Month of Sundays (15 page)

Rachel’s breath caught when she saw the rise of Griffin’s firm breasts. She slid her hands up the back of Griffin’s legs. Griffin lowered her hips. Rachel rose to meet her. The pressure felt oh so good, but she needed more. She cupped Griffin’s ass in her hands and pulled her closer. She heard Griffin’s sharp intake of breath when her mouth found the warm skin of her chest. Griffin’s back arched as Rachel’s tongue slid across her skin. Her hips flexed against Rachel’s kneading hands. Rachel kissed the curve of one breast, then the other. Her lips brushed against the hollow of Griffin’s throat.

“I want you,” Griffin whispered, her voice as ragged as her breathing.

“Then take me.”

Griffin covered Rachel’s mouth with her own. Rachel groaned deep in her throat as Griffin’s tongue met hers. Griffin gently kneaded her breasts. Her thumbs teased her nipples through the material of her blouse.

Rachel slipped one hand between their bodies, her fingers pulling at the clasp of Griffin’s black leather belt. She wanted to slip inside Griffin’s smooth folds and feel her muscles contract around her fingers. She wanted to watch her eyes darken, her skin mottle. She wanted to hear her keening cries of pleasure as her body tensed, flexed, and released.

She unbuckled Griffin’s belt and began to unfasten her jeans. Then something pulsated against her leg.

“Is that a vibrator in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Griffin’s face reddened as she pulled away. “My phone’s ringing.” She fished her cell phone out of her pocket and looked at the caller ID. “Crap. I’ve got to take this. It’s a reporter for
The
New York Times Magazine
.
He wants to interview me for an upcoming feature on female chefs.” Sitting on the side of the bed, she pressed the phone to her ear and talked for a few minutes. Then she covered the receiver with her hand and turned back to Rachel. “I’ve got to go,” she said apologetically.

“It’s okay,” Rachel said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.” Rachel buckled Griffin’s belt and smoothed her rumpled shirt. “Now go do your interview before I change my mind.”

Griffin gave her a quick kiss. “Thanks, Puddles. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

Rachel waved her away with a smile. “I’ll see you next week.”

Next week meant Morocco. Griffin had promised her belly dancers, couscous, and a DVD of
Casablanca
. Rachel didn’t know what she was looking forward to most.

Griffin normally viewed publicity as a necessary evil, but she was giddy after she finished her latest round. She felt like she was breathing rarefied air. During the course of the two-hour question and answer session, the
Times
reporter had revealed the identities of the four other chefs who would be featured in the article. She admired all four. Two, in fact, were on her short list of culinary heroes. It blew her away to think she may have finally become their equal.

The only downside was Rachel. She felt awful about leaving Rachel so abruptly when they had been about to make love for the first time. Rachel had said she was okay with her leaving, but Griffin had her doubts.

She thought about the cautious looks Rachel gave her every now and then, usually after Aggie’s name was mentioned. The looks said she was taking Griffin’s interest in her with a grain of salt. It was almost as if she was waiting for Griffin to get bored and decide to move on. Griffin didn’t want to kiss and tell, but she found simply having a conversation with Rachel infinitely more enjoyable than the forty-five minutes of frenetic groping she’d spent with Aggie. And when they did more than talk, their chemistry was so powerful Griffin wished she could bottle it and sell it. She’d be a multimillionaire in no time flat.

When she got back to her apartment, she gave Rachel a call so they could pick up where they’d left off.

“Are you in bed?” she asked as she sifted through her CD collection.

“Yes.”

“What are you wearing?”

“My birthday suit,” Rachel said with an amused chuckle that indicated she was probably joking.

Griffin, on the other hand, was dead serious.

“Happy birthday to me.” As she turned on the sound system, she pictured Rachel lying on her side, her curvaceous body moving lazily under the covers. “Are your sheets flannel or silk?”

“I’m an accountant. What do you think?”

“Whatever they are, throw them off.”

“It’s the middle of winter. What do you want me to do, freeze my ass off?”

“If you close your eyes, you can feel me lying beside you.” Griffin closed her own eyes as Melody Gardot’s seductive voice wafted through the air. “You can feel me keeping you warm. I’m right behind you, Rachel. My arm is around your waist. My breasts are on your back. My leg is between yours. Can you feel me?”

“What are you doing?” Rachel asked quizzically.

“What I promised to do.” Griffin kicked off her shoes and headed to her bedroom. “Wooing you with my mind, not my body. I’m going to make you come without even laying a hand on you.” She undressed and crawled into bed. “Are you ready?”

Rachel took a moment to answer. When she finally spoke, her voice was several octaves lower. “Yes.”

“Then throw the covers off.”

Griffin heard the rustle of sheets through the phone.

“Okay,” Rachel said, a hint of excitement creeping into her voice. “Now what?”

Griffin slowly trailed a hand across her stomach. “Now we get to have some fun.”

“How much fun?”

“As much as you want.” She stopped stimulating herself so she could concentrate on stimulating Rachel. “This is your symphony. I’m simply the conductor. Where are my hands?”

“On my breasts.”

“Like they were earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Like they are now?”

“Yes.”

“I’m cupping your breasts in my hands and rolling your nipples between my fingers.” Griffin could tell by Rachel’s breathing that she was mimicking the act she had just described. “How does it feel?”

“Incredible.”

“Do you want more pressure or less?”

“More.”

“Do you want me to pinch your nipples?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to lick them?”

Rachel gasped and said, “God, yes.”

“Your nipples are so hard they could cut glass, Rachel. Can you feel my tongue on them?”

“Yes.”

“Can you—”

“Wait,” Rachel said in an urgent whisper. “I want to touch you, too.”

“Not yet. Let me please you first.”

“I want to taste you, Griffin.”

Just the thought of feeling Rachel’s tongue on her was nearly enough to get Griffin off. “You will. Until then, tell me where you want me.”

“Inside me.”

“One finger or two?”

“Two.”

“Take my hand. Guide me in,” Griffin said, wanting Rachel to tell her what she was doing so she could add it to the collection of images in her mind.

“I’ve got you. Do you feel my fingers curled around your wrist, leading you past my stomach, over my mound, and between my legs?”

“Yes. Can you feel my fingers on your clit?”

“Yes,” Rachel hissed.

“Can you feel me stroking you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Can you feel my fingers inside you?”

“Yes. Fuck, Griffin, I’m so close.”

“Then come for me.”

Griffin listened to Rachel’s moans increase in intensity and volume. She imagined her with her head thrown back and her mouth open wide in a silent scream of ecstasy. She imagined Rachel’s fingers moving in and out, her hand pistoning faster and faster as she crept closer and closer to the edge.

“Griffin?” Rachel asked, her voice reaching out to her in the darkness.

“I’m still here, Rachel. Come for me.”

Griffin heard her cry out as she went over the side. And she was there to catch her when she fell. Then Rachel did the same for her.

Afterward, Rachel was quiet for so long Griffin thought she had fallen asleep. Finally, Rachel gave voice to the desire that was running through her mind as well.

“I want to do that again.”

“We will.”

“When?”

Griffin smiled, enjoying the give and take. Why couldn’t the later stages of a relationship be like the early ones? “How does next Sunday sound?”

“Like it can’t come soon enough.”

*

At work the next day, Rachel couldn’t stop smiling. Even the deadly dull weekly staff meeting hadn’t been able to temper her excitement. When was the last time she had been this happy? Had she ever been this happy? She doubted it. As she waited for her English muffin to brown in the toaster oven, she found herself whistling the song that had been playing in the background when Griffin called her last night. She still couldn’t believe what had happened. Even now, it seemed more fantasy than reality.

“You got some last night, didn’t you?”

Rachel nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Etta! I’d expect a question like that from Mike, but not from you.”

She placed her English muffin on a paper plate, squirted a thin line of honey on each half, then grabbed a bottle of orange juice and headed to her desk.

Stirring cream into her coffee with a swizzle stick, Etta followed Rachel out of the break room. “I’ve been married long enough to be able to ask anybody anything. Now did you get some or not?”

“Not.”

“Trust me,” Etta said, continuing to press for details. “I know when someone is getting done right. And you, girlfriend, are keeping the neighbors up at night.”

Rachel spun around in her desk chair. “I feel like I’m in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. Who are you and what have you done with my friend?”

Etta started to say something else, but the Bluetooth in her ear beeped before she could. She spoke into the receiver then ended the call. “Saved by the bell. Your ten o’clock is here.”

Rachel wolfed down her mid-morning snack, washed it down with the orange juice, and prepared to meet with her client. A musician whose performances were held not at Carnegie Hall or Madison Square Garden but on subway platforms throughout the city, he had recently received a notice from the I.R.S. that he was being audited.

Accountants hated audits as much as their clients did. It meant their work was being called into question. Rachel had reviewed the flagged return that morning and she felt confident there were no addition or filing errors. The issue as she saw it was the fact that, though her client earned just north of thirty thousand dollars a year, he lived in a seven-figure apartment on Central Park West. His father paid his rent and most of his bills, though he didn’t want those facts advertised or reported.

While Junior was out busking, Senior used the apartment to entertain his mistress(es). Junior lived there rent free in exchange for keeping Dad’s trysts a secret from Mom. Dear old Dad was going to have to come clean unless he wanted to spend the next three to five years talking to his son through a Plexiglass window.

As Rachel headed to the conference room, though, her client meeting was the last thing on her mind. She was wondering what Etta would say if she knew how close she had come to the truth. And she was counting the minutes until she saw Griffin on Sunday.

She smiled to herself. Why wait when a phone call was just as good?

Griffin was ready for their next adventure. Their previous outing had been heartwarming. She had invited Rachel’s mother—a hoot if there ever was one—to tag along with her and Rachel as they spent the afternoon of Rachel’s birthday filling up on pub grub at Cock of the Walk, the restaurant local British ex-pats swore was just as good as if not better than the pubs back home. After lunch, they had watched Helen Mirren light up Broadway in a matinee performance of
The Tempest
. Rachel’s mother had called it a day after that, leaving Griffin and Rachel free to wander the streets of Times Square, the once-gritty area that had been given a Disney-style makeover to become New York’s latest family-friendly tourist attraction. Griffin liked some of the improvements, but she missed the good old days when the city had more of an edge.

What would today bring?

She and Rachel got off the train in Yorkville, the Upper East Side burg that had also been tamed into submission.

“At one time,” Rachel said, sounding like a tour guide, “this area was a middle- to working-class neighborhood occupied by people with Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, German, and Irish backgrounds. A few of the longtime residents still live here, but most of the businesses they owned have disappeared. Only a few holdouts remain.”

Turning onto Second Avenue, they headed for one of them.

The Heidelberg Restaurant billed itself as Manhattan’s favorite beer garden. When she and Rachel walked through the door, Griffin saw smiling waitresses in traditional German outfits carrying trays laden with glass boots filled with beer. Red-and-white checked cloths covered the tables. Most of the patrons’ eyes were focused on the soccer match playing on the tiny TV in a corner.