Chapter Six

JESSIE

 

“So, this might sting a little.”

Jessie knelt on the wooden deck, clasping a wad of tissue paper saturated with hand sanitizer from the bottle by the kitchen sink. Sophie sat patiently on the Adirondack chair, black hair in wet ringlets clinging to her sun-kissed shoulders. She nodded, grasping the arms of the soft wooden chair dramatically.

“On three, okay?” Jessie said, damp paper towels hovering above her favorite surf pupil’s scraped knee. Sophie nodded. Jessie smiled. “One, two…”

“Arrrggghhh!” Sophie cried out, squirming in her seat as Jessie pressed the antibacterial cleanser against the scrape. “That stings!”

Jessie stifled a chuckle at her histrionics. “That means it’s working,” she reminded her. “No pain, no gain.”

“Devil woman!” Sophie grunted through gritted teeth, her tone playful. “Witch!”

Jessie laughed so hard she fell onto her butt, bikini still damp from the sea and stomach fluttering with more than just belly laughs. “Come on, Sophie,” she said, crossing her legs and patting the wet wound down until all that remained was a small, clean, disinfected scrape. “I think you’ll be able to keep the leg.”

Sophie bit her lower lip tenderly, as if fighting back the sting. “Should I put a bandage over it?”

Jessie hedged, not wanting to break the spell of sitting at Sophie’s feet, the closeness they were currently sharing, or the soft, comforting sound of the ocean at her back by leaving to grab a bandage. “I think fresh air is the best thing for it,” she bluffed, hoping Sophie wouldn’t notice.

“Is there anything you don’t know?” Sophie teased, easing back into her seat slightly and revealing a fresh, new angle of her shimmering wet bikini. Jessie struggled not to gawk as she gently traced the scrape with a bare glance of her fingertip around Sophie’s knee. Sophie tensed at first, then gradually relaxed. Jessie wondered if she’d do the same if, possibly when, she traced some other vital body part instead. The thought made her blush, even where Sophie couldn’t see.

Especially where Sophie couldn’t see.

“I know this much, Sophie,” she murmured, watching her finger trace the fresh scratch as Jessie struggled to break new ground and pave the way for what might prove to be a promising afternoon. “When this baby heals?”

She let her voice trail off, eyes searching Sophie’s until they were peering at each other gently in the late afternoon light. “Yeah?” Her voice was just above a notch, breathlessly hanging on each of Jessie’s words.

“The scar is gonna drive all the boys crazy…”

Sophie rolled her eyes, frowning, giving Jessie a flicker of hope as she formed a reply. “Fat chance,” she murmured.

Jessie pressed. “Why’s that?”

Sophie squirmed gently, revealing more thigh in the process and spiking Jessie’s blood pressure to dangerously high levels. “Boys are so…yesterday.”

Jessie nodded. She couldn’t have agreed more. “Men, perhaps?” She continued to press, saying more with her tone than her words, and begging for the right response as the rest of her day, even night and, possibly, morning depended on the tenor of Sophie’s reply.

“What are you, my mother?”

Jessie snorted. That was definitely not the response she was expecting, let alone looking for. “Why do you say that, Sophie?”

“Because you’re leaving out a whole cross section of people I wouldn’t mind driving crazy with my hip new surfing scar.” There was a playful, taunting lilt to Sophie’s tone, low and husky as if someone might hear them, alone and mere inches apart on the back deck.

Jessie nodded, still circling the wound affectionately. “Okay, so you’re a modern woman,” she teased, dancing just shy of asking which cross section Sophie was interested in. “Interesting.”

“Is it, Jessie?” Sophie pressed, humor in her eyes and a fresh sheen on her lips.

Jessie’s chuckle was hoarse and blunt. Hearing Sophie say her name was tapping into her deepest, darkest desires. “Oh, very.”

“I mean, who knows, maybe you’ll even dig my surfing scar one day.”

“Would you like that, Sophie?”

Sophie squirmed just a smidge more, as if eager to offer a fresh glimpse of what lay beneath her already skimpy bikini. Or, perhaps, not knowing how much Jessie looked forward to her every shift and quake. Sophie nodded, biting her lower lip as if afraid to say much more. Jessie smirked, gently circling the scrape one last time as if going around it once more might prove too tempting.

Sophie shivered, peering down at the offending wound and tenderly covering Jessie’s hand with her own.

“Anyway, thank you,” she said, their eyes meeting in the late afternoon sun, then lingering just a smidge longer than normal. Then a moment longer still. “For everything.”

Jessie nodded, emotion finally getting the best of her. It had been such a strange day, being caught by Sophie after dawn patrol that morning, the sudden spike of attraction, sharing a flirtatious can of iced coffee together on the boardwalk, tussling unexpectedly with her boss at work, the nerves and apprehension afterward and, obviously…the surfing lesson itself. She felt as if the entire day had been spent in a bubble of damp, dewy anticipation, building silently with every furtive glance and sexy chuckle, and kept waiting for it to burst.

“It…it was nothing,” she murmured, still sitting on her butt at Sophie’s feet, peering up at her sexy companion, glistening from the ocean water clinging to her like a halo. In the silence that followed, Jessie drank Sophie in, all of her, as if memorizing every soft curve and sharp angle and lurid, tempting inch: the glowing tan lines so distinct against her radiant olive complexion, her ripe, supple breasts, pressing against the wet bikini, nipples thick and inviting, her smooth thighs and the soft pooch of her belly, just aching to be touched and so, so very close.

Sophie shook her head, damp ringlets caressing her shoulders, so tender and ripe and bare. “No, Jessie, it was…everything.”

Jessie swallowed; hard. This was it, she felt. The “make or break” moment her entire day had been leading up to. The time to act on the desire that had been gurgling, just under the surface, all afternoon. The chance to cash in on all that flirty talk, the vague innuendos, and hints and shivers and quiet, daring glances. In short, it was time for both of them to put up or shut up.

The answer wouldn’t change how Jessie felt about Sophie. That was cemented in her DNA, woven into her short-term memory, destined to stay there a good, long while. They could still be friends, flirty even, but the response—good or bad—would determine whether or not Jessie kept pushing the needle too far or simply created an awkward record scratch, screeching their simmering romance to a stiff, certain halt. If so, Jessie could ease off the gas and switch into friends mode, disappointed but not disillusioned.

Either way, it was now or never.

“Maybe…” Jessie suggested, standing abruptly as if to keep the momentum going. Or, perhaps, to keep from chickening out. “Maybe we should get you comfortable and off your feet, huh?”

“More comfortable than this?” Sophie asked, rising just the same. They stood, face to face, still damp from the sea. “I think you just want to get me inside.”

A jolt rippled through Jessie’s body. She licked the salt from her lips as she nodded self-consciously. “Guilty as charged,” she murmured, reaching down to take Sophie’s hand.

Sophie accepted it, squeezing it tenderly, almost desperately as they lingered on the back deck. The motion brought them even closer than before, eye to eye and face to face, the soft Florida breeze caressing their mostly bare skin.

“Would you like that, Sophie?”

“You taking me inside?” Sophie hazarded. Jessie merely nodded. Sophie glanced over her shoulder, at the weathered railing behind Jessie, as if surveying the scene of their first encounter and, Jessie hoped, not regretting it. When at last her eyes returned to Jessie’s, Sophie’s were warm and moist. She nodded once and squeezed Jessie’s hand with a renewed sense of urgency. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more at the moment.”

Jessie nearly hummed with relief. There was no longer any mistaking their intentions. It was everything Jessie had hoped for, if not more. Still, even as Jessie started to tug her along, still joined by flushed hands, Sophie paused just before drifting in through the double French doors. Glancing back over her shoulder, then down at their sandy skin, she asked, “Shouldn’t we shower off first?”

Jessie grinned, a naughty ripple surging through her body as the anticipation she’d been feeling all day finally summited the crest of her lofty desires and crashed all over her normally reserved vocabulary choices. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Sophie, but…I thought I’d give you a tongue bath instead.”

Sophie’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “I-I-I haven’t done this a whole lot,” she confessed with a blushing stammer. “But that is either the best, or the worst, pickup line I’ve ever heard.”

Jessie laughed self-consciously, holding the door open as desire simmered in her belly like a pot about to boil over onto the stove. “By ‘haven’t done this a lot,’ how a lot have you not done this?” she asked with only mild curiosity. At this point, Sophie could be the biggest tramp in the world and Jessie would still have bedded her with wild, reckless abandon—consequences be damned!

Sophie snorted playfully as they both lingered near the doorway, as if hesitant to go inside and do what they both wanted to do so desperately. “I’m not sure if you’re speaking English at the moment, but if you’re asking me how many other girls I’ve slept with…it’s less than a handful.” Sophie blushed and looked down at her bare, sandy feet before amending her statement. “Actually, it’s less than a peace sign.”

Jessie snorted, an awkward but enthusiastic sound, thinking of her own female lovers. Or, should she say, lack thereof. There were three of them in total, but probably really only one and a half when you combined what Jessie had actually done with them. First there was Emily, the manager of her high school swim team, with whom she’d shared a torrid—if solitary—kiss in the girls’ locker room one afternoon after the rest of the team had gone home from practice.

It had come on suddenly and ended just as quickly, neither of the girls speaking of the incident—or even to each other—again. It was as if both of them had been overwhelmed not just by the experience, but the desire that had led to their brief, sizzling encounter. Jessie couldn’t exactly blame Emily for ghosting her after that. She had been unable to process the powerful emotions herself but knew one thing: the kiss had felt so right, so good, so natural, it was clear that all her failed experiments with boys over the years were firmly and officially over. After Emily, it was girls only—and she’d never looked back.

Next there was Claudia, who’d worked at the local movie theater the summer after senior year. Jessie had waited until most of her classmates went off to school in the fall to ask her out. She figured, rightly, there’d be less competition that way. They’d gone to a movie, of course, and made out like bandits in the empty theater after everyone had left. Claudia had let Jessie feel beneath her blouse, over her bra, a first for her.

In return, she had slid her fingers up Jessie’s skirt and down her panties, fingering her energetically before her manager came in moments before Jessie had her first orgasm and asked what the hell they were doing. They had never seen each other again, but only because Jessie got scared, never answered Claudia’s texts or phone calls, and didn’t even go back to the Siesta Fourplex until a year later, after Claudia had either quit or been fired.

Finally, there was Carol, a sexy MILF who had applied to work at Beach Break a few years earlier. Everyone on the management team knew she was overqualified for the hostess job they had open, but it was the busy holiday season and they’d hired her anyway, thinking that if they even got a month’s work out of her it would be worth it. They almost got that far, even though Jessie got a lot farther, so to speak. Carol had been married—twice—and had kids older than Jessie but made it clear right from their very first shift together how much she wanted her.

Jessie was still a server then, but since she’d been a hostess ever since high school, she’d been chosen to train Carol. Turned out, it was the other way around. Jessie had never been pursued so ardently before and was both confused—and flattered—by the sudden attention. While they kept it as professional as possible at work, the minute they got off Carol simply wouldn’t let up. Jessie thought their age difference might get in the way of a budding romance, but the more time she spent with Carol, the more she became attracted to the comely older woman.

Their first kiss had been at the employee Christmas party, a risky but uncontrollable endeavor that had only revealed how passionate, and tender, Carol could be. And how petty Brett could be, after he caught them sharing a passionate kiss in the alcove on their way home.

Jessie was worried about the other managers finding out but was so attracted to Carol she finally gave in when Carol invited her over for dinner one night soon afterward. Little did Jessie know she was the main course. After about two minutes of nervous small talk in the foyer, Carol took Jessie upstairs, laid her down on her king-size bed, stripped off her panties, and feasted on the virgin flesh between Jessie’s smooth, quivering thighs.

Jessie had experienced her first orgasm—with another woman, that is—beneath Carol’s expert and eager tongue but had been too shy to return the favor. As a result, Carol had given her the cold shoulder at work the next day and never quite finished out the month of December.

Since then, Jessie had been content with throwing herself into her work—and surfing, of course. Then she took a shower on the wrong deck one morning and, well, all that changed. Sophie squeezed her hand, dragging her back into the moment; the blissful, sweet moment, as tender as it was tempting.

“Where’d you go?” Sophie asked, softly, as if not wanting to disturb her.

Jessie met her eyes and smiled. “Nowhere,” she lied. “I was just thinking how this would be a first for me.”

Sophie raised one rich black eyebrow. “Giving one of your surf students a tongue bath…or being with a girl?”

“A little bit of both,” she admitted. “But even if I’d been with a thousand girls, Sophie, I’ve never felt this way about one before.” That much, at least, was true. None of the other girls she’d been with had ever made her heart race, or her libido surge, the way Sophie did.

A smile sprang to Sophie’s lips, so sudden and sincere it was like a ray of light poking out from between two storm clouds. “Get out of my head!” she squealed, taking Jessie’s hand and finally dragging her across the threshold and into the tiny beach cottage. “I’ve been worrying all day that you’d think I’m some kind of slut or something for coming on so strong.”

Jessie puffed out her chest, as if competing for something. “I’m the slut,” she insisted. “Seducing one of my surf students the very first day we’ve met?”

Sophie nodded, then quickly shook her head. “It’s not technically seducing somebody if you never actually touch them.”

Jessie laughed, realizing she’d been delaying the inevitable for long enough. Turning, she reached for the French door to close it behind them. Sophie stilled her hand gently. “No,” she insisted, just as softly. “Let’s leave it open. I want to see the sunset on your skin and feel the ocean breeze when we sweat.”

Blood rushed through Jessie’s ears. In all her years of watching sappy movies and reading a library’s worth of racy romance novels, she had never in her life heard anyone say anything quite so sexy before. The time for talk was over, though.

They stood in the middle of a small living room. Hardwood floors stretched beneath her feet and, other than two battered leather wing chairs on either side of an old trunk coffee table, the only furniture in the room was a long leather settee in the corner.

It sat beneath an open window, floral curtains fluttering on either side as if a set dresser for a softcore porn film had positioned it, just so. Squeezing Sophie’s hand, Jessie led her to the long, oversized chair. Sophie let her take the lead, making Jessie blush to think Sophie thought she was the more experienced of the two. Either way, it allowed Jessie to position Sophie right where she wanted her, in more ways than one. They stood beside the long, wide chair, the rust-colored leather covered in predictably tan and brown seagull-patterned throw pillows.

Sophie looked down at it nervously, her hand trembling in Jessie’s. “Should I sit, or…”

Jessie merely shook her head, letting Sophie’s hand drop to her side. “Not yet,” she explained, throat taut with desire. “I just want to look at you for a few minutes, here in the light by the window, and touch you a little first. Would that be okay?”

Jessie’s heart raced, the blood rushing in her ears. This was it, the moment she’d been waiting for since Sophie passed her the cold can of Joltz mere hours earlier. The sun had just been rising then, as if dawning along with their burgeoning romance. Now it was on the other end of the spectrum, dwindling in its light as it began its achingly slow descent across the sky.

“Okay?” Sophie gushed. “I’ve never heard anything so erotic in my life.”

They laughed, nervously, before Jessie raised a trembling finger to press against Sophie’s warm, tender lips. “We don’t have to say anything if we don’t want. We can just look and touch and feel for now—if that’s all right?”

Sophie grinned bashfully. “Sorry, I talk too much when I get nervous.”

Jessie shook her head, reaching out to stroke her lover’s shoulder. It was bare and soft and sandy to the touch, the gentle beginnings of what might come next. “There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Jessie told her. “I’ll never do anything to hurt you, and I’ll stop the minute you ask me to, okay?”

Sophie nodded, then spoke no more. Jessie smiled, eager to reassure her before the time for words was officially done. “Hey, this is still pretty new to me too, okay? But if you want, I’ll take the lead, all right?”

Sophie nodded eagerly, as if relieved. “I’d like that, Jessie. I like it when you…take control.”

Jessie swallowed. Hard. In most of her other encounters, she’d been either a nervous equal or a willing subordinate. Suddenly, to be the more experienced of the two made her very excited indeed. “It’s not about control, Sophie,” she explained. “It’s about pleasure. I’d love to pleasure you, in every possible way. Would you like that?”

At last, Sophie sensed that more words would only delay what they both wanted so very, very badly. Instead of speaking, she merely nodded, eyes big as she bit down on her lower lip, as if to silence herself.

Jessie inched closer, smiling before leaning in to whisper in Sophie’s ear, “Trust me, Sophie, you’re in good hands.” Jessie had no idea what she was doing taking the lead, but she felt the truth of her words even as she said them. With Sophie, it seemed, she could do anything, even be an able and willing lover when, in the past, she’d only fumbled her way to ecstasy.

Realizing their words had run dry, Jessie leaned gently back and began to trace her hand across Sophie’s rich, brown skin, first with her right hand on one shoulder, then with her left on the other. It felt so strange, the sudden connection—not to mention the freedom—to touch another woman so openly. No fear of a coach or movie theater manager barging in, no deadline or pressure, nothing but soft, warm sunlight and oodles and oodles of time.

She took full advantage and stepped closer. She reached behind Sophie’s back to gently tug at the loose knot that held her colorful, mismatched bikini top in place. It gave easily, and Jessie pulled both sides of the string away until the top lifted from Sophie’s full, round breasts. As if fearing she might chicken out, Jessie quickly slid the bikini over Sophie’s head and tossed it onto the nearby kitchen counter. It landed with a damp, wet thwock that echoed through the otherwise silent beach retreat.

The sound made them both laugh, but unlike before, this time Sophie didn’t rush to fill the nervous silence that followed with more words. Instead, she licked her lips, and peered back at Jessie with those warm, brown eyes, as trusting as they were hungry.

Jessie’s skin was on fire, her heart pounding, making her dizzy and her hands tremble as she reached out to gently caress Sophie’s breasts. They were warm from the sun and damp from the sea and like nothing Jessie had ever felt before.

She apparently wasn’t alone, as Sophie gasped and shook beneath Jessie’s tentative caress. Her skin was so responsive, goose bumps sprang to life and her nipples grew stiff before Jessie’s eyes. She used her fingertips to lightly caress the rounded curve of each breast itself while her thumbs gently rasped across each aching, tender nipple.

Sophie sighed with delight, or maybe that was just Jessie. A world away, or so it seemed, waves broke on the distant shoreline outside the open window. Inside, despite the soft ocean breezes, Sophie’s prediction came true and sweat glistened across her bronze skin, making the pale globes of her breasts slick to the touch and glossy to the eye. She breathed rapidly in concert with the rasping of Jessie’s thumbs, body shivering with pleasure and desire.

Jessie grew damp inside her own bikini bottoms, for already she had spent more time with a naked woman than at any other point in her life. Bending slightly, Jessie favored first Sophie’s right breast, then the left, with panting, breathless kisses that were as eager as they were lingering. She wanted to taste every drop of sweat, tongue every ripe ridge and swell of Sophie’s breasts, so sweet in her hungry lips. Sophie bucked and squirmed and squeezed her eyes shut, her tangy scent filling the room and urging Jessie forward; ever forward.

All the same, Jessie forced herself to stop and savor the soft skin beneath her tongue, the pale flesh inside her lips, the hard nipples as she sucked them greedily, the sound as exotic and raw as the hunger and desperation building up inside her.

Eager to touch and taste her lover’s sweet liquor next, Jessie began to slide her right hand down Sophie’s rib cage and toward her shapely waist. Her body was ripe with curves, sweaty flesh yielding to Jessie’s tender touch. Her belly trembled, almost violently, as Jessie led her fingertips toward and just inside the front panel of her bikini bottoms.

The heat from within was intense, Sophie’s pubic thatch rich and untended, her vulva sticky and slick as Jessie gently fingered her pink petals with increasing intensity. Sophie moaned and instinctively ground her mound against the two wet fingertips that danced along its fiery surface, gently circling but not mining her bud so as to prolong the intense pleasure they were both enjoying from these first tentative touches.

Jessie had never felt skin so warm or wet before, except perhaps her own at that very moment. Her lips danced from Sophie’s right breast up to her lips where they kissed fervently while Jessie’s left hand slid down and inside the back of her lover’s tight, damp bikini.

Grabbing her left cheek, ripe and round, Jessie used it as a rudder, steering Sophie’s wet clit across her probing fingers as they pressed and danced along the swollen bud, aching and sizzling with need. With each grind and thrust, with each gasp and pant, the bikini crept down…then down some more. As if eager to help, or perhaps speed things along, Sophie silently hooked a thumb on either side of the waistband and yanked it down to mid-thigh.

Jessie used the sudden freedom and range of motion to bear down and promptly, almost violently, tender the day’s first climax from her lover. Sophie squealed and bit down gently on Jessie’s shoulder, trembling with every fiber of her being and growing hoarse from struggling not to scream instead. Jessie clung to her, fingertip damp with Sophie’s nectar, eventually using it to glide around and across her bud once the initial tremors had subsided to a low, steady hum.

She came again, less quickly this time but no less intensely, voice growing hoarse from her desperate pants and moans. As if afraid she might miss a single drop of Sophie’s tangy liquor, Jessie slid to her knees, gently dragging Sophie with her. Her feverish hands tugged off her bikini bottoms the rest of the way as Sophie sank onto the edge of the comfortable leather settee.

Right hand atop one thigh, Jessie used her left to gently lay Sophie down on top of the pile of pillows resting against the back of the big chair. Moaning with yet unfulfilled desire, Sophie instinctively spread her thighs as Jessie pressed hungry lips against her damp pubic hair. It tasted of the salty sea and Sophie’s own unique brine, sweet and tangy on Jessie’s probing tongue. Teasing her squirming lover, Jessie pressed feathery kisses to her soft belly while her hands snuck across Sophie’s hip bones and around to grasp a firm, fleshy cheek in each palm.

Sophie turned her head from side to side, her curly black hair damp once more from the free-flowing sweat that covered both their bodies. She stretched her arms above her head, grasping the headrest of the chair as if clinging on for dear life. The stage set, the feast of flesh spread out before her, Jessie gently lifted Sophie’s firm rump up off the chair, guiding her glistening bush toward her face.

All it took was the press of Jessie’s firm tongue against her engorged clit for Sophie to come once more. As the massive waves crashed and ebbed, Jessie traded in her tongue for her lips, tenderly lapping her lover’s mound in quick, quaking movements that grew steadily more intense with each violent, shuddering climax.

Jessie waited each one out, tenderly tasting Sophie’s musky ecstasy as if desperate for more. Time slowed to a crawl as Jessie lingered between Sophie’s thighs, peering at the shimmering pink petals between licking their sheen clean and puckering an expert pair of lips around her clit before pressing them firmly against the swollen mound, until they both lost count of how many times Sophie came.

When at last Sophie summoned the strength to rise up on her elbows, she simultaneously closed her thighs on either side of Jessie’s face. Their eyes meeting above her damp, trembling belly, Sophie croaked, “No! More!”

Jessie nodded and rose, licking her lips to savor every drop of Sophie’s tangy juices, as plentiful as they were piquant. “If you insist,” she teased, reaching behind her back to quickly untie and drag off her own bikini top.

“Lie down,” Sophie urged, though she made no move to get up or make room for her. “I want to taste you now.”

Jessie merely shook her head, patiently tying her red hair into a loose ponytail and admiring Sophie’s ripe naked body splayed out, curvy and damp, atop the leather seat cushion.

“All in good time,” she said, casually reaching down to drag the bikini bottoms from around her waist and over her ankles until it joined the pile of wet bathing suits scattered across the living room floor. “The night is young, Sophie, and I want to press my pussy against yours for a while first. Would you like that?”