Bittersweet Homecoming (12 page)

There’s only so much she can do to me from this angle. My shorts are fitted and she hasn’t unfastened the button or zipper, leaving very little space with which to maneuver. I arch my back and press my backside into her, my body giving in to her gentle but purposeful touch. My breath hitches when long fingers make their way beneath my underwear. She seeks out my clit, rubbing it in lazy circles, making my legs spread farther apart. Her touch is light and unrelenting. My legs begin to shake. I’m going to cum, and she hasn’t even gone inside.

“Are you staying at your dad’s?” she asks.

Her voice snaps me out of my lust-induced haze. “Yeah.”

“Emily’s there, too?” Her breath is hot in my ear.

“Uh huh.”

“Sounds like a full house.”

I bite my lip. It
is
a full house. And nothing’s more of a mood killer than inviting someone back to your parent’s place. But I don’t want this evening to end, and I don’t want to be presumptuous and invite myself over to her house. Plus I know she’s got a kid, and I don’t know how she feels about bringing people around her like that. I’ve never done anything with a single mom before. I’m not a lothario by any stretch of the imagination, so this is wildly out of my comfort zone.

Her hand leaves my shorts, simultaneously leaving me on the edge of orgasm. She grabs her purse from behind the bar and leaves the neon lights of bar signs still glowing. Her heavy key ring jangles in her hand, and I take that as a sign that we’re done here and that she wants to lock up for the night.

We’re both quiet as we walk to our respective cars in the parking lot. It’s well lit by lampposts, and I can see moths fluttering around the dull yellow lights. Her green Jeep with the tan canvas top and my rental sedan are the only two cars left.

I follow her over to her car where she pauses with her hand on the driver side door.

I make a noise in the back of my throat. “So …”

“You can come over if you want.” She doesn’t look in my direction.

“If I want?” I echo.

She turns and shrugs, finally making eye contact again. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

I hook my fingers through the belt loops on her jean shorts and tug her closer before she can melt away into the night. I press her up against the side of her Jeep; I love the feel of her long, lean body under mine.

When she presses her thumbs into my hipbones, my knees buckle. There’s a challenging glint in her eyes. Her hand has been down my pants, but we haven’t even properly kissed.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

It starts to drizzle on the short drive from the bar to Charlotte’s place. My wipers ineffectively smear the evening mist across my rental car’s windshield, which has become a graveyard for winged insects over the past few days. Charlotte lives less than a mile from the bar. It’s a small house, but with it only being Amelia and herself, I suppose they don’t need much space. Houses in my hometown aren’t lavish in the first place. My dad’s house is probably one of the biggest in town, but only because he expanded the original construction himself.

I climb out of my rental car and pick my way between the raindrops to her front stoop. It’s dark out, with only a few street lamps and the overhead moon to illuminate my way. We share the space with a large planter filled with petunias and marigolds.

I rub my palms over my bare arms, feeling the goose bumps on my forearms, while I wait for her to find the key to her house on a full key ring. We don’t speak or make eye contact, and I wonder if we’ve both lost our nerve. The bravado she’d shown in the bar is now silenced.

The porch light buzzes and erratically flickers overhead. “I’ve got to get that fixed.” Charlotte speaks out loud, but it sounds more like a reminder to herself than her making conversation. “Must be a short or something.”

She finds the right key and unlocks the front door, which opens directly into the living room. The TV is on in one corner, but it’s on mute. A local news anchor recites that day’s events, lips moving but producing no sound. Besides the light produced by the television, the house is dark. Charlotte lifts a single finger to her lips, and I nod my understanding: her daughter is sleeping.

“You’re home early.”

There’s a woman sitting on the couch in the living room and her unexpected presence startles me. It takes a moment longer for me to recognize her as Charlotte’s mother.

“It was dead tonight,” Charlotte replies.

Unlike other adults in this town, I don’t know Charlotte’s parents very well. We didn’t run in the same social circle in high school so there had been no reason for us to interact unless my dad had done some work on their house once upon a time.

Her mom stands from the couch and gives me a passing glance. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Mom, do you remember Abigail Henry? Her dad owns the hardware store downtown,” Charlotte introduces. “Abby, this is my mom.”

She squints at me, obviously curious as to why I’m here at such a late hour. It gives me an anxious feeling. Gossip is the bloodline of small-town America, and even though our families aren’t friends, I’m pretty sure Charlotte’s mom knows I’m gay. It’s the kind of information that won’t make it into the local newspaper, but it’s somehow become common knowledge around here despite how inadequate my trips home are. I’m usually comfortable with my sexuality, but there’s something silently accusatory in the way Charlotte’s mom regards me.

“H-hey,” I greet. The word gets stuck in my throat and my hands are similarly jammed too deep into the front pockets of my shorts to shake her hand.

If her mom has an opinion about my presence, she keeps it to herself. “Goodnight, girls.”

“Night, mom,” Charlotte says. “Thanks.”

The front door closes, followed by the screen door with Charlotte’s mother’s departure.

Charlotte lingers near the door long enough to turn the lock into place.

“Free babysitter,” I remark, trying to shake off the nerves. “That must be nice.”

Charlotte slips out of her sandals and places them by the front door. “She’s saved my ass more than a few times,” she admits.

When she shuts off the TV, the room becomes blanketed by night. It’s inky dark, but I can still see the outline of her silhouette as she steps a few feet closer. Her steps are silent as she walks across carpeted floor, and I’m sure she can hear the pounding of my heart, which has leapt into my throat.

“Bathroom?” I squeak.

Her predatory steps stall. “Down the hallway, second door on the right.”

The covered light bulbs above the bathroom sink fill the small space with a dull, golden glow. It’s not a flattering light, and my mirrored reflection looks jaundiced. I pull on my cheeks until my eyes droop, and I stick out my tongue. I don’t
look
like a cheater, and yet that’s exactly what I’m doing.

I pull my phone out of the tight back pocket of my jean shorts, and for the umpteenth time, I call Kambria’s number. If she picks up, I have no idea what I’ll say, and I assume that the walls of Charlotte’s house are thin enough that anything I say in here will be projected outside of the bathroom. I’m saved though when, instead of hearing the sound of club music in the background or eventually being sent to Kambria’s voicemail, the call is transferred to her voice mailbox after only the first ring.

There’s a quiet knock on the bathroom door. “Everything okay in there?” comes Charlotte’s subdued voice.

I immediately hang up. There’s no message I can leave that will make anything I plan on doing in the next room permissible or guilt free.

I open the door and Charlotte’s standing on the other side. She leans against the doorjamb, trying to look confident or seductive or some combination thereof, but her eyes tell a different story.

“Are you okay?” she asks. A glimmer of something—self-doubt perhaps—clouds her hazel eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Change your mind?” Her hands fiddle with the bottom hem of my t-shirt. When her knuckles brush against my bare stomach, I feel it even lower.

“No.”

My hands move of their own accord, one sliding along the side of her face and curling around her head to tangle my fingers in her hair, and the other pulls down on the center of her button-up shirt. The buttons on her linen top are only snaps, and they pop free with the firm tug. Beneath the shirt is a nude bra, functional, yet oh-so-sexy against her tanned skin. Blonde and tan, she looks practically Californian with treacherous, long legs that I can’t wait to have wrapped around me.

Charlotte wobbles unsteadily from the aggressive move, and I wrap my arm around her midsection to steady her. It’s amazing how natural it feels to have her in my arms. We hardly know each other, yet everything about her is familiar.

Her lips are soft and eager, and we linger in the hallway in front of the bathroom exploring each other with mouths and fingers. She touches my hands, and I feel her in my hardening nipples. Her hands grip my hips, and I feel it in my clit. My hands slide beneath the open fabric of her shirt and meet in the small of her back. I round over the warm globes of her backside and she makes a quiet moan in my mouth when I firmly squeeze.

We stumble down the hallway, both of us refusing to end the kiss. At some point she flips us around, because I don’t know the layout of her house. I don’t know where her bedroom is. I’m waltzed backwards into a room at the end of the hallway. Her hands are fisted in the front of my shirt, so she uses her foot to shut the bedroom door behind us.

Light from a lamppost outside filters through her bedroom window. The glow is more yellow than moonlight and casts strange shadows on the things in the room. Her bedroom is sparsely decorated. There’s a rocker with an afghan tossed over the top of the chair, a wooden set of drawers, and the bed. There’s nothing hanging on the walls, but I see a framed picture on top of the bureau. I can’t see whose face is in the image, but I imagine it’s probably Amelia’s.

“I like your room,” I breathe, separating myself from her mouth long enough for the compliment.

“Uh huh,” she grunts, not really hearing me. Her mouth is back on mine and wandering hands cup my breasts over my bra and shirt.

I’m pushed onto the bed and the wooden frame creaks with the impact. Charlotte wastes little time in crawling on top of me and straddling my hips. She bucks into me and we both groan as our centers, still fully covered, rub together. Even with what happened at the bar, her assertiveness surprises me.

My shirt is tugged off along with her own to provide me with another unobstructed view of her stomach, tanned from the young summer. I can see the outline of her ribs directly beneath her bra. She’s tight everywhere.

I reach behind her and unfasten the bra clasp at the center of her back. This too is haphazardly tossed to the floor. Her breasts are small with eager, responsive nipples. When I sit up and pull one dusky-rose colored bud between my lips, her fingers pull at my ponytail and loosen the tied-back hair from its band. Her fingers stroke through my tumbling hair, short nails lightly scraping my scalp.

With a free hand, I reach between our bodies and pop the button on her jean shorts. The zipper follows, and I’m given more room to explore beneath the elastic waistband of her underwear. My fingers travel through closely cropped curls before seeking out her clit. I cup her naked pussy in the palm of my hand, and her breath hitches in her throat.

I wonder how long it’s been since anyone has touched her like this. She hasn’t said as much, but I imagine she’s probably nervous. But what do I know? Maybe she does this kind of thing all the time.

I position a stabilizing arm between her shoulder blades and guide her onto her back. The moment her head hits the pillow, she arches off the bed to let me remove her tight jean shorts. The sight of the classic white cotton underwear with the wide lace border has my mouth watering. It’s certainly not the fanciest nor frilliest underwear I’ve ever seen, but there’s something about the basic undergarment that I find incredibly sexy. It’s like an extension of the woman herself.

Despite the eagerness with which she shed her shorts, bra, and shirt, her body stiffens when my fingers reach her underwear.

My fingertips are curled around the waistband, but I make no other movements. “I’ll go slow,” I promise in a quiet breath. “Or we can stop. It’s up to you.”

Just beneath her shallow belly button, the skin is tight but slightly marbled with small stretch marks made more visible from the sun’s bronzing of the area. Unthinking, I trace my fingertips down the crooked little paths blossoming on her skin. It’s then I realize I’ve misinterpreted her hesitancy to remove her underwear. She squirms beneath my ministrations, but I know the female psyche well enough that it’s not because my touch feels too good to sit still.

When Charlotte’s behind the bar, she’s brash and cocky. But it’s all an elaborate show; she’s a woman, and therefore not immune to the cover models on the magazine that try to tell you how you too can have a firmer ass and flatter stomach in just two weeks. Not even beautiful women who live in remote parts of northern Minnesota can escape that kind of pressure.

Her hands fall on top of mine, covering up the small stretch marks. “Pretty ugly, right?” she says, making a disappointed face.

“Stop,” I gently chastise. “You’re beautiful. You’re amazing.”

I pull her hands away and press a soft, reverent kiss to the squiggly white lines in her skin. They’re battle scars of a life lived and tangible evidence of her strength. She made another human being. The weight of that knowledge is heavy.

Her top teeth seek out her lower lip. “Keep going,” she urges.

At her words, I slowly pull the front of her panties down and press a feather soft kiss to her already protruding clit. Her hips jerk up, but expecting the reaction, I move with her to avoid a broken nose. I slide her underwear the rest of the way off her body, kissing her hips, thighs, and legs as the cotton material passes each body part. Tan lines from a tiny bikini remain, giving the impression that her undergarments still remain on her body, but they’ve been cast to the floor with the rest of her clothes and my tank top.