Taking the Leap Read online

  “Hold on. Let’s slow down.”

  “Right, right.” Jenna sits up, still straddling me. Her hair tumbles over her shoulders and down her back. “Sorry. I thought you wanted to.”

  I sit up a little bit, best I can, anyway, with her pinning me to the bed. “I do. I do, but let’s…you know. Ah, fuck it.”

  I reach for her. Pull her down to my mouth. We roll on the bed, and then we’re both laughing again. Her laugh becomes a sigh when I drag my mouth along her throat. She tastes a little sweaty, and between my legs, I feel the pulling draw of a familiar ache, and then I’m back to wishing we were taking things slow, because I want this to last and last.

  At the same time, I can’t stand the wait. Jenna is already wriggling out of her dress, pulling it off over her head and tossing it to the floor. She lays back in nothing but a pair of lacy panties and a matching bra, and I swear my heart really does stop. Full-on ceases to beat before kicking on again hard enough to make me dizzy.

  It’s my turn to say, “oh, my God.”

  Jenna runs her hands over her body, arching her back. “Touch me, Sam. I want you to touch me.”

  She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I have both hands on her. That smooth, warm skin. Her curves are so luscious that all I can do is move my touch over her again and again. With slow, sweeping strokes, I move down to her ankles. Kneeling, I lift her leg to press a kiss to the inside of her ankle.

  “What’s this?” I brush my lips again over the ink there. I sit up to look at it a little better. The tattoo itself is well done, skillful art with lines and colors and blending. It’s a little butterfly.

  “A mistake,” Jenna says. “I got it on a dare.”

  I laugh and kiss it before sliding my lips along her leg up to the knee, then a little higher. I listen for her gasp, and it thrills me. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Because I’m…” she gasps again when my mouth teases higher. “…the sort of girl to get a tattoo on a dare?”

  When I finally press my lips to the mound of her pussy beneath that lace, I’m trying hard not to shake. Jenna cries out, low, and arches to press herself against my mouth. I breathe her in, the delicious warm scent of her, and the smell spirals inside me, coiling me tight. An answering heat gathers in my clit.

  I don’t want to take my mouth away from her body, but I also want to get myself naked, and I can’t do both things at the same time. There’s a small struggle. I end up on my back, my jeans caught at my ankles, my cotton briefs somewhere around my thighs, and Jenna has somehow made herself entirely naked as she tugs at my jeans, and we’re both laughing and gasping and sighing with every stroke and kiss and touch.

  And then she’s between my legs, her hands sliding under my ass to lift me to her mouth, and I’m too surprised to do anything but open for her. She feasts on me, no teasing, no slow build, just a steady swipe of her tongue on my clit, over and over until I’m mindless. The pleasure is so intense, it’s close to pain, but in the good way. The best way.

  “You came so fast.” Jenna sounds like she’s in awe.

  “You got me there,” I manage to say despite being breathless.

  ❖

  Twelve

  Jenna

  * * *

  The only other couple of times I’ve gone this far with a girl, it took her forever to get off. I didn’t know what I was doing. But this time, whoa, Sam has gone off like a rocket, and I’m so turned on by knowing how much pleasure I gave her that I think the barest touch is going to send me off in the same direction.

  At the same time, I’m suddenly shy. I’d blame the alcohol for us getting to this room, and I’m sure that’s a part of it, but there’s no denying that I’ve had this on my mind since the moment I suggested we meet. I can still taste her sweetness when I ease myself onto my back beside her, not sure what to do next. Do we kiss? Hug? Are we finished?

  As it turns out, no. Sam rolls onto her side to slide a hand between my thighs. I jump a little at the sensation, and we both giggle. When her fingers find my clit, I arch and a moan slips out of me.

  “Like this,” Sam whispers. Her fingertips stroke my clit in smooth, steady circles. She dips lower for a moment, sinking into me with two fingers, and my hips buck and rock. “Oh, yeah. Just like this.”

  I’ve been fingered before, but never like this. Never all silky and gently teasing. Sam eases an orgasm out of me, and before I’ve even come down from that one, I’m already climbing the peak for another. The second is harder than the first and leaves me gasping, hoarse. Spent.

  I struggle to stay awake, but the soft sound of her breathing tells me Sam is drifting, too. Her hand is still on my pussy, cupping it. I like the comfort of it, of something beyond fucking, but something tender and lovely and hopeful.

  I wake up feeling chilly. The hotel room’s A/C blows the curtains. Sam has rolled over onto her side facing away from me, and after I come back from the bathroom, I’m not sure if it’s okay to spoon her or even to get into bed with her.

  I don’t know the rules well enough for this to even break them.

  I’m not sure I want to wake up snuggling with her. We had sex — amazing sex, yes, after an incredible date. But even though it was my idea to share this room, I’m not quite ready to share morning breath and tangle our toes. The room has two beds, and Sam doesn’t even stir when I tug the covers up over her beautiful lean body and get into the other bed.

  I’m out almost immediately. I wake with a dry mouth, yuck, but a terrific feeling of languor and satiation, which reminds me immediately of the night before. I press my fingertips to my lips and shiver, remembering how Sam felt and tasted under my mouth.

  Behind me, I can hear her muttering, so I roll over. She’s got her phone in one hand. Naked, she sits on the edge of the bed, her toes pointed to reach the floor. Her breasts are much smaller than mine, but I admire how she doesn’t need to wrangle them with a bra.

  “My mother,” she says with a frown and holds up the phone.

  I instinctively grab for my phone on the nightstand between the beds, but of course my mother would have no idea where I was or that I hadn’t spent the night at home. Sam, on the other hand, taps a message into her phone. Her scowl tells me everything I need to know. When her phone hums in her hand a moment later, she shakes her head but doesn’t take the call.

  “She’s so fucking hard to deal with.” Sam’s voice is hard. Her lips twist. She sounds angry, but she looks defeated.

  I swing my own legs over the edge of the beds I can face her. “So…why keep dealing with her?”

  She looks surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, move out. Could you?”

  “You mean could I afford to? Yeah. Sure. But she’d lose her freaking mind.”

  “Sounds like she already does that,” I point out.

  Sam nods. She wears her nudity so easily, while I’m thinking hard about pulling a sheet up to cover at least my lap. I can’t stop thinking about last night. How we kissed and made each other come, and how now, in the light of morning, I’m not sure at all how to treat her or how to act. I’ve never felt this way about a hookup. I’m figuring out pretty fast, Sam is not just a hookup.

  I don’t think Sam Donovan is “just” anything.

  She looks at me as though she’s only now noticed that we’re both naked, but in opposite beds. “Did I snore?”

  “No. I just wanted to give you space.” I clear my throat lightly, awkwardly.

  “Oh, sure. Right. Do you need the bathroom?”

  I shake my head, and Sam gets up. I admire the cute curves of her asscheeks as she strides confidently to the bathroom and closes the door. I should get dressed, but I’d like a shower first. We have to check out by eleven, and we both slept later than I was expecting. My stomach growls, and if I wouldn’t kill someone for a black coffee, I might be willing to at least maim them a little.

  She’s only in the bathroom for a few minutes and comes out with her hair damp and a towel wrapp
ed around her waist. She starts looking for her clothes without saying much. They’re all over the place, reminding me again how crazy last night had been.

  We need to talk about what happened, but I don’t know what to say. I guess that’s never stopped me before. It doesn’t stop me now.

  “I want to see you again,” I say.

  Sam looks up, startled, but then smiles. “Good. I want to see you again, too.”

  It’s as easy as that.

  Thirteen

  Sam

  * * *

  “Where do you think you’re going?” My mother has cornered me before I can get out the front door.

  It’s been four months of this, and I’m beyond tired of it, but this small town does not have a lot of choices for decent apartments, and I’ve been on the waiting list for one for what feels like forever by this point. My mom has no idea, of course. There’s no way I was going to tell her I’m planning on moving out as soon as I can.

  “I asked you a question, Samera.” She gestures at the overnight bag I have slung over my shoulder. “Where are you going?”

  “I have plans.” I have long mastered the art of gray rocking her. Making myself invisible, giving her no information. One word answers. There should be a sign in this house, “don’t feed the narcissist.”

  My mother doesn’t move aside from the doorway, deliberately making sure I can’t get past her. “What plans? Why do you have that bag? Are you staying out overnight again?”

  “Yes.” I am not patient, but I refuse to give her the satisfaction of seeing me get angry.

  Now the sniffling begins. The trembling lower lip. “Fine. I guess I’ll just stay here by myself tonight. Your sister went out with him, and I don’t suppose she’ll be home tonight, either.”

  She says “him” like Tony is something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe, but I don’t comment on it. She’s trying to start a fight, and I don’t have time, and I don’t want to engage. I’m meeting Jenna at her place, and we’re going to have a Lord of the Rings movie marathon and eat Indian takeout, something I can’t do around here, and I’m dying to see her because it’s been a couple weeks since both of us had the time off to make a date like this.

  Abby’s been staying over at Tony’s parents’ house a lot. She only has a couple weeks before she can move into their new apartment, but our mother has been driving her insane. I don’t blame Abby for trying to escape, but I am kind of pissed that she snuck out without having to deal with our mother.

  “Where are you going?” My mother asks again.

  “I have plans,” I repeat.

  Giving her nothing. Jenna and I haven’t told anyone about our relationship. We both agree that until after the wedding’s over, there’s no sense in bringing any more drama into things. And besides, she hasn’t said it out loud, but I’m sure she’s feeling the same way I am — that no matter how perfect and wonderful and exciting all of this is, it’s still so new, there’s no way to know if it’s going to turn into something long term. Okay, so four months of talking every day and spending a few nights a month together as often as we can is definitely not something casual. But I’m still not sure what it is.

  “With who?” Mom demands.

  I say nothing, only stare. Her face is red. She crosses her arms and plants her feet in front of the door.

  “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me where you’re going and who you’re going to be with! I’m your mother! I have the right to know! I provide the roof over your head —”

  “Enough,” I say sharply. “I pay you rent, the first of every month. I pay all my own bills. I am an adult. And I don’t have to tell you where I’m going, or who I’m going there with.”

  With her wailing behind me, I make it through the front door and get in my truck. My hands are shaking. The two hour drive to Jenna’s apartment is usually full of anticipation; tonight, my mother is blowing up my phone with texts I refuse to read. My hands are shaking and my stomach is sick by the time I get to Jenna’s.

  She greets me at the door in a tiny little silk robe and nothing else — until she sees my face. She takes me in her arms the second I get through the door. I hold onto her like I’m drowning and she’s my only rescue.

  “What’s wrong?” Jenna cups my face. Her eyes search mine.

  I kiss her. That’s all I want, is here and now with her, and this. Us.

  Without another word, Jenna takes me upstairs and undresses me. We make love with soft stroking touches, murmurs, smooth skin on skin and our bodies intertwined. I lose myself in her so that I don’t have to think about anything else. I feel guilty about that, after, when we’re both still panting and sweaty from coming at the same time, and I remember why I was so upset.

  “But…I am here for you,” Jenna says when I whisper that I feel bad for using sex to forget the stress. “For everything, Sam. I love you.”

  Time slows and stops as I turn to look at her. Again, she puts her hand on my face. I kiss her. She rolls on top of me to kiss me harder. Her knee nudges between my legs. My hands fit perfectly on her ass.

  “I love you,” she says.

  I want to tell her that I love her, too, but the words won’t come. Not because I don’t feel them, or that I wouldn’t mean them. I just can’t talk in that moment. My throat is closed, my eyes burning with tears.

  “C’mon, baby. I made you dinner,” she says to cover up the silence.

  Over the meal, I finally read the texts from my mom. They’re awful. Full of venom and accusations. She drops the word “dyke” a few times, which doesn’t bother me because it’s so fucking ignorant I can’t even be offended by it. It’s the rest of it, her diatribe about what a disappointment I am because I didn’t finish a four year degree, that I have a dead end job, that I’ll never amount to anything. All of that hits me hard.

  “Stay here with me. I have room,” Jenna says.

  I shake my head. “A two hour commute in each direction isn’t feasible. I’ll put too many miles on my car, spend too much in gas.”

  “Could you get a new job? Here,” Jenna says.

  “Are you asking me to move in with you permanently?”

  She blinks and blushes. It’s unbearably adorable. “I…umm…I’m not sure.”

  “It’s fine,” I say quickly. “We’re not there yet.”

  She doesn’t remind me that she told me that she loved me and that I didn’t say it back. We eat the rest of the dinner she cooked for me, all of my favorites. We snuggle on the couch watching movies. I block my mother on my phone. Jenna and I sleep together in her bed, spooning, our feet tangled together.

  I want to tell her that I love her, but I can’t make the leap. She’s everything I ever wanted in a partner, but that’s why I can’t force the words out of my mouth. She’s too much for me. Jenna has her own place, a great career, a new car. Jenna has her shit together, and I don’t. How could I possibly bring anything to the table?

  Instead, I pull her close to me so I can kiss the back of her neck. She murmurs in her sleep. The next night when I leave to head back home, she gives me a lingering kiss, but she doesn’t tell me she loves me again.

  Fourteen

  Jenna

  * * *

  I’ve been through a lot of rehearsals and rehearsal dinners, but I’ve never attended one that truly went all to hell. Nothing has gone right tonight. Abby was late to the church because her mother was having some sort of meltdown. My mom, who’s fed up with Margo Dononvan’s shenanigans, had to be physically restrained by Tony from causing a scene. Two of the bridesmaids got into a minor fender bender on the way to the restaurant for the dinner, and both will be sporting visible bruising and scratches in the places our strapless dresses don’t cover.

  All in all, kind of a shit show.

  We’re all finally seated in the private party room my parents reserved for the dinner. Margo’s squawking about not being able to order her own food, because my folks had preordered all the appetizers and entries to
be served family style, but honestly, I can’t be bothered to give a single fuck about Margo. I’m looking for Sam.

  Although we text and talk every day and video chat most nights when we can’t be together, we haven’t seen each other as much over the past couple months because she’s been picking up extra shifts to cover the costs of a short term lease until she can get into her permanent apartment. Video chats aren’t enough. I miss her.

  But I understand about life and stress, and I’ve backed off a little so I’m not adding more of it. We managed a quick hello kiss before the rehearsal, but then she had to wrangle her hellbeast of a mother, who despite claiming she’s not going to talk to Sam because she moved out, won’t actually stop haranguing her.

  “You still have time to elope,” I tell my brother under my breath as we both settle in at the table.

  “Thinking about it,” Tony says grimly.

  Once everyone starts eating, things start to improve. The bottles of wine being passed around help. By the end of the dinner, the toasts have begun, and I’m in desperate need of the ladies room. I escape to do my business, and when I come out, I find Sam in the restaurant lobby. She looks upset.

  “Hi,” I say. “You okay?”

  She shrugs. “I’m sure you can guess.”

  “Yeah.”

  I don’t say more than that, because we both know her mother is a twatwaffle and there’s no real point in getting into right now. I don’t want to waste time on that woman. I just want to kiss my girl. I hesitate, though, because things feel…off. I can’t forget that I said I loved her and she didn’t say it back; I haven’t said it since that night. I’m not sure if I should. Relationships are hard, I think, and wish there was no risk in leaping even if you’re not sure the other person will be there to catch you.