Jenny didn’t remember falling asleep, but she rolled onto her side and blindly reached for Kathryn to make sure it hadn’t all been a dream. She found an empty space next to her in the bed and, for a brief disoriented moment, thought that it had been. “Don’t even tell me,” she whispered.
“Don’t even tell you what?” Kathryn whispered back, as she stood behind her at the edge of the bed, buttoning her suit jacket.
Jenny rolled over, relieved to find she hadn’t hallucinated the most incredible night of sex she’d ever had. “There you are.”
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Jenny lifted her head and looked at the clock on the nightstand. “Good grief, it’s five-thirty in the morning. Don’t you sleep?”
“Not a lot. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Who was sleeping? I passed out.”
Kathryn smiled. “I believe you did at that.”
Jenny casually draped one arm behind her head, trying to look as alluring as possible. “Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer?”
“As much as I’d like to—” Kathryn’s eyes drifted to Jenny’s exposed breasts. “I can’t.” She turned and picked up a hairbrush and some bobby pins from the vanity behind her and held them up. “May I?”
“Be my guest,” Jenny said. She watched in amazement as Kathryn put the bobby pins between her pursed lips, brushed her disheveled hair into submission, exchanged the brush for a rat-tail comb, sectioned her hair, and back-combed it to support the victory rolls she made next.
She executed a salon-worthy do in a matter of minutes, and Jenny wondered if her talents ever ceased. “It takes me two mirrors and twenty minutes to do that.”
Kathryn primped her work in the mirror. “Not one of my better efforts, but I was distracted.”
She straightened as she turned back to the bed and adjusted her jacket on her shoulders, an action Jenny recognized as a final gesture before one leaves a room. She didn’t want to appear too needy, ever vigilant against Kathryn’s flight response, so she exhaled regretfully and threw the covers back, reaching for her robe. “I’ll walk you out.”
“No, no,” Kathryn said quickly. “Don’t move. I want to remember you just like that.”
Jenny lay back on the bed, naked and uncovered now, one knee bent, one arm over her head, the other across her abdomen. “No fair. I have to remember you with clothes on.”
Kathryn smiled, tilted her head in sympathy, and slowly began unbuttoning her jacket. She paused and raised a seductive eyebrow as the jacket slipped gently from her shoulders, revealing her bare breasts.
“Ugh.” Jenny rolled to her side and buried her head in the bedding as she convulsed with desire. “You’re killing me.” She hugged her pillow. “You’d better get out of here before I barricade the way out.”
Kathryn smiled and kneeled on the bed. She leaned in close and brushed her lips against the side of her cheek. Jenny felt her inhale deeply, and when Kathryn exhaled the breath into her ear, Jenny’s eyes rolled back in her head. She cupped her hands around Kathryn’s face and captured her lips in a passionate kiss.
Kathryn groaned regretfully, and when she pulled back from the kiss, Jenny could see her eyes were clouded with the same desire as her own.
Jenny’s body was on fire again, demanding a repeat of last night, and Kathryn’s flight risk be damned, she wasn’t beyond begging. “Please stay,” she whispered.
Kathryn’s eyes darkened and her breathing picked up. Jenny’s body celebrated its victory with a wave of anticipatory goose bumps.
Kathryn closed her eyes. “I can’t.” Without hesitation, and without giving Jenny the chance to say please one more time, she gave her a final kiss on the forehead, whispered “Bye,” and quickly buttoned her jacket as she got up and headed toward the bedroom door. “I’ll talk to you soon,” she said without turning around.
Jenny lifted a hand goodbye as the door quietly closed. “Take care.” Then, “Thank you,” added as an afterthought. She stared at the towel swinging from the hook on the back of the door and cringed. “Thank you?” she said to herself. “Brilliant.”
She heard Kathryn gather her things in the foyer and slip out the front door. Jenny lay motionless, processing the previous evening, not quite believing she actually seduced Kathryn Hammond. “Holy shit,” she said on an exhale, as she sank back into her pillow with a very satisfied grin.
Kathryn couldn’t think of one good reason to get out of Jenny’s bed, but she knew there was one. Somewhere. Only reflexive discipline gave her the strength to end that final kiss. Her body was out of control, and her mind had to put an end to that.
Sheer force of will propelled her out of the house, into her car, and on her way home. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had done something wrong. Wrong for Jenny, wrong for her, wrong for the success of her job at the OSS. But it sure didn’t feel wrong last night. In fact, it had never felt so right. The roller coaster of emotions, from trepidation to surrender, left her floating on schoolgirl giddiness.
In the light of the dawning day, Jenny’s one night of fun was a revelation. What she felt was a true connection, not mindless recreational sex. She was an expert at that, and last night wasn’t it.
The resulting high and lack of control frightened her, and she reached blindly for her treasured indifference to bring her back to earth. She wrapped it around her like an impenetrable cloak and convinced herself that, in the relative scheme of things, their moment was perfect in its brevity. Overwhelming because of its brevity. Just one night. Just like Jenny had said. One night of fun. It was as advertised, and then some, and she was going to keep that notion close and repeat it often, because the alternative seemed so impossible. She was falling in love.