Life Rewired (Aspen Friends, Book 3) (32 page)

“Now that’s laughable. We barely talk, and other than trying to pick up some of the tourists I dated, she never had much to say to me.”

My eyes popped for a moment. Like a trained response instilled by my ex-girlfriend, jealousy flared for a second. My first assessment of Molly as a striking butch was spot on. She had a body that all lesbians would find attractive and her confidence was such a turn on. I knew she’d been with a number of women. What surprised me was the knee-jerk flare of jealousy died when I noticed the light and intensity in her eyes. Molly was completely into me. I’d never been with anyone who was this into me. I didn’t think it was possible. Jealousy would never be an issue with us.

“What?” Molly asked, concerned at the changing expressions on my face. “Oh, sorry, that was a little insensitive.” Her hand skated up to lay over my heart in a gesture that gave away a lot of her feelings.

“Nah,” I assured her, placing my hand over hers to keep it in place. I wanted her to know I accepted her feelings and returned the same.

“Yeah. I don’t want to think about your exes.”

I smiled wide. A girlfriend who was as into me as I was into her. What a novelty. One I wouldn’t give up anytime soon, if ever. Warmth spread through me. That was it, wasn’t it? This woman, whom I never would have guessed I’d be interested in, was someone I now realized I could spend my life with. A life that wasn’t even my own just a few months ago.

Six Weeks Later

A sound woke me. I routinely slept like the dead. It didn’t matter if I was in a bed, a tent, or my car. Almost nothing woke me up.

I blinked into the darkness. It took a second to get my bearings and check the time. Early morning, very early, way too early for me to be awake. I listened for the sound again but didn’t hear it. What I did notice was Falyn’s warmth behind me, her hand loosely placed on my bare stomach. I felt her body heat seep into my heart, smiling at how good it felt to have a woman spoon me. I was always the spooner. I had to admit I liked being spooned. And the cats were pretty good cuddlers, too.

I shifted onto my back to get a better look at her. Her hand slid to my hip, the fingers I worshiped gripping and ungripping like she was kneading my flesh. I checked her face and noted she was frowning in her sleep. A distressed moan slipped from her lips, then another. Her leg bumped mine, fingers gripping again. This must have been what woke me.

“Falyn,” I whispered and gently shook her shoulder.

She moaned louder and started hyperventilating. She seemed to be having a hell of a bad dream.

“Falyn, honey, wake up.”

She woke with a start, eyes wary, hand latching onto my wrist. It took a second before she exhaled in a full body tremble and slid into my arms. “Mmm, you feel all warm and snuggly.”

“You were having a bad dream.”

Her head nodded against my shoulder. She ran her hand down my arm, fingering every ridge and plane. God, even this innocent touch aroused me. No one else had been able to do this to me. I always concentrated more on doing the touching, but with Falyn I got to experience the pleasure of both receiving and giving for the first time.

“You want to talk about it?” I asked, trying to fight how her touch was lulling me into bliss.

She shrugged and went back to sliding her fingers from the outside of my arm to the inside. Like touching my arm was as sensual to her as it was to me.

“You don’t want to talk about it?” I guessed.

She pressed her lips to my shoulder. “It’s from prison.”

My hands involuntarily clutched her waist. She didn’t really talk about prison, which was probably my fault. I wasn’t proud of my initial reaction to hearing she’d been a convict. It must have made her reticent to tell me more. “Tell me, please, if you want.”

She leaned up, shifting to put her head on the pillow beside me. I turned to my side and looked into her hazel eyes. I liked trying to count the brown flecks that made what would have been green eyes more olive. The fleck count changed every time I tried to tally them up.

“However much you want to say,” I encouraged.

“My first two years were hard.” Her head shook. “Awful at times, but I got into a routine and learned what was most important in there.”

“Which was?” I prompted after a long pause.

“Favors and race. You needed something to trade for favors and owe a few to keep the balance. And you stuck to your own race. It was despicable to anyone who thinks they’re open-minded. I lucked out and got a decent first cellmate who was black. That gave me a pass there. My custodial work partner was Mexican, which helped me there. I was pretty much covered on the race thing.”

Her fingers came up to stroke my cheek and push into my hair. She ran her fingernails along my scalp. I shivered at the lovely sensation. She used her blunt fingernails to great effect on me and she knew it. None of my lovers had done this for me. None had bothered to find what would make me shiver. Sure, they tried to give me an orgasm, but they didn’t seem to care what else might make me crazy.

“Keep going.”

She smiled and gave another rake of her fingernails through my hair. “I was surviving. It wasn’t good by any means, prison shouldn’t be, but I was surviving. I started smoking because they were a good trade. Same with coffee, but you had to do both or it would be seen as your hustle.”

“Hustle?”

“Thing you do to rack up favors.” She stroked her fingers down my neck as mine made their way under her tank top. Her warm skin twitched in my hands. “Two years in, somebody new takes issue with me. She pretty much hated everyone, but she really didn’t like me. Didn’t like that I had a pass with three races and didn’t seem to need the cigarettes and coffee I always had for anyone who needed a fix. For eight months, she made some part of my day awful.”

I pressed closer to her. Nothing about what she said made me comfortable. I couldn’t imagine trying to make it through each day in there. It seemed like an unbalanced punishment for some crimes.

“People who always needed to bum a cigarette or a bump of coffee stopped coming around. Some of the regulars who’d trade their tasteless, veggie-medley side dish for my squirrel-pigeon burger stopped wanting to trade. She got physical whenever possible. Used her gang to intimidate. The first two years sucked but dealing with her beef got pretty unbearable. Our medium security wing didn’t have too many truly dangerous people. She was one of them.”

My fingers automatically traced the small scar I’d found on her side the second time we slept together. I’d assumed it was an appendectomy scar. My brow drew up in question.

“No, that was an accident on a construction site. Stabbing would have transferred her to maximum security, but she wasn’t above bruising.” A tremor went through her. “Anyway, that’s what creeps into my subconscious sometimes.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“Thanks for listening.”

“What brought on the nightmare?”

She tipped her head in thought. “Not sure. I didn’t get the chance to clear my mind before crashing last night. I was so tired.”

We both were. It was the first time we slept together without first making love. As wonderful as our sex life was, it was so amazing just to fall asleep together without guilt that my girlfriend wasn’t satisfied. I knew I loved her, probably had when Vivian first mentioned it, but last night I confirmed she was the one for me. Everything else about her said she was. She’d been my best friend since May, my lover for months, and my love for almost as long. I felt confident of her feelings for me even if neither of us had dropped the love bomb yet. That was another great thing about her. We thought the same way about sharing feelings. It didn’t always have to be so blatant or talked to death.

“Then we make sure to give you time to clear your mind every night from now on,” I stated, not realizing until too late that I just implied we’d be spending every night together. Up till now, we’d been spending three, sometimes four nights a week at her or my place. I was ready to change that to every night.

“Yes, my lovely protector.” She leaned forward and kissed me gently. Her hand slid down my side and along my thigh. She dragged her fingers up and down. “Your skin is so smooth.”

“Laser hair removal.”

She propped her head up on a hand, looking at me with surprise in her eyes. “No?”

“What? I’m in shorts six to seven months out of the year. It’s a lot of work to shave every day.” I shrugged and smiled. “And razor burn blows. So the butch with sensitive skin went in for a totally vain deal. I know, lame and so not me, but I don’t regret it for a second.”

“Me, neither,” she breathed. “It’s so addictive. I never want to stop touching you.”

I chuckled. “That works for me.”

She skated her hand up my inner thigh. My hips tilted into her caress. She was so good to my body. The way she could make me climax so easily and without me being sore the next day. It was a benefit I didn’t know I was missing, especially not having to wait a day or two before we could make love again.

“You feel so good,” she whispered and kissed me. Her hand moved up to cup my breast. A finger flicked the nipple into a hard bud. She broke the kiss when she felt how fast I responded to her touch. “Want more?” she murmured as her lips drifted over my collarbone.

“God, Falyn, I always want more with you, but I’m good like this.” My hands lightly kneaded her luscious breasts. I could picture the pale pink nipples under my fingers without needing to see them. I knew I’d never grow tired of looking at or touching her body.

“Sleepy?”

I shook my head. “Up now.”

“I could make us breakfast. Then we can decide what to do with these extra hours my obnoxious nightmares provided us this morning.”

I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. She always complimented my kissing, but she was no slouch in that department. “I adore a woman who cooks me breakfast.”

“You adore me whether I’m cooking or not.”

“That I do.”

She shoved up to her knees. “Same here, you know.”

“Thought so,” I said smugly and we both grinned. She adored me and she wanted to be with me whether we were making love or hanging out. My ideal woman turned out to be the complete opposite of what I’d been searching for.

She brought my hand up for a kiss on the knuckles and bounded out of bed. Her blue paisley panties looked amazing on her sweet ass. She always slipped something on before we fell asleep. It tantalized me every time I saw the panties or sleep shorts. I wondered what her winter PJs would look like. I couldn’t wait to find out.

Her cats and I took an extra minute to drag ourselves out of bed. They went straight for the stairs of her loft, but I had to spend some time digging through the drawer she’d given me for something to wear. Something she would find as sexy as I found her undies. Right on top was a pair of light blue boxers. No, her eyes never flared when I wore boxers. I could easily give them up since they weren’t the best option with shorts and didn’t fit under my silk thermals in the winter. She’d given up smoking for me. Boxers weren’t that hard a habit to break.

Hmm, let’s see. She liked the black hipsters or, yeah, these green boyshort panties. She’d taken her time stripping these from me the last time I wore them. These’ll do. I slipped them on, found a clingy t-shirt to wear, and headed down to the bathroom.

Falyn was scrambling eggs just how I liked them with a bit of milk and butter when I walked into the kitchen. She had coffee going for me and was cutting up mushrooms to sauté. Strips of bacon were already sizzling in a pan. I could ask her to marry me just for that. She’d taken the time to learn what I liked for breakfast on all kinds of days. For today’s camping trip, bacon was a must. She was easier, cereal, oatmeal, eggs, fruit, whatever I had was fine with her. In fact, I was pretty sure that when my parents visited in a few weeks and Mama made my Polish favorite, golabki, Falyn would eat it. We wouldn’t expect her to eat anything with meat, no matter how scrumptious the cabbage wrapped goodies were, but Falyn probably would so as not to offend my mom, which made her the perfect kind of woman.