CHAPTER RATING: NC-17
NOTE: Please note the rating change for this chapter and read or don’t read accordingly.
Chapter 19
Auckland
(Part 2)
Every Breath, Every Hour Has Come To This
“Thanks!”
Willow took the two bottles of water from the vendor and stuffed her change into her wallet. She hadn’t quite mastered the new currency yet and so was paying for everything with bills and shoving the change back into the pocket. She’d come to dread the places she couldn’t pay with her card.
She walked from the little café out onto the deck of the boat. She brought the drinks back to Tara and slid onto the bench beside her on the side of the boat where they had the best view of the water and surrounding islands.
Tara smiled gratefully as she opened her bottle of water.
“We need to get reusable ones. This plastic is so bad for the environment,” she said as the bottle squeezed the air out under Tara's grip, “It’s so beautiful isn’t it?”
Willow smiled back and nodded.
“Very.”
The boat sailed by one of the islands in the gulf and Willow began pointing.
“Look! Look, little penguins!”
She jumped up to take a picture but misjudged her footing and went skidding on the slick surface. Tara caught the back of Willow’s shirt before she risked being thrown overboard and both of them ended up on their butts, but at a safe standstill.
“Whoops,” Willow said, blushing profusely as a few laughs carried through the wind from the other people on the boat, “Thanks for saving me.”
They helped each other stand; Willow avoiding the gazes of anyone around her, though if she had looked at them, she would see they weren’t looking back anymore.
“That was close. I can see the headline now, Safari Skidding Stupidity: Dumb Tourist Gets Eaten By Orca.”
“Whale,” Tara whispered, looking past Willow.
Willow started to shake her head.
“Actually orcas are dolph—”
“Whale,” Tara interrupted louder than before and pointed in front of her.
Willow spun around and gasped softly as she saw the humongous outline of the whale in the water just a few feet in front of them.
“Whoa.”
Everyone gathered around the railing to watch the whale slowly come to the surface.
“It’s frickin’ huge!” a young boy, seemingly another American tourist, shouted causing a scowl from his mother and a shushing from his father, while most everyone else just smiled.
The whale started to lift its tail fin and moments later it made a resounding smack against the water again, causing a ripple in the water that shook the boat for a minute and a ferocious splash to soak everyone standing over the railings.
Willow spat out some of the seawater that went into her mouth whilst Tara ran her hand over her face to dry it somewhat. They looked at each other and started laughing.
Things hadn’t been tense between them, but they had been a little…off, at least in Willow’s mind. She felt awkward in their interactions. But Tara’s laugh was her happy place and laughing with her was as natural as breathing.
Willow smiled coyly and looked away to take some pictures.
She felt Tara’s arm slide around her waist and a squeeze of fingers around her hip bone. She wanted to look around, to see if anyone was looking, judging, but she didn’t.
She faced forward because she knew the only way she was ever really going to move past this fear was to genuinely stop caring. Until then, fake it ‘til you make it.
Besides, it felt nice to be held like that. Just the loose grip made her feel steady, protected. And she would be lying if she said the soft caress of Tara’s thumb above the waistband on her pants, brushing against the small patch of skin where her shirt rode up, wasn’t disproportionally sensual.
They rode out most of the rest of the boat ride like that, mostly silent but to highlight some wildlife to each other, and continued to get the occasional spray of water from the more playful amongst them.
As they approached the harbor with the sun starting to set, they hiked up to the top deck of the boat where they could sit and watch it disappear beyond the horizon.
“Okay, we definitely need to get out of these wet clothes,” Tara said as they disembarked, thanking the crew member helping them off as she did so.
“Lucky the hotel is just a block away,” Willow replied, her shoe squelching for a moment as she stepped onto the grass, “That was really amazing.”
Tara smiled.
“Yeah, it was.”
She brushed her hand lightly against Willow’s.
“My mom will be so jealous we saw dolphins.”
“I got good pictures,” Willow replied, somewhat bashfully, “You can send them to her.”
“Thanks,” Tara replied gratefully.
They got back to the hotel and wrung themselves out as best they could before entering the lobby. They moved into the elevators as quick as possible and Willow pressed the button for their floor. Just before the doors closed, another older couple stepped in. They took one look at them both, clothes slightly stuck to them and hair bordering on frizzy and promptly stepped back out.
Willow took offense and scowled at them as the doors closed.
“Sorry our clothes aren’t perfectly waterproof!”
Tara pursed her lips, but couldn’t help the laughter tumbling out. Willow looked at her and joined in until they were both almost doubled over.
They just about composed themselves by the time they got into the room and were sobered completely when they stepped into the room and were hit with a blast of heat like they were at one of the volcanoes peppered around the island.
“Whoa,” Tara said, pulling the collar of her wet shirt away from her neck, “It’s hot in here.”
Willow grimaced and went over to the thermometer after dropping her stuff at the table.
“I’m so sorry, I turned up the heat this morning because we got up early and it was chilly. I forgot to turn it back.”
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Tara reassured, “It’ll help our clothes dry out.”
Willow turned into the bathroom and grabbed a towel, which she tossed across the room.
Tara caught the towel and threw it over her neck.
“Thanks, baby.”
Willow nodded in acknowledgment with a curious smile on her face as she ducked back into the bathroom.
That hadn’t felt weird at all. The whole day hadn’t, in fact.
Honestly, if Willow was being truthful with herself, she had only felt things were off because Tara hadn’t ‘tried anything on’ with her since ‘that’ night. Willow didn’t know if she just didn’t want to anymore or…
Maybe she’s waiting for me to do it.Willow peeled her clothes off and sunk down to sit on the closed toilet lid. She thought some more as she idly wiped herself down with the towel.
She’d unloaded a lot on Tara that night and woken up to a few things too. Tara hadn’t known she loved her, because she’d never shown her.
I’ve always put the brakes on…I guess now I have to step on the accelerator.Tara had put herself out there so many times, so even if Tara rejected her, it was her turn to put up or shut up. It was her turn to make up.
Starting right now.
She nervously stood up.
She wrapped the towel around her and went to the sink to brush her hair, her teeth and give her underarms another roll of deodorant.
Am I really doing this?She crept out of the bathroom and watched Tara, sitting on the side of the bed with her back to her, changed into a tank top and some shorts she slept in while tossing her hair through the towel.
Willow gulped as she watched Tara throw her slightly curled hair back. Unkempt hair shouldn’t be so sexy.
“Do you mind if I put on some music?”
“Sure, go ahead,” Tara replied nonchalantly, with no idea of how she was affecting Willow, or how much she was just cementing in Willow’s mind what she wanted to do.
Willow brought her phone to the clock radio on her nightstand, which doubled as a docking station. She found the T Time playlist and set it to play low, just a bit over background noise. Sade was first up and Willow glanced at Tara out of the corner of her eye, but there was no reaction or recognition of the music Willow always played when they got close.
Though they'd never been as close as Willow was about to suggest.
Willow turned the music up just a touch higher but Tara just moved the towel down from her hair to her arms, still clueless to the tone Willow was trying to set.
Willow bit her lip, watching Tara’s shoulder muscles ripple from behind.
She took in a long, silent breath, then flicked her fingers over the tuck of her towel and let it pool at her feet, leaving her very much naked.
She took a step forward and then suddenly stilled, the enormity of it all hitting her. Two shorter breaths followed and she brought one knee up onto the bed.
Tara felt the sag of the mattress and then some additional trembles through the bed as Willow crawled over to her, but still wasn’t paying much attention. That was until she felt a hand brush away hair from the back of her neck and then soft lips pressed into the spot below her ear and then further into the crook of her neck.
Still completely unaware of the sight that was waiting behind her, Tara tilted her neck to offer more skin and closed her eyes to really savor it, as she’d learned to do from any affection from Willow.
Willow kissed along Tara's shoulder and with her eyes still closed, Tara turned her head and found Willow’s lips, kissing her softly.
She held Willow’s chin under her fingers and opened her mouth to encourage Willow’s tongue into it because honestly, it had been a while since they’d made out properly and she missed it.
She felt Willow’s tongue slide against her lips and she moaned, her hand sliding behind Willow’s neck so her fingers brushed the downy hair at the nape. Her hand slid back over Willow’s shoulder so the base of her palm sat above her collarbone. She could feel the deep thump of Willow’s heart through her skin and her eyes fluttered open to question it.
Her eyelids flickered several times as they focused and then looked downward, realizing Willow was naked. Her eyes shot up sharply to meet Willow’s timid gaze.
“Only if you want to,” Willow said quickly, quietly; enclosing her bottom lip under the top nervously.
Tara took in a soft but audible breath as she realized what was happening. She lifted a hand and cupped Willow’s cheek, running her thumb over Willow’s lips.
“Are you sure?” she asked softly, “Because I meant it. I don’t mind waiting if you’re just honest with me. I don’t want anything you don’t want.”
Willow very gently bit the pad of Tara’s thumb and watched as her pupils completely blew out with arousal. It stirred a level of eroticism in her that she hadn’t known was there.
“I want you,” she said emphatically and emboldened from being on the end of such a penetrating stare.
She brought their faces close together and tugged Tara’s bottom lip between her teeth.
“How’s that for honest?”
Tara now knew why Willow’s heart was pounding so hard because hers was doing the same.
She caught Willow’s neck again and pulled her into a proper smooch. The towel fell off her lap as her waist twisted to be closer to Willow. Her butt scooted back until she could swing her legs onto the bed and she fell back until her head hit the pillows.
Her palms stayed flat on Willow’s collarbone, holding her up on top. Her eyes stayed locked on Willow’s eyes for several seconds before they dropped to finally fully take in Willow’s body.
“Wow.”
She’d imagined this so many times; so many ways but even the most fleeting glance overwhelmed her in a way she hadn’t, couldn’t, anticipate.
Her fingers had touched Willow’s skin, but never so unrestricted, so unconstrained by clothing as a mask for fear.
Willow was soft with gentle curves that Tara knew were there, but were often hidden. Her breasts sat perky and surprisingly symmetrical on her chest with dusky pink nipples taut with no chill in the air to blame it on. Her stomach was flat and met her hip bones at the apex of a V where a flash of red hair flamed between her legs.
Tara’s stomach somersaulted as she felt a direct response between her own legs.
She dragged her gaze upward to where Willow was trying and failing not to look nervous. Tara pushed herself to sit back up and brought her mouth to Willow’s ear.
“Wow,” she breathed again as she sunk her lips into Willow’s neck.
Willow gasped softly; even the touch of Tara’s lips felt electrifying in a way she’d never known before. She turned her head in and sought a kiss, which Tara gave willingly.
She felt hands wrap around her and roam her back; the longest contact on her bare skin she had ever received. Heat was pooling between her legs and she was scared by how aroused she was becoming, by how out of control it made her feel, but being pressed close gave her a feeling so warm and encompassing she couldn’t imagine being outside it ever again.
She broke the kiss and Tara immediately sought it out again; hungry, thirsty for her. Willow let her lips be taken for another searing moment, then placed a hand on Tara’s cheek to stall again.
Tara’s eyes fluttered open in question and Willow paused to take in just how beautiful Tara looked with her lips bruised and skin flushed.
“I love you,” she said through a soft and awed inhalation of breath.
Her thumb brushed Tara’s cheekbone.
“I haven’t said it since that night…and I don’t want you to think I was just saying it to get out of something…I wanted to wait and say it again when you wouldn’t think I…”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, feeling a babble rise in her throat and threaten to ruin this moment.
“I love you,” she said again finally, surely.
Tara put a finger under Willow’s chin and guided their lips together softly.
“I love you too.”
Willow smiled against Tara’s mouth as it descended on hers again and she forgot everything but kissing the woman she loved.
Tara fell back again and took Willow with her this time.
Willow was hyper-aware of her naked skin scratching against Tara’s clothes but somehow it didn’t feel so terrifying anymore.
Lying with Tara; kissing, necking, giggling.
Just embracing the comfortable connection in their own private little world.
And it really had been awhile.
“We haven’t made out in forever,” Willow said as she stole another kiss and briefly curled her tongue behind Tara’s lips.
“I know,” Tara smiled with a soft laugh, then an even softer look, “And if you only want to make out, that’s okay.”
Willow paused. Tara was giving her an out if she wanted it.
She looked down at Tara and tried to remember how long it had actually been.
Tara’s Prom.
She remembered now.
How she’d almost ‘given in’ that night.
Remembered falling into her bedroom and locking the door to the empty house.
Keeping the lights off because she knew if she saw more than a flash of Tara’s face in the darkness she would have lost that knot of control she was holding onto in her stomach.
Letting Tara’s hand disappear up her dress and under her panties to give her that perfect moment where she was free of fear or insecurity or worry…
…and then she’d closed her eyes and fallen asleep because she’d wanted Tara too much too much to touch her back and there was too much else up in the air to let that part of her unravel.
Willow closed her eyes, back in the moment on the bridge, remembering Tara asking if she just wanted a friend that gets her off.
It had felt so harsh at the time, even after everything that had been said, but Willow saw it now. All of the untruths she’d allowed fester just to try and hide the real truth.
“All of the mistakes I’ve made,” she started, words coming without her planning them, ”None of them have been because I don’t want you.”
Tara curled some hair around Willow’s ear, comforting her as her voice took on a note of strain.
“I know.”
Willow swallowed deeply.
“I have to keep telling you because…I told you so different for so long. I have to know that you know.”
Tara’s hand trailed down Willow’s back and she felt the twitch in her spine and the way Willow shifted in microscopic movements to keep their skin touching.
“I stayed,” she said, keeping Willow’s gaze locked on hers, “Because even when your head denied…your body never did. And I knew you’d catch up. You were never one to fall behind for long.”
She smiled but Willow gulped again and felt Tara’s hand curve on her cheek.
“Darling,” she said gently; a tone so loving Willow didn’t think she’d ever experienced from anyone ever before or ever would again, “Don’t be afraid.”
Willow slowly smiled; the most real smile to grace her face in a long time, a lifetime.
“I’m not,” she said through a single, heavy breath, “I want you.”
Tara curled her fingers around the back of Willow’s neck and pulled her that last inch down until their faces were touching.
“Then you better hurry up and undress me so you can come get me.”
Willow felt arousal spill from her and she would have been embarrassed had she not been so stunned. Tara placed a finger straight under Willow’s chin to close her mouth and it snapped Willow’s attention forward.
She caught the hem of Tara’s tank and pushed it up under her breasts. Tara’s tattoo peeked out, so striking against her creamy skin. Willow ran a finger over the clef and brushed against the underside of Tara’s breast. Tara lifted her arms over her head and let them rest in a circular shape on the pillows.
Willow was panting slightly in anticipation as she peeled Tara’s top up and over her head.
She actually knew Tara’s breasts quite well, by touch.
It wasn’t gay if she only pawed at them and didn’t look, you see.
Clothing cocooned confession.
God, she felt like an idiot.
Especially because despite knowing the curve of Tara’s breast in her palm and how her nipple tightened under her thumb, she was not prepared for the full slight beneath her. They were bigger than she could tell by touch or scattered glances of cleavage. She couldn’t feel more than what could fit in her hand, she supposed.
More surprising was the color of Tara’s pigment where her areolae swelled up to her nipples. She hadn’t really considered that anyone would look anything different to her own lightly blushed pink nipples, but Tara’s were a dark purple and covered a larger expanse of skin.
She felt an immediate oral fixation; her mouth actually watered at the thought of taking them between her lips.
Her hands slid down Tara’s chest and cupped each breast fully. Tara’s back lightly arched into the touch and Willow gasped at that subtle display of desire. She rolled Tara’s stiff nipples in the space between her fingers and watched Tara’s face flutter with pleasure as did so; teeth lightly digging into her bottom lip and nostrils flaring in perfect sync to when Willow pinched her fingers together.
Watching Tara’s face when she touched her had always been Willow’s guilty pleasure, but now she felt the pedal swing entirely from the ‘guilty’ end to the ‘pleasure’ end.
“You are so beautiful.”
Tara’s eyes settled on Willow’s, glassy and dark, and Willow was suddenly desperate to get Tara’s shorts off and remove that last barrier between them. It was a move a long time coming, much longer than her stripping off and kissing Tara’s neck.
She wasn’t sure what made her do it, but she scratched Tara’s stomach muscles lightly on the way and made Tara’s hips jerk right off the bed. A short groan left Tara’s lips and rang in Willow’s ears, reverberating straight between her legs and only adding to the absolute pool forming there.
She didn’t know how it wasn’t gushing down her legs; it felt like a dam ready to burst.
She curled her fingers beneath the elastic waistband of Tara’s shorts but just before giving that final tug, she looked up at Tara for confirmation.
“Yeah?” she asked breathlessly.
Tara’s chin hit her chest so she could meet Willow’s eye. One messy eyebrow arched on her sweaty brow.
“Are you joking?”
A giggle rose in Willow’s throat and burst out, lighting up her whole face.
Tara lifted a hand and cupped Willow’s cheek.
“You are so beautiful when you smile.”
She brushed her thumb over Willow’s lips and dropped her hand while lifting her hips from the bed again. Willow swallowed to put a little moisture back in her mouth before dragging the shorts down and off Tara’s legs.
Tara bent her knees together and back to help and then let her legs fall open in a V around Willow.
Heart pounding anew, Willow took in Tara’s body; the very thing she’d been so afraid to embrace for so long.
It
was terrifying but only in that she could lose this.
Lose
her.
She laid down on top of Tara, their hips touching first and then their chests before the final sublime slide of limbs where they got the first press of each other between their legs.
“Oh god,” Willow breathed, her head falling into Tara’s neck to plant wet, open-mouth kisses there as the barest brush of Tara’s thigh made her quiver all over.
She suddenly became overwhelmed by the prospect in front of her. Her lips had never trailed deeper than the swell of Tara’s breast and she didn’t know if what she desired to do was what Tara desired her to do.
Her mouth stalled on Tara’s throat when she felt her larynx protrude on a deep swallow and she slowly pulled her head away.
Tara kept her neck tilted for a few moments until the lack of contact became noticeable. Her eyes opened and head turned to the other side to see Willow frozen.
“Hey…” she said softly, brushing her fingers on Willow’s cheek.
Willow averted her gaze, embarrassed.
“I-I don’t know what to do.”
Tara just smiled softly.
“Me either. We’ll figure it out.”
Willow’s eyebrows rose as if to say ‘really?’ and Tara’s index finger gently tickled under Willow’s ear affectionately.
“Do you remember when we were young and we were playing Twister with Donny? Remember he bet us our allowance he could beat us and if he didn’t he’d leave us alone for a week?”
Willow stared in confusion for a moment. This wasn’t the most optimal time to rehash a childhood memory.
Still, the words triggered the images and Donny breaking the spinner right off the board when he lost.
She nodded that she remembered and Tara smiled fondly.
“He thought he had it all sewed up because we were too young to realize that having two people just hurt our chances. One of us was more likely to fall over the other.”
She twirled a strand of Willow’s hair in that finger and gave it a light tug that Willow found surprisingly arousing.
“But we took our time and we were careful and we twisted our bodies together until he had nowhere left to go but down and we anchored each other up. We figured out how to get our bodies to move together and come…out on top.”
Willow felt Tara’s knee bend and her outer thigh be caressed with Tara’s inner one.
“This is like that…but with kisses.”
Willow’s anxieties fluttered away; even if she wasn’t confident she felt in very good hands.
“And boobs,” she joked; Tara’s resulting smile filling her with the confidence she was lacking.
She made a spinner board in her mind and mentally spun it, but there was only one answer her brain was going to return; what she’d wanted since the moment Tara’s top came off.
Left nipple, mouth.
She met Tara’s eye and smiled shyly.
“Can I?” she asked, referring to nothing and everything all at once.
Tara returned the same smile.
“I’m yours.”
Willow pressed her lips to Tara’s lips softly, then ducked her head lower to Tara’s chest.
She pressed kisses in concentric circles around Tara’s breast until she got to the where the skin puckered and swelled. She could see how taut Tara’s skin was pulled together and it felt so natural now to close her lips around it and soothe it with her tongue.
Tara moaned and her skin just seemed to grow even tighter and strain for more touch. Willow found that reaction fascinating and enticing and was quite willing to give what was asked.
Tara's chest heaved as each breath became more and more labored.
She’d dreamed of this so many times.
When Willow would stop just short; when she was alone in the dark; when she would lick the pad of her finger and pinch herself in the hopes that it might just satisfy that craving for the sensation she did not know, yet yearned for.
Willow’s mouth was hot and wet and reminded her of how she felt between her spread legs. She imagined Willow’s mouth touching her there the way it was touching her now and she was sure she must’ve left a wet patch on the sheet such was the strength of her reaction.
Unable to be so passive with the massive thumping between her legs, she cupped each of Willow’s shoulder blades, gripping her with four fingertips digging into Willow’s back and her thumb pressing into collarbone on the other side. She massaged those spots a few times, digging into Willow’s skin in time with the twitches of her clit, then gently tugged Willow back up and kissed her.
Willow’s brow creased; worried she’d done something wrong.
“That was so good,” Tara whispered between kisses before Willow could even ask the question, “I want yours.”
She put Willow onto her back and sat back to look at her. Willow might have felt self-conscious only she was too busy looking at Tara too. She ran her hands down Tara’s side and held her by the hips.
Her hand pressed flat over Tara’s bellybutton with the heel of her palm brushing against the hair on Tara’s mound. Before she could process the molten wave she felt inside her as she caressed Tara’s skin, she watched Tara’s head drop to her breasts and felt lips close around her nipple.
“Oh!”
She was surprised by how intense her belly burned as Tara’s tongue ran around her. Her nipples had never been that sensitive to her, never an area she lingered when by herself, but Tara’s mouth was something else entirely and she felt a correspondingly intense responsive twitch in her clit.
Tara’s mouth left her and even in the warm room, she felt a chill hit it and highlight the loss. Tara didn’t leave her hanging in desperation though, as two fingers reached up to twist the peak as her mouth landed on the other side.
Willow felt her breath catch in her throat at the duality of sensation and if she looked down she’d see her chest had become a bright red.
Tara’s palm rolled around her breast and squeezed her flesh and Willow thought, hoped, there might be little nail marks left in her skin; something that left Tara’s brand on her and marked her in the way she’d been so afraid to until now.
Tara felt Willow’s body writhe into her, so willing and wanting and open in a way she just never had been before. It went beyond the lack of clothing, Willow was expressive and eager and giving herself over entirely. It was on a plane Tara had never even known before.
The music was still playing; Massive Attack she thought now.
She’d never been in charge of this playlist mostly because they usually did ‘stuff’ in Willow’s house. Willow was the one who seemed to need more sound in the room when they were getting hot and heavy anyway. Though Tara did have ideas for melodic enhancement to these moments, she actually liked to listen in other ways.
For Tara, her music was how the susurration of the sheet echoed in her ear as Willow’s body wiggled and squirmed; how the headboard banged lightly off the wall when Willow’s torso lifted and dropped sharply back into mattress, driving it backward; when Willow's head rose and her neck strained back and made the pillows deflate with a whoosh.
All of this still paled in comparison to the symphony of sounds Willow herself was making; the low moans, the sharp gasps, even the slap of thighs as her legs grew straight and pressed together to try and quell the pounding between them.
Tara had played in front of hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of people in the band, as part of orchestras, even busking on the street but nothing was as exhilarating; nothing made the hair on the back of her neck rise with more intensity than playing Willow’s body to the best of her ability.
Her hand rolled over Willow’s breast one last time and started to slide across the expanse of her stomach. She felt Willow’s muscles jump and then a tremble as her fingers brushed past Willow’s mound. She tapped her fingers there as a tickle of anticipation before sliding between Willow’s lips.
Willow moaned, but it turned into a deep groan when Tara moaned too, around her nipple. Her hips twisted and Tara’s fingers slid down more, pressing against her opening for the first time ever.
“Oh shit,” Willow gasped before a whimper fell out of her mouth when two of Tara’s fingers slid back up over her clit.
Tara left Willow’s nipple as a taut, wet nub that made her hiss with pleasure when the friction of Tara’s body ran over. Tara made a point of slowly returning to fully alignment with Willow. With her hand still sliding over Willow’s clit, Tara pressed their mouths together again and felt a string of words and wordless moans fall down her throat.
She toyed with Willow’s tongue and felt a shiver go down her spine when Willow grabbed her cheeks with both hands and kissed her back so desperately.
Two fingers sank deeper again and really toyed with Willow's opening this time, both of them twitching with anticipation. Willow was slick and Tara could already feel an even deeper heat enticing her inward.
She paused with her forehead on Willow’s and waited until their eyes connected. She raised her eyebrows slightly in question and Willow quickly nodded, her face flushed.
Tara pressed her fingers into Willow’s opening; barely inside, just to the length of her short nails, a half-knuckle. It was like rubbing against silk but so much hotter, a heat Tara just wanted more of.
She slid her fingers up more, maybe a little too quickly, and felt Willow stretch around her.
Willow’s face scrunched and she took in a sharp breath as she processed this new sensation.
“Oh, ah! Mmm…”
Tara’s cheeks immediately drained of their color and her hand snapped back, earning a smarting clench from Willow who immediately missed the intrusion.
“I’m s-s-so sorry,” Tara stammered, her throat tightening like she was about to throw up.
Willow gasped with the ache of the loss; though the despairing look on Tara’s face hurt her much more.
“You did nothing wrong!” Willow said quickly, waving her hands in front of her wildly. “It’s my fault, I’m not—”
“No, absolutely not, I…” Tara started to interrupt, but Willow stopped her with a hand on the shoulder.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she said, staring Tara in the eye to make sure she heard her, “You didn’t. I was just surprised, I…I didn’t know how it would feel. ”
She squeezed Tara’s shoulder and her hips rolled toward Tara again. Her voice lowered an octave.
“I don’t want to stop. I wanna try again,” she said, evocative and sure, before she smiled a little, “Maybe just slower.”
Tara closed her eyes, exhaling two short breaths.
“I should have known that. I never asked you if you’d ever…”
She shook her head and quite a few thoughts flew into Willow’s head but she focused on coaxing Tara back into the moment.
“It’s okay. C’mere.”
She sought Tara’s lips and only had to wait a second until the kiss was returned. She felt Tara’s hand touch her cheek, her fingers wet from her brief quest inside. Willow caught her own scent and her stomach churned with arousal. She wondered if Tara smelled the same.
She turned her head and kissed Tara’s fingertip as they sped past before Tara began to disappear back down her body.
Willow’s eyes fluttered closed again as she felt Tara’s hands fall over the curves and peaks of her body back down to her thighs. Willow opened her legs again in anticipation of Tara’s hand finishing its journey there, and so was surprised when instead she felt a mouth seep into her wetness.
“Whoa-oh!” she gasped, followed immediately by a long groan as Tara’s tongue licked her length.
Her legs fell open completely, helplessly. Never had she known something to pull from her and fill her all at once but Tara was doing it and doing it
so well.
Tara found herself swallowing again and again and she couldn’t even tell whether it was from the amount of wetness Willow was producing or just how much her mouth watered for it. She’d known Willow’s scent but never close like this, never so deep in her nostrils that it made her brain hazy. Her taste on top was the definition of intoxication and Tara couldn’t stop herself from imbibing.
Willow groaned and moaned and writhed as her body asked for more and more. The clenching inside her just became more and more intense as she craved that feeling of completion she’d briefly flirted with.
“Tara, I…” she moaned, pressing her hips high to meet Tara’s mouth over and over again, “I-I want it. I need it. You. Inside…Please…Oh, please…”
She wouldn’t have imagined herself one to beg but the pull inside her was so deep and unrelentingly
empty.
Tara looked up and paused, her lips glistening. She sat up a bit and wiped her arm across her mouth before bringing her hand to Willow, cupping her.
Willow hissed with pleasure and Tara’s fingers were immediately hit with wetness. She, somewhat nervously, dipped her index finger at Willow’s opening, which was completely gushing at this point.
She pushed in very gently to the first knuckle and faced no resistance.
“Is that okay?” she asked, watching Willow very carefully for signs of discomfort.
She felt Willow squeeze her finger; once, then twice and both of their eyelids grew lidded.
“Yeah…” Willow sighed, her hips dragging right back against the sheet, “More.”
Tara wanted it just as much, wanted to feel everything Willow’s depths had to offer.
“Are you sure?”
Willow nodded quickly and found her hand twisting in the sheet as Tara’s second finger stretched her, but so deliciously this time.
“God, yes, Tara!”
Encouraged, Tara began to gently move her fingers in and out and used her expertise in time-keeping to find the rhythm Willow was setting instead of trying to control it herself.
It was a sight to watch Willow unravel; so uninhibited to how she’d ever been before. She’d always hid a little when she came, obscuring her face in the pillow or Tara’s neck but now her whole body was as open as it could be and losing itself in Tara’s touch.
When she was confident her fingers were only pleasing Willow and not adding any pain, she figured out how to angle herself again to return her mouth to Willow’s throbbing clit.
She felt Willow’s thighs tremble when she did so and suddenly she was like a volcano inside; gushing and red-hot and overflowing.
A new sound joined the Willow symphony, a higher pitched cry which Tara realized after a moment was peppered with words.
Words she did not understand but recognized.
It almost sounded like listening to Willow read the Torah at her Bat Mitzvah.
She looked up to try and reconcile what she was hearing but was distracted watching Willow’s back arch and her breasts thrust upward so invitingly. She reached up with her second hand and palmed one breast; the groan it produced only making her wetter. She couldn’t focus on herself right now though, so she released Willow’s breast and let her hand settle on Willow’s stomach.
She massaged there and felt Willow start to jerk, teetering right on the very edge. She watched Willow’s hand twist and turn in the sheet until her knuckles were white, then her fingers curl under themselves. She slid her hand off Willow’s stomach and moved it up the sheet, linking her fingers with Willow’s.
Willow’s fingers caught her and squeezed her tight just as her inner muscles did at the exact same time and released all the way down Tara’s wrist.
Tara didn’t dare move, nor could she really, because Willow had her held down on all sides. She slowed her mouth and just rested her lips on Willow as she caught her own breath and felt Willow catching hers.
When Willow relaxed her grip, Tara slowly withdrew from all quarters and lifted herself back above Willow’s body. Her eyes were closed so Tara just pecked Willow’s lips and lay down beside her.
She was sweaty, though not as sweaty as Willow’s glistening body. And she was wet, though not as wet as Willow’s glistening lips, still engorged between her legs.
Though with a minimal movement of her own thighs chafing, Tara thought she may very well be just as wet as Willow, but with no satiation.
At least, of a physical kind. She was definitely very satisfied by knowing the feeling of Willow’s heartbeat around her fingers; from hearing the cries that had fallen from Willow’s mouth, coming from a place deep inside that Tara had never reached before; from seeing her spent body thrown back on the bed still catching the breath Tara had pulled from her.
That was definitely satisfying.
Extremely.
After a few minutes of processing everything on her side, she glanced over to Willow, whose eyes were open again, staring up at the ceiling in silent contemplation.
Tara felt a moment of panic rise in her throat, but she pushed it back down. If Willow was panicking too, her adding to it wasn’t going to help things.
She slowly shifted onto her side, holding the sheet up against her chest and casually throwing the other side over Willow.
Willow didn’t really react and Tara swallowed deeply.
“Willow, did I hurt you?”
Willow blinked several times as she turned her gaze to Tara as if remembering she wasn’t alone in the room.
“No, no,” she said evenly, shaking her head from side to side, “Not at all.”
Tara exhaled a gentle breath of relief.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly, “It’s okay if you feel weird. We can talk about it.”
Willow stared at Tara for several moments, taking in each delicate feature on her face. She blinked twice more, heavy lids that closed for more than a second each time and released a breath that made her shoulders slump back gently into the mattress.
“I feel like I’ve felt weird my entire life…and this is the first thing that feels completely right.”
Tara slowly smiled and Willow returned it, then suddenly became very aware of her own body again and the lingering sensations running through her.
“Okay, it’s definitely a little weird that you were just inside me,” she reasoned, brow scrunching adorably as she looked down at herself, “And that I’m totally naked right now.”
“It would have been kind of hard to do if you weren’t,” Tara replied innocently.
Willow’s eyebrows rose considerably, then a bigger smile broke out on her face and she began to laugh convulsively. After a few seconds, her legs jumped together under the sheet and she smiled sheepishly.
“Oh-kay, new muscles.”
Tara’s hand disappeared under the sheet and moments later settled on Willow’s tummy and rubbed gently.
“You okay?”
Willow looked at Tara like she was the moon and the stars.
“I’m wonderful.”
Tara moved her head down to rest on the pillow beside Willow.
“I think so too.”
Willow saw the truth in Tara’s eyes and felt the tenderness in her belly rub and knew she was the safest she had ever been.
Tara kissed Willow’s eyelids and bridge of her nose and trailed off at her ear.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Willow nuzzled her nose against Tara’s cheek and left soft kisses there. Before she could return the sentiment, Tara spoke again.
“Can I ask you something?”
Willow nodded and willed her legs to shift from their jelly-like state so she could comply with whatever request Tara made of her.
And oh wow, she was going to do whatever Tara asked of her. There was definitely an awakening somewhere but she was going to need it to press pause for a moment because—
“Were you speaking in Hebrew?”
Willow did a double-take as she shifted from her own thoughts to Tara’s question.
“Wh-what?”
“When I was…” Tara paused and looked bashful, “Um, it sounded like you were speaking Hebrew.”
Willow shut her eyes tight and tried to remember. Tara was…and then she…yep. Her eyes sprung open, wide.
“Yeah, I have no idea where that came from.”
“Oh,” Tara replied, nodding along, “Okay.”
“My dad would be proud,” Willow joked, then pulled a disgusted face, “Not that I will ever tell him.”
She reached up and tucked some hair behind her own ear shyly.
“It’s um, a prayer, a blessing. We say it to celebrate special occasions…for being thankful for new experiences.”
She cast a furtive glance at Tara to gauge her reaction, but Tara just looked back casually.
“Most people just say ‘oh god’.”
Willow was sure she could see the smirk tugging Tara’s lips into a crooked smile, but all she could focus on was the glint in Tara’s eye, the new flicker of untamed passion and it made her feel wild.
She splayed her fingers out on the back of Tara’s neck and drew them close.
“Do you?” she asked, with only a brief moment of stammering in her words when she felt Tara’s hot breath hit her lips.
Tara felt her stomach clench as she allowed herself to feel the thumping between her legs again.
“Why don’t you find out?”
Willow’s eyes clouded with arousal and she tugged Tara that last quarter inch into a kiss.
Her legs behaved themselves as she rolled onto her side and coaxed Tara down onto her back. She pulled Tara’s bottom lip into her mouth and released it before quickly popping kisses down into Tara’s neck. Her hand found a pert breast and her lips felt the inhalation of breath on Tara’s throat when she closed her hand around it and brushed the nipple.
She started to kiss down Tara’s body, finding the temperature of Tara’s skin to increase the lower she got. Just below Tara’s bellybutton, she found her hands sliding on Tara’s thighs and could feel all the wetness spilling out. She felt her heart start to hammer.
It wasn’t that she was unfamiliar with the area in question. She knew where Tara’s coarse hair became slick skin; exactly where the bump in Tara’s flesh lay and exactly how to engorge it; knew what it felt like to make Tara wet but already this was so different.
She was used to her hand disappearing under Tara’s clothing, sight unseen. She was used to her hand being trapped there with only a limited amount of movements possible. She was used to Tara’s arousal being contained but here she was, on display and overwhelming every one of her senses.
She kissed above Tara’s stomach, her lips slowing.
After a minute or so, Tara brought Willow’s head back up to her and kissed her softly.
Willow felt Tara’s hand on her cheek, thumb caressing her cheekbone and opened her eyes to see Tara looking at her, unassuming and patient.
Willow relaxed a little; it was comforting to have someone just get you and what you need.
“I still don’t know what to do,” she admitted.
That wasn’t strictly true, she knew what to do.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t fantasized about this plenty of times.
She knew the mechanics and she’d also just experienced Tara turning her on and letting the faucet of pleasure overflow through her.
That was the real problem; she didn’t think she could make Tara feel how Tara had made her feel.
“What you always do…what you want to do…what feels right…all of the above.”
Tara’s smile was so genuine and soothing, Willow felt herself calm down a little.
She could start with the first one.
Her hand moved diagonally from Tara’s thigh and her fingertips sunk between her lips.
“Wow,” she whispered as her fingers began to glide so easily.
Instantly wet, she brought them back over Tara’s clit with ease. Tara’s body shuddered, a shudder Willow knew; a shudder Willow loved because she knew she was doing something right.
She repeated the movement as she had so many times before, but it was so much more this time. She could hear her fingers as they moved, could feel the skin on Tara’s thighs as they quaked, could smell Tara’s arousal as it permeated the air.
As Willow got faster, her fingers would fall lower and lower on each downward slide as she struggled to maintain friction with Tara gushing more and more arousal with every passing second. On a particularly slippery push, three fingertips lightly flicked Tara’s inner wall right at her opening.
Willow gasped and quickly balled her hand into a fist, while Tara moaned and tried to push into the touch that was now gone.
Willow watched Tara’s face and listened to her moans and had to make a decision.
Want to…feels right…okay, here I go.She brought her fingers back down there and ventured inside, just one this time. The sensation was mind-blowing and the sounds coming from Tara as she moved in and out felt just as good as when Tara was touching her.
Except the music was still playing and muffling some of those noises and that was not okay.
As much as she liked Prince, he was not making her feel like a sexy motherfucker.
She reached out with her other hand and popped the phone from the speaker.
“Do you mind if I shut that off? It’s drowning out the good stuff,” she gushed, then blushed, “Um, I mean, y’know…”
“I do know,” Tara breathed, smirking lightly but with her eyes also silently pleading not to stop.
Willow saw it and pushed in with two fingers, slowly. It wasn’t a stretch at all really but she studied Tara’s face just in case.
“Okay?”
“Oh yes,” Tara moaned.
Willow tried to use her other hand to rub Tara’s clit while she moved in and out but it was a bit of a ‘rub your tummy and pat your head at the same time’ kind of situation and she couldn’t quite pull it off.
She looked down at the way her hand was moving and after a minute or two of watching hypnotically as she disappeared inside, she let her fingers slide all the way out and up to rub before plunging back inside.
That really seemed to get Tara going, her back arching and body twisting as her unstifled moans were rising toward the ceiling.
There was a rising inside Tara too, that beautiful swell that was growing below her stomach and was just a few well-timed thrusts away from imploding. She rolled her hips harder as sweat broke out on her brow and she strained for what her body wanted so badly.
Willow felt Tara get so hot she thought the flesh might actually melt off her fingers but it only made her dig in more. She thought, too late, that that might be a bit too rough, but instead felt Tara immediately come around her.
Willow’s hand was trapped again as Tara’s thighs clamped together but it was a cage she’d never fight to flee.
“Wow,” she whispered in awe, almost entirely inaudibly as Tara pulsated and contracted and made Willow feel as close to heaven as she ever had been.
Or at least a level draw with when their positions had been reversed.
She stayed there as long as she could, then pulled her hand away, looking at it like something so profound had changed that would never be the same.
She would never be the same.
She curled her fingers into her palm and though they were soaked, she had no concern with wiping them like the first time she’d ventured beneath Tara’s panties. She was very content with letting Tara absorb into her skin.
She lay back down beside Tara and watched the gentle heave of her chest settle peacefully. When Tara’s eyes opened, she reached out lazily to brush her fingers on Willow’s cheek.
“You felt good.”
And Willow just laughed, because that felt like the understatement of the century. She turned her head and kissed Tara’s fingertips.
“You felt so good.”
She leaned in and kissed Tara’s cheek and found her arm curving around Tara’s waist. She needed to stay close.
She was almost asleep when she felt Tara start to shuffle.
“It’s so hot in here. I’m going to open the balcony door.”
“No, don’t!” Willow exclaimed, shooting up suddenly, then looking sheepish when Tara raised an eyebrow, “I um…I like the heat.”
She didn’t care for the heat, actually. At home she always kept a cool room, preferring to add a blanket if needed rather than be uncomfortably warm.
Tara knew this, of course, so figured out immediately that Willow didn’t mean
the heat, she meant
their heat; that heaviness in the air that was thick with their combined scents and the energy they’d expended.
“Okay,” she agreed easily.
Willow started to look guilty.
“Never mind, if you’re too hot—”
Tara put a finger against Willow’s lips.
“I have never been more perfect than I am at this moment.”
Her finger trailed down Willow’s jaw and off her chin. Willow started to duck her head to rest on Tara’s shoulder, but it popped back up at the last second. She bit the corner of her lip shyly.
“Was that okay?”
And now it was Tara’s turn to laugh at the understatement.
“It was so much more than okay.”
She held her hand up and Willow linked their fingers and settled back with her arm over Tara’s waist, conjoined hands at her hip. Her cheek rested on Tara’s shoulder and the rest of her body naturally curled around Tara. One leg was thrown between Tara’s to tangle their limbs together and never had she felt so comfortable to just melt into another body.
Never had she felt so little anxiety about…this.
Or anything.
There was nothing in the world but the simple curve of Tara’s ankle around hers.
She watched herself wiggle her toes against Tara’s and smiled when Tara did it back.
Tara couldn’t help but think in the silence.
“Did you ever imagine it could ever be like this?”
Willow sighed softly.
“Only in my weakest moments.”
A smile graced Tara’s lips, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes but stayed on her face, contemplative.
“Funny. Thinking this could be true were some of my strongest.”
Willow frowned, also contemplatively.
After another stretch of silence, she spoke up quietly, almost so low Tara wouldn’t hear only there were so close and there wasn’t another sound in the room.
“I don’t know why you put up with me sometimes.”
“Oh, Willow,” Tara sighed sadly.
She sat up, which made Willow frown more because she had been enjoying the cuddling immensely.
Tara pulled her hair into a ponytail, then let go, letting it all fall around her shoulders again. She turned to face Willow and caressed her neck tenderly.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres,” she said emphatically with a pointed look, “That’s why.”
Willow tucked some hair behind her own ear again and forced a smile.
“I didn’t know this is what they meant when they said to know someone biblically.”
Tara knew a Willow-deflect when she heard one but it wasn’t the time to smother Willow out of her insecurities. At least not verbally. She opened her arms and gestured Willow into them, kissing her on top of her head when she settled.
“C’mere.”
She closed her arms around Willow’s middle and let them hang loosely and rested her chin over Willow’s shoulder.
Willow sighed happily and started running her fingers through Tara’s fingers. She lifted Tara’s hand and followed the lines on her palm.
“How are your hands so soft and smooth when you play so much?”
“I take care of them,” Tara explained, “Moisturize…file.”
Willow nodded, then stopped suddenly.
“Wait, you file your nails or your fingers?!”
Tara curled her fingers into a ‘C’ shape and ran her thumb over them to show Willow.
“There’s little calluses there, they help me play guitar. I keep them as small as I can,” she said, dropping her hand to rub them against Willow’s thigh, “I don’t want to miss out on the feeling of touching… other things.”
Willow felt a new tingling start at the base of her spine and turned her head in to kiss Tara’s neck.
“You’re a badass.”
Tara chuckled and she may as well have done it around Willow’s clit for how much it turned Willow on.
“I was always jealous of how well you played, you know,” she said, changing gear in the hopes her body might calm down and she wouldn’t reveal herself to be an insatiable fiend, “But I am just not gifted in the musical arts. As you know.”
Tara smiled at the memory.
“I liked teaching you guitar. I would have kept doing it, but you wouldn’t.”
Willow shook her wrist out in front of her.
“I got my hand stuck in the, the…”
“Soundhole,” Tara provided, but Willow just frowned.
“Don’t dumb down the terms for me.”
Tara smiled again.
“That’s really what it’s called, honey.”
“Oh,” Willow replied sheepishly, “Well, anyway. I’m glad I found out at the ripe old age of 10 and that my parents bore witness and never forced me to take lessons in anything else.”
Tara’s hand ran down Willow’s arm and took her hand, holding it by her stomach. She then took Willow’s other hand and held it higher, positioning both as if she was holding an invisible guitar. She used her fingers to move Willow’s fingers in the right motions to ‘play’.
“I remember you being quite good at the… fingering,” she said in a low voice right in Willow’s ear, which she then dropped to an even lower whisper, “You’ve only gotten better.”
Willow felt her stomach bottom right out and quickly turned in Tara’s lap.
“Okay, yep.”
“What?” Tara asked in confusion and surprise.
Willow took Tara’s face in her hands and pulled her forward.
“Now, you c’mere.”
Tara allowed herself to be pulled into a kiss and then pulled under Willow’s body and then pulled beneath the sheet so Willow could pull another orgasm right out of her.
With a fresh layer of sweat cooling on their bodies, both heads popped out, hair tousled and cheeks red.
“Water,” Willow gasped, trying desperately to lick her lips.
Tara raised her head just an inch off the pillow and looked around aimlessly.
“Where?”
Willow frowned and cast a hazy eye around her room. She spotted her backpack on the floor at the foot of the bed and sluggishly turned herself around to reach for it. She had to keep shuffling forward until she almost fell right off, but then felt Tara’s hand close around her ankle. Willow grabbed the bag, shuffled back and threw herself alongside Tara again.
“Teamwork,” she said, holding her hand out for a high five before she unzipped the bag and produced the bottle of water from the bottom.
As she downed the liquid down her grateful, parched throat, Tara looked over her shoulder to the other contents in the bag.
“Are those chips?”
Willow passed the water over and dug out the bag Tara was referring to.
“Pitta chips!” she said victoriously, reaching in for a tub poking out, “WITH pesto hummus.”
Tara glugged some water and wiped her mouth with her arm.
“Oh if I didn’t love you before…”
Willow giggled and cracked open both the chips and the dip. They both dug in with plenty of hunger and little grace but neither cared.
“This is so unattractive,” Tara said, using her hand to cover her mouth so she wouldn’t expel anything she was enthusiastically chewing on.
“I don’t even care,” Willow replied, doing the exact same thing.
They both looked at each other and giggled, the smiles exchanged through their eyes if not their covered mouths.
When Willow had finished chewing, she wiped at her mouth and leaned over for another kiss on Tara’s cheek.
“I love you.”
Tara caught Willow’s hand between them and squeezed it.
“I love you too.”
Her fingers brushed over Willow’s knuckles and god help her if Willow didn’t feel something bloom again.
She felt like a broken faucet; any minor touch had her overflowing everywhere.
With just enough cognizance to get the chips and dip off the bed so they weren’t rolling around in a basil-y mess, she launched herself at Tara again and was met with a quite willing response.
Many hours later, with the room in darkness but for slivers of light breaking through the curtains, they lay in a tangled heap of limbs and sheets, passed out together.
Tara was the first to stir to a pattering noise somewhere in the distance. She raised her head from the pillow, which she quickly realized was Willow’s breast and enjoyed a moment of staring before moving her gaze away.
She brought her hands up to rub her eyes and gently stretched, trying to avoid too much motion that might wake Willow.
Her body felt odd — like she’d run a marathon but had also just gotten a thorough post-run massage. Muscles worn out but relaxed and an echo of past exertions aching deliciously in one place in particular. It was like a pleasure hangover but she enjoyed the dizziness.
Everything felt full; her breasts, her heart, her…oh, her bladder.
She carefully tried to extract herself without waking Willow and thought she got away with it as she slid off the bed and hurried toward the bathroom, holding the sheet to her chest with the rest of it trailing behind her.
Willow woke as the sheet scurried past her legs and then heard the click of the bathroom door closing. It took a moment, but just a moment, to put that together with the empty bed and figure out where Tara was gone, but that moment was a sick feeling that this had all been a dream.
But then she smelled Tara’s vanilla-y scent on the pillow and she knew it was real. She glanced down at herself in the dark and wondered if her body looked more womanly. She felt more womanly, whatever that meant.
The bathroom door opened again and Tara crept into the room. Willow watched her walk over to the curtain with raised eyebrows. Not even the cover of darkness could stop her noticing Tara’s round butt staring back at her. As Tara peeked out of the curtain, a ray of light shone in and hit her like a perfect halo.
Willow could only nod silently in agreement with the early sun.
She picked up on the same sound that had woken Tara and noticed little droplets on the sliver of glass that was exposed.
“Is it raining?”
Tara jumped, dropping the sheet and quickly bent to pick it up again with a blush.
“You’re awake.”
“Mm-hmm,” Willow replied, smirking at the flash she got.
Tara pulled one half of the curtain back, enough to let the light in and show Willow it was bucketing down outside.
“Yes, it’s raining. Pouring, in fact.”
It was Willow’s turn to blush as the stream of light that came in very much focused on exactly where she was lying, and she suspected on purpose.
“Glad we’re not on the boat today,” she said, casually rolling onto her stomach, “There’s nothing planned for today at all actually…did you want to…do something?”
Tara leaned back and made a point of dragging her eyes down Willow’s body slowly.
“Well, there’s no point in going out just to get… wet.”
Willow was completely captivated by this new, bold tone Tara had adopted.
Being friends for so long, there had always been a certain comfortableness and familiarity between them, but Tara seemed to have a whole new self-assuredness and it made Willow tingle in all the right places.
She smirked.
“I guess we’ll have to entertain ourselves indoors.”
Tara smirked back and started to step toward the bed but stopped when Willow pointed at the door.
“Wait, put the Do Not Disturb sign up.”
“The what?” Tara asked, brow scrunching adorably.
“On the door there. The hanger that says ‘Do Not Disturb’. Just hang it outside,” Willow explained, “It’ll stop housekeeping from coming in at an… inopportune time.”
Plus Willow got to see a little more of Tara’s butt moving about.
Tara checked the things hanging off the inside of the door.
“I don’t see it.”
“Oh?” Willow asked innocently as if she hadn’t hung it there the day before already, “Check outside?”
Tara hid her body behind the door and pulled it open just enough to check if the sign was hanging off the outside doorknob before quickly closing the door again. She turned back with a blush.
“It’s there but I think the cleaning lady caught me.”
“You were just checking the sign,” Willow replied with a soft shrug, “She doesn’t have secret x-ray vision. She doesn’t know what we’re doing in here.”
She ran her palm over the sheet where Tara’s body had vacated.
“Or what we…should be doing.”
Tara crossed over to the bed in record time and slid back onto the under the sheet.
“And what’s that?”
Willow yanked some of the sheet Tara had wrapped around her body over her, tugging them together in the process.
“Sharing the sheet.”
She turned her head in and kissed Tara’s lips; both of them smiling against each other.
Tara started to lean over on top of Willow, but after she brushed her hand over Willow’s stomach, there was a squeal. Tara’s hand sprung back.
“What is it?”
Willow’s face bunched up in a grimace.
“I have to pee. Sorry!”
Tara could only chuckle.
“Go,” she said, lightly pushing Willow away as she slid off the sheet and scurried off into the bathroom.
When she was finished washing her hands she looked in the mirror and paused for a minute. She turned her head from side to side, then up and down and ran her hand down her neck.
She looked the same.
She sure as hell didn’t feel the same.
She tried to isolate the many feelings, physical and emotional, that poured through her and she realized her reflection was different. She was smiling.
Unconditionally, unreservedly smiling.
And she didn’t hate the person who was staring back.
She picked her toothbrush up from the sink and tossed it to her other hand, humming as she wet it and spread some toothpaste across the bristles.
“
Why'd it take so long to see the light? Seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right What a lady, what a night.”
She quickly ran the toothbrush over her teeth to freshen her mouth for the copious activity she planned on doing with it. She rinsed and quickly splashed her face before returning to the bed, more comfortable with her nakedness than she’d ever been, even on her own.
“Sorry,” she apologized for the disruption, “Very unsexy.”
“I think you have a lovely voice,” Tara countered sweetly.
Willow hesitated with her legs almost on the bed.
“I meant the running off to pee,” she clarified, then blushed as she realized what Tara meant, “You heard that?”
“You peeing?” Tara asked with a raised eyebrow.
Willow shook her head.
“No, the—” she stopped and tensed her jaw to stop from talking, “I think I’m going to shut up now.”
Tara crept closer, smirking with a mixture of amusement and seduction.
“I think I might be able to help with that…”
The last word Willow would use to describe Tara was ‘predatory’ but there was no other word to describe the look in her eye as she climbed over Willow. Yet instead of feeling helpless, Willow willingly surrendered as Tara molded their bodies together and kissed the breath from her lungs.
Outside, the rain poured and poured, soaking the city.
Plants drank, puddles formed and most people grudgingly got on with their day tolerating the disruption, except for the inhabitants of room 1113 who focused all their attention to the dripping between each other’s thighs and not what was sliding down the window pane.
Tara lay upside down on the bed, chewing on a protein bar for dinner that had been rummaged from the bottom of her cabin bag when they’d run out of their supply of local snacks.
Willow’s feet were by her head and she couldn’t resist reaching one finger out to brush the sole of the nearest one. Willow’s feet immediately tucked in beneath her.
“Hey!”
Tara giggled.
“You have cute feet. I was just admiring.”
Willow turned around and threw her naked body alongside Tara.
“Your admiration felt a lot like tickling.”
“It’s my love language,” Tara countered, biting a peanut butter chip from the bar, unintentionally and effortlessly seductive.
She offered the end of her bar to Willow by holding it against her mouth and brushed her thumb against Willow’s lips as she pushed it inside.
Willow had to close her eyes because she probably would have choked if she tried to eat and look in Tara’s eyes as they were at that moment.
She’d spent the whole day watching them close-up and how they changed based on movement, or sound, or words, or stage of climax (that was her favorite bit to watch) and she didn’t think she’d ever reach a point where she wouldn’t find them fascinating.
She’d spent 15 years looking into the same pair of eyes almost every day and somehow they managed to be so comfortably familiar and newly thrilling all at once.
She felt Tara’s finger trail under her chin and down her throat right as she swallowed. It dipped into the hollow and Willow had no idea how Tara could be turning on
again after everything they’d gotten up to in the past hour, the past several hours, the whole day and night.
It shouldn’t even be possible. Surely there was a point where it was enough, but she didn’t seem to be reaching it today.
Tara’s lips ghosted that same spot, lingering there for a moment before kissing back up to Willow’s mouth. She kissed the corner and gently turned Willow onto her back, letting her body roll on top before she finally quenched the mutual thirst for a kiss.
Willow’s hands ran from Tara’s scapula down her spine and took two handfuls of her butt. It still felt naughty but any residual weirdness was well and truly gone.
Her hands, Tara’s hands, mouth, teeth, thighs; it didn’t matter. Any part of Tara was welcome to touch any part of her and she considered it a personal mission to know Tara’s body in the way she knew her personality and humor and love.
Because, oh boy, did she know Tara’s love. She’d never appreciated it enough because she was so afraid to admit it even existed but even in just a few days of lifting the veil she’d become so aware of it, like an invisible security blanket that was always there but only now could she see it in all its glory and was able to hold on tighter.
She could also hold Tara’s ass tighter, and did, squeezing her buns and using the leverage to move Tara’s body gently on top of her.
The grinding got a little more intense and Willow’s hands ended up in Tara’s hair, pulling her closer and thrusting her hips upward.
Tara gripped Willow’s bucking hips and kept the them both locked together at the mouth as she sat back in the midst of the passionate kiss. She sat in the middle of the large bed and spread her legs outward, holding Willow in her lap with a leg tossed either side of Tara’s waist.
Willow could almost feel Tara burning between her legs from the close proximity, especially when Tara would lightly tug at her hips. Tara’s hand reached over and brushed over the hair at the apex of Willow’s thighs. Fingers dipped into her wetness and over her clit and Willow dropped a string of moans into Tara’s mouth.
She quickly dropped her hand between Tara’s legs and found her wet and ready and eager for her touch. She found Tara’s clit quickly and circled her fingertips back and forth, subconsciously taking on the same rhythm Tara was using on her. It worked, letting their arms slide without getting in each other’s way. They both had to scoot back together once or twice but they never broke the kiss, just smiling against each other when they had to make the little readjustments.
Willow started to come first, reducing her participation in the kiss to a few sharp breaths but only slowed completely for a few moments before resuming the pressure of her fingers so Tara could follow. It was only about a minute or so later that Tara shuddered into Willow’s neck and finally slumped forward.
Tara left a messy kiss on the side of Willow’s neck and moaned just under her earlobe.
“You’re so good at this.”
Willow shivered at the feel of Tara’s breath on her skin and sighed happily.
“I am?”
Tara left a light kiss below Willow’s ear, so light Willow thought she might have imagined it, and fell back onto the bed. Her head hit the pillows and her back did a perfect arch as her legs stayed open in a V around Willow.
“Mmhhm.”
Willow couldn’t help her eye being drawn down to Tara’s very open legs. Tara’s words echoed in her ears and she licked her lips.
“M-maybe I could—”
Suddenly there was a knock on the door, which came as a complete shock to the two of them who had forgotten that other people, or anything else in the world, also existed.
Tara looked at Willow to see if she knew who it was, but Willow just shook her head silently. Tara nodded in that direction.
“Go get it.”
“Why me?” Willow asked frowning.
“I can’t,” Tara explained.
Willow held up her hands in question.
“Why?”
Tara blushed, but it was coy.
“I can’t move, I just…”
“So did I!” Willow replied indignantly.
Tara lazily reached and brushed her hand against Willow’s outer thigh.
“You’re already halfway up, and you’re closer to the door…”
There was another knock and Willow sighed as she found her legs under her and quickly threw on the hotel robe as another knock rang out.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
“You were a minute ago,” Tara whispered, but Willow heard it and shot her a look.
Willow went to the door and only opened it enough to poke her head out, but Tara was quick to cover herself up with the sheet just in case.
A man stood on the other side, walkie-talkie in hand. Willow’s eyebrows lifted in anticipation.
“Hi.”
The man looked relieved and hooked his walkie back to his belt.
“We’re just doing a welfare check, ma’am. We do it on all rooms with the do not disturb sign up for an extended period. Is everything okay?”
Willow knew her blush would be all too evident under those harsh hotel lights.
“Uh huh. All good.”
He just nodded, relieved there was no mess to clean up. He held up his hand as she began to walk away.
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am.”
“No problem,” Willow replied in a high-pitched voice, slamming the door closed again quickly.
She leaned back against it and smirked at Tara’s hasty attempt to cover up. She returned to bed, dropped her robe and climbed over Tara.
“I’m just holding a girl hostage and rendering her immobile through a series of…” she stopped, embarrassed, then grew more embarrassed at her own embarrassment, “Um…kisses. And…”
“Kisses,” Tara echoed, pressing her lips to Willow’s softly, just for a moment, “And…?”
Willow collapsed beside Tara and scurried under the sheet with her.
“This kinda…”
“Love?” Tara suggested.
“Love,” Willow agreed with a slow smile, “I kinda forgot the real world existed.”
“Me too,” Tara replied, finding Willow’s hand under the sheet and linking their fingers.
She leaned her head down against Willow’s shoulder and Willow turned her head in to kiss the top of Tara’s head.
“I’m starving,” Tara said, briefly running her hand over her stomach before lifting her chin up to smile at Willow, “But I’m not leaving this bed for anything.”
She pecked Willow’s lips again and then her nose scrunched up.
“Well, just for a minute.”
She smiled softly and scooted out of bed to go into the bathroom. When she came out a few minutes later, Willow was checking her phone.
“Oh, now the real world really is back,” Tara said with a wry smile as she joined Willow in bed.
Willow placed the phone screen-down on the sheet.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Tara replied as she snuggled in, “What’s happening on the outside?”
Willow shrugged one shoulder.
“Nothing.”
She brought her phone up in front of them and showed Tara the random social media chatter.
“…it all seems so trivial. Doesn’t it? I mean how can life just seem so the same out there when…”
Tara brushed some hair from Willow’s brow.
“When it changed so much in here?”
Willow shook her head with self-derision.
“Silly.”
“Not in the slightest,” Tara replied and leaned up to kiss Willow’s cheek.
Willow smiled at Tara and shoved her phone away again. They cuddled up and chatted comfortably until there was another knock on the door.
Tara’s eyebrow arched in annoyance.
“Again?”
Willow smiled and threw her legs out of the bed.
“No, it’s me this time,” she said, getting the robe back on and opening the room door, stepping outside it, “I’ll bring it. Thanks.”
Willow grinned as she pushed a cart in with two silver domes sitting on it.
“Food, glorious food.”
Tara sat up, holding the sheet to her chest.
“Room service?” she asked anxiously, “Isn’t it crazy expensive?”
“Don’t worry, I got it,” Willow dismissed, then frowned when Tara continued to seem concerned, “You said you were hungry.”
Tara felt conflicted but she couldn’t — wouldn’t — let them fight now.
Not today. Willow was only being kind.
She finally smiled.
“Thanks. That was really sweet. What have we got?”
Willow beamed and rolled the cart by the bed. She took the first dome off.
“I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I got us a platter.”
Tara’s belly rumbled as she took in the spread. There was halloumi cheese, a variety of dips, arancini, cubed watermelon, flatbreads, rolled prosciutto and mini bruschetta. It was like the fancy platters Tara used to have to serve at the country club but had never actually had opportunity to sample.
Tara spread some hummus on a flatbread with halloumi and prosciutto and took a bite. She couldn’t hold back the smile.
“‘Kay, is ’eally goog!”
She blushed and swallowed what was in her mouth.
“Okay, it’s really good.”
Willow shed the robe once again; surprised, but also not, that nakedness was actually becoming her
preferred state of being, at least when it was just her and Tara.
They ate each and every bit of the platter (the quantity of contents actually meant to generously serve four adults), and barely left any crumbs. When they were done, Willow cleared everything back to the cart.
“Dessert?” she asked with a mischievous smile and just as Tara was about to lean in to claim said dessert, Willow took the second dome off and revealed the actual dessert.
Two imperfect discs of meringue, separated by layers of berries and cream with the fresh fruit of the juice running down the sides.
It was a pretty good second choice, Tara reasoned.
“It’s pavlova,” Willow said as she handed Tara a fork, “National delicacy but not one of those objectionable ones made from questionable animal parts.”
Tara made the fork glide through the meringue, making it crack and flake with a crunch as she scooped it onto the utensil. With a little bit of everything perfectly balanced, she held it out for Willow to eat.
Willow smiled and closed her mouth around the offering. It all melted together on her tongue and as she swallowed she felt Tara’s thumb brush an errant bit of cream from the corner of her mouth. Not to be outdone, Willow offered Tara some of the dessert in the same way. They fed the whole plate to each other, often purposefully dabbing cream in opportunistic places just to rub or kiss it away.
Willow dragged her finger across the empty plate to get the very last bit of it and brushed it on her own lips with a grin. Tara returned the smile, leaned in and kissed Willow and very slowly pushed Willow onto her back and hovered over her on her forearms.
She gently nuzzled their noses together.
“I love you.”
Willow closed her eyes as Tara peppered kisses along her jaw. She brought her hand to Tara’s cheek and opened her eyes as she smiled.
“I love you too.”
Tara kissed Willow for a moment and rolled off, holding her stomach.
“I ate so much.”
Willow brought the blanket around them comfortably. She snuggled in.
“A little rest is probably a good idea anyway.”
Tara’s arms found their way around Willow to hug her close.
“But just a little.”