Blushing Maid, page 7
"Hey, you’re meant to leave them wanting more, aren’t you?” I pointed out, but I was secretly glad to hear she was already having doubts about the way the date had gone.
"Yeah, but I don’t know if you’re meant to make it so that they wonder if you even wanted to be there in the first place," she pointed out. I cocked my head at her.
"What do you mean?”
She sighed, and planted herself down on the stairs, pulling off her shoes and tossing them aside.
"It’s just...difficult," she admitted. "I haven’t been out with anyone for so long, and then this guy comes along..."
"And you feel something for him?” I asked nervously. She shook her head.
"I didn’t feel anything for him," she confessed. "Nothing at all. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice guy, and he’s handsome, and he’s smart, and I guarantee you I was keeping him from a woman who would have been better suited to him tonight."
She stared off into space, and I slowly made my way over to her. I was so glad that she was back, even though I knew it shouldn’t have meant a thing to me. This was meant to be...this was meant to be different. When I looked at her, my heart wasn’t allowed to skip a beat. When I smelled her perfume, I wasn’t meant to feel that thrill of excitement pulse down my spine. When I touched her skin, I knew I wasn’t meant to foster an addiction that I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to shake.
This wasn’t how I was meant to feel about her. And yet, I did.
There was no denying it.
I sank down onto the step beside her and wondered what I was meant to say now. Maybe I should have asked her how it went wrong, if she even knew yet. It seemed like she’d had the reaction to Andrew that I’d felt, the one that baffled me completely. How could both of us be presented with such a perfect man, and both of us feel nothing at all for him? It didn’t make any sense...
I looked over at her. A strand of hair had fallen down, pooling into her collarbone. I had to fight the urge to reach over and brush it away. I knew laying a hand on her now, when I was in this state, was only going to end in bad news.
"Why do you think you felt that way?” I wondered aloud finally. She looked over at me, and I stared with surprise. Because I recognized the look on her face. I knew it was the very same one that I had been hitting her with since she had walked in the door. There was a softness to it, an openness, something that drew me in and made me want more.
"Because there was someone else I couldn’t get out of my head," she admitted. My breath caught in my throat. I was sure I knew who she was talking about, but I needed to hear it come out of her mouth.
"Who was it?” I asked, and she reached out and touched my cheek. The sensation was electric, powerful. I felt as though my body was coming to life for the first time. I waited for her to say it. I couldn’t do anything until I heard the words pass her lips.
"You, Billie," she replied. I inhaled sharply, as though she had slapped me. It felt like a curious pain, a shock that I couldn’t shake. But I didn’t want to. She reached up, her fingers tracing the shape of my face.
"I couldn’t stop thinking about you," she repeated, as though she wasn’t sure if I had heard her. I had – I just didn’t know what I was meant to say to that. But, looking into her eyes, I realized that there were no more words, nothing more that could be spoken between us.
She slipped her hand behind my head, pulled me close, and planted her lips against mine.
As soon as her mouth found mine, I felt as though she had lifted the both of us off the earth below. She was tentative at first, as was I - I still wasn’t sure this was really happening, or if this was just another one of those vivid dreams that had taken me before. But then, I felt her parting my lips with her tongue, guiding my mouth open, and as soon as I tasted her breath on my lips, there was no denying it any longer. Not that I wanted to.
I shifted so that I was facing her, and slid my hand down her arm, over the soft fabric that I had zipped her into just a few hours before. Now, I wanted nothing more than to rewind that motion. My fingers brushed over the zipper, and I could have undone her in an instant. I already knew how she looked under there. What would it be to steal one more glance, one more look? She deepened the kiss, her fingers digging into the back of my head like she wanted to leave marks there. I wanted her to – it was the only way I would know that this was real.
She moaned softly against my mouth, and suddenly, everything was thrown into sharp focus. I pulled back from her, sharply. I couldn’t believe I had let it go that far. I had allowed something to get the better of me, something that I was meant to have a tight control over. When I looked into her eyes, her gaze was distant, hazy, as though she was somewhere else entirely.
"Billie..." she murmured, and she leaned in to kiss me again. Although I was so tempted to give in, I pulled away from her. No. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t - not when I was already so confused about everything I felt for her. Not the very same night she had been out on a date with someone else. Not in the house that she shared with her husband. None of it felt right. The kiss had, but everything that surrounded it was making my head hurt.
"I need to go to bed," I told her quickly, the feeling of her lips still burning bright against my skin. I hurried back up the stairs without looking back, feeling like an asshole. Had that really happened? I made it back to my room in time – in time enough for what I didn’t know. Maybe keeping my promise to myself not to let things go any further? I didn’t even know any longer.
I sank down onto my bed, and I listened for her moving around downstairs. I wanted nothing more than to get to my feet and call her up here, kiss her again. God, the smell of her musky perfume so close to me...I lifted my wrist to my nose and sniffed, inhaling what was left of it on my skin. I wanted to gorge myself on that smell.
I could feel a heat between my legs, a heat that I hadn’t allowed myself to even think about before. I needed to feel more of her. The dream I’d had, I could see now that it was far from a fluke. I wanted her, and she wanted me – and yet there was something inside me that made me want to hide from all of it. As though I would sully what we had by allowing myself to delve any further into the chemistry we shared.
Without bothering to get undressed, I pulled the covers up over my body. I wanted to hide from the world. I skimmed my fingers across my lips, mimicking the weight of the pressure of her mouth against mine.
The memory was already starting to fade in my head.
So I knew I was going to have to make a new one to replace it.
Chapter 10
It's all yours
I peered around the corridor, making sure that I was alone, and made a break for the kitchen, my bare feet pitter-pattering against the marble floor. I felt like a teenager sneaking out for a midnight snack, but I knew it was far more scandalous than that.
Ever since Alana had kissed me, I had done my best to keep out of her way. It just seemed like the safest way to survive all of this without losing my mind.
Yes, I had enjoyed kissing her, and yes, some part of me wanted to do it again – but I worked for her, and I wasn’t going to toss in my job for the sake of the thrill of her kiss.
Was I?
Rick had come back into town the day after her date, and I heard him asking her interestedly about what she had done and how it had gone. She’d brushed him off, more or less, and I hadn’t overheard her talking about what had happened with us. Thankfully. Because I couldn’t imagine that he would be too happy to hear that she had been making out with the staff...
Or that the staff had been so willing to make out with her.
It was one thing to allow the both of them to get out there and meet other people, it was quite another to do it with someone under his own roof. That would have made it uncomfortably personal, no matter how supportive he seemed to be about the thought of her going out with other guys.
And more to the point – I didn’t even know what I wanted from her yet. From this. I had never so much as made out with a woman before in my life. Until I had a better grasp on what this relationship was, where the hell it was going, I wasn’t going to make a move. Not that there were any moves to be made; I didn’t even know what it would look like to pursue a woman as anything other than a friend. How was I meant to talk to her? To flirt with her? I couldn’t make the pieces fit together in my brain, and even thinking about making them match up was making my head hurt.
So, I just avoided her. Which I knew was the cowards’ way of dealing with all of this, but still – nobody could stop me. If it had been one of my friends in the same situation, I would have encouraged them to strike out and be bold and dare to seize the day and all of that bullshit. But when it came to myself, I didn’t have the same nerve.
And, in my defense, she didn’t seem to, either. No, she was perfectly happy keeping her head down and making sure she stayed out of my way. Those few times when we did run into each other in the kitchen, when we were grabbing breakfast for the day or something similar, she dragged her eyes away from me like I was a bear-trap waiting to snap shut around her.
Which wasn’t far off how I felt, if I was being honest. I was on edge all the time, certain that something was going to happen, that I was going to say or do the wrong thing and suddenly expose what had happened between us to her husband. And if he found out...surely, he would get rid of me at once. And then I would be back on my ass at home, with no money and no job and no chance to see Alana again to figure out what the hell it actually was that I was feeling for her.
I was lying in bed one night, maybe four days after the kiss had happened – it was lit up like a marquee in my head, THE KISS, like my brain was trying to remind me of every detail of the way her mouth had felt against mine. I hated that I couldn’t seem to shake her from my head, hated that my brain was already stuffed full of the taste of her and the smell of her and the feel of her. And hated even more that, even though I was lying awake in my own bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she was just down the hall, probably thinking of me, too.
Rick was out of town for the evening, and I wondered if he had picked up on something between us – the way he looked at me when he informed me that he was going to be traveling for the night seemed to be laced with meaning.
Maybe Alana had said something to him? I couldn’t imagine he would just let it go without a fight, though. Either way, he was out of there, and it was just the two of us in the house, dangerously alone. Like we had been before.
I tossed and turned in bed and did my best not to think about her, but it was impossible when she was the only thing that was on my mind. My entire body ached for her in a way I had never ached for anyone before. I was starting to understand everything those people I’d known had told me about what it was to want, to truly want – how it felt to need someone so badly your skin felt like it was going to crawl straight off your body if you didn’t get a chance to touch them.
I heard a creak down the corridor, and I lifted my head from the pillow. That had to be my imagination, right? I would have just told myself that the house was settling, but it was so new that I knew that couldn’t be the case. Maybe Rick had arrived home early or something? But then, I would have recognized his footsteps on the stairs – he wouldn’t feel the need to creep about his own house like he didn’t belong there...
I sat up in bed and pricked up my ears. I was sure I could hear something. Another creak, and then another, as though it was getting closer to me. It was either a murderer heading down here to tear me a new one, or...
The door creaked open a notch, and my eyes widened when I saw who was standing there looking down at me.
"Alana?" I murmured, sitting bolt upright and clutching the covers around me. "Is that you? Are you okay?”
"Yes, I’m fine," she promised me, and she pushed the door open another notch. Hesitating for a moment, she stood there and looked at me. It was the nearest we had been to one another out of choice since it had happened and, in the soft half-light of the moon trickling through my window, I couldn’t stop staring at how beautifully soft her mouth looked.
"What are you doing here?” I asked.
"Can I come in?” She answered my question with a question. I nodded, without thinking. She entered my room like she was making her way into a temple, and planted herself down slowly on the edge of my bed. She was so close to me. I could feel the weight of her shift the mattress, and it took everything I had in me not to move towards her, guide her closer to me.
"Billie, I..." she began, but I shook my head. I didn’t need her to speak. I didn’t need her to say a damn word to me.
I sat up properly and let the covers fall away from my body, exposing myself to her – I was just wearing a flimsy pair of panties, the heat of the summer seeped into my skin for good. She inhaled sharply when she saw me, taken by surprise by my nakedness.
"Kiss me," I demanded softly.
I didn’t want to fuck around anymore. In the dark of the night, I could pretend like I was someone else – someone who could actually give in to the desires that coursed through my system, the ones that the day-me was too cowardly to explore.
And she didn’t need telling twice. Leaning forward, she planted her lips against mine, slowly, tentatively, as though she wasn’t entirely sure that what she was doing was right. I moaned against her mouth, encouraging her onward. She was wearing only a silk robe, and I pushed the shoulder down so I could touch her skin. God, she felt so good. How had I waited this long to do this again?
"This isn’t a good idea," she murmured to me, but I could tell that she didn’t give a damn about that - or that she gave about as much of a damn about it as I did. I kissed her again, deeper this time, taking control, pushing my tongue into her mouth.
"Are you going to let a little thing like that stop you?” I replied. I didn’t know where this version of me had come from, but I liked her – she oozed with confidence, with a sureity I was usually lacking. Alana looked at me, her gaze flicking back and forth between my eyes, and then she kissed me again.
"No," she replied at once, and I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her on top of me, sending us both crashing towards the bed.
I didn’t know what I was meant to do now that I had her here; I hadn’t thought that far ahead. But, lucky for me, she seemed to have a good idea of what she was doing.
She lowered her mouth to my neck, brushing her lips over my skin softly – there was her perfume again, bright and strong and sensual. I would have bathed in that scent if I could. Her breath was so warm on my skin, it almost ached, the heat of it filling my blood, pulsing through my system like it belonged there. It was as though we were two halves of a circuit, finally brought together, at last, lighting up the way we had always meant to.
I pushed my hands beneath her robe and trailed my fingers over her skin, feeling the movement of her spine and the arch of her back beneath my hands. She was so delicate, like fine silk, as though she had been made for me to cloak myself in. I ran my fingers through her hair and brought her head up to face me once more, looking into her eyes. I swore, they seemed to be glowing like twin moons in the dark, like a light that had been lit for me. I kissed her again, harder this time, and pushed my hips back up against her. How could she feel so good? I thought that being with a woman would have been weird, our bodies not made to go together, but she seemed to be this perfect reflection of me and I was already obsessed with finding out what I could do with her.
She traced her hand down over my waist and past my hip, caressing my legs and slowly guiding them apart. I moved them as though I was in some kind of trance. She was impossible to say no to, even if I’d wanted to. I needed to know what else she could do for me, to me.
Her fingers traced up my leg until they came against my panties, and I groaned as I felt the pressure of her hand against my skin. She trailed her fingers along the lace edging that lay on my stomach, not taking her eyes off my face the entire time, like she was trying to read my every reaction. I knew how she felt. I didn’t want to forget a moment of this, not one singular second.
"Are you wet?" She murmured. It was a simple question, but for a moment, I was struck completely dumb at the thought of answering it. Words having escaped me, I took her hand and guided it into my underwear.
She gasped as soon as she found my wetness, her fingers tracing over the very entrance to my slit and feeling how desperate I was for her. As soon as she touched me, I felt like fireworks were going off inside my head. How could they not be? I had been waiting for this for so long, I could see that now – waiting for her touch, waiting for the caress that sent explosive shivers all the way up and down my spine. She pushed a finger inside of me, tracing it around the very entrance, spreading me, teasing me. It was clear that she had done this before, though I tried not to linger too long on that thought.
"How does it feel?” She asked softly, and I swallowed and tried to find my voice again.
"Good," I breathed, and she brushed her lips across mine as she pushed her fingers further inside of me. I had never felt this way in bed with anyone before, not in my life. No, before, I had been doing what I thought was expected of me, highly aware of doing something wrong, of twisting the wrong way or doing the wrong thing. But with her, none of that seemed to matter. I knew there was no wrong that I could do, as long as she was here to guide me. Her touch was strong and firm, showing me what I needed to do and how I needed to be. I would have given myself over to her on a silver platter, trusting her completely with my pleasure, with my body.
She reached her thumb up to stroke my clit, just lightly, grazing the pad of her finger over my most sensitive point. I swear I felt my eyes roll back into my head right about then, the shock of the pleasure she was sending through me too intense for me to process right away. My lips parted, and she slipped her tongue between them again, kissing me slowly and deeply as she moved her fingers inside of me. It was far from the first time that I had been penetrated in my life, but it was the first time I really seemed to feel it; the intensity of her moving inside me, the reality of our bodies coming together like this.
