Page 47 of Love in Focus

I bite my bottom lip, and she briefly closes her eyes.

“Gem,” she says, her voice low and breathless. “What are we doing?” She sounds almost pained.

“I don’t know,” I reply in an equally hushed tone. “But I can’t control how my body reacts around you. I’ve been trying since we first ran into each other at that bar.”

She moves aside the things she brought me and comes to stand beside me by the kitchen counter.

“Maybe we just need to do it once,” she murmurs, slowly leaning into me. “You know, so we can take the edge off—”

I don’t even give Celeste the chance to finish her sentence before I kiss her, softly and gently at first and then roughly when she returns my kiss. This time, she touches me, too, wrapping her arms around me in a warm, sensual embrace before she steps back. Keeping her eyes locked on mine, she places her hands on my hips and then slowly makes her way up to my chest, lightly tracing the wordBABY—and my hardened nipples, through the fabric—with her thumbs before she pulls the sweater off above my head.

She settles into one of the kitchen bar stools and says, “Sit on my lap, Gemma baby.”

I straddle her, and heat builds in my core as Celeste starts kissing me again, running her hands down my spine. Wetness pools in my underwear as she cups my face, gently but firmly, so she can kiss me deeper, longer.

Back at my friends’ place, I was too desperate to touch her to think about much else. But today, I relish every single detail of her as I slowly take off her sweater, too.

“I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I first saw you in that restroom,” I say as I run my hands over the gorgeous black flowers on the left side of her body. Now that I’m actually touching her tattoos, though, I realize that just using my hands isn’t nearly enough. I take one of her hands in mine and start kissing the flowers, working my way up from her wrist, along the length of her arm, all the way towhere they end below her collarbone. She arches her spine as I drag kisses up her neck and across her jaw, just the way I know she likes it.

“Gem.” She bites back a moan, and I pull on her lips with my teeth.

“I love your tattoos,” I say softly as I start kissing them again. “Is there any particular reason you got them?”

Her eyes half-closed with pleasure, Celeste replies, “I got them when I moved back to LA. I’d always wanted tattoos and, after the hell I went through, I thought, why not? My family hates them, since they’re afraid the tattoos will scare off men.”

I laugh as I start massaging her breasts. “But that’s exactly what you want.”

She moans, loudly and unmistakably this time, and even more so when I undo her bra and take one of her nipples into my mouth. She’s writhing with pleasure by the time I’ve moved on to the other one.

“Bed,” she says. “Now.”

In her bedroom, we crash into each other, kissing ravenously like we’re drowning and can’t get enough air. Back in college, Celeste was always the one to take the lead in the bedroom, the one who called all the shots. But today, when she tries to push me onto the bed, I pull her so she falls with me.

I haven’t had sex with another woman in eight years, but I want her,need her, too much to feel self-conscious about messing up. I get on top of her, grinding myself against her body.

Celeste’s eyes go wide with surprise. “Gem.”

Her voice is hushed, almost reverent, as I cup both of her breasts in my hands. “Fuck, I’m so wet for you. Touch me, please.”

With a smirk, I slide one hand down her body and into her now soaked underwear. The moment I touch the wetness between her legs, we both moan, her because of my fingers and me because of the deep satisfaction that this is how much she wants me.

I find her clit and start moving my hand side to side, slowly at first and then faster until she’s arching her back again. When she looks like she can’t take it anymore, I put my fingers inside her and curl them until…

She cries out, and I hold her tight, kissing her neck, her lips, and finally her forehead as her entire body shakes.

“God,” she says, slowly sitting up. “Where did you learn how to dothat?”

“You know, the usual. Porn, romance books… but I also had a good teacher, way back when,” I reply, pointedly meeting her gaze.

“Oh yeah? Speaking of which…” A mischievous look crosses Celeste’s face as she moves down to my waist. When she pulls down my underwear, I’m not surprised to see it’s completely soaked through. “My turn.”

That’s the last thing I remember before her tongue flicks my core.

Celeste can’t get enough of Gemma. That much was always true, when they were still together, at least. But there’s something profoundly sexier about almost-thirty Gemma, who is so confident andaggressivein a way college Gemma never was.

Sure, Celeste always loved pleasuring Gemma, but in the past, Gemma tended to be more of a pillow princess, always receiving without reciprocating. And other than her quiet gasps and moans, she barely showed any signs that she was enjoying what Celeste was doing.

Celeste didn’t mind it much at the time, but after Gemma quickly replaced her with someone else, it haunted her for years. In her darkest, most paranoid moments, she wondered if everything had been one-sided, after all.

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