
“I love you,” I say as quietly as possible. “So much.”
The grin that spreads across her lips makes my hands ache. “I love you, Harriet Marshall.” She rolls, kisses my arm. “I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my entire life. And…” The way she pauses gives me pause, but she needs this moment, or at least I think she does. She doesn’t finish for the longest time. I give her what she needs. I’ll give her whatever she needs. “And I think we should get married.”
I let out a laugh. “Judy.” But I see in her eyes that she is completely serious. “Judy?”
“I want to marry you.” She blinks once, twice, then shrugs. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
My brain is short-circuiting. I am searching for words, for anything, because I can’t not say anything. “Judy,” I finally say, “baby, what about your kids?”
“Two are in school. And my youngest will go wherever I go.”
“But…but what about you? Your job?” Ugh, I’m stuttering. I’m freaking out. Oh God.
“I’m ready to retire. I’m ready to stop being this person. I want to be who I am when I’m with you.”
“Are you…are you serious?”
“It’s crazy.” She purses her lips, and it breaks my heart to see the way her features tighten, as if she thinks she needs to start playing it off as a dumb joke, something said in the heat of the moment, a string of words that shouldn’t be taken seriously.
“No, Judy, are you serious?”
She sits up, leans forward where I can’t see her face any longer. I move, too. She’s still wearing the strap-on, and the dildo is staring right at me.
“It’s hard to take you seriously when the dildo is looking at me like that.”
She finally laughs, the tension breaking. “I guess I should take it off, huh?”
“Probably.” I put my hand on her arm as she starts to get up. “Wait. I haven’t answered you.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “It was stupid to say all that. I mean, who are we trying to kid, right? Neither of us wants to be married. I don’t want to get married again. And you’ve never even met my kids. It was only, like, a heat of the moment thing. The altitude got to me. The high of fucking you.” The chuckle that follows is one that sounds like she’s trying way too hard to hide her true feelings. My heart is breaking. “I was kidding. Don’t worry about it.”
I know she wasn’t kidding. She knows she wasn’t kidding. And it’s the first time since we met that the air between us is filled with awkwardness. I don’t know what to say. We’ve known each other for less than a week. I do stupid things from time to time. I jump too quickly and take chances when I probably shouldn’t. But I am not the marrying type. I am not the person who settles down.
Even if it’s who I find myself longing to be.
* * *
Eleanor
I should have never let Harriet pick her bedroom. There are six in this house, and she had to pick the one down the hall from mine. I swear to God.
Mabel found the sounds of Judy and Harriet’s animalistic sex very funny. I told her that when you hear it as often as I do, you tend to stop finding the humor in it.
When my alarm goes off at seven, I reach over quickly and turn it off. I stopped using my cell phone as an alarm clock a while ago. I read an article about disconnecting at night from technology and how it can help anxiety. Oddly enough, it seems to work.
Last night was a different story. I barely slept. And not for the same reason Harriet and Judy didn’t. Mabel and I stayed up for most of the night talking. And kissing. A lot, a lot of kissing. Some of the best kisses of my entire life. Like, sensual, amazing, deep kisses where I forgot where I ended, and she began. Kisses that made it very difficult for me not to rip her clothes off and devour her. But we had real discussions about life and love and the future and where we both see ourselves.
But yeah, ultimately, we kissed a lot.
It was like old times, giggling about how cold her feet are and letting her play with my hair, which now includes a head massage I was not anticipating but thoroughly enjoyed.
But the kissing. God.
I look at the ceiling and pull a deep breath in. I hold it for a few seconds, focus on the air filling my lungs, focus on the ceiling, on the way the light has filled my room. When I let it out, I glance next to me. At Mabel Sommers in my favorite worn-out Star Wars T-shirt. At her auburn hair and the way it dried from the pool into messy curls. She’s sound asleep, even slept through the alarm, which isn’t surprising; she literally has not changed since high school in that aspect.
She’s on her back, barely moves, doesn’t snore, doesn’t even seem to breathe. I was in awe of that when I was a kid because I used to move all over. Hell, I still do if I don’t relax properly before bed. And at two in the morning, my brain loves to remind me of some of my most embarrassing moments. Like the time when I ran into a flagpole while I was onstage to accept an award in high school. Or the time I split my pants as I did a cartwheel down the hallway.
Or the time I walked into school, and every single student knew I was a lesbian, and I found cut-outs of scissors everywhere for weeks on end. I didn’t even get to come out of the closet for the first time. I was pushed out of it.
