Chapter 23

Jennie

I didn't sleep a wink all night. Actually, all morning.

Lisa and I stayed awake until the sun came up, curled up in each other's arms on the couch, talking more about her past. Admittedly, I'd judged her when she told me how she'd been having relationships the past few years and I was wrong for that. I would never understand her situation because I'd never been a professional athlete with women chasing after me, but I could accept it. It wasn't fair of me to hold how she'd been living against her, especially when we hadn't even met yet.

She was so honest last night, so sincere, not to mention, irresistible. When she talked, the way her mouth moved, the way she licked her lips, the way her eyes brought whatever she said to life. Intoxicating.

She looked pretty damn cute when she slept too.

I rolled over and looked at her, stretched out on her stomach next to me, sound asleep with her arms pulled under her pillow. Her back rose and fell with each breath.

It was never the plan for her to sleep in here with me, but after we were done talking in the wee hours of the morning, I'd gotten up to head to bed when she jumped in front of me and blocked the hallway.

"Listen," she'd said, "after today, I know you're exhausted and have a lot to process. I told you, I'm patient and I don't want to push you into anything you're not ready for, but … will you sleep with me tonight? Sleep, nothing else. I'm just not ready to let you go yet." Her eyes were forthright with no underlying meaning, hard to resist.

"Yes," I replied, pointing down the hall, "in there."

She didn't argue, she just turned and walked toward the guest room while I followed.

Here we were, a few hours later and I hadn't slept at all. I knew I'd pay for it later, but lying there, watching her just felt perfect. I studied every movement she made, the way her eyes fluttered while she slept, the way the corners of her mouth twitched into a slight grin when something in her dream pleased her.

Hopefully it was me.

I quietly snuck out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom.

"Ugh," I mumbled, looking at my appearance in the mirror. My hair was going a thousand different directions, my eyes were puffy from lack of sleep and my cheeks had no color.

I hope she likes zombies.

I tamed my hair into a low ponytail and did a quick mouthwash swish, thinking I'd creep into the kitchen and surprise her with breakfast in bed and hopefully get a kiss in return. My hand was on the bedroom doorknob when I heard her stir behind me.

"Sneaking out?"

"Nope, I was gonna make you breakfast," I responded, trying not to drool as I stared.

"Uh-uh, come here." She lifted the corner of the blanket, insisting I climb back into bed. I didn't argue.

Curling into her side, she tucked her arm under my head and took my hand in her, resting it on her chest.

"How are you feeling today?" she asked, kissing the top of my head.

"I feel bad for judging you so hard last night, but I think I'm good. I think we're good." I rubbed my thumb back and forth across her chest.

"Good. I don't want anything from my past to affect us." She sighed contentedly.

"That's unrealistic though," I said. "Everything from our past is going to play some role in how we treat each other, and how we respond to the way we're treated."

"What do you mean?"

I sighed, deciding since she'd been so honest last night, it was time I started sharing too, at least a little.

"Yesterday, when I came in to shower and I asked you about the shampoo?" I slid my face along her chest, looking up at her. She nodded, waiting for me to continue.

"You said you didn't know what I used so you bought every kind they had. To you, that seemed like nothing, you laughed it off, but to me, that was huge. I'm not used to being cared for like that, it was really sweet."

She chuckled, her laugh vibrating through my body. "It was just shampoo."

"Once, when the girls were about six months old, I had just gotten home from working a double at the hospital. It was after midnight when I got home and my car was almost out of gas. I would've stopped for it myself, but Kai didn't let me have the debit card or any credit cards. He controlled the money. Anyway, I asked him to please get up five minutes early the next morning and get me gas, so I'd have enough to get to work the next day." Lisa squeezed me tight as I continued. "I went out in the morning and naturally, he'd blown me off. I went back inside and opened the girls' piggy banks, but he'd already cleaned those out. My choices were call in sick to work, which we couldn't afford, or drop the girls at daycare and take the bus from there. So, I hopped in my car and prayed the whole way to the babysitter. About six blocks from her house, my car sputtered to a stop, right past an intersection. I coasted to the side and called him, seven times. The first couple times, it rang before the voicemail picked up. Eventually it just went straight to voicemail. He'd turned it off."

Lisa inhaled loudly as her arm muscles tensed under my head.

"Just as I was pulling Ruby and Jane's infant carriers out of the car, as if God himself were testing me personally, the skies opened and it started down-pouring on us. Thankfully I had two blankets in the car and I threw them over the girls so they wouldn't get wet. I walked the rest of the way to the sitter, borrowed change from her and took the bus to work, soaked to the bone and freezing."

Lisa was smashing her teeth so hard, the muscle in the corner of her jaw was popping.

"That's how our relationship was, that's all I've ever known. So for you to do something for me like fuss over a tiny thing like shampoo was … big."

"Why did you stay with him?" Lisa asked after a moment, shaking her head.

I shrugged. "I wanted my girls to have a family, and I was willing to sacrifice my own happiness to give it to them."

"Your happiness is just as important as theirs, Jennie. Please tell me you've learned that?" She reached down and brushed my cheek with the back of her hand.

I closed my eyes and relaxed into her. "I'm getting there."

"Good, because if someone ever treats you like shit again, they're going to have to answer to a very angry hockey player who's done a good amount of fighting in her career and has a fantastic fucking lawyer."

The rawness in her voice, the way she threatened and meant it, stirred something in me. I'd never had someone who wanted to protect me before, and it was the single biggest turn-on ever. Suddenly, I was overcome with the need to kiss her.

I rolled onto my side and nuzzled my nose into her neck, gently pushing her jaw up. She tilted her head to the left and eagerly let me have access. I started at the top of her collarbone and licked my way up to her jawline, running my tongue along it.

She moaned and wrapped her arm around me, pulling me in tighter. As fast as she pulled me in, she let me go and sat up. "Hang on a sec."

I propped myself up on my elbows, watching as she jumped out of bed and fumbled her way down the hall. A few seconds later, her footsteps pounded along the hardwood floor as hurried back into my room.

She leapt from the doorway and landed in bed with a thud, almost jarring me off the other side.

"Sorry about that," she growled, climbing on top of me.

"Where did you go?" I giggled in between kisses.

She sat back and flashed that heart-stopping grin at me as she wiggled her eyebrows. "Brushed my teeth."

I threw my head back and laughed hard. Lisa, taking full advantage of my exposed neck by pressing her lips against my skin, planted kisses as she made her way up to the sensitive spot where my jaw met my ear. It was as if someone swept in and took over my body as I was filled with a neediness I hadn't ever felt in my life, not even with Kai.

"I want you," I whispered as I fisted my hands in her hair, tugging at the roots.

She froze and I immediately thought I'd done something wrong.

"What?" I breathed in a panicked tone.

She pulled back slightly and leaned her forehead against mine, breathing hard. "Jennie, I promised you we'd go slow. If you want me to go faster, you're going to have to tell me."

Her words dripped with sensual promise and I wanted to bathe in it. I ached for her hands all over me, reminding me that I wasn't just a mom but a grown woman with a thirst that she was more than capable of quenching.

I looked her straight in her eyes, matching her breath for breath, willing the words to leave my mouth.

"Touch me, Lisa. Please?"

Her eyes grew wild as she licked her lips, still panting. "I said you had to ask, not beg." With that she crashed into me, pushing me back on the bed. Within seconds, we were a mess of tongues and roaming hands and I couldn't drink her in fast enough.

She grabbed my hands and pulled me up to a sitting position, dragging my tank top over my head. Her mouth was back on mine the minute the fabric crossed us, as she gently pushed me back down on the bed. She sat back and slowly pulled my pajama bottoms off. I felt so exposed, so vulnerable lying on the bed in nothing but panties. My knee jerk reaction was to cross my hands over my chest, but before I could, Lisa grabbed my wrist, stopping me.

"Don't," she said, pulling my hand away. "You're so fucking gorgeous, don't you dare cover yourself. Let me look at you for a minute. I've been dreaming about seeing this again since I saw you in that bathroom." She bit her lip, slowly looking up and down my body, her eyes lingering longer than I would have liked, but she made me feel so comfortable. So beautiful.

She laced her fingers with mine and lay back down on top of me, her own excitement digging into my hip. Her hot mouth connected with my nipple and I cried out instinctively from the jolt of absolute pleasure that coursed through my body. It had been so long since I'd been with someone. I'd almost forgotten what it felt to have hands other than my own on me.

Her tongue sucked and tugged on my nipple as her hand slowly made its way down to my panties. Just as she was about to cross the threshold inside, she paused and kissed my lips sweetly. "You okay?"

"God, yes," I moaned into her mouth. "Don't stop."

She laughed softly as she kissed me again. "Yes ma'am."

It felt like it took hours for her to trail her hand back down and reach my sweet spot, but when she did…

Oh. My. God.

Her fingers were so much better than mine.

I don't know if it was the expert way she swirled them around or the fact that it had been so damn long, but within seconds, something stirred in my core.

"Lisa, stop," I panted, clawing at her forearm.

"Stop? Are you serious?" she asked in disbelief.

"No, not stop for good, just for a second." I giggled. "I'm … close … and your pants aren't even off yet."

"That's okay, I want you to go first. I wanna watch your face." She didn't wait for my okay before s thrust her hand back in between my legs, rubbing and teasing me until my body bucked underneath her hand. Guttural noises that should have embarrassed me passed through my lips while I squirmed and convulsed my way to the most intense orgasm I'd ever had in my life.

When my tremors stopped, I cracked my eye open. Lisa was lying next to me with an intense, turned-on look across her face.

"That didn't take long." I giggled.

"Neither will I." She smirked and stood, shoving her pants down around her ankles, her impressive cock springing free like a catapult from the waistband. She raised an eyebrow and grinned at me when she caught me staring, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment. She crawled across the bed, covering my body with her and kissed me, her tongue delving deep into my mouth while her warm, hard cock lay against my inner thigh. It had been a long time, but I was more than ready. I reached down and wrapped my hand around her, enjoying the hissing sound she made against my mouth as I was slowly gliding my hand up and down the length of her. I felt a drop of precum form on her tip as I worked her harder and faster.

"Oh God, Jennie … wait."

I knew she was ready. I was too. She put her knee in between mine and pushed them apart gently.

Holy shit…

"Lisa…" I panicked.

"Relax, I got ya, babe." She reached over and snatched the condom sitting on top of the nightstand. "Grabbed it when I was brushing my teeth, just in case." She opened the wrapper and slid the latex sleeve over her cock, then positioned herself over me. She licked her two fingers and ran them along my opening one more time. "Jesus, you're so wet." Her words were hot as I begged her with my eyes not to wait another second. She read my mind, slowly pushing herself inside me.

Stretching, filling.

Once she was inside me, there was no holding back. I met her thrust for thrust, her fingers entwined with mine as she raised my hands over my head and pinned them to the bed.

"God, you feel so good." She groaned as she closed her eyes tight, pulling her eyebrows together. She was close already, so was I.

"Harder," I pleaded on the edge of another orgasm.

Her hips crashed off mine as she pushed harder into me, our skin slapping with each meeting. The erotic noises and moans that filled the room sent me spiraling into myself, quivering in pure bliss.

"Fuck, Jennie!" She called out, driving herself deep into me, stilling as her cock twitched and she came … hard.

She laid her head on my shoulder, trying to regain her composure while I waited for the world to stop spinning.

"You good?" she said against my neck.

"Uh … yes. So good. You?"

She rolled over, lying flat on her back, spread eagle next to me. "I've never smoked in my life, but right now, I could go for about twelve cigarettes," she said as she leaned over and kissed my shoulder.