The Tchaikovsky Affair (6 page)

Shannon
released Jackie’s hands and sank to her knees, continuing to place wet kisses over Jackie’s stomach. Her hands now free, Jackie wrapped her right hand in Shannon’s hair, trying to push her lower.

Shannon
chuckled. “You want me to go lower, huh?”

“Yes, please,”
Jackie moaned.

“Ok
ay then,” Shannon smirked and sat back on her heels. She kissed the inside of Jackie’s knee and licked her way up to the middle of Jackie’s thigh. Jackie groaned when she realized she was about to be paid back from her teasing earlier. Shannon moved her mouth slowly upwards stopping close to the juncture between Jackie’s leg and pelvis.

“
Shannon, please!” In response, Shannon bit down on the flesh of Jackie’s thigh, smiling into her skin as Jackie groaned loudly and pulled at Shannon’s hair.

As
Shannon started to place light kisses just above Jackie’s soft curls, she reached up to palm Jackie’s breasts. Ever so lightly, she dipped her tongue into Jackie’s folds. Jackie hissed in pleasure and anticipation, continuing to rub and pull at Shannon’s hair, futilely hoping it would end the torture. Shannon continued by swirling her tongue around Jackie’s oversensitive nub, hardly applying any pressure. Jackie’s hips bucked almost involuntarily, desperately trying to increase the pressure.

Shannon
laughed and shook her head, pulling her arms down, placing them squarely on Jackie’s hips and pushing them back against the wall.

Keeping one hand against
Jackie’s hips, Shannon used her other to run a finger along Jackie’s slit.

“So fucking wet,” she whispered hungrily.

“Please!” Jackie whimpered again. Without any notice, Shannon unceremoniously plunged two fingers deep within Jackie, making the taller woman cry out in a wonderful mix of pleasure and pain. Shannon established a rhythm, curling her fingers inward slightly, before plunging back in again. As Jackie’s breathing became shallower, Shannon wrapped her lips around Jackie’s clit, swirling her tongue and sucking gently.

Moments
later Jackie’s orgasm hit her in waves, her walls convulsing around Shannon’s still pumping fingers, as she cried out Shannon’s name. Jackie’s legs suddenly gave out and she slowly sank to the floor using Shannon and the wall to support her. She eventually fell onto her knees, Shannon’s fingers still buried in her. Shannon used her free hand to brush a few stray hairs out of Jackie’s eyes and placed several gentle kisses along her sweaty brow.

Neither said anything as
Jackie caught her breath. Eventually Shannon removed her fingers and Jackie moaned, kissing Shannon deeply in gratitude.

“
Mmmm your fingers are so talented in so many ways,” Jackie murmured and Shannon giggled. Jackie absentmindedly traced circles over Shannon’s thigh, conjuring up Shannon’s arousal again.

“You have no idea what you do to me,”
Shannon whispered. At these words, Jackie’s head shot up. Shannon used this moment to her advantage and took her still wet fingers into her mouth, licking them completely clean of Jackie’s juices.

At this sight,
Jackie regained her strength completely. Standing quickly on barely sturdy legs, she swept a giggling Shannon into her arms, before carrying her to the bedroom for rounds three and four.

Six

Once again Shannon awoke in a bed with a conspicuously empty left side. This time, though, her nose let her know exactly where Jackie had gone. She sat up in bed, sighing contentedly and stretching her arms behind her back. She spied a pair of Jackie’s short and one of her Oberlin sweatshirts folded neatly on the corner of the bed and grinned at Jackie’s thoughtfulness. Shrugging the loose clothing on, she reveled in Jackie’s unique scent for a moment, before walking through the doors to the living room. Rounding the corner to the kitchen, she smiled at the sight before her. Jackie was clad in a similar attire as Shannon’s, humming and dancing slightly as she expertly flipped a pancake. Once Jackie had put the pan back on the stove, Shannon closed the gap between them and wrapped her arms around the taller woman’s waist, placing a kiss on her shoulder blade. Immediately Jackie gasped and jumped slightly.

“Jesus!”
Jackie exclaimed. “I could have burned myself!”

Shannon
laughed and rolled her eyes as Jackie turned to face her. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she murmured, before capturing Jackie’s lips in a gentle, but sensuous kiss.

“
Mmmm, good morning,” Jackie mumbled, pulling away from their kiss. “Now, go, sit while I make you breakfast!” Shannon practically scampered off to the living room.

Jackie
smiled as she turned back to her task. She had to admit she had been nervous for this morning. She didn’t see Shannon as a one-night stand and desperately didn’t want her to regret their night. Thought she was fairly certain that Shannon felt the same way, she was hoping that a home-made breakfast would clinch the deal. She was fairly positive that the combination of her cello playing and chocolate-chip, banana pancakes made most of her romantic conquests putty in her hands. Although, Shannon was not like the rest.

Jackie
neatly stacked three pancakes on a plate and grabbed two forks out of the drawer. She bumped her hip against the silverware drawer to shut it, before walking into the living room, humming her part of the duet.

“
Shannon?” Jackie called, when she realized the blonde wasn’t in the living room like she thought.

“Up here!” came
Shannon’s voice from the lofted balcony.

Jackie
cocked her head as she watched Shannon take a few CDs from her bookshelf collection and frown. She took the stairs two by two, anxious to see what Shannon had uncovered.

“What are you doing?” she asked, when she saw that
Shannon had taken out most of her CDs and rearranged them on the floor in different piles.

“I’m figuring you out. You can tell a lot by someone’s CD collection.”

Jackie cocked and eyebrow and set the plate of pancakes down on the floor. “And what have you discovered about me?”

“Well, you have a wide variety of musical styles here, which shows you have an open mind. You have a fantastic and varied jazz collection, showing both your sensitive and sensuous side. The alternative rock and pop music you have is fun and shows you can appreciate different music forms. There’s a large abundance of musical theater, which I won’t judge you for, considering your impeccable taste in and impressive range of classical music, for lack of a better label. Your Salsa and Merengue CDs prove that you’re still connected to and proud of your Latin roots. And I’m hoping that it means you’re also a good dancer.”
Shannon paused her speech to wink at Jackie, before gesturing to a third pile. “You have approximately ten versions of Bach’s Cello Suites and eight Yo-Yo Ma albums, a wholly unnecessary amount of his CDs for anyone to have, cellist or no cellist, so I’m assuming that they were given to you by friends and family members who either don’t know much about music or thought it would be a funny gag gift. And it’s nice to know you have friends outside the music world – it means you’re well grounded.”

“How do you know I don’t just love the Bach Cello Suites?”

“I’m going to venture a guess that you’ve played all six of them at least 100 times in your lifetime and are completely sick of them. Plus, considering four of these CDs still have the plastic wrapping on them, I don’t think you listen to them very much, do you?”

Jackie
laughed and shook her head. “Good sleuthing there, McClintock. Now come on, let’s eat. I slaved away over the hot stove all morning and you need to appreciate the fruits of my labor.”

“Not quite yet. There’s one more pile that I just can’t quite understand. I’m going to hope that it is your guilty pleasures collection.”

Jackie balked playfully. “I believe that if it’s a pleasure, by definition you can’t be guilty for it.”

Shannon
smirked and held up Ricky Martin’s original self-titled album. “Ricky Martin?”

“Hey, just minutes ago you were praising my continued connection to my Latin roots!”

“Fine. Metallica?”

“Great for working out when angry.”

“Every Spice Girls album ever made, including the Greatest Hits CD?”

“Oh come on! The Spice Girls are classic! And fun! Haven’t you ever had a girl’s night where you discover that you all still know every word?”

Shannon laughed in acknowledgment. “Yeah I’ve had my fair share of those nights. Okay, last one. Barry Manilow?”

“Okay, I might be a little guilty about that one,”
Jackie conceded.

“Okay, good! Now we can eat!”

“You’re not going to put my CDs back in the careful order you found them?”

Shannon
snorted, knowing that her categorization was the only order Jackie’s music had ever seen. “Later. Right now, I want to try this delicacy you slaved over.” Shannon winked again and as Jackie’s heart fluttered, she began to believe that winking was her new favorite method of flirtation.

Scooping up a forkful of fluffy syrup-laden pancakes,
Jackie brought the fork up to Shannon’s lips. After taking in the amazing aroma, Shannon opened her mouth and gently slid the morsel off the fork, her eyes fluttering upwards in pleasure as she did so.

“Oh my God,
Jackie, these are amazing!”

Shannon
immediately picked up the spare fork, so that she could take bites much faster than Jackie was allowing. The two picked up a playful banter while they ate, both enjoying having nothing to worry about except the odd dribble of syrup.

When they finished a few short minutes later,
Shannon asked quickly, “So, can you make these for me every morning?” Intending her words to be a compliment, rather than a forecast for the future, her eyes widened and she began to backtrack. “I just…I meant that I could eat these every morning…not that you had to be there every morning to make them for me. They’re just…”

Jackie
half wanted to let her continue, but her rant combined with the adorable blush creeping into her cheeks was too much to handle. Jackie leaned forward and kissed the blonde deeply, but not before licking a drop of syrup off the corner of her mouth.

“I think that can be arranged.”

They both let the weight of those words settle on them, neither particularly bothered by the implication, which came as a surprise to both of them.

Shannon
drew in a ragged breath, still in disbelief over the power the brunette held over her. She cleared her throat and said, “So we should really practice now, since we completely neglected it last night.”

“And whose fault was that?”

“Yours!” Shannon exclaimed.

“I was innocently washing the dishes. You started it!”

“Yes, but it’s your fault, because you’re too damn sexy.” Despite the decidedly brazen nature of the night before, Shannon’s flippant comment in the light of day made Jackie blush like a teenager.

With a self-satisfied smirk,
Shannon picked up their discarded plate and headed down the staircase. After loading it in the dishwasher, Shannon joined Jackie in the living room, where they silently prepared their instruments to play, smiling at each other every few moments. Jackie couldn’t think of anything more wonderful than waking up late after a night of ridiculously hot sex to a morning of lazy banter, delicious pancakes, and a laidback rehearsal. It seemed the sentiment was entirely mutual.

The two played intermittently for the rest of their Saturday, stopping only to gently correct each other and eat. There might have been some making out thrown in there, too.

*
              *              *

When Maestro Gallo discovered the progress they had made over the weekend at rehearsal on Monday, he exclaimed “YES! Now
that
is magic!” When he witnessed the way they played off of one another, completely in sync with the other and able to anticipate each other’s every move, he strode over to each of them and kissed them squarely on the lips. He then cancelled their rehearsals for the next two weeks and ordered them not to change anything that they were doing to make this duet work so well. They didn’t think that would be too much of a problem.

Those next two weeks flew by and
Jackie and Shannon both found themselves spending every moment they could together, firmly ensconced in the “can’t keep your hands off each other” stage of a relationship. Jackie stayed at Shannon’s place six nights out of every seven…for convenience’s sake, of course.

For
Jackie, the pace of their relationship was typical of that of most of her other relationships. She had entered into many passionate, but brief flings, which usually left her somewhat devastated, yet here she was beginning the vicious cycle all over again and loving every minute, blissfully ignoring what the future could potentially hold.

Shannon
knew that if she took the time to step back and realize what she was doing, she would likely flee out of fear of damaging the careful walls she had constructed to protect her career, and, if she was honest, her heart. But she didn’t step back, because in this moment her heart felt wonderful and evidently, her career was being enhanced rather than damaged by her connection to Jackie.