Page 22 of Healing Her

They stayed this way, in a surprisingly comfortable silence, for a while. The sounds of the city honked and rushed up towards them from Sunset Boulevard. Slowly, Ashley felt her breathing return to normal. It was with extreme reluctance that she finally straightened up and sighed.

Jen seemed just as reluctant to let go of Ashley and get to her feet. But she did, stepping back with a wary expression on her fact that actually caused a pang of guilt to pierce Ashley’s heart. She knew she deserved that kind of kid-glove caution. As confused about her feelings as she remained, however, she was determined at least to not get back on her personal emotional rollercoaster about it. This time, she was not going to allow herself to bite Jen Colton’s head off, or to let her feelings affect their work.

She was going totry. With effort, Ashley pulled herself up to stand straight and even managed to offer a shy smile that seemed to make Jen drop a little of her distrusting expression. The pang of guilt was replaced with a tiny bit of a relief.

“We have more to talk about, you know,” Jen said at last, bending down and grabbing something Ashley couldn’t quite see from the ground.

Ashley nodded. “I know.”

Jen cocked her head. “It’s a Friday evening. I don’t have anything on my agenda tomorrow except to visit Maria. I think you’ve got something on the wall, a stent thing but not until tomorrow afternoon. Right?”

“Right,” Ashley echoed, puzzled about where this was going.

“Good. Good.” Jen nodded, a tiny little satisfied smile on her face.

The silence stretched out between them until Ashley couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay, so, what, then?”

“Oh. Right.” With a wide grin that Ashley could only callshit-eating, as City would put it, Jen held up Ashley’s black lace panties up in the air like a little Victoria’s Secret flag, “So if you want these back, you’re going to have to follow me home.”

15

The deep, satisfied moan that unfurled from Ashley’s mouth as Jen slowly pushed the thick vibrator into her pussy was music to Jen’s ears. She could only smile as she watched Ashley bite her plump, pink bottom lip and arch her head back against Jen’s fluffy down pillows. There was still a restraint about the heart surgeon as she allowed herself to be fucked within an inch of her life, but at the same time she was more free now, letting out tiny whimpers of pleasure as Jen pressed the curved vibrator up against her G-spot.

Jen pressed a kiss to Ashley’s knee as she worked the vibrator, pushing it in deeper to let the special little buzzy nub work its magic against Ashley’s clit, pulling it back out to let the deeper vibration at the head send rumbles through her G-spot. Ashley was clutching fistfuls of cotton sheet in her hands, pushing her hips up in frustration as Jen pulled the vibrator back from her clit yet again. “Stop that,” she growled, opening her eyes. One hand came up to grab Jen’s wrist. Jen pulled the vibrator further back.

“Ah, ah, ah,” she said, shaking her head and laughing as Ashley snarled. As Jen pushed the vibrator firmly home again,Ashley’s head fell back on the pillows once more and her hand dropped away from Jen’s wrist.

Holding the vibrator pressed close to Ashley’s clit, Jen straddled Ashley’s thigh and began to grind her pussy against the smooth skin. Their soft gasps and whimpers mingled in the air as their orgasms built and rose and finally crested. Jen’s back arched, and she barely held on to keep the vibrator in place against Ashley’s clit as she also arched up from the bed.

With one last sigh, Jen slumped down next to Ashley and carefully began to pull the vibrator free, tossing it aside once she’d eased it out completely. Beside her, Ashley was limp, her sleek ponytail thoroughly rumpled and mussed, long legs splayed out, eyelids drooping over glassy brown eyes. Jen marveled at the sight. After all these weeks of tight, restrained Ashley, it was incredible to see her sprawled out and thoroughly fucked in Jen’s own bed.

Jen propped her head on her hand. “Want a drink?” she asked, admiring the view next to her. “I’ve got lemon sparkling water, Diet Coke, I can make you a cup of tea if you like.”

“Mm. Lemon water is nice,” Ashley murmured, flinging an arm over her forehead. Her eyelids drooped more and more shut.

Chuckling to herself, Jen slipped out of bed and headed for her kitchen, not even bothering to put on a bathrobe. She put together a little tray with highball glasses of ice, a can of cold sparkling lemon water for them to split, and, after some thought, a small plate of grapes, cheese cubes, pita bread, and hummus. She was always ravenous after sex, and she hadn’t eaten much at the gala. Probably Ashley hadn’t either.

By the time she’d returned to her bedroom, Ashley looked somewhat recovered and was sitting up against the padded headboard of Jen’s bed, the down comforter pulled over her lap. Her hair was still an absolute mess, to Jen’s amazement anddelight. She really would have expected the priss to re-emerge and tidy it up while she had a moment alone, but apparently not.

Ashley was holding a framed photo in her hands that Jen usually kept on her bedside table. It was one she’d taken herself. Nina, a smile like sunshine on her face, holding her hair back with one hand as it flew around her head in the wind. They’d been on a boat off the coast of Maine, hoping to see whales. And after hours and hours, the boat was about to turn around, and then they saw it: a majestically huge humpback whale, heaving itself out of the Atlantic Ocean, a white spray of water surrounding it as it crested and then splashed back down.

Jen had managed to catch the magical moment that Nina turned back to her to ask, “Did you see that?”

Now, Ashley looked up at Jen, with the photo of Jen’s dead wife in her hands. “Is this Nina? Your wife?”

“Yes.” Jen took a deep breath and carefully set the tray of goodies down on the bed before sitting down and wrapping one of the throw blankets she kept at the end of the bed around herself. “When she was healthy.”

She expected Ashley to ask how Nina had died, like so many did. Instead, to her surprise, Ashley set the photo back down and poured them each a glass of the sparkling water. “How did you two meet?”

“Intern year. We both matched to Mass Gen, she for internal med, me for general surgery.” Jen picked up a cheese cube and a grape and popped them into her mouth. Chewing thoroughly gave her time to think about how she wanted to tell the story. She finally swallowed. “We met in a bar near the hospital one night when we’d both gone out with our intern groups. Hit it off right away. Typical 90s lesbians, we did in fact move in with each other immediately.” She smiled wryly.

Ashley turned her highball glass around in her hands, taking a few sips of water. “And you stayed together?”

“We got split up when she decided she wanted to do a pulmonology fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. But we were prepared for that—she’d told me from the night we met that that was her dream. She was from Minnesota; she’d grown up wanting to do pulmonology there. We both knew it was coming, and we made it work. The internet was a new thing then, but we got ourselves a pair of AOL accounts and learned how to email. Took full advantage of AT&T free nights and weekends long distance calling, too.” Jen nibbled at another cheese cube. “It wasn’t easy, but we loved each other. So we handled it.”

Setting aside the glass, Ashley picked up the photo again. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to love someone that much. Toneedsomeone that much.”

“Have you never had a relationship like that?” Jen asked. In the next instant she was shocked when Ashley shook her head. “Never?”

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