Warning: I changed the rating to M for this chapter. It's not particularly explicit but without spoiling anything ...I think you understand why I made this change. Proceed accordingly. Things happen between two girls that if it makes you uncomfortable, like ..wtf are you doing here anyway?
I've been a bad, bad girl.
Johanna was certain that her impulsive streak was deeply embedded in her DNA. Her father had been a gambler, a risk-taker, a loose cannon and half of his terrible genome was inside of her. Even though she hadn't spent much time with him, he had imprinted on her his rogue sensibilities. Her mother was a planner. It suited her well in her occupation as a builder and shop-owner; her business mind was programmed to interpret, pause, reflect, execute with care. Johanna knew she would have to reach deep into herself to find that part of herself that came from her mother.
She was determined not to let Cashmere affect her relationship with Katniss. Too much of the last three years of her life had been dictated by the nefarious blonde. When she had accidentally discovered Johanna's jazz band she somehow managed to hold that as blackmail over Johanna's head: An agreement to never go public with their affair. Johanna's intimate expression of music meant as much to her as Cashmere's reputation did to the blonde. Cashmere's knowledge of Johanna's dad was because her mother had stupidly confided in Cashmere's father. And of course, Cashmere somehow finagled a way to learn about each and every straight girl Johanna had lain in bed with.
It's a sad, sad world. When a girl will break a boy just because she can.
A lesson her father had taught her: How to disarm an enemy. His lesson had been a straight-forward instruction in taking down an armed man, but Johanna knew it translated just as well metaphorically. Her father didn't deal in metaphors but he wasn't wrong. If Cashmere was wielding her secrets as an enemy might wield a firearm, then she had to take the weapon away.
Wear your secrets like armor and no one can hurt you.
The night had to be perfectly executed. There was no time to wing it like her father would have done. She was going to reveal all three advantages Cashmere had over her to Katniss in one night. Take her to the jazz bar where her band performed, explain to her the sordid story of her father, and by hook or crook explain why she had slept with all those girls. Place all her cards on the table and hope and when she looked up, Katniss was still playing.
It almost didn't happen because the second Mrs. Everdeen and Prim had left the Everdeen household after dinner, Katniss had pinned her against the kitchen counter and seared her with a bruising kiss. Their embraces were oftentimes frenzied like this - gnashing of teeth, bruising lips, scratching skin. Johanna had been right when they first met - Katniss was the type of girl who enjoyed the feeling of nails down her sides.
She knew because she did it at that moment and was compensated by a husky moan. Reluctantly she pulled away. "As much as I am loving this right now, I want to take you somewhere tonight," Johanna said, interrupting Katniss's oral assault on her neck. Gray eyes flicked up to her own in a mixture of confusion and slight annoyance.
"Take me somewhere?" Katniss repeated dumbly.
"Yeah brainless, take you somewhere." Johanna let her hands travel down the length of Katniss's arms and she laced their fingers together gently. Her thumb traced light circles against Katniss's palms. "Two places actually. But we have to leave now."
Katniss raised a delicate brow. "This isn't an elaborate ruse to keep me out of your pants is it?" Johanna jabbed her in the ribs in jest and led her out of the house. The sweet grassy smell of summer hit her as they made their way toward Johanna's car. Katniss's smirk softened into a smile as Johanna held the door open for her. She slid into warm, worn leather and waited for her girlfriend.
Johanna expelled a shaky breath and turned the car on, trying to find solace in the familiar rumble of the engine. Her fingers fiddled with the radio dial as she tried to find a clear station for the short trip. The club was about twenty minutes outside of the Panem town linits, tucked into a row of stores and a Starbucks.
Don't you tell me to deny it. I've done wrong and I wanna suffer for my sins.
It was a much larger city than Panem, glistening with twinkling street lamps and busy with the bustle of taxi cabs and impatient drivers. Johanna found she enjoyed the cacophony of the city to the orchestra of animals and insects at home. She parked the car outside the club's doors. In a habit now ingrained in her, Katniss waited for Johanna to open her door. The shorter girl insisted on the chivalry and Katniss found it charming.
"Wow, this place is gorgeous." The building's facade looked like something out of an old movie: gilded trim, a bright black and white marquee, huge framed posters on the wall detailing the upcoming events. Since moving to Panem Katmiss rarely ventured outside the town line. She wasn't particularly fond of big cities; it was a major reason why she had almost preferred the move to Panem.
Johanna smiled like she had been the architect. "Built in 1914 as a silent movie theatre. They maintain Mary Pickford herself has visited but I have doubts. It was converted into a dance club in 1939 because they didn't want to make the leap to talkies." She smiled sardonically. "They thought it was a fad." Johanna took her hand and entwined their fingers as they entered the plush lobby. It had the musty smell of age as well as the sweet aroma of liquor and the hang of cigarettes. "It's been operating as a jazz club since then. Seventy-five years of operation, even as jazz pestered out in the late sixties and seventies."
"Jo!" A wrinkled man emerged from around the counter in the depth. Age had lowered his height but his bright white smile and loud voice seemed to command the room. He pulled Johanna into a cigar-soaked hug. He moved away and held her by the arms like a grandfather appeasing the appearance of a child. Familiar and loving. "It's not your night tonight, is it?"
"No Bogey, it's not."
"Good," the man replied, rubbing his perpetual five o'cloxk shadow with a rough scratch. "Give an old man a scare. I already forget what day it is without you tryin' to sneak a few days by me." He finally saw the other girl standing slightly behind Johanna and smiled his bright grin. "And who is this lovely lady?"
Johanna slid her arm around Katniss's waist and edged her forward. "This is Katniss."
Katniss observed as the two shared a knowing look and she saw the flush come on Johanna's cheeks. The gray-haired man looked at her fondly. "Ah so this is the famous Katniss Everdeen." Katniss shot them both a skeptical look but she stuck her hand out toward the man anyway. "She is much more gorgeous than you said."
Ignoring her hand he pulled Katniss into an unexpected hug. Johanna smirked and gently separated them by the shoulders. "Hey hands off, Boges."
"I was just given' her the treatment. I know this is your girl" He grinned cheekily. "Nice to meet you, Katniss. I'm Harold Bogeman, the proprietor of this here establishment. You can call me Bogey. Johanna has told us loads about you."
Katniss wanted to reply that she had never heard of him but she bit her tongue. "Nice to meet you Bogey."
"I'm going to show Katniss around if that's okay?" She knew it would be but she held too much respect for the man to assume.
"Sure! This is your home too darlin'. You need anything you shout a holler now. Real loud, you know how these ears don't work so good anymore." Johanna rolled her eyes and escorted Katniss into the main area of the club.
For Katniss it was like stepping into a time machine. Thin red carpet lined the floor with gold-plated railings bolted down into the fabric. Glass-topped round tables flanked by chrome chairs were scattered in a horseshoe pattern around the room. They stepped down the steps into the circular expanse before the stage where more tables and chairs were sat, currently empty and shining.
What I need is a good defense. 'Cos I'm feeling like a criminal.
A few casually dressed men and women were busy polishing glassware and vacuuming the carpets. Johanna began explaining the operation to Katniss as she showed her around, periodically giving a familiar hello to a few of the employees.
She reached a small room at the end of a hallway lined with pictures of Bogey with various celebrities from the forties to today. The door was unmarked but Johanna opened it and led Katniss inside. It was a small dressing room outfitted with a mirror lined in bulbs and a small leather couch against the far wall. Various instruments made themeves comfortable around the room.
Katniss put the skeptical look back on her face. "This place is beautiful. Do you work here?" She found it surprising Johanna could keep a job because between school, her extra-curriculars and her mother's shop there didn't seem to be any time. Any free time she had Katniss tried to soak up like a sponge.
"Not exactly." Johanna turned the black canvas chair around that was sat in front of the mirror and dresser. As she did she revealed the stenciled name in white across the back: Johanna. Katniss looked up to the bashful smile of the other girl.
And I need to be redeemed to the one I've sinned against. Because he's all I ever knew of love.
"You perform here?" she asked cautiously. Johanna nodded and looked around the room. These were her things. Even an old math textbook lay dusty in a corner. Had Katniss been paying more attention she would have even seen the small photo of her and Johanna at prom tucked into the frame that lined the mirror. "When?"
"Every other Saturday," Johanna revealed in a sheepish voice.
Katniss crossed her arms. "You've been lying to me? Why?"
Johanna sat in the chair and draped her arms over the sides. "I don't know. Nobody knows about this. It's just something I've always kept close to me. But I wanted to share it with you." Not entirely untrue but Johanna conveniently left out the part where she was being blackmailed by her sometimes lover.
"How long have you been playing here?"
"Five years." Gray eyes went wide. "Yeah I know. I'm sorry I kept this from you."
"I mean I guess it's okay. It's not like we have to know every little thing about each other. You're allowed to have secrets." Katniss moved across the wooden floors over to Johanna and placed her hands on the arms of the chair. "You know how super hot it is that you play music, right? You could have used that to your advantage earlier. Seduced me with song and brought me back to your dressing room..."
Johanna smirked. "I think I seduced you just fine without it." She leaned up and bit Katniss's lower lip and yanked her into a kiss. Katniss didn't answer she just kissed her back with an equal ferocity. The heat built between them as it always did, making Katniss feel like their clothes were extraneous, like she always did.
Her lips dragged along Johanna's jaw until she met her destination at her ear. "Does that door lock?" Johanna'a throat moved and she nodded. She could feel Katniss smile against her earlobe as she ran her tongue along the lobe and dipped slightly into her ear. She emitted a gasp that made Katniss groan directly into her ear. "What do you say we christen that couch of yours?"
This was not the time to explain that her couch had already been christened. Many times. Instead she caught Katniss's intense gaze and tried to control her breathing as best she could. "This isn't our last stop, babe," Johanna explained with a tremor in her voice. Katniss pouted. Johanna got shakily onto her feet. If Katniss kept that up they never get where she wanted to go. She steeled her willpower.
Heaven help me for the way I am.
Johanna cut the engine on an old stone bridge near the outskirts of town. She got out of the car and crossed the road to the other side. A four-foot ledge edged the road and Johanna straddled it, then swung her legs over and dangled them over the side. The bridge spanned over a small but active creek that emptied into a swampy lake that went out so far straight, like it could touch the horizon.
Katniss mimicked her seated position and Johanna took her hand. A long period of silence followed, puncutated by the sporadic croaking of frogs and near constant chirping of crickets. "This was the last place I saw my father." The brunette looked over at her girlfriend in surprise. Johanna had never spoken of her father before. There was only one photo of him that she had ever seen in her house: him holding a crying, swaddled Johanna fresh from the womb. He looked remarkably like Johanna in that photo; they shared the same uncomfortable look around children. Same piercing brown eyes.
"Before he was deployed overseas he took me here to go fishing. A last minute bonding. Except I was seven and hated fishing." Johanna stared out toward the murky water. "He drank an entire six pack by himself and set the cans up where you're sitting. Taught me how to shoot a handgun."
Katniss felt surprised for the millionth time that night. "A seven year old?"
Johanna laughed. "Yeah he was the worst. I didn't realize it then. I thought he was badass." She pursed her lips and then ran her tongue along her mouth. "He was a bastard. Drank, gambled, just overall fucked up my mom's life for years. They got married at sixteen, had me at seventeen. He wasn't anywhere close to a father. Everyone in town knew it. One of those townwide former quarterback losers." She sighed. "Anyway he signed up for the army after 9/11 looking for some kind of glory. He was killed in combat in Iraq within a few months of being deployed."
"I'm sorry," Katniss replied reflexively. She looked out into the lake and tried to picture a young Johanna. An innocent dark-haired girl with long limbs she couldn't quite control. A slim face that could cut you with its piercing glances staring up at her father adoringly. Absorbing his lessons dutifully whilst still maintaining her independence. Probably getting frustrated she wasn't a good shot, pretending not to be frightened by the loud pop of the gun.
Secrets I have held in my heart are harder to hide than I thought.
The shorter girl shrugged. "Don't be. Better he die pretending to be a hero than drink himself to death here." The certitude in Johanna's tone was not to be countered. So instead Katniss bounced her heels against the rough stone and enjoyed the warmth of Johanna's hand in hers.
"Why did you tell me all this tonight?"
Maybe I just wanna be yours.
Deep brown hues eyed her warily. Johanna turned and tucked her leg beneath her knee and faced Katniss head on. "There's one more final thing you need to know about me." A brown eyebrow raised on a creaseless forehead but she made no sound. "I have ...sort of slept with a lot of different girls."
Katniss made a small choking noise in the back of her throat and tilted her head to the side. "How many is a lot?"
"I don't know," Johanna breezed, looking back out to the water. "Maybe fourteen or fifteen."
Katniss's gray eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets. "Maybe? You don't have like a master list somewhere?" Johanna rolled her eyes and Katniss tried to calm down. "How did you even manage to find 'fourteen or fifteen' gay girls in this town? The way people look at us you'd think we're the only lesbians within forty miles of the town square."
Normally Johanna would have snickered at Katniss's unfortunate but astute observation of Panem's small-town values. But the anvil hadn't yet been dropped. "They weren't gay. Maybe leaning that way, maybe they're gay or bisexual now but ..they were most definitely considering themselves heterosexual when I met them."
Katniss slid her hand from Johanna's grasp and placed it in front of her. This had certainly been a night of revelations. The way Johanna's posture had relaxed after her last sentence gave Katniss the inkling that she was done with her confessions for he night. Hopefully for a while. Katniss steeled herself and flicked her eyes up toward her girlfriend's. "Is that what I was? What I am? Some straight girl you want to corrupt?" The question came without malice, more like sorrow. "Another notch in your bedpost?"
Johanna looked appropriately horrified. "If that were true don't you think I'd have taken you up on your countless offers to sleep with me?"
Katniss shrugged. "I don't know how you seduced these girls. Maybe you take them on a late-night ride in your cool car and show them your adorable jazz club and then take them home and fuck them."
Her voice moved from honey to hell and Johanna had to bite back her surprise. "Katniss, it isn't anything like that." She moved hair from her face and sighed. "I am not proud of all of that. I didn't love any one of them. Not even close."
"So sex is just some fun thing you do at parties with girls you can't stand?" Her pointed glare cut straight through to Johanna's heart.
"It was," she answered honestly. "It was until I met you. I looked at you and I was just ...floored. Sure I'm attracted to you and I can't lie that my first thought may or may not have been wanting to hear your voice scream my name," Katniss blushed, "but I saw passed that. I wanted to get to know you. I wanted you to get to know me." Johanna dropped her gaze. "You're not like the other girls. Not to me."
A single finger was placed beneath her chin as Katniss lifted her head to make their gazes level. The lone flickering streetlamp across the street lit half of Katniss's face, but Johanna could see the singular emotion there. "Prove it." Her eyebrows knitted together. Katniss swung her legs back over and jumped back onto the road. "Prove it. If I'm not like them then take me home, bring me into your bedroom and prove it."
Hold your hair in deep devotion. At least as deep as the Pacific Ocean.
Maybe I just wanna be yours.
Johanna had never, ever, not even once, been nervous with a girl. Not even the first time she had sex. She was confident in her body, confident in her sexuality, and somehow confident that she possessed the necessary skills to achieve pleasure. It was this confidence that made her, in her estimation and the post-coital reviews of others, pretty damn good.
But she was terrified. The ride home had been quiet, save for the quiet mumble of the radio. The walk up the stairs to her room had been almost unbearable. Now here they were, staring at each other in the dim light of Johanna's room unable to start what they desperately wanted to.
"How does this normally go, hm?" Katniss asked, sitting down on the edge of Johanna's bed and giving it a few bounces. "You bring some idiot girl up here, whisper something in her ear and take her clothes off?" She eyed Johanna's music corner. "I bet you even put on mood music."
Johanna rolled her eyes and smirked. "First of all, it's just regular music. The mood is already there. Second of all, I'm not going to discuss other girls I've slept with tonight."
"Mood killer?" Katniss asked scathingly.
Katniss's hot tone made Johanna's thin patience wear out. If this is what she wanted, what she truly wanted, then she was going to have to check that attitude. Only one surefire way to shut her up. Johanna lunged forward and took Katniss's lips in an ardent kiss, trapping her in place by wrapping her arms around Katniss's torso. It only took a moment for Katniss to reply in kind, running her fingers experimentally through Johanna's locks of dark hair.
Johanna pushed them backward to her bed without preamble, cradling Katniss's fall as she moved on top of her. Her body was waging an unwinnable war between anxiousness and desire. Both of them were tumbling her stomach's contents like it was a clothes dryer. She steadied her breath as she looked down at the beautiful girl pinned beneath her.
This was not the first time another girl's back was flat against her blankets. This was not the first time she had grappled with pushing off socks and shoes. This was not the first time she had laid eyes on the naked midsection of another girl.
But this was the first time it had ever meant anything.
Johanna usually took the lead. The Fred Astaire to her bedmate's Ginger Rogers. Or more accurately, Fred Astaire to her bedmates acting as a table. She led the girl through the motions, pushing her back onto the pillow and making her toes curl in joy. Her partners were passive. But not Katniss. She refused to be undulated and taught how to move. As Johanna laced kisses across her clavicle Katniss sat up and pushed Johanna on to her back, reversing their positions and laying them the wrong way across the bed. Pillows were kicked off by stretching feet as Katniss took Johanna's hands in hers and pinned them at the foot of the bed, hanging off the edge slightly.
Tonight you're mine completely. You gave your love so sweetly.
A low moan rippled up from the back of her throat as Katniss slid a nimble tongue across her neck and down toward her breasts. Katniss smiled against the taut skin. She was not going to let Johanna steer this night as she had with all her other lovers. Her hot breath bounced off Johanna's skin and she watched goosebumps rise to attention in its wake. She had waited a long time to hear Johanna pant with unmasked need.
Of course she harbored a deep reserve of jitters. She had never done anything sexual with a boy or a girl, so her intimate knowledge was limited to her own experience with herself. She squirmed Johanna out of her tight fitting jeans, her panties getting knotted with them and coming off as well. Her pupils dilated in the darkness to take in more light to see Johanna fully. She drank in the sight beneath her like a patron at an art museum; contemplative. Defined collarbone that rested above small, perfectly round breasts that were marred with small bite marks of Katniss's doing. A tense abdomen that rose and fell with ragged breaths. Tiny blondish hairs stuck to Johanna's belly from the sweat built between them over the last few minutes. A small patch of dark curly hair just above silken folds that made Katniss's breath catch in her throat. She traveled down muscular legs that tapered into feminine calves. The brunette placed small kisses up Johanna's calf muscle to her inner thigh, raking her teeth across the taut, smooth skin of Johanna's inner thigh.
"You are stunning," Katniss whispered reverently against Johanna's skin, taking a bit of her abdomen in her mouth and giving it a small hurt. She traveled upward to Johanna's mouth and captured it in another fervent kiss that instead of being backed by pure desire, was a delicate warp and weft of love and reverence.
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes.
No one had ever looked at her, or spoke to her, with such adoration before. Johanna swallowed down the embarrassing emotion that balled up inside her throat as Katniss looked down at her. Gray eyes that were at once wholly unfocused but also intensely gazing down at her. Her newly freed hands were slowly traveling up Katniss's skirt; a skirt she was extremely glad Katniss had worn. It fell down her hips with ease, allowing Johanna a better glance at Katniss's oft-gazed-upon thighs that she adored.
She ran her hands along the olive-toned skin of Katniss's thighs, trailing them back up again as she curled her fingers in the elastic of Katniss's underwear. Looking in her eyes for consent and finding much more than that, she grinned as she pulled them down and flung them dismissively on to the floor beneath them.
Never had a girl looked so beautiful in the mix of a yellowish lamplight and a starkly bright white of the moon. Johanna closed her eyes and inhaled as deeply as possible. She wanted to imprint this moment in her memory as firmly as she could. The smell of Katniss's sex and natural perfume, the salty taste of her skin, the impossibly radiant beauty Katniss had, even in this nude, vulnerable state.
But will you love me tomorrow?
She bolted upright in bed and wrapped her arms around Katniss's back, digging her nails into the sweat-glazed skin and leaving hot red trails down the length of her twitching back muscles. Her own center was so close to Katniss's she could feel the heat rising between them. With one arm wrapped around her back, both to keep herself upright and hold Katniss in place, she placed her other hand near Katniss's entrance.
She had never asked permission before but it felt appropriate now. However, verbalizing that question was dying in her throat. Of course, she needn't ask. Katniss rocked her hips forward and a small noise of frustration came up from her throat. It was all Johanna needed to continue.
Hers and Katniss's gasps were remarkably similar in tone and tenacity at her first slow, tentative thrust inside her. The pleasure was shared as she moved inside her lover, marking Katniss's insides with her fingerprints. While Johanna wanted to look down at her hand that she could feel getting drenched in Katniss's arousal, she couldn't break her eyes from Katniss's face. Her forehead scrunched up as if she was in pain, but her lips parted and breathing out moans and encouragement that spelled nothing but absolute pleasure. A flash of white teeth gripping her lower lip tightly as Johanna began to quicken her pace.
She didn't want to waste the moonlight but she also wanted this to last as long as possible. The way Katniss's body began to tremor lightly and how rapidly her walls were constricting on her fingers she knew Katniss was close to spilling over the edge.
Tonight with words unspoken, you say that I'm the only one.
As Katniss opened her eyes she saw how vehemently Johanna was staring at her. Any notion of self-consciousness was out the window because her brain was only functioning on a base level. She just squeezed her eyes back shut as her hands gripped Johanna's shoulders, her hips rolling faster and faster over Johanna's hand. Nothing had ever felt like this before. No memory of satisfaction had this vivid emotion and physical strength attached to it. This was new. This was amazing. If she could never have this again then she would choose to die in that moment.
Three words both broke her from her dark absorption and sent her tumbling over the edge of ecstasy. "Look at me." The moment her gray eyes met the loving brown ones staring up at her, all her senses exploded at once. She couldn't exactly pinpoint when but Johanna's name sprouted from her lips over and over again as her body sagged against the dark-haired girl's, breaths expelling out in arrhythmic bursts, her muscles contracting and shivering in the aftershocks of orgasm.
Johanna managed to push Katniss backward, holding her gently as she laid her against the bare mattress at the head of the bed. Pillows had been long strewn across the floor by now, forgotten about and discarded. She kissed her everywhere she saw small beads of sweat form - near her cheek, the cleft in her lips, the hollow of her neck, the space just before her ear.
She pushed down the throb of her own needs in favor of guiding Katniss through the comedown from pleasure. Her selflessness was unwarranted as Katniss apparently held an army of stamina hidden inside her. Her eyes flew open and she pulled their bodies together, crushing Johanna in a kiss that quite literally stole her breath.
But will my heart be broken when the night meets the morning sun?
Katniss again returned to her thought that she would not be some pawn in Johanna's sex game. They were equals, partners, lovers. Just because she carried less experience did not mean she carried less desire. There was one clear thought in her mind: She wanted to taste her. Grinning as she pulled away from Johanna's kiss she writhed beneath the girl until she was squarely beneath the other girl's thighs.
"Wha-?" Johanna managed to sneak out a sort of question in her sexually-clouded haze. "What are you doing?"
Katniss flattened her tongue against Johanna's thigh and slowly moved upward, collecting the spilled juice that flowed from Johanna. She felt the other girl shudder above her and she smiled smugly. "Just shut the fuck up and grab the headboard." Johanna's confusion was defogged by the swirl of Katniss's tongue inside her. On their own accord her palms slammed forward and grasped the wooden headboard, unintentionally doing as she was so provocatively bidden. She punished the frame with her iron grip, ignoring the creaky strain that sounded beneath her touch.
Her only sense was tactile. Katniss's tongue running laps inside her, her fingers clenched around Johanna's backside, digging little half-moon marks on the pale skin. Warm breath expelling over her insides as Katniss pulled back periodically to catch her breath. Her pelvis moved on its own, matching Katniss's thrusts. Between the crossfire of emotion and attraction she felt for Katniss it wasn't long before she cried out her girlfriend's name loudly, almost painfully, gripping the soft brown locks of hair between her moist fingers.
Unable to stand any more stimulation she swung her leg over and collapsed loudly onto her back next to Katniss. Comically she was turned on again as she watched Katniss wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. How someone could make the post-coital clean-up look attractive was amazing. But somehow, Katniss did.
I'd like to know that your love is a love I can be sure of.
She wiped sweat from her forehead as she stared up at her ceiling, watching her fan move in lazy circles. It didn't seem to be doing any good because it was unbearably hot in the room, even with the fan going and the air conditioning on. She felt an arm snake beneath her and she lolled her head to the side to look at Katniss. She was always breathtaking but the afterglow of sex made her look downright ravishing. Rumpled hair, sweaty skin, a few pink marks along her neck and arms where Johanna had made little claims on her.
The arm underneath her had ulterior motives. She used it to push Johanna back on top of her. Johanna's hands went out to each of Katniss's sides, hovering above her quizzically. Still out of breath from orgasm she peered down at her girlfriend. "What are you doing?"
Katniss chuckled. "You know for someone who's such a supposed expert, you ask that an awful lot." Johanna bit the inside of her cheek to hide a smile as Katniss teased her. "What do you think, brainless? You get off - in a matter of speaking - after one go?" Katniss shook her head and took her lower lip between her teeth. Johanna held in a moan at the sensuous gesture. "We are not even close to done yet." In a surprisingly domineering move, she shoved Johanna down the length of her body, guiding her head toward her sex.
Johanna was of course more than happy to indulge.
The spent the rest of the night like that, exploring each other's bodies and making each other orgasm until Johanna regretfully fell asleep in between vigorous bouts of love-making. Katniss awoke first to the harsh sunlight streaming in through Johanna's perpetually open window. She needed to get shades, and badly. She used this quiet morning time to shift on to her side and watch Johanna sleep.
She was face-down on the mattress, her head absorbed into the pillow and her hair flared over the plush. Katniss took the moment to enjoy the concave and convex curves of Johanna's back. She traced the small shoulder blades with the tip of her finger, dipping it into the divots of muscle that surrounded it. She decided that Johanna's back was her favorite part of Johanna. Well, maybe not her favorite but definitely in her top three. The flex of muscle and strength of bone was unusually attractive to Katniss. She restrained the urge to line the wavelengths of Johanna's back with her tongue.
That could wait until she was awake. She rolled back on to her spine and pushed her hands underneath her head. The night before played back in her mind's eye in stunning technicolor. Her most favorite moment, of which there were several, were the small moments of quiet as the regained their breath.
In one particular moment she remembered looking at Johanna just before she fell asleep. She was staring straight back at her with unwavering emotion. She tucked Katniss's wild hair behind her ear and Katniss could smell the faint scent of her own sex on Johanna's palms. It swelled with her a pleasurable mixture of desire and possessiveness to smell herself on Johanna. But then Johanna spoke and moved all of that from her mind.
So tell me now, and I won't ask again.
"I love you." Her voice rang as clear as a bell in the damp room, filling Katniss's ears and infiltrating her mind. They had never said it to each other. She felt it. She had felt it the day they met, but they had never said it. Somehow saying it seemed to put a wax seal on their love letter.
Katniss didn't want to relent to the tears in her eyes so she surged forward and kissed Johanna. She tried to push the feelings for her with her tongue inside Johanna's mouth instead of stuck awkwardly inside her own. She pulled away and was endeared by the hopeful but cautious look in Johanna's eyes.
She's waiting for you to say it, Katniss thought to herself. Katniss was taking a gamble, just as Johanna had done earlier in her confession, that Johanna's admission of love was genuine and not rooted in the delirium of sex.
"I love you too, Jo."
But will you love me tomorrow?
Author's Note: Thank you all for continuing to follow this story and letting me know how you feel. It's very late and I have to work in a few hours so I'm keeping this short. You're all wonderful and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! If there are typos or random words wrong I apologize. I will beta tomorrow and fix anything crazy but I am exhausted.
Music: "Criminal" by Fiona Apple, "I Wanna Be Yours" by Arctic Monkeys, and "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" by whoever you want. Carole King's version (as the original songwriter I appreciate her take) is my favorite, but the Shirelle's original is amazing, Amy Winehouse's recent (2011) version is hauntingly beautiful. Shawn Colvin, The Four Seasons, Ben E. King. Go! Go listen to it and be bowled over by it's simplistic but richly orchestrated songwriting gold.