Winter Jacket: Finding Home (25 page)

I pulled my room key out of my clutch purse. It was an actual key on a plastic key ring, not a card. It promptly fell out of my hand and collided with the worn floorboards. I took a deep, steadying breath as I bent to retrieve the key. The night was crisp, and the blast of cool air that reached me was welcomed and sobering. I hadn’t had so much to drink to dismiss the knowledge that this was a bad idea. But I’d had just enough not to care. I tried the key again, this time with success, and unlocked the door.

Moonlight streamed through the thin white curtains, providing just enough light that I wouldn’t have to turn on a lamp and risk breaking the moment we had worked our up way to. Her dress zipped down the center of her back. I slowly lowered it, each tooth reluctantly relinquishing its hold until I reached the small of her back and the end of the zipper. I peeled away the edges of her dress and exposed even more of her pale, flawless back. I pressed my mouth against her gently curving shoulder blade. While my lips kept busy, my hands rounded her hips and inched up the skirt of her dress. More and more of her nylon-free thighs came into view.

I wanted to be patient, but my willpower momentarily wavered. Beneath the bunched skirt of her dress, I slipped my hand down the front of her underwear and sought out her clit with the tip of my middle finger. My hand ran over downy soft hair, closely cropped, and dipped between even softer folds. I could feel the early signs of her arousal against my fingertips, and when I heard the change in her breathing, I pulled my hand away.

Her hand reached for my face. Long, feminine fingers twisted around the hair that had fallen out of my updo, and she cradled one side of my face in her palm.

It felt like love. I pushed down the sob that bubbled up my throat.

I pressed my mouth to her fragrant skin where the elegant stretch of her neck met shoulder and moved my hands down the smooth roundness of her bare shoulders to slip the capped sleeves of her dress off her arms. With no zipper or straps holding up her dress, I was able to shimmy the gown past her hips until gravity finished the job and the garment pooled at her ankles. She stepped out of the dress, looking radiant in a simple nude strapless bra and a high-cut thong.

Mindful of the elegant dress, I retrieved it from the ground and laid it across the top of the wooden bureau. While I took care of her gown, she busied herself with the task of removing my dress. Confident, capable hands found the hidden side-zipper of my strapless dress and began to work it down, careful not to let the material get caught in the retreating zipper.

I turned into her touch and cupped her face in both hands to pull her in for another kiss. My lips moved over her slightly parted mouth, and I shuddered when the tip of her tongue darted into my mouth.

When my zipper had been dealt with, I stepped out of my dress as it fell away and stood before her in only my own strapless bra and underwear. Her hands reached for the back fastening on my bra, but I set my hands on her wrists to stop her. I knew she was just as impatient as I was, but we were going to do this my way.

I guided her onto the mattress with a hand cradling the back of her head as she gracefully fell onto the bed. Before she could get acclimated to the new position, I crawled onto the bed above her. I kissed the tip of her nose and pressed equally soft, butterfly kisses across the sweep of her cheekbone.

Her creamy pale skin glowed beneath the moonlight. I didn’t want the sun to ever come up. I kissed and licked and nibbled every bend and curve and hollow. I mapped my hands over her familiar curves, relearning her body and committing it to memory.

“Please,” she whispered. I didn’t know what she was asking for, but I would gladly give her all I had.

She sat up so I could deal with the bra clasp in the center of her back. Without the metal fasten, the nude strapless relaxed against her skin and she peeled it away, rendering her naked from the waist up.

I took my time worshipping her newly exposed breasts. They were soft and perfumed like the rest of her. I stroked the underside of each breast before running my thumbs over her dusky rose nipples, coaxing them to full attention. I bent my head closer and flicked my tongue against hardened nubs. I took each into my mouth and scraped my teeth against the tender buds until she whimpered.

My hands moved from her breasts to her hips where Hunter wasted no time in lifting her backside off the mattress so I could hook my fingers beneath the elastic waistband of her underwear and slide them off her legs. She remained seated with her back against the headboard while I settled on my knees between her parted thighs.

I kissed my way up the insides of her legs, starting at her knees, leaving a wet trail in my wake. I breathed in her familiar scent, and we both groaned when I finally tasted her appreciation for my attentions between her thighs. Her fingers went to the back of my head and the dozens of bobby pins that held my hair together dug into the back of my scalp. But I’d come this far. There was no way I was going to stop.

The soft plane of her stomach flexed and twitched as my mouth traveled achingly closer to the spot we both needed me to be. I pressed gentle kisses to her outer lips and fluttered my tongue against her clit, grinning into her thighs when her hips jerked off the mattress.

I swirled the sensitive nub in tight circles before moving lower and licking along her slit, exploring each fold with the length of my tongue. I searched for the spots that I knew would make her sigh and tremble and gasp for more.

I heard the sharp intake of air as my tongue entered her velvety sex. I stroked in and out of her slick channel, swirling the tip of my tongue against her opening each time I pushed inside. Her hips jerked off the mattress to meet my mouth and the steady rhythm I had set.

“Come here,” she urged in a voice verging on breathless. She pulled me up to share a kiss with the taste of her arousal still heavy on my tongue. I wedged my thigh between her legs and pressed into her. I could feel her wetness, and it made me lean into her harder.

Her hands fumbled at the center of my back as she blindly worked to unfasten my strapless bra. After a few attempts she succeeded in loosening the eyelets from their hooks, and my bra fell free to be tossed out of the way and onto the floor.

She broke off our kiss to wrap her lips around my aching nipples. I held myself up by my forearms above her while she nipped and bit and sucked at my breasts. Firm hands at my hips had us switching positions and before I could utter a single syllable of complaint, she straddled my hips and ground her naked sex into me. We shared a groan when our centers met and hardened nipples brushed against the other’s flesh.

Her palm pressed against the center of my chest and she pushed me onto my back. I continued to reach for her, not satisfied with my brief turn, until she grabbed my wrists and pinned them at my sides.

“No touching,” she husked into my ear. “It’s my turn.”

I reached my arms over my head and clenched onto the brass spindles of the headboard as Hunter slowly worked her way down my nearly naked body. She teased me with polished fingernails trailing down my twitching thighs. Her fingers hooked under the waistband of my underwear, the last piece of clothing that remained, and she slowly pulled them down my legs.

She pressed her palms against the tender inner flesh of my thighs, forcing my legs to bend open for her. She leaned her head close and breathed warm, wet air against my waiting sex. I groaned loudly at the first touch of her tongue against my clit. She fluttered lightly against the sensitive nub, and I arched into the gentle touch. Her tongue was warm and soft and wet, and the barely-there touch had me moaning for more. Her tongue flattened and she licked the full length of my slit, avoiding my clit on each successive pass.

Just when I thought I might break from the teasing, she drew my clit into her mouth and suckled me, achingly slow and tender. I threw my head back and clawed at the fitted sheets.

“More,” I openly begged. “I need your fingers.”

My legs were thrown over her shoulders so my heels touched against her lower back. She trailed the tips of her fingers through my folds, collecting my arousal. First one finger and then a second. My breath hitched in my throat at the delicious stretch.

I lifted my backside off the bed and thrust myself harder against her mouth and fingers. She grunted at my impatience, but lapped harder at my clit instead of stopping. Her lips locked around my clit and she tugged. My stomach tightened and clenched with an impending orgasm.

“So close, baby,” I unabashedly whimpered. My intense need for her had me shedding the guarded walls I’d put up to keep from feeling too much.

My words had her redoubling her efforts. Her knuckles bumped roughly against my pelvic bone. I knew I’d be feeling her in the morning.

I gripped onto the back of her head. “So good,” I cried. “So fucking good.”

Her fingers curled inside me and a strangled cry stumbled out. I felt a flood between my thighs, warm and wet. “Fuck, I’m cumming, Hunter. I’m cumming.”

As my orgasm crested, she kissed my inner thighs and gently tongued my clit. When my hips had stopped rolling and the expletives and celestial praises no longer fell from my gasping mouth, she crawled up the bed to lie beside me. I rearranged the sheets so both our naked forms were beneath the covers. She lay with her head on my breast, and I stared up at the ceiling with one arm propped beneath my head like a pillow.  

In the morning I knew we’d have to talk about what had happened and what it meant for us. But for now I was content to just exist in this space with her and ignore reality for a few more hours.

+ + +

The shower turned on in the adjoining bathroom. I rolled over, head pounding from another morning after. My liver would need some time to recover from the past two days. I hefted myself up in bed on one elbow and drank greedily from a glass of water I found on the bedside table.

Early morning California sunshine invaded the room around closed curtains. Across the room I spied my dress thrown over the back of a chair. Hunter’s dress was laid out on top of the wardrobe and our shoes and undergarments from the previous night were strewn across the floor. I flopped back onto my pillow and closed my eyes. My sinuses were clogged and my stomach churned uncomfortably, but the delicious ache between my thighs helped me dismiss the severity of my hangover.

In the adjoining bathroom the shower turned off, and I heard the sound of a plastic shower curtain being thrown back. I pictured a naked Hunter in my mind, her hair wet from the shower and droplets of water dripping off her bare skin as she stepped onto the shower mat. I was tempted to leap from bed and offer to help towel her dry, but I didn’t want to smother her.

A few moments later, she emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair and head. She paused in the bathroom doorway when she saw me sitting up in bed.

“Oh hey, you’re awake.” She smiled, too tightly and looking apologetic. “I tried to be quiet so you could keep sleeping.”

“It’s okay. I’m good. Did you sleep okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “When I woke up I nearly forgot where I was.”

She tiptoed around the room and picked up her discarded underwear. I watched her with a frown as she pulled her underwear back on but kept her towel wrapped tight around her torso as if she no longer wanted me to see her naked body.

“I thought we could have a late brunch in town, and maybe do some sight-seeing. We could take a road trip down the coast; there’s an amazing aquarium in Monterey that I’m sure has plenty of cuttlefish for you. And the town is amazing; it’s like being a character in a John Steinbeck novel.” I clamped my mouth shut. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling aren’t I? And I’m probably overwhelming you with all these plans, and you haven’t even had coffee yet.”

Hunter pulled the towel from her head and gave her damp hair a brisk rub. “My flight is this afternoon.”

My stomach dropped. “You can’t you push it back?”

“I really shouldn’t.”

“I can pay the penalty fees,” I offered.

“Money’s not the issue, Elle. We are.”

I scrunched up my face. “But I thought—”

“Nothing has changed,” Hunter cut me off. “We’re still two people living separate lives in different parts of the country. I never meant for us to …” She sighed and trailed off. “It was selfish of me to even come out here for the wedding.”

“Troi and Nik are your friends, too. You shouldn’t have to avoid them because of me.” The words tumbled out without thought or emotion. I was running on autopilot.

Hunter dropped the final towel and covered her breasts from view as she stepped back into the dress she’d worn the previous night. She struggled with the zipper at the back of her dress that I had so efficiently dealt with the previous night. I still had two very capable hands, but she was being too stubborn and too proud to ask for my help. I would have done the same thing. In her place, I would have rather made my walk of shame down the hotel corridor naked, rather than ask for help.

“Can I at least give you a ride to the airport?”

She pulled on one strappy heel and then the second. “I’ve got a rental car I have to return to the airport.”

There was nothing else I could do or say to make her linger longer in this fantasy. The moment she left these four walls, we’d go back to being overly polite strangers. I pulled the sheets over my head and burrowed into the pillows to avoid having to watch her leave, but the bed smelled like her, making my torture complete.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I was like a zombie in the days after the wedding. Troian and Nik were on their honeymoon so at least I didn’t have to worry about bumming them out. There was a park in my neighborhood I frequented when trips to the ocean weren’t practical. It wasn’t a very large green space, but there were enough trees and grass to suit my purposes. I poured my heart out to my journal, something I hadn’t taken the time to do in years. I would sit on the lawn with a notebook and write for hours until my brain ran out of words. Some people work out, some people drink to forget, but I wrote until I had exhausted my brain and had become too fatigued to dwell on all the bad relationship choices I’d made that had gotten me to this place.

I observed couples with dogs and baby strollers and wrote about their perfect lives. Mothers who tried to have it all ran through the park in brightly colored neon outfits while small children with boundless energy ran behind them. Elderly men shuffled along with well-groomed dogs whose hair cuts probably cost more than my own. Attractive parades of joggers ran by while others sat in the park with their laptops, no doubt working on spec scripts that might one day get them the job that I no longer wanted. My episode—number thirteen of season one—was nearly complete, but I’d run out of inspiration and motivation to finish the last round of edits. If script writing was a marathon, I was stumbling on the final steps before I crossed the finish line.

Despite my writer’s block, the first half of the show’s season ended with continued rave reviews. We had been so successful in Season A among our demographic and with the media that the network had ordered a complete second season so we could continue to write and shoot without interruption.

In early December, the network threw us a big, fancy party not long after it had been announced that we’d been renewed for a second season. The celebration was being held on the top floor of an art deco hotel, which offered uninterrupted vistas of the Los Angeles skyline. Everyone, including myself, had dressed for the occasion in tuxedos and evening gowns. Waitstaff in crisp white suits maneuvered around the conversing groups holding silver platters crowded with flutes of bubbling champagne.

From the size of the event it looked like the network had been expecting the show to be a hit all along and had been planning the party for months. Nothing about the spread or the venue or the guest list looked like it had been thrown together last minute. I wasn’t feeling much like celebrating these days, and I continued to owe Troian the final draft of my script, but I went to the party anyway, if only for the free food and alcohol.

I raised my champagne glass to my friend. “Congratulations on getting a second season.”

Troian clinked her glassware into mine. “Thanks. Congratulations to you, too.”

It was my first time seeing Troian since the night of their wedding. We hadn’t been in communication because Nikole had confiscated her phone for the duration of their honeymoon. It hadn’t been a full-blown vacation because Troian couldn’t be away from the production lot for that long, but there would be time for an extended trip when the show went on hiatus in April.

“How was the honeymoon?” I asked.

“How do you think it was?” she said, arching an eyebrow.

“I’m not asking for details. An answer of ‘fine’ or ‘good’ or ‘great’ will suffice.”

“It was great, thanks for asking.”

“Speaking of your better half, is Nik coming tonight? Or did she wiggle out of attending yet another work party?”

“She’ll be here soon,” Troian said. “She had a late meeting with a client.”

“You two are a match made in heaven—both work-a-holics.”

“Year one has been killer for both of us,” Troian confirmed. “Me with the show and her re-establishing her business. But things will slow down for us now that we’ve got a season two.”

“I bet you’re looking forward to hiatus,” I remarked.

“I am, but I need your edits first.”

I frowned at the mention of my unfinished episode. “I know,” I said guiltily. “My Muse has been stubborn lately.”

Despite throwing myself into work, and spending upwards to fourteen hours a day on set, I had fallen behind on my episode. It wasn’t like me; I had never been a procrastinator or one to miss due dates. At first Troian had allowed me extended deadlines and made excuses for me to the director and to the other network producers, but she wouldn’t be able to protect me forever.

“Jackson’s breathing down my neck to get the finalized shooting script.”

“I can’t force it,” I resisted. “That’s not how I work.” Nearly every night I’d been pouring my heart out to my journal, writing pages upon pages until I exhausted my brain, but I hadn’t been able to turn any of those words into anything for my episode.

“I know you’ve been having a tough couple of weeks, but I need you to suck it up and finish that episode.”

I snorted into my champagne flute. She didn’t know the half of it. I hadn’t told her about Hunter and I hooking up the night of her wedding. There was no need to dig up that memory, and I already knew Troian’s lecture by heart.

“If we don’t know how that episode ends,” she continued. “Aviva can’t finish her episode either and then Edward won’t be able to do his, and then Guillen, and then Gloria.”

“I know how this works,” I frowned. “Everything bottlenecks. I’m holding up the show.”

Troian’s phone buzzed in her clutch, interrupting our conversation. “That’s probably Nik,” she said, digging around in her purse for the phone. “She said she’d call when she was on her way.”

“Go ahead and take the call,” I mumbled. “I’m used to being abandoned by now.”

Troian made no response; she was already on her phone and hadn’t heard my words. While she presumably talked to her wife, I grabbed two champagne glasses from the closest server. I drained the first one quickly and took my time with the second.

I wandered around the ballroom on my own without a word to my friend. I spotted Edward and Aviva and some other cast and crew, but I didn’t stop to talk. It was turning out to be the kind of night where I wanted to lose myself to melancholy feelings and be on my own where I wouldn’t be expected to make eye contact or hold a conversation with anyone but myself.

A twelve-piece orchestra set on an elevated stage began to play classical music and some people coupled up and began to waltz around the ballroom. I observed the dancing from a safe distance; it felt like I’d slipped into a time warp that had me back in the early decades of the 1900’s.

I finished off the remainder of my drink—my third in a relatively short amount of time—and grabbed a fourth to take outside with me. I found the doorway that led to a small, rooftop terrace. I breathed out a sigh of relief to discover myself alone. It was cold that night for Los Angeles, so everyone else enjoyed the warmth of the ballroom.

It was a clear, cool evening and the pale moon hung in a starless sky. I absently rubbed at my bare arms as I took in the view. My dress was sleeveless and my jacket was with the coat check, but I was from the upper Midwest and the multiple glasses of champagne had warmed my blood.

In Minnesota, the weather would already have taken a turn for the worst. Sweaters and scarves and knee-high leather boots had been replaced with knit hats and puffy jackets, mittens and snow boots. The change in season inevitably reminded me of Hunter and her resilient stubbornness to keep her jacket on during class. At least no one in Los Angeles ever had need of a winter jacket. I didn’t need that extra incentive to have her on my mind.

I was spending a lot of time lately on balconies these days. The view from the balcony at my apartment was far from picturesque and sirens seemed to howl non-stop, but it was better than adjusting to the quiet found within my apartment walls. My eyes began to sting with the first signs of tears. But before I could completely lose myself to the sadness, I heard a voice behind me.