define “quick”
It’s a simple and innocent enough task. Just undo Dani’s zipper for her—just a little; just enough that she can do the rest on her own—and step back. Excuse herself. Go to Owen’s mother’s funeral and get on with it. There’s no reason for Jamie’s heart to be pounding the way it does when her fingers find that little, black zipper, and there’s certainly no cause for her hand to be shaking.
She needs to calm down. It’s just a favor for a friend. That’s all. Not like she hasn’t done this for a woman before.
It’s just, you know...usually in a different context. That’s what’s tripping her up.
And she’s telling herself to take a deep breath—to stop these unnecessary, borderline predatory thoughts about this woman she’s only ever held hands with. Once.
All Jamie has to do is what she’s been asked and then get out, and she really is doing that. But then her thumb accidentally brushes along the soft, pale skin of Dani’s back and everything freezes.
It’s not the touch. No, Jamie could have just as easily slipped away unscathed if that were all it were. It’s the noise. That breathy sigh that fills the air as their skin meets for the first time and Jamie has time to think she’s the one who’s made it—to start piecing together a groveling apology—before her brain catches up and she realized—
That was Dani’s noise. Not her own.
“I-I’m...sorry,” Dani says, her voice soft. She must be able to feel the way Jamie is stuck frozen behind her. “I didn’t mean to...Can we just forget that I…?”
That’s a good idea. Jamie has time to think so. But then she’s repeating the action—dizzy with the desire to hear that noise again—without deciding to exactly.
More deliberately, she brushes her thumb against that same spot, letting its pad drag slowly. Dani gasps again—this high-pitched noise that leaves Jamie reeling—but she doesn’t voice any protest.
It’s just the slightest touch. Nothing, really, but Jamie can feel the tension in the air building and building, fit to snap any moment. She should slow down, really, because they don’t really know each other that well and She’d only just found out two days ago that Dani was engaged before she came over from the states and—
“Jamie,” Dani whispers in a voice that makes Jamie’s knees feel wobbly.
Jamie shifts a little, trying to see Dani’s facial expression—trying to gauge whether or not she should back away—and she stills once she can see her profile. Her eyes are closed tight, like she’s trying to keep them that way, and her lower lip is caught between her teeth so Jamie decides to push her luck.
Might as well.
Leaning forward, she ducks her head in and presses her lips to the juncture of Dani’s neck and shoulder. Her mouth waters a little at the heat of Dani’s skin as she puckers her lips and Dani moans this time.
Honest-to-God moans.
“Do you want me to…” Jamie breathes, but Dani turns around then so they can look at each other.
Her eyes are dark, her tongue darting out to wet her lips, and Jamie’s no idiot; she knows what that look means.
This wasn’t the plan. She sort of wants to voice that aloud—that when she came in here, she wasn’t looking to seduce Dani or talk her out of her clothes. But now here they are.
She only gets as far as, “Dani,” and then she’s being kissed—furiously and fervidly, Dani’s hands reaching up to cup the back of Jamie’s head, pull her closer. There are soft breasts against her own, Dani’s sharp hip bone jutting into Jamie’s and a tongue flicking into her mouth, licking against her own, against the backs of her teeth.
Jamie stops resisting. Stops trying to rationalize this whole thing.
She grips Dani’s hips tight in her own hands, squeezes and pulls and rolls the material of that black dress between her fingers and palms. The light, sweet scent of Dani’s perfume fills her nose, her head, makes her veins feel like they’re filled with static. She can feel Dani’s fingers as they slip into her hair, tied up above the nape of her neck. They’re trembling and Jamie knows the feeling.
When her chest begins to ache, her lungs burning, and she needs air, she pulls back reluctantly and Dani presses their foreheads together. Her lipstick is smudged. Jamie can see that even through her somewhat blurry vision. She lifts a hand to wipe her lips clean and Dani’s lips chase her thumb.
“Sorry,” Jamie murmurs, their noses bumping together. “I didn’t want to—”
“It’s okay,” Dani says. She nods against Jamie’s forehead, her breath unsteady and her face flushed.
“This is...I don’t want to move too fast or-or—”
Dani cuts her off, shaking her head gently. “I want this,” she says, voice breaking a little from the emotion of the moment. Jamie’s stomach clenches and twists and she presses her thighs together where she’s standing. “I want this if you want this.”
Pulling back a little, Jamie glances at the clock beside Dani’s bed and frowns. It’s almost 3:15 and the funeral is at 4:00. There isn’t enough time for what she really wants to do—which is spread Dani out flat on her mattress, strip her bare, and explore every inch of her—but that doesn’t mean there’s not time for some things.
“We’d have to be quick,” Jamie whispers. “Can you be quick?”
Dani’s eyelids are a little hooded. She inhales shakily before answering. “Not usually,” she says. “But...I think that might be different today. With you.”
“Yeah?” Jamie asks, needing to hear the most important word before she lets herself pounce—lets herself give in to this wild energy ebbing and growing between them.
Dani nods. “Yes,” she says, and there it is.
There’s her green light.
Jamie kisses her again, pressing their bodies together until Dani wiggles away without breaking the kiss so she can push at her own dress. It falls from her shoulders and pools around her feet on the floor, leaving her in nothing more than a pair of pale pink panties.
“Christ,” Jamie breathes, taking a moment to look Dani over in the late afternoon light. “You’re gorgeous.”
Dani blushes and folds back into Jamie’s next embrace, humming as Jamie’s mouth finds the side of her neck, as her teeth nibble at her earlobe. Jamie dots kisses down to Dani’s collarbone, taking in that clean smell of soap—something florally—and then she keeps moving down her sternum.
Jamie can’t stop shaking. It’s strange because no one has ever had this effect on her before. She wasn’t even this nervous back when she did this with a woman for the first time, and she’d felt so out of her depth then that she’d almost been sick.
But there’s a heaviness that comes with pulling one of Dani’s nipples into her mouth, grazing her teeth against her areola. Like this isn’t the first time she’s done this and definitely won’t be the last. It’s strange. Jamie can’t help but wonder if they’ve loved one another before this lifetime.
If that’s maybe why this feels so natural.
Slowly, she backs Dani towards the bed and gets her to sit down on the edge of it. Immediately, Dani’s legs stop trembling as badly as they had been and Jamie is no longer worried she might collapse. She moves on to the other breast and Dani groans out something that sounds like a blend of Jamie’s name and a curse.
“God, Jamie,” Dani breathes next and when Jamie pulls her head back, her lips are parted and her hair is messy and she is the most beautiful thing Jamie has ever seen in her entire life. “Touch me. Please.”
“Okay,” Jamie agrees and it’s an odd position—she has to kind of straddle Dani on the edge of the bed in order to press the other woman back against the mattress and get the best angle—but they manage it. “Tell me if this is too much,” she whispers, slipping her hand down to the hem of Dani’s underwear, pulling at the elastic there and pinching it between her thumb and forefinger.
Dani’s eyes clenched shut and she’s got a vise grip on Jamie’s forearms, but she manages to nod in agreement. And then Jamie is cupping her through her panties, using the tips of her fingers to press into the spot Dani wants her through the damp fabric.
“Okay?” Jamie asks and Dani opens her eyes, nodding, her jaw dropped open as she pants a little.
“So good. Keep going.”
She digs her nails into Jamie’s arms for good measure, her thighs falling open so that Jamie can slot herself into place between them. Jamie’s not usually one for following orders, but she couldn’t deny Dani a thing in this moment. She could ask for the world and Jamie would do her damndest to give it to her.
Tucking her face into Dani’s shoulder, Jamie slips her fingers into her panties and slides them into the warmth and heat waiting for her there. The room spins around them as she sinks into the other woman with two fingers, making Dani gasp out a, “F-fucking hell, Jamie,” and arch her back.
“I’ve got you,” Jamie whispers, her fingers pumping in and out with a steady urgency that matches the beat of her own heart.
Dani slings a leg around Jamie’s hip, pulling her in closer, and Jamie keeps going, keeps moving, couldn’t stop if she tried and she’s not planning on trying anytime soon.
And Dani turns out to be right: it doesn’t take very long.
One moment she’s muttering, “Please, please, please, Jamie, oh—yes,” in a stream that’s nearly incoherent and then she’s pressing her lips against Jamie’s hair and her abdominal muscles are clenching and she’s—
Dani collapses back against the mattress, Jamie still lying half-on-top of her. Her chest rises and falls with shaky breaths and Jamie keeps her hand resting where it is between her legs for as long as she can before withdrawing it.
In the stillness that follows, she kisses Dani’s chin and nose and eyelids before settling on her lips and says, “So…” and trails off.
Dani opens her eyes and grins, still looking blissed-out and Jamie is trying very hard not to feel too proud of herself at that. “That was...woah,” she says, voice raspy from strain.
Jamie feels herself grin. “That’s one way to put it.”
They lay there another minute, content to just be pressed together. Dani combs her fingers through Jamie’s disheveled hair and Jamie keeps dropping her mouth to kiss Dani’s face and neck, wherever she can reach.
“Sorry,” Dani says after a little while. “I think I ruined your hair.”
Jamie laughs and pulls back a little, enough that she can run her hand through the style and confirm that Dani did, in fact, ruin her hair. She pulls the clip out of it and tucks it into her pocket. Below her, Dani is a delicious sprawl, half-naked and soft. Jamie longs to explore her some more, but she knows there isn’t time.
“This is why I usually don’t bother,” Jamie jokes and it’s Dani’s turn to laugh. She glances over her shoulder to that clock again to find that it’s nearly 3:30. “Shit, I should go.”
She gets to her feet and Dani sits up, watching as Jamie tries to sort out her ruffled clothing. In the quiet stillness of “after,” Dani covers her chest up with her arms, looking self-conscious, so Jamie looks her over and winks, shakes her head.
“You’re gorgeous,” she repeats. “I’ll keep tellin’ ya’ if ya’ like.”
Dani doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. Jamie wonders if anyone has ever been so honest with her and vows that she’ll do her best from here on out to make Dani understand her own worth.
“So are you,” Dani says. “I feel bad that I didn’t—”
Jamie shakes her head. “That’s okay. Later, yeah?” She pauses, hesitant. “There’ll be a later?”
But—
Nothing to fear. Dani’s smile lights up the room.
“There is definitely going to be a later.”
It’s 3:31. Jamie curses again and kisses Dani quickly as she starts to the door.
“If I come back to find you haven’t been relaxing,” she says as she goes, “there will be serious consequences.”
Dani, who has long since stopped bothering trying for any modesty, smiles at this—a dreadful, playful smirk that Jamie wants to kiss off her lips. “Promise?” she asks and, Lord.
Dani Clayton is going to be the death of her.
But what a way to go.
...