Jules hadn’t brought a change of clothes, but she’d worry about that in the morning. Vivian lent her a pair of pajamas as if they were having a sleepover, which Jules guessed they were. The second bathroom, she discovered, was fully stocked. It must have been Robert’s. Had Vivian simply left it alone, unwilling to touch it, or had she planned this?
Now didn’t seem like the time to ask, not when Jules was looking down at Vivian Carlisle’s bed with its plush mattress and zillion-thread-count sheets while Vivian gazed up at her. Jules still throbbed pleasantly between her thighs. She’d never had sex like that before, never been that turned on before. Not even close.
Vivian lay on her side, propped up on an elbow and with her hand beneath her cheek. If she’d been wearing a filmy wrap instead of silk pajamas, she could have been in a baroque painting. Judging by the little smile on her face, she knew it.
“Wow,” Jules said, frankly admiring the view. “You’re amazing.”
Vivian, as always, took praise as her due. “Thank you. Are you getting in? It’s cold.”
“Are you a cold sleeper?” Maybe talking would help Jules feel less out of place as she slid between Vivian’s sheets in Vivian’s bed in Vivian’s house. “I can’t sleep when I’m too warm.”
The little smile turned sour. “Tell me about it.”
Oh, right. Your body temperature was supposed to raise slightly during pregnancy. Jules turned on her side so she and Vivian were facing each other. “Your bed is nice.”
“I agree.”
“Sex with you is nice too.”
Vivian pursed her lips, and a troubled look appeared. “We’ll have to talk about this.”
Jules sighed. Vivian was right, but the boss/subordinate-having-sex issue was the last thing she wanted to unpack right now. “Yeah, but can we do it in the morning?”
“That’s why I used future tense. I thought you were an English major.” She rolled onto her back with a grunt.
“You majored in journalism,” Jules pointed out. “I’ve read some of your old articles in fashion magazines. They’re really good.”
“Editors thought so too. What’s your point?”
“I dunno.” Jules scooted closer until they were touching. Vivian’s body was indeed warm, and her silk pajamas felt great against Jules’s skin, even if the button-up top was tight over her breasts. “That’s why I majored in communications along with English. I’m just saying we have things in common.” Plenty of things.
“But you…” Vivian looked pensive. “You’re different too.”
“I am? How?”
She yawned. “That seems like a larger conversation than I want to have right now. I’ll just say it’s not a bad thing and leave it at that. Good night.”
“I want to be the big spoon,” Jules said, suddenly inspired.
Vivian merely glared at her before closing her eyes.
But halfway through the night, Jules woke to find herself wrapped around Vivian, holding her tight. The extra heat apparently didn’t bother her, since she slept on peacefully in Jules’s arms.
She was already looking forward to the morning. Vivian had told her to book no engagements for Saturday—which seemed premeditated, now that Jules thought about it—so that they’d have a chill first morning together. They could even sleep in. That seemed more luxurious than a thousand Hermès scarves.
At the thought, Jules drifted back to sleep with the comforting warmth of Vivian against her breasts and thighs.
* * *
However, Vivian had different ideas when it came to sleeping in.
Jules realized this when she woke up to the mattress shifting. She opened her eyes to see Vivian looking over her with disheveled hair and a fierce look of expectation on her face.
Jules turned and squinted at the clock on the nightstand: seven thirty a.m.
“I’ve been waiting,” Vivian said and then, without further ado, bent down and kissed Jules hard on the mouth.
“Y-you have?” Jules gasped, winding her arms around Vivian’s neck and tugging at her until they lay side by side again.
“I woke up an hour ago. I lay here and let you sleep.” Vivian kissed her again. “But apparently you were going to laze the whole Saturday away.”
“That was the plan,” Jules said against her mouth. “We have the whole—”
“Cancel the plan,” Vivian growled between kisses. Through the thin silk of her pajamas, Jules could feel how hot her skin already was. “You wanted this, you did this to me, and you’d better be ready to deal with it.”
Well, there were worse ways to wake up. Jules grunted and sat up until she was leaning over Vivian, not lying on top of her exactly but at a better angle to deal with her. “I’ve created a monster, huh?”
“I fully expect to be catered to.” Vivian began to spread her legs.
Then she paused as if the intimacy of the movement had occurred to her at the same moment it occurred to Jules.
Vivian Carlisle’s spreading her legs for me. She fought down an incredulous laugh. “Makes a nice change.” Then she stopped Vivian’s impending growl by kissing her again. “So have you decided what you want?”
“A little more finesse than last night, please.” Vivian obviously meant for it to come out sounding haughty, but she’d already started breathing faster from the kisses. She cleared her throat. “That is, not that I didn’t enjoy it—”
“I noticed.” Jules wasn’t sure whether to grumble or be smug. She settled for getting a little nervous.
Finesse, huh? Okay, fair enough. It had been incredible sex, but she hadn’t exactly demonstrated the most sophisticated moves, and Vivian clearly had as high expectations for lovemaking as she did everything else. Nothing less than five stars.
Only…that wasn’t exactly fair, was it? Jules might not have deployed any amazing moves, but Vivian had done even less. And at least Jules had some sexual experience with women. It didn’t seem possible, but maybe Vivian was nervous too, trying to compensate with hauteur.
Suddenly brimming with sympathy, Jules said gently, “Hey. I know you haven’t done this before, but…”
Vivian rolled her eyes. “Rachel Maddow does it, doesn’t she? And she can’t figure out how to expand her closet past Jil Sander suits. It can’t be rocket science.” She tugged at Jules’s pajama top. “Let’s start here. I want to see you this time.”
Okay, maybe Vivian wasn’t nervous. Jules’s face heated. “You already have.”
Vivian snorted. “I saw you popping out of your jumpsuit after a party. I wasn’t looking at them then. I want to now.”
Fair enough. Jules unbuttoned her top and shrugged it off, letting the silk slither down to the bed. Then she didn’t quite know where to look and found herself closing her eyes.
Having Vivian look at her was different than having anyone else look at her. Vivian looked at beautiful women’s bodies all day. Those women were taller and thinner than Jules, and none of them had a roll of flesh beneath their belly buttons.
“Oh,” Vivian said.
Jules opened her eyes.
Vivian was blushing too as she looked at Jules’s breasts. She cleared her throat again. “Well, they’re…” She reached up and cupped the left one.
Her palm was soft, and the heat from it raced through Jules’s body like an electric shock. She gasped. Her nipples hardened instantly.
Vivian’s eyes went wide. She actually looked alarmed for a second. Then she smirked. “Hmm.” She rubbed her thumb over Jules’s nipple and made her gasp again. “I see why you like mine.”
“I really do.” Jules was already having a hard time breathing. With Vivian lying beneath her, glowing with desire and anticipation, touching her—Jules was going to be lucky if she didn’t come four seconds into it again.
But, God, this was what she’d been wanting for months, and it was better than what she’d wanted. “You turn me on more than anybody I’ve ever met,” she blurted out.
Vivian looked up at her, startled.
She shrugged. “I mean, you do.”
“Well.” Vivian looked embarrassed for the first time.
Jules could see her wondering if she was expected to return the compliment. Her face burned again but for a different reason. She shouldn’t have said that. God forbid Vivian should compare her to anyone else, like that guy from college who had rocked her world. How did you compete with a memory like that?
“I admit I didn’t expect last night.” Vivian coughed. “It was… Are we going to talk about this all morning?”
Jules grinned, her confidence back and waving little victory flags. “You don’t like talking about it?” She lowered herself until she was tucked up against Vivian, rubbing her own bare breasts against Vivian’s silk top. She sighed at how good it felt and watched Vivian’s eyelids flutter. “I like talking about it sometimes.” Their nipples brushed.
Vivian gasped and dug her fingers into Jules’s hair again, tugging her in for another kiss. She was shivering when they pulled apart. “I don’t like talking about—” she began, then gave up and kissed Jules again.
Jules slid her hands between them and began unbuttoning Vivian’s top as she kissed her throat, already eager to see again what she’d seen last night.
Vivian arched her head back accommodatingly.
“Maybe you could just give me feedback as I go, then,” Jules said. “The constructive kind.”
As it turned out, Vivian had simple tastes for once. She loved being kissed anywhere: mouth, throat, shoulders, breasts. And she liked being treated and pampered, which surprised Jules not at all.
So Jules pampered her with lots of long, slow kisses, trying to do things all in a rhythm that would please her. Vivian smelled good, felt better, and tasted best of all, and eventually Jules forgot about nerves and just lost herself in doing to Vivian what she’d wanted to do for ages.
She got feedback, all right. Little moans and whimpers that gave Jules goosebumps, pleas that came out like commands (“do that again”), excited squirming and wriggling. She tried to touch Jules too, but then Jules would lick the side of her neck and she’d lose her concentration, or touch her breasts and she would forget how to breathe, let alone kiss.
Finally, when Vivian was starting to tremble and pant, Jules got her courage together and tugged at the waistband of Vivian’s pajama bottoms. Into the breach.
Vivian went still.
Jules froze. “Do you want—?”
“Yes.” Vivian might have needed a second to decide, but now she lifted her hips eagerly enough and helped Jules shimmy the pants down her legs.
Jules touched the inside of her thigh, and she shivered.
Vivian was wearing plain black cotton panties, bikini cut, that clung to her hips. They might not have been expensive lingerie, chosen more for comfort than style, but Jules fought not to drool nevertheless.
It seemed rude to yank them down, though. Vivian wanted finesse. Jules cleared her throat, placed her hands on Vivian’s waist, and said, “Tell me what you like.”
She hadn’t meant to say it like that, to command, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she winced. Talk about lack of finesse.
But Vivian’s breath caught and her hips arched slightly.
Huh. How about that.
“You’re talented.” Vivian’s voice was a throaty murmur. “Figure it out. Or do you need a demonstration?”
Jules looked at her, stunned. “You’d…show me?”
She imagined Vivian touching herself, which, okay, she’d imagined several times before. The thought that she might see it in real life was almost unbearably hot, and she opened her mouth to say so.
But Vivian cut her off and went red. “Of course not! I meant I’d”—she touched Jules’s hip—“to you.”
“Oh.” Jules tried not to feel disappointed. That was a heck of an offer, after all. “I’d like to watch you sometime all the same.”
“I wouldn’t like that,” Vivian said, but she sounded uncertain. Well, by now she probably knew Jules was good at introducing her to new delights. “What’s the point?”
“You could show me how you like it,” Jules suggested, getting hot again just at the thought. Then she moved her hand to touch the cotton.
And got a shuddering breath in response.
Jules kept looking her right in the eye. “Show me,” she whispered, slid her hand higher, and cupped.
Gasping, Vivian arched again.
Jules slid her thumb around over the cotton, which made Vivian bite her bottom lip and squeeze her eyes shut. Then it hit one particular spot, and Vivian’s hips jumped as she squeaked. Her eyes opened wide again.
Jules held back a groan. Focus. This was about Vivian. “Here’s good, huh?” She rubbed again.
“A little to the, um”—Vivian shook her head—“left.”
Jules moved her thumb.
“No, my left!”
She obligingly moved it again and pressed down hard because, just this once, she could punish Vivian for giving lousy instructions.
But Vivian obviously liked it way too much for it to be a punishment, and Jules decided to forgive her instead. She rubbed until she found a pace that actually made Vivian cry out, then bent down and lapped at a nipple, sucking it in time with her strokes.
Vivian’s body undulated like a wave. She didn’t make any noise, but her sudden, frantic movement against Jules’s thumb was unmistakable. And this time, Jules raised her head so she could watch Vivian’s face, could see the way her head arched back and her eyes shut and her mouth fell open in a silent cry. One of her hands curled into a fist, and she struck the mattress.
Then she writhed her hips, managing, “Move—hand—down—”
Too sensitive now? Jules moved her thumb away from the clit and rubbed gently where she could feel Vivian’s labia through the cloth. She could feel moisture there too.
Vivian sobbed in appreciation and relaxed, shivering gently. She even smiled.
Jules could not have imagined anyone less like the cool woman who cut everyone down to size with one flash of her blue eyes.
But it was the same woman, and she bent and kissed that woman before she could even get her breath back.
Vivian hummed and lazily slid her fingers into Jules’s hair. Then she sighed in satisfaction. “You might have been on to something,” she conceded.
“I’m full of bright ideas.”
“Mm.” Vivian said. “Now, let’s see.” She sat up, pressing Jules back down against the pillows. “Unless you did it again while we were kissing?” Vivian added, sounding hopeful.
“Not quite. You don’t have a lot of work to do, though.” It was true. She’d felt like she was going to explode, watching Vivian come. Now she couldn’t stop squeezing her thighs together, chasing just a little pressure.
Vivian’s brow furrowed as she studied Jules as if she were checking over an unsatisfactory layout. “It looks more complicated.”
“Look,” Jules said, trying desperately to sound calm, “it’s not like I have a lever you can grab, but I promise—”
“Oh well.” Vivian bent down to kiss her throat just as if she were someone who’d never advocated a chaste romance in her life.
She trailed her mouth down Jules’s chest eagerly. Then Jules’s nipple was in Vivian’s mouth, and it wasn’t like nobody had ever kissed her breasts before, but this was Vivian, and her lips were soft and her mouth was hot—
It was Vivian’s blonde hair tickling Jules’s chin, it—
She wasn’t as quiet as Vivian when she came, and she was pretty sure she’d left nail marks in Vivian’s shoulders. But she didn’t seem to mind as she gave Jules’s nipple one final, affectionate lick and murmured, “Hello, lever.”
“Like you can talk,” Jules wheezed, falling back against the pillows again. She closed her eyes, basking in it. “Oh wow.”
“Maybe next time we’ll get all our clothes off,” Vivian said thoughtfully. “Unless—I’m assuming we’re finished?”
Jules managed to pry her eyelids open. “Huh?”
“We’re done, aren’t we? That is, we both…” Vivian frowned as she gestured between them. “It really isn’t like men, is it?”
“Well…no,” Jules said, bewildered and trying to catch her breath. “We don’t have to be done, I guess. What are you talking about?”
Vivian propped herself up on her elbow. “I mean, it’s not like with men. What if neither partner comes? How are you supposed to know when to stop?”
“I guess we could set a timer.”
That got her a scowl.
“Sorry. I just mean it’s not about reaching a goal. You do what you like, and stop when you’re ready to stop.” How the hell else did she think it was supposed to go?
Now Vivian looked suspicious. “What if one of you is ready to stop and the other one isn’t?”
“Vivian, I’m not sure this is going to be a huge problem,” she said helplessly. She’d never pictured afterglow going like this. “Why don’t we just play it by ear?”
Vivian still didn’t look appeased. Which was weird. Why was she making this so complicated? Why had she been dead set on making it complicated from the beginning?
Jules considered that. Vivian had been married three times. For a woman so devoted to her career, she’d invested a lot of time and energy in relationships that had never worked out. If Jules wasn’t used to relationships being this complicated, Vivian probably couldn’t imagine they could ever be easy.
Time to finally answer one question. “Vivian? Why were you so sure that you didn’t want to have sex with me?”
With a frown, Vivian admitted, “I didn’t know that I wanted to.” Then she blushed and looked even madder about that. “Until you kissed my hand. That was… I didn’t expect it.”
Jules remembered how Vivian’s look of surprise had kept her warm during a few lonely nights. “I’m sure you didn’t.”
“Are you sorry I didn’t jump into bed with you right away?”
It was Jules’s turn to blush. “No! I didn’t want to rush you or push you.” Much. “I didn’t want to screw anything up. I wanted it to be okay.”
“Then we agreed on that,” Vivian said lightly. “Or do you think you’ve ‘screwed it up’ now?”
“Not if I did it right,” Jules dared, and Vivian finally smiled. Awesome. “Want breakfast?”
“You were breakfast.” Vivian stretched and smiled again, relaxing visibly.
“Well, seconds are available,” Jules said, “whenever you want them.”
“Why do you say things like that?”
“I don’t know.” Jules laughed.
Vivian rolled her eyes but scooted in closer on the mattress.
She wasn’t sure how it happened, but they both fell back asleep. So much for Vivian’s idea that they shouldn’t laze around.
When she woke up again at ten o’clock, Vivian had plastered herself to Jules’s side and was sleeping like a baby. Her head was on Jules’s chest, and she’d thrown an arm across Jules’s stomach.
Watching Vivian sleep, she remembered the first time she’d ever seen Vivian at rest—that night in the car just after she’d learned she was pregnant. It seemed like years ago, or at least like more than four months.
Jules petted her hair, careful not to do anything that would tug at her scalp or otherwise wake her up.
The room, the whole house, was peacefully still. Sunlight was shining through the blinds now, falling across the bed, painting Vivian in stripes of light and shadow. There weren’t even many sounds of traffic outside on Vivian’s quiet street. Jules wondered how many people were doing what they were doing now: lying in, sleeping late on a Saturday. She wondered, in fact, if Vivian ever had done this before. Surely at least once.
Well, Jules wasn’t going to wake her up to ask. She lay still, felt Vivian Carlisle’s weight against her, and enjoyed her happiness.