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Yaz’s reflection nodded at her. Once. To encourage, to steel her nerves; to inspire a confidence she was only pretending to possess.
She stood outside the bar, quadruple checking her appearance in the window and smoothing out the nonexistent creases in her red velvet bodycon dress. It was probably the tightest article of clothing she owned. Given the low V-cut, she wasn’t often afforded the opportunity to wear it. Rather, she didn’t often have the courage.
Even tonight, she’d changed her outfit half a dozen times. Her hair, too. In the end, she’d opted to tie half her hair up into a waterfall braid and let her natural curls tumble free around her shoulders. She looked good. She knew she looked good.
Her heart was still going a mile a minute.
First date jitters — combined with the fact that it was with a girl she’d met on Tinder. She seemed nice enough, and several of Yaz’s friends swore by dating apps, but she’d also heard the horror stories. Hence the very public venue.
Yaz headed inside. The bar was her date’s recommendation, and immediately revealed itself to be a lot swankier than any of the pubs she usually frequented. The place was dimly lit, which instantly drew the eye towards the bar on the far side of the room. It was illuminated in blue light, which glowed from both the underside of the glass bar top and behind the white panelling of the backbar. Hanging from the exposed brick were neon signs, electric guitars; framed photographs of esteemed patrons Yaz wasn’t hip enough to recognise. Rift-heavy rock music played quietly over the speakers, fiercely rivalled by the clamour of the busy Friday night revelry.
Having arrived early, Yaz decided to have a drink alone at the bar in the hopes that it would help her relax. She pulled herself up onto a stool, and was still rummaging around in her purse for some cash when a husky voice made her start.
“What can I get you, darlin’?”
Yaz looked up. The moment she lifted her head, the bartender expelled the disinterested expression on her face with the pop of an intrigued brow and a sinful curl of her lips. She steepled her hands atop the bar and leaned in. Yaz half noticed the lanyard hanging from her neck. Blue, pink, and white. The colours of the trans flag.
“Hiya,” the bartender drawled with a smirk. She was acting as if she recognised her.
“Sorry, do I know you?” wondered Yaz. She was sure she didn’t; sure she’d remember someone who looked like that. Perfectly mussed blonde hair framed a sharp jawline and high cheekbones, one side tucked behind her ear to reveal several piercings and a silver cuff. She was donned in a black band tee and distressed skinny jeans, and one arm was totally sleeved in tattoos.
Yaz’s eyes flickered over her sleeve. She spotted the number thirteen, a stone angel with its face in its hands; a scattering of stars and a detailed moon done in white ink over a black background. Wrapped around her forearm was the stem of a thorned rose, whose flower was inked in faded red on the back of her hand.
“Nah, you don’t know me. Not yet,” admitted the bartender, eyes flashing something dangerous. “We can change that, if y’like. I’m Jace.” She offered a ringed hand.
“Yaz.” She took Jace’s hand. Rather than shake it, Jace held onto it. She lifted her other hand and ran her rough fingertips from Yaz’s knuckles to the back of her wrist, lazily repeating the motion while she gazed at Yaz with a heady dose of lechery dripping like wild honey from her golden eyes.
“Come here alone, Yaz?” Jace asked, pointedly sweeping her eyes across the room as if searching for Yaz’s party.
“Waiting for a date,” Yaz revealed, deliberately eyeing their joined hands. Though Jace’s brazen flirting was doing wonders for her anxiety, Yaz decided it was best to nip it in the bud before her date showed up.
Jace kissed her teeth. “Lucky them, eh?” She let go of Yaz’s hand and straightened up. “What’s your poison, then? Hang on, lemme guess.” Jace gave her a slow once over and narrowed her eyes. “Pink gin and lemonade?”
Yaz rolled her eyes. She gestured to one of the beers on tap. “Pint.”
With a chuckle, Jace retrieved a glass from beneath the bar and pulled Yaz’s pint. Yaz’s leg bounced subconsciously. Every time the door opened, her eyes darted towards it. It was still a bit early yet, but it didn’t stop her heart from plummeting each time somebody else entered the bar that wasn’t her. Jace slid her pint across the bar and Yaz handed over her cash.
“First date, I take it?” assumed Jace, stuffing Yaz’s note into the till and handing back her change.
“That obvious?”
Jace grinned. The slightly crooked nature of it made Yaz’s throat feel tight. “Where’d you meet ‘em?”
Yaz wrapped her hand around her glass and dropped her eyes. “Tinder,” she disclosed, embarrassed. Jace raised her brows but said nothing, plucking a glass from the rack and polishing it wordlessly. Yaz frowned. “What?”
“Nowt,” shrugged Jace. “Just — good luck with that. People on there can be a right ‘mare.”
“Oh, cheers. That your way of helping me relax?”
“If it helps, I’ve also met a few excellent girls through Tinder,” offered Jace. Yaz found herself staring at her slender hands as she rotated the glass and cleaned the inside of it with her cloth. “Usually only good for a night, mind. Proper filthy.”
Yaz’s face warmed and a series of images she definitely didn’t warrant flashed before her mind’s eye: pale hands around her neck, a devilish grin, Yaz on her knees, the slow unbuckling of a belt. Yaz sipped her pint and fidgeted in her stool, prompting an infuriatingly knowing look from Jace.
“Bit warm in here, innit?” she goaded.
“I know what you’re doing,” reckoned Yaz.
Jace moulded her features into a facade of total innocence. “Dunno what you mean.”
“You’re tryna get in my head before my date.”
“Nah, just makin’ conversation.” Jace slung the dishcloth over her shoulder and leaned in close. “Although, between you and me, I’m not exactly rooting for ‘em.”
Yaz glanced towards the other end of the bar, where a couple of people stood waiting to be served. “Think you’ve got customers, mate.”
Jace peeled away to serve them, but not before she offered Yaz a wink. Yaz pretended it didn’t affect her. Ten minutes went by, and the time she’d arranged to meet her date passed. Growing increasingly more disheartened, Yaz continued to hopefully turn towards the door with every patron that came and went. Time after time, her hopes were stubbed out beneath the soles of strangers’ boots or stabbed through the chest with the stilettos of women that weren’t her.
Worse still, she could feel Jace watching her out of the corner of her eye the whole time. Yaz tried to play it cool, picking up her phone and forcing herself not to keep watching the door like a sad puppy after a pat on the head. She messaged her date to no avail. Humiliation was fast creeping up on her.
“Time’s your date s’posed to be here?” asked Jace during a lull at the bar.
“Not for another ten minutes,” lied Yaz, hoping beyond reason that her date had simply been held up and would walk in any second with a sincere apology tumbling from her lips.
Jace looked sceptical, pupils flitting towards the clock on the wall. “You were almost half an hour early?”
“Got the times mixed up.”
“Hm. Fair enough,” relented Jace. The dubious nature of her tone did little to mollify Yaz’s swelling sense of mortification. She nodded towards Yaz’s empty glass. “Refill?”
“S’pose.”
Jace poured her another pint and, as she did so, made no attempts at being surreptitious in the way she eyed Yaz. Specifically, the low cut of her dress. Her tongue darted briefly across her lower lip and there was a shard of wanton appetite in her eye that lodged itself in Yaz’s gut.
“My eyes are up here,” Yaz said, but the comment lacked bite.
Caught out, Jace shot Yaz a puckish smile. “That, they are,” she agreed, handing Yaz her pint and dropping her voice to a whisper that Yaz scarcely heard over the din of the bar. “And they’re a really lovely pair.”
Yaz scoffed. “Does this usually work for you?” she asked, as though the remark hadn’t raised the temperature of Yaz’s skin by several degrees. There was something about the way Jace kept looking at her, like a wild cat sizing up its prey, that both intimidated and thrilled her. Not that she’d have admitted it.
“You’d be surprised, darlin’.”
The door swung open and, forgetting that she was supposed to be acting unaffected, Yaz’s head snapped towards it. Not her.
“It’s their loss, y’know?” said Jace. She unscrewed the cap of a water bottle and guzzled a good third. Yaz watched the bob of her throat; wondered what it’d feel like to be the drop of water running down her chin. Jace wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and Yaz snapped out of it.
“Sorry, what?” Yaz elected to ignore the way Jace simpered like she knew exactly where Yaz’s mind had just been. Like they dwelled in the same gutter.
“Your date,” elucidated Jace. “Whoever they are, they’re an idiot.”
“I told you, I’m early,” insisted Yaz, hoping the words sounded more convincing than they felt.
Jace cocked a shoulder. “All I’m sayin’ is, if it were me, I wouldn’t dream of keepin’ a girl like you waitin’ at a bar all on your own. Wouldn’t want the bartender to get there before me, now, would I?”
“You’re unbelievable,” mumbled Yaz, but her efforts at appearing annoyed were undermined by the flustered undercurrent woven through her words.
“I’ll be honest, Yaz, it’s hardly the first time a girl’s told me that. Usually happens under much different circumstances, mind,” divulged Jace with a shit-eating grin. Yaz wanted to resent her arrogance. Instead, she found herself inexplicably disarmed by it. And yet, somehow, she felt she’d be losing some sort of game if she let on. She drank her beer and didn’t take the bait.
A sudden influx of customers occupied Jace’s attention for the next fifteen minutes. When they were up, Yaz forced herself to accept that her date wasn’t coming. She’d been stood up. Yaz felt like an idiot, and it only chagrined her further when Jace handed her another pint.
“I didn’t ask for—”
“On the house.” Jace afforded Yaz a sympathetic smile. Pity. Brilliant. She preferred it when Jace was being a shameless libertine.
A handful of minutes later, another bartender arrived and relieved Jace. She bumped their fist, disappeared in the back room, and reemerged wearing a leather jacket. On her way towards the door, she walked right by Yaz.
“See you around, Yaz,” she called, touching her shoulder for a fleeting second. By the time Yaz turned, Jace’s hand was gone and she was maneuvering her way through the throng.
Yaz watched her leave. Oddly, she felt more disappointed at seeing the door close behind her than she felt upon realising her date was a no show. Either way, there was no reason for her to stick around anymore. She’d suffered enough indignity for one night without needing to fold drowning her sorrows alone into the mix. She downed the last dregs of her pint and pulled up Uber on her phone as she made her exit.
Stepping out into a mild night, Yaz leaned against the exterior wall of the bar and waited for her 4G to start working. When she heard a noise of indeterminate origin, her eyes snapped up and she scanned the street. She couldn’t see anyone, but she’d definitely heard something.
Detaching from the wall, she peered around the corner of the building to investigate. A pair of Vans poked out from behind a stack of crates. After taking a few more cautious steps, the Vans revealed themselves to be attached to Jace’s feet. She was sitting on a pallet in the alleyway — rolling a joint. Yaz watched her run the tip of her tongue along the Rizla and briefly entertained an obscene visual in which Jace made much better use of her tongue.
Jace looked up.
The second she spotted Yaz, her face broke out into an amoral smile. Yaz’s face flushed at having been caught staring.
“Still waitin’?” asked Jace.
“Think we both know I’m not.”
A crease of concentration formed between Jace’s brows as she expertly rolled the joint between her fingers. “Wouldn’t take it personally, Yaz. Some people wouldn’t know a good thing if it dropped to their knees right in front of ‘em.” Jace dug a lighter out of her jacket pocket; the flame illuminated her features as she cupped her hand around it and lit her joint between her lips. She took a long inhale. Released a long exhale. A thick plume of smoke drifted up towards the gap between buildings and faded to nothing before their eyes. Jace sat back against the wall, legs spread out in front of her, and looked at Yaz. “Want some?”
Yaz considered. She peeked at her phone, only to find that she still only had one bar and the app wasn’t loading. Phone service notwithstanding, there was an irresistible challenge on Jace’s face, as if she totally expected Yaz to be the good girl and decline.
“Sure,” said Yaz, relishing in the blatant surprise that rippled outwards across Jace’s features upon her approach.
Before she could sit down, Jace shrugged off her jacket and lay it down on the pallet, gesturing for Yaz to take a seat on top of it. Yaz didn’t fail to notice Jace’s eyes clinging to her backside as she eased herself down. She let it slide. Jace handed the joint over and watched Yaz closely as she brought it to her lips. Yaz didn’t smoke, so she wasn’t prepared for the sting that hit the back of her throat with her first drag. She erupted into a coughing fit and Jace breathed a laugh, like she’d been expecting it.
“Shoulda warned you,” she said. “Cali bud. Pretty strong strain.”
Determined not to be dismissed as a total saint, Yaz tried again. This time, she didn’t choke. As she puffed on the blunt, she felt Jace watching her and glanced at her to find her eyes unwavering from her lips. Yaz knew for a fact what Jace was picturing between her lips in place of the joint. In truth, Yaz was picturing the very same.
Jace finally dragged her eyes up to meet Yaz’s. Shameless, Yaz let her pupils dance, for a fraction of a second, below Jace’s belt. When she looked up again, Jace’s eyebrows were halfway to her hairline.
Yaz handed the joint back. She could already feel her muscles beginning to slacken. Leaning against the wall, she watched Jace take another few drags. “I like your tattoos.”
Turning over her arm, as if only just remembering the tattoos were there, Jace shrugged modestly. “Designed some of ‘em myself. Stuff I see in dreams, usually,” she explained, flicking the ash off the end of the joint.
Unthinking, Yaz lifted a finger to Jace’s arm and traced the outline of her ink. They both watched in silence as she ran her fingertip along her arm. Goosebumps rose to the surface of Jace’s skin, and the night was too warm to blame it on a chill. She followed the stem of the rose all the way to the flower, where she drew slow circles over the red ink on the back of her hand.
“Was this one in a dream?”
Jace frowned. “No.”
“What does it mean?”
Abruptly, Jace pulled her hand away. “None of your business, really, is it?”
“Oh. Sorry,” mumbled Yaz. She dropped her hands to her lap. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Jace took another hit and sighed the smoke out. “Nah, you’re all right,” she said, handing the joint back to Yaz. “Got it for an ex. Long story. Painful ending. She’s the reason I don’t do relationships anymore.”
Yaz smiled. “Just chat up your customers instead, yeah?”
“Only if they’re pretty.” Jace stared at Yaz as she took another drag. “Ever tried shotgunning?”
“Like, in a car?”
Jace laughed, and Yaz was just buzzed enough to laugh with her, instead of thinking to be embarrassed by her naivety. “Here.” She held her hand out for the joint and, when Yaz handed it back, filled her lungs with a lengthy inhale. Holding her breath, Jace cupped Yaz’s chin and pulled on her lower lip with her thumb, silently imploring her to open her mouth. Yaz suddenly understood why it was called shotgunning. As she parted her lips for Jace, her heart was kicking like one.
Leaning in, Jace stopped with their faces just shy of touching and blew a long stream of smoke into Yaz’s mouth. Yaz took it back, held it in her lungs; let it pour like liquid from her lips. Through the smoke, she and Jace gazed at one another. At one another’s mouths. The joint in Jace’s hand went out.
Fingers curling at the back of Yaz’s neck, Jace kissed her.
Her lips were cool and firm and sure. Yaz’s eyelids fluttered closed; she melted into Jace’s mouth. Her own was dry because of the smoke, but it seemed a matter of no significance when Jace pushed her tongue past Yaz’s lips. Yaz welcomed it with a quiet sigh. Unsurprisingly, Jace was a great kisser. She wasn’t sure when Jace had put her hand on her leg, but when she squeezed her thigh and skirted her fingers along the hem of her dress, Yaz deepened the kiss.
It was sticky with gloss and beer and smoke, and it all felt a little hazy, but it was nice. More than nice. In no time, the kiss became hot-blooded and keen, accompanied by quiet gasps and sighs and the clutching of clothes and faces. Yaz put her hand on Jace’s knee. As their tongues slid across one another, she crawled her hand further up her thigh. She was almost at the top of her leg when, breathless, Jace broke away from the kiss and wrapped her hand loosely around Yaz’s wrist.
“What’s wrong?” panted Yaz.
Jace cleared her throat and kept her eyes down. It was the first time all night that Yaz had seen her exuding anything but an air of total self-assuredness. “Um, before you — I should tell you, um, I’m trans.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Brows furrowing, Jace lifted her head.
“No, I don’t mean — you were wearing that lanyard,” clarified Yaz. “I just kind of assumed.”
“Oh.” The creases in Jace’s face smoothed out. “Well, I’ve still got a...” She gestured at her crotch.
Yaz shrugged. “Okay.”
“You don’t mind?”
“‘Course I don’t mind.”
The corners of Jace’s mouth quirked upwards. One hand still resting on Yaz’s face, she smoothed a thumb over her plump lips. That shotgun kick of the heart returned with a vengeance. “No offence, Yaz, but I’m dead glad y’got stood up, tonight.” She licked her lips and leaned in as though to resume the kiss, but Yaz pressed a hand to her chest before she could close the distance between them.
“Maybe — um, maybe we should move this out of the alleyway?” she proposed, surprising even herself at such a forward suggestion. Yaz wasn’t typically the kind of person to go home with someone she’d just met. It might have been wounded pride, or it might have been something as simple as the devilish glister in Jace’s eyes that told her a night with her wouldn’t be one she’d soon forget. Either way, she wanted this. She wanted her. Badly.
“Right, you are,” grinned Jace. “Your place or mine?”
“Yours.”
Jace jumped to her feet and offered Yaz her hand. For an unhinging moment, Yaz was eye level with, and inches away from, Jace’s crotch. She peered up at Jace and took her hand. A few seconds passed with neither making a move. But then, smiling darkly, Jace pulled Yaz to her feet. She did it so sharply that Yaz would have tumbled right into her, were Jace not prepared to steady her with her hands on her hips.
Nose a hair’s breadth from Yaz’s, Jace was afforded a close up shot of her subsequent nervous swallow. Her pupils tracked the jump of her throat and there was a distinct lack of virtue to Jace’s tone when she whispered a titillating, “Oh, Yaz. We’re gonna have fun.”
Taking her by the hand, Jace led Yaz to the staff parking lot behind the bar. Yaz wasn’t surprised to discover that Jace drove a pickup. It was midnight blue and spotless. Obviously, she took good care of it. Helped by Jace, who (somewhat unnecessarily) pushed her up with her hands at the back of her thighs, Yaz climbed up into the passenger seat.
As they set off, however, she became increasingly aware of how thoughtless she was being. Nobody knew where she was or who she was with. If something went wrong, she’d be done for.
“Um, d’you mind if I send a picture of your ID to a mate?” she asked.
“Wallet’s in my pocket.” Jace nodded to the noticeable outline of her wallet in her jeans pocket. Yaz thought it was at least a good sign that she didn’t show a moment’s hesitation, although she reckoned Jace could well have gotten the wallet herself. As if reading Yaz’s mind, Jace piped up with a, “Two hands on the wheel at all times, I’m afraid. Road safety is not to be taken lightly, Yaz.”
With a dubious scoff, Yaz slipped her hand into Jace’s pocket and pulled out her wallet. She sent the picture of her ID to a friend and left her wallet in the glove compartment. Really, though, it was hard for Yaz to worry too acutely amidst how beguiling Jace was — which probably explained why she’d only just thought to cover her bases.
Jace was striking, physically and as a character. Even more so, thought Yaz, with her hands on the wheel and the passing streetlights intermittently dousing her face in warm orange. She hummed along to the radio, which played an indie song Yaz wasn’t familiar with, and tapped her foot along to the beat. Yaz was suddenly thankful that her date never showed up. She’d been pretty enough in her pictures, but Jace was staggering like few she’d ever met before. If any.
Emboldened by the beer and the joint, Yaz reached out to tuck a lock of Jace’s hair behind her ear. Jace glanced at her. “You got any more of these?” wondered Yaz, referring to Jace’s earrings. She trailed her finger along the cuff on her ear.
“Just what y’can see.”
Yaz reclaimed her hand. “What about tattoos?”
“Got a couple more of those, yeah,” confirmed Jace, slowing the car to a crawl as they approached a red light.
“Where?”
Jace paused. She gave Yaz a look she couldn’t decipher, and then lifted up her shirt, revealing a toned stomach and a small tattoo of a wolf over prominent ribs. There were no details; no discerning features. It was just the solid black shape. Like a shadow. Yaz touched it. Jace’s skin was cold and Yaz’s was warm, prompting her muscles to twitch at the initial contact.
“Another one from your dreams?” asked Yaz.
The light turned green and Jace nodded; she’d gone quiet all of a sudden. Returning her eyes to the road, she let go of her shirt, but Yaz didn’t pull away. She pressed her palm flat against Jace’s ribs and slid it across her stomach.
“You’re freezing.”
“I run cool.”
Slowly, Yaz’s hand inched down her stomach towards her waistband. Jace kept looking straight ahead, but a small smile tugged at her lips. Yaz understood precisely why she looked so smug when, finally, she ran her hands over the front of Jace’s jeans and pressed down against her bulge. By the feel of it, she was massive. Yaz clamped her hand down a modicum tighter and Jace released a quiet exhale.
They came to another red light and Jace turned her head to look at her. They were both silent, Yaz’s hand resting on her crotch, when Jace began to unbuckle her belt without breaking eye contact. Yaz held her gaze right until she heard the zipper come down. Her eyes fell and landed on a patch of colour between the open fly of her grey jeans.
“Rainbow boxers?” she smiled. Not what she expected.
“Love a good rainbow.”
Green light. Jace started to drive again and Yaz, surrendering to her own indecorous, reckless whims, nestled her hand into the opening of her jeans. She cupped Jace over her boxers and discovered, with a start, that she was getting hard already. She slid her hand along her clothed shaft and her heart went dizzy upon realising exactly how big Jace was.
Jace gave her a knowing look and spread her legs a little wider. They both turned towards the road. When Yaz lightly squeezed the head, Jace made the softest grunt and gripped the wheel with white knuckles.
Slowly, Yaz stroked her through the cotton. There was a small part of her, as she felt Jace become rock hard beneath her touch, that was tempted to just take it out and wrap her lips around it. A larger, more rational part of her didn't fancy ending up in a head on collision while she had a dick in her mouth.
It would have been an embarrassing way to go.
So, she kept on tugging Jace off at a leisurely, taunting pace, with a thin layer of fabric separating their skin. Jace’s breathing soon picked up. Yaz looked sidelong at her to find her chest rising and falling far heavier, and her bottom lip pulled between her teeth.
Seeking a greater satisfaction, Jace eventually wrapped her fingers around Yaz’s and used her hand to pull herself off at a much quicker pace. The quiet, throaty noises escaping her lips were driving Yaz insane. Common sense warred with blind desire as Yaz noticed first how shockingly daredevil they were being, and then how hot it was to watch both their hands wank Jace off while she drove.
After a minute, Jace let go of Yaz’s hand and, never tearing her eyes away from the road, relocated it to her thigh instead. She slid it along her leg, right past the hem of her dress.
“What happened to two hands on the wheel?” joked Yaz, though her attempts at humour were hampered by how thick with lust her voice came out.
“Pretty sure we left road safety behind a while ago.” Jace’s hand disappeared totally beneath the velvet of Yaz’s dress and crept towards the apex of her thighs. “Gotta thank you for wearin’ such a tight dress, tonight, Yaz. Made my shift a hell of a lot nicer.”
“I noticed.”
Jace pressed her fingers flat against Yaz through the gauzy lace of her underwear. Already damp. She expected Jace to grin or smirk or offer a wisecrack about how easily Yaz got worked up, but it looked like she was exerting all her focus on not crashing the car. Yaz pressed her thighs around Jace’s hand whilst she rubbed slow circles over her, successfully luring further arousal to the surface. Yaz sighed. Not how she expected her night to go, but she wasn’t complaining.
Wrapped up in the degeneracy of what they were doing, Yaz didn’t realise how fast they were going — hardly even registered that all the city was a blur of light and colour beyond the windows — until she spared a peek at the speedometer. Straight away, she slowed her hand right down. “Easy.”
“Sorry. Just can’t wait to get you home,” confessed Jace, lifting her foot marginally off the pedal. She looked Yaz up and down. Once again, Yaz felt like an animal locked in the sights of a predator. She couldn’t get enough of it. It was downright addictive to be so openly craved. “Get you out of that dress.”
“Thought you liked it?”
“I’d like it a lot better on my floor.”
A mere five minutes later, Yaz was thoroughly soaked and Jace’s breathing was beyond erratic; Yaz thought she might have erupted right there. But then she swerved to the side of the road and pulled up in front of a red brick complex in a quieter part of town, with a fire escape clinging to one side of the building and a small, twenty four hour supermarket across the street casting a fluorescent glow over them.
As soon as she killed the engine, Jace unbuckled her seatbelt and surged forwards. Surprised, Yaz gasped against the fervid kiss while Jace ran her eager hands all over her. She squeezed one of her breasts mercilessly over her dress and Yaz began to wonder if she planned to ravage her right there. She wouldn’t have dissented.
Alas, it wasn’t long before Jace pulled back with a feral grin on her face — pupils blown and lips bright red. “Shall we?”
Jace lived in the loft of the complex; a spacious, open plan flat with high ceilings intersected by wooden beams. A wall of frosted windows backdropped her bed, and the rest of the walls were plastered in posters, art prints; vinyls.
There was a record player in the living room beside the TV, right on top of a vinyl storage unit that was stuffed to the brim with records. The place was clean but cluttered. Books and magazines and a variety of knick knacks littered the shelves, and Yaz spotted an electric guitar propped up in the corner of the bedroom. A pair of drumsticks lay on the coffee table, but there wasn’t a drum kit in sight.
“You in a band or something?” presumed Yaz, whilst Jace hung her jacket up on a hook by the door and switched on the lamp in the living room.
“Kind of. It’s just for fun, really.” Jace headed to the kitchen and filled herself a glass of water. After chugging half, she handed the glass to Yaz. “For the dry mouth.”
Yaz was grateful for the consideration. She’d been gagging for a drink since they shared that joint, the effects of which were gradually starting to wear off. Now, her nerves were returning in spades. While she sipped her water, Jace returned to the living room and crouched down to peruse her record collection.
“Y’like music?” she called over her shoulder.
“Who doesn’t like music?”
Jace selected a record and got to her feet, unsleeving it and placing it carefully onto her player. She dropped the needle and a slow rock song started to play — the kind of thing Yaz would expect to hear in a seedy, underground venue full of artificial smoke and psychedelic drugs.
By the time Jace made her way back to the kitchen, Yaz’s glass was empty. She handed it to Jace, whose fingers brushed over her own during the transaction. Intentionally, Yaz figured. Jace made a show of drinking Yaz’s body in. She set the glass down on the kitchen table without bothering to look where she was putting it and then, one by one, began to tug her rings off her fingers and let them clatter after it. All the while, she did nothing but rake her unchaste eyes over Yaz with animal intent.
When the last ring came free, Jace finally levelled her gaze on Yaz’s. She looked hungry — there was no other way to put it. Her face had gone entirely dark. Jace advanced upon Yaz. Three slow steps and they were centimetres apart. She lifted her hands to Yaz’s hips and Yaz expected her to kiss her again but, instead, Jace turned her sharply around by her waist. Yaz’s breathing hitched.
“Take your shoes off,” Jace murmured into her hair.
Yaz’s mouth had gone dry again and this time there was nothing to pin it on except the tense apprehension of what was to come. Jace didn’t let go of Yaz’s hips even when she bent over to take off her heels, and Yaz didn’t have to turn to know where her eyes would be. Once her shoes were removed, Yaz straightened up again.
Jace parted Yaz’s hair with her nose and nestled it against the crook of her neck, her every warm breath landing like sizzling oil against her skin. Jace breathed her in: a hound zeroing in on the scent of blood. Yaz wished she’d sink her teeth in already.
Sweeping Yaz’s hair to one side, Jace proceeded to pull the zipper of her dress down millimetre by millimetre. She was taking her time. Dragging it out. Savouring the rush of the kill. Eventually, she tugged Yaz’s dress down over her hips. It pooled on the floor at her feet and she stepped out of it, leaving her in only her sheer bralette and matching underwear. Jace whirled her around again and backed her up until she collided with the kitchen counter. She pressed into Yaz’s body, hands braced at either side of her, and ducked her mouth to her ear.
“D’you have any idea how gorgeous you are, Yaz?” she breathed.
Her lips dusted the shell of her ear when she spoke, sending shivers running up and down Yaz’s spine. Hands roaming up her sides, Jace pressed a series of kisses to her neck and shoulder. Yaz could feel her bulge poking her thigh when their bodies melded together and she sighed, though whether it was a sigh bred from arousal or frustration was anyone’s guess.
“You can, um, you can be a bit…”
“A bit what?” Jace murmured against her collarbone.
“You can be rougher,” asserted Yaz.
Jace stilled. A second later, she lifted her head, her lips twisted into a nefarious smile. “Think you can take it?” she asked. Without warning, she groped Yaz’s backside roughly and Yaz grunted, hands finding purchase on Jace’s upper arms.
She nodded. “I can definitely take it.”
“If you say so.”
Next thing, Jace fisted her hand in Yaz’s hair and yanked her head back to expose her throat. She descended upon it with tongue and teeth, her free hand at Yaz’s breast, and Yaz let her eyes fall closed.
The gossamer fabric of her bralette left little to the imagination, allowing Jace to hone in on a dusky nipple with ease. She tweaked it until it grew hard and then moved on to the other. Yaz grabbed her by her waist and pulled her in as close as was physically possible until she felt her cock digging into her crotch. It was kindling to the already raging fire in Yaz’s gut to know how hard she’d made her. She groaned under her breath.
Detaching from her throat, which she’d left raw and red, Jace crashed her lips into Yaz’s. She kissed her hard, insatiate, ravening — grinding her hips against her all the while to maximise the friction against her bulge. Each time the head rubbed up against her, Yaz moaned softly.
If Jace’s goal was to work her up, it was paying off.
Yaz skirted her hand up Jace’s top. She trailed it up the taut skin stretched across her abs and then worked her fingers under the hem or her sports bra. Jace kneaded her backside while Yaz kneaded a breast, eliciting a grunt from Jace when she rolled a nipple between her fingers and tugged. Jace broke away from the kiss. Pressing her forehead to Yaz’s, she pushed three fingers into her mouth and watched, rapt, as they slid across her tongue and Yaz closed her lips around them.
“I think I know what I wanna do with you,” muttered Jace. Her voice came out hushed, husky, and as hellish as the intentions Yaz could discern behind her eyes.
Jace grabbed Yaz’s hand and pulled her towards the bedroom, which was raised a step above the rest of the loft. Dropping Yaz’s hand, she picked up one of her pillows and let it thud, soundless, to the floor in front of her when she perched on the foot of the bed with her legs spread.
Jace nodded to the floor. “Get on your knees.”
Suppressing a smile (because, finally), Yaz sank to her knees on top of the pillow between Jace’s legs. Jace leaned back on her palms, so Yaz decided to take initiative. She ran her hands up Jace’s thighs and locked eyes with her as her fingers found the buckle of her belt. Jace sank her teeth into her lower lip, clearly affected by the sight of Yaz kneeling for her.
It went both ways.
Yaz slipped Jace’s belt off. Before she could set to work on her zipper, Jace pulled her in by her head and held her face against her crotch. She grinded slowly against her. Smothering her. Yaz grabbed Jace’s knees reflexively, feeling Jace’s tip rut against her open mouth.
“Feel that?” prompted Jace. “Feel how hard you made me, Yaz?”
If she’d tried a little harder, Yaz might have been able to quell the genuine whimper of untempered need that she made. A horrifying slip, sure, but it at least got the message across to Jace: Yaz was desperate for more. Jace let her face go, clemently opting not to mention either the whine or the swell of colour suffusing her face and ears.
“Take it out,” Jace instructed.
Obedient, Yaz tugged her fly open. She reached into Jace’s boxers, closed her hand around her shaft, and pulled it free. Yaz couldn’t have hid her shock if she tried. She’d felt how big it was, but that didn’t prepare her for the visual magnitude of it — least of all when compared to the size of her hand, which wrapped around the base and still left a significant length protruding from her grip.
Jace studied the astonishment on Yaz’s face. “Never taken one this big?”
Yaz shook her head. “Definitely not.”
“You don’t have to,” assured Jace. “If y’like, we can just — oh...”
Pulling no further punches, Yaz ran the flat of her tongue along the length of Jace’s shaft and then gyrated it enthusiastically around the tip. With a sigh, Jace peeled Yaz’s hair out of her face and held it behind her head. Yaz lowered her head, enveloping Jace’s cock inside the warm damp of her mouth. There was no way she was getting the whole thing in there, so she kept a hand at the base, stroking that which her lips couldn’t get to.
“Fuck,” Jace groaned. “Y’look so pretty with my cock in your mouth.”
Incentivised, Yaz picked up the pace and deepened the reach of Jace’s cock until she felt the tip poking the back of her throat. She quickened the motions of her hand, too, wanking her off at the same time as she sucked her. Apparently realising that her praise drummed up results, Jace carried on.
“You’re so good, Yaz. God, you’re so good.”
Her every word ignited Yaz like petrol to a bonfire. Instead of drifting up from the flames, the hot embers pooled between her legs. Jace started to nudge her hips, propelling herself minutely deeper into Yaz’s mouth. Up and down and up and down. Yaz took more of Jace than she realised she was able, sucking her off noisily and in complete commitment to her performance that she might earn more of Jace’s approval. Which she did.
Jace moaned, low and throaty. “You’re amazin’ at sucking cock, y’know that? Like, properly amazin’. I knew y’would be.”
Tightening her grip in Yaz’s hair, Jace held her face firm against her until Yaz began to choke on her cock. Yaz’s kamikaze heart slammed against her ribcage and her clipped nails dug into Jace’s thighs. Jace held her in place for a handful of seconds before letting her go, at which point Yaz pulled back and sucked in several deep breaths, wiping the saliva from her chin.
“Like that?” asked Jace.
Still panting heavily, Yaz nodded.
“Want more?”
Yaz looked up. “Please.”
Simpering, Jace stood up and helped Yaz to her feet. “Lie on the bed. Upside down.”
Doing as she was told, Yaz climbed onto the bed with her feet near the pillow and her head lolling over the foot of the mattress. Jace stood right in front of her face, the monster between her legs pointing right at her.
“If you wanna stop, just tap my thigh,” said Jace. “Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Excellent.” Jace pinched Yaz’s bottom lip. “Now be a good girl and open your mouth.”
Yaz opened her mouth. Guiding her cock between Yaz’s parted lips, Jace slid in and leaned over Yaz with her palms braced against the mattress. Then, Jace began to thrust. She started off slow, easing Yaz into it, but it wasn’t long at all before she was jerking her hips faster and fucking Yaz’s face in brutal earnest. Jace grunted with every propulsion, accompanied by both Yaz’s gagging and a staticky electric guitar solo from the record player — which Yaz couldn’t even hear over how loud she was spluttering.
Jace took intermittent breaks to allow Yaz to catch her breath, but they wouldn’t last long and then she’d drive right back into her mouth and pick up at that same punishing pace. She grabbed Yaz’s breasts while she fucked her, bruising and aggressive, and Yaz moaned around her cock when she began to play with her nipples. She twisted them like dials through the fabric of her bra.
Then, after pulling out of Yaz’s mouth for a few seconds only to push right back in, Jace bent down and mouthed at one of her breasts, pulling the hard peak between her teeth while she rode Yaz’s face.
She slipped a hand under Yaz’s thong and Yaz bent her legs. Jace’s first finger glided in effortlessly, so she pulled it out and plunged back in with a second. Fucking Yaz from both ends. Yaz gripped Jace’s hips, which were as dogged in their momentum as her quick fingers.
Her moan of pleasure was fragmented by Jace’s head, which broke it into smaller pieces with every slam against her throat. She started to choke again and Jace held still, her cock filling Yaz’s mouth while she fingered her rapidly and nibbled on the erect peak of a breast. Yaz gagged violently. She writhed atop the sheets and Jace purred against pebbled skin, clearly an avid disciple of the mayhem she herself was inflicting.
Yaz’s body’s instinctual reaction to panic kicked in. She was on the cusp of tapping out when Jace withdrew, her cock pulsing and glistening with Yaz’s spit. She pulled her fingers out, kneeled down beside Yaz’s face, and shoved them into her mouth. Yaz licked them clean.
A compelling wilderness had taken ahold of Jace’s face. “You’re doin’ so well, Yaz. So fucking well.”
Upside down, Jace kissed Yaz — tongue greedy and teeth coming out to play. She bit Yaz’s bottom lip and Yaz winced, but she wasn’t deterred. She held Jace’s face against her with both hands, urging for more. It was a wet, dirty kiss. A deep rumble sounded from the base of Jace’s throat and it charged every atom of Yaz’s body with a terrible, aching carnality. Jace pulled away and stood up.
“Take your underwear off.”
Whilst Yaz sat up to unclasp her bra and slide her thong down her legs, Jace rummaged around in one of the drawers next to the bed. She was still in all her clothes with her shaft hanging out, and it was a sight that thoroughly electrified Yaz. When Jace turned, condom to hand, she stopped dead when she saw Yaz sitting completely naked on her bed. She licked her lips and Yaz actively willed herself not to cover up self-consciously.
“Think I’m gonna tie you up, actually, if that’s all right.”
Yaz’s stomach did somersaults. She nodded, and Jace dropped the condom on the nightstand. At last kicking off her shoes and peeling her jeans off, she returned to the drawer and pulled out a bottle of lube and a pair of silk restraints. She set down the lube.
Jace climbed onto the bed in her boxers and tee, shoved Yaz onto her back, and straddled her. Her cock brushed up against Yaz’s stomach and her muscles jumped in response. Yaz surrendered her wrists voluntarily, allowing Jace to tie them to the posts at either side of the bed frame. When she was done, Yaz tested the binds with a yank of her wrists. They were tight. Jace peered down at her with pitch black eyes. She cupped Yaz’s face and pressed her fingers painfully into Yaz’s cheeks.
“God, you’re sublime,” she muttered. “If I could take a picture of you right now…”
Yaz didn’t know where the words or the willingness came from, but they were out of her mouth before she could credit them with too much thought. “Do it.”
Jace halted. “What?”
“Take a picture.”
A slow grin crept onto Jace’s face, baring a full row of perfect teeth. She leaned over the side of the bed and pulled her phone out of the pocket of her jeans. Shuffling further up Yaz’s body, she weaved a hand through her hair and slid her cock into her mouth. Yaz looked up at the camera just as she heard the shutter sound. Jace studied the picture and blew her cheeks out.
“That’s defo gonna come in handy,” she mused. Yaz thought of Jace lying alone in bed, staring at a picture of Yaz with her lips wrapped around her shaft while she got herself off, and a galvanic current fizzed along her veins and headed straight between her thighs. Jace pulled out of Yaz’s mouth. “Want me to send it you?”
“Maybe not right this second.”
“Right. Where were we?”
Setting her phone on the nightstand, Jace swapped it out for the condom. She tore open the packet and pulled the ring along herself, centimetres from Yaz’s face. Yaz knew it was coming, but she’d be lying to say there wasn’t an element of fear infused with her excitement. The size of her, Jace might well tear her apart if she wasn’t careful. Except Yaz was far too turned on to even consider changing her mind, now.
Reaching for the bottle of lube, Jace squeezed a drop onto her palm and stroked it on over her condom. She glanced at Yaz. “Scared?”
“Should I be?”
“Nah.” Jace backed further down Yaz’s body. “I’ll go easy on you.”
“What if I don’t want you to?” challenged Yaz.
Jace chuckled. “We’ll see if you’re still sayin’ that in a minute.” She ran her fingers through Yaz to ensure that she was ready. That, she unequivocally was. Lying on top of Yaz, foreheads thudded together, Jace lined her head up with her entrance whilst Yaz wrapped her legs around her back. Jace began to push inside her.
The first few inches sank in easily. After that, Yaz felt herself stretching. Burning. She gritted her teeth. Jace pressed on, albeit slowly. They both were staring down at the join of their bodies, watching Jace disappear inside Yaz inch by inch. It was incredible to behold. Incredible, too, to experience — if overwhelming. Yaz’s breathing faltered and she tilted her head back with a grimace.
Jace paused. “Doin’ all right?”
“Yeah,” nodded Yaz. “Keep going.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
So, Jace kept going. It was painful, but in an addictive sort of way. Jace paused semi-frequently to allow Yaz to adjust to the bulk of her. By the time she was fully sheathed, Yaz’s breathing was laboured and her wrists were straining against the binds. A sheen of perspiration was already forming on her forehead and they hadn’t even started properly yet.
“Fuck, you’re so tight,” lauded Jace.
Jace pulled out halfway and then drove right back in. Yaz cried out, fingernails buried into her palms, and Jace continued the motions, accumulating further force with every thrust. The whole bed juddered with every collision of pelvises. Jace pulled Yaz’s hair while she rammed into her — a delectable sting that made her moan ever louder.
She cursed under her breath with each slam, coincided by the harsh smack of their bodies; of skin on skin and some raspy vocalist singing about god only knew what. There was a jarring drum beat in the background, and Yaz thought Jace was probably subconsciously trying to match it because she was screwing her fast, bordering on angry, and she wondered if this was her going easy. If so, maybe she’d been right to do so.
Jace kissed Yaz’s neck. The kissing soon became biting, and the hand in her hair fisted tighter. At this point, Jace’s grunts better resembled growls. Bestial in both the noises she made and her frenzied motions, all it served to do was make Yaz wetter; make her want it more.
“Choke me,” she rasped.
Ceaseless in the drive of her hips, Jace lifted her head. There wasn’t but a trace of smugness left behind on her face. Only all-consuming lust. Depravity. She didn’t need to be told twice. Jace curled her hand around Yaz’s throat, pressed her fingers against either side of her esophagus, and squeezed. Yaz swore it was doing the trick for Jace, too. When Yaz started to gasp against her hand, Jace picked up the pace — something Yaz hadn’t known was possible — and a strained moan ripped loose from Yaz’s lungs.
“Open your mouth,” growled Jace.
Yaz opened her mouth and Jace spat into it. She released her throat in favour of clamping her jaw shut and burying her nails into her face, hard enough to leave sore, crescented impressions behind in the soft flesh of her cheeks. Jace’s pupils darted towards their hips. She reduced her pace, choosing instead to drive into Yaz with slower, but far deeper, thrusts. Each time she rammed into her, Yaz released a strangled cry.
“You take me so well,” panted Jace. “Fuck, Yaz, You’re such a good girl.”
Heat flooded Yaz’s cheeks and her gut. The next time Jace smacked into her, her shaft was greeted by a fresh rush of arousal. Jace moaned and started to increase the pace again, ducking her mouth to one of Yaz’s nipples and sucking with zeal.
Yaz’s wrists pulled hard on the restraints. They bit into her skin with every tug, and Yaz had an inkling that they were going to leave marks. She kind of wanted them to. Jace was leaving marks, too. She left them on the soft flesh of her breasts, on her collarbones; at the base of her throat. She ran her tongue up the length of Yaz’s neck and along the side of her face, and then she jammed it into her mouth. The kiss was jolted and frantic and, on Jace’s end, assertive. Yaz moaned her way through it.
Then, suddenly, Jace stopped.
She peeled her lips away from Yaz’s and unsheathed her cock. Yaz could see that it was red and throbbing. She was, too.
“What you doing?” she asked, wiping a strand of sweat-damp hair out of her face with her shoulder.
Jace ignored her. She tugged Yaz’s binds loose and pushed her onto her stomach, before proceeding to tie her hands behind her back. Yaz’s heart climbed up into her mouth. Jace’s cock brushed up against her backside and she tensed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jace reach for her phone.
“Mind?” she asked.
Yaz shook her head.
The flashlight of Jace’s phone illuminated the room and Yaz realised she was recording. There was something unhinging to the knowledge that Jace was going to possess such obscene images of her, to do with whatever she pleased. She yanked Yaz’s hips up off the bed. Still recording, she slid right back inside her. Yaz groaned and bit down on the sheets.
In no time, Jace found her former stride. Relentless, she pounded into Yaz from behind and held onto her by her binds with her free hand, pulling her firm against her to maximise the reach of her cock.
“Tell me how I feel, Yaz.” Jace’s voice was gruff; it hardly even sounded like her.
Eyes clamped shut, whole body trembling, Yaz just about managed to gather enough lucidity to adhere to Jace’s command. “Fuck — you feel so big.”
“Look at me.”
Peeling her clammy forehead from the sheets, Yaz looked over her shoulder right into the glare of the camera. The light partially obscured Jace’s face, but Yaz could see perfectly the breakneck rhythm of her hips as she rode her and it made her mouth water.
“God, y’look perfect.” Jace smacked Yaz’s backside and Yaz cried out, due more to shock than anything. She groped Yaz roughly and then smacked her again. This time, Yaz’s moan was the fruit of her pleasure. Turning the camera off, Jace dropped her phone onto the bed and continued to bring her hand down harder and harder, all while pitching into her with tireless endurance.
Groaning with every thrust, Jace pulled Yaz’s hair and forced her head back. She leaned over her and licked the side of her face, swirling her tongue around the lobe of her ear and catching it between her teeth. Yaz was shaking underneath her. The tsunami of her own euphoria encroached over the horizon, darkening her sky and trembling the earth.
“I’m gonna come,” she moaned. “Jace, I’m gonna come.”
Jace took that as an invitation to slam into the deepest reaches of her. Yaz cried out, and this time it had nothing to do with shock. She continued to make strangled cries bred from a dizzying clash of pain and pleasure and Jace never backed down from her devastating pace.
“C’mon, Yaz,” she husked. “Come for me, yeah? C’mon. I wanna see you come.”
Yaz buried her face in the sheets. Jace gripped her hips tight enough to bruise and she was riding her so fast and so hard that Yaz was unable to process anything except the burn of her walls around Jace’s cock and the turn of her gut each time Jace slammed against the maddeningly sensitive spot inside her.
Release came a handful of vigorous thrusts later. Yaz moaned, loud and unabashed, with tears in her eyes and her muscles convulsing in a series of paroxysms of total ecstasy. Jace steered her all the way through it, guiding her with a gradual decline of intensity. Yaz didn’t know when Jace picked the phone back up but, by the time Yaz emerged from the other side of her orgasm in a slump on the bed with Jace’s cock slowing to a stop inside of her, she was recording again.
Jace afforded her a mere moment of respite. Then, blonde hair tickled Yaz’s cheek and soft lips grazed her ear when Jace murmured, “You wanna swallow it for me, Yaz? Wanna be a good girl and do that for me?”
Still catching her breath, Yaz only had it in her to nod.
Yaz whimpered softly when Jace pulled out. The slippery sound it made, perplexingly, reignited the throbbing between her legs. Jace untied Yaz’s wrists and rolled her onto her back, crawling over her until she was kneeling right in front of her face. She tore off her condom, tied it, and slung it with practised aim into the nearby bin.
Dragging the tip down Yaz’s lips, Jace lightly smacked her cheek until she opened her mouth. She pushed into Yaz with a subdued growl and gripped her hair while she began to ride her face once again. The blinding, white light of the camera served as a reminder to put on a good show. But, just in case she’d forgotten, Jace spurred her on further with grunted scraps of coveted praise.
“Fuck, you’re so good,” she gasped. “Y’look like an angel when you’re sucking me off, Yaz.”
With a gratified moan, Yaz closed her eyes and lifted her head. She took Jace as far back as possible and rubbed her off at the base. She spluttered uncontrollably around Jace’s cock, but neither of them cared enough to stop. Jace rode her face with small, quick propulsions of her hips. Her breathing picked up exponentially and the hand in Yaz’s hair went rigid.
“Almost there. Keep goin’, Yaz. There’s a good girl. Christ, don’t stop.”
Jace thrusted faster into her face, the rising pitch of her moans betraying her proximity to cloud nine. She briefly lowered the phone and Yaz caught a glimpse of the tremble in her brows and the way her jaw hung open in preparation of a groan as yet to emerge from the depths of her chest. Eventually, Jace pushed Yaz’s head against the bed and pinned it in place as she rammed into her throat.
Yaz choked aggressively against her, but she refused to tap out when Jace was so close. In fact, the very next time Jace forced herself all the way to the back of Yaz’s mouth, she expelled a full-throated groan and came.
Warm, sticky come erupted into Yaz’s mouth. It coated her tongue and throat and she spluttered noisily on it. Still pulling Jace off, she rested the tip of her cock on her tongue and pumped every last drop of her into her open mouth with both the camera and Jace’s half-lidded eyes transfixed on her. Jace sighed a curse.
“Swallow.”
Yaz swallowed, licking her lips and then smacking them after as if she’d just finished off the last morsel of her favourite meal. Jace turned off her camera and tossed her phone onto the mattress, gazing at Yaz with a dazed expression on her face. Cloud nine, needless to say, took a while to come down from. Yaz convinced herself she could see the lingering wisps of it behind Jace’s eyes.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re unreal?” Jace asked.
“I could stand to hear it more,” quipped Yaz.
“Well, you’re bloody unreal.”
Jace rolled off her. Collapsing on the bed, she grabbed a box of tissues from the bedside and wiped herself off. After scrunching them up and tossing them into the bin, she tucked herself back into her boxers and plucked a lighter and half smoked joint from the ashtray. The lighter took a few tries to work. When it did, Jace took a drag as if it were a sigh of relief.
Jace held the joint out for Yaz. “Wanna share?”
“I’m good,” refused Yaz. She was worn out enough as it was. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Right over there,” said Jace, tilting her head towards a door between the bedroom and the living room.
Aching, tired, and bruised, Yaz dragged herself into the restroom. After using the facilities and rinsing out her mouth, she returned to the loft and proceeded to put her clothes back on. Jace, who had been replaying the videos of Yaz on her phone, looked up upon her reentry. Her eyes followed her through a plume of white smoke.
“Y’know, you don’t have to leave right away. That were pretty intense.”
Yaz pulled her dress on and sat at her kitchen table to put on her shoes. She breathed a laugh. “Yeah, you gonna spoon me, are you?”
“I’m not averse to a little spoonin’, Yaz,” claimed Jace. Yaz couldn’t be sure whether she was being sincere or not. Either way, she had a straight face. “Aftercare is a very important part of sex.”
“Appreciate the offer,” she said, buckling up her heels, “but I could probably do with my own bed.”
Jace shrugged. “Suit yourself. Want a ride?”
“Nah, I’ll just get an Uber.” Yaz got to her feet, checked she had everything, and turned towards the bedroom. “Come zip me up?”
Jace sprang out of bed and jogged towards her, zipping her dress up with her joint hanging out of her mouth. When Yaz turned back around, Jace held up her phone. “Want me to delete those videos?”
Yaz deliberated. After a minute, she shook her head. “Keep ‘em.”
“Yeah?” Jace raised her eyebrows. “I can send ‘em to you. They’re really, really somethin’.”
“That your way of asking for my number?” Yaz teased.
Jace said nothing; only took another drag of her joint with a twinkle of mischief alighting her reanimated eyes. Rolling her eyes playfully, Yaz held her hand out for Jace’s phone and entered her number into it. When she handed it back, Jace winked at her.
“Y’know, Yaz,” she began, as she walked her towards the door, “I think I met you before. In a dream.”
“Oh?” laughed Yaz, believing she was joking. “Not gonna get a tattoo of me, are you?”
They came to a stop next to the door and Jace turned towards her. “Does this mean anythin’ to you?” She pulled the neck of her T-shirt down, revealing a small tattoo inked onto the skin above her collarbone. Three words.
I’m with you.
Yaz knitted her brows together. “Not a clue. What’s it mean?”
Disappointed, Jace pursed her lips and let go of her shirt. “Dunno. Just somethin’ you said to me.”
“In your dream,” indulged Yaz, though her doubt was palpable. “Right.”
Jace smiled. She opened the door for Yaz and stepped to one side. “It’s been my absolute pleasure, Yaz.”
“See you, Jace.”
Only, as Yaz made to brush past Jace, she was stopped by Jace’s fingers linking through her own. Jace twirled her around, cupped her face, and kissed her with a mouth full of smoke. Yaz breathed it out through her nose and kissed her back with an equal measure of ardour. When they separated, Jace’s grinning face was tainted something ungodly.
“See you in my dreams, Yaz,” she drawled.
Amused, Yaz shook her head. “You should be so lucky, mate.”
While Yaz walked away to the tune of Jace chuckling over her shoulder, she found that she suddenly understood, with visceral clarity, the meaning behind those three words inked onto Jace's skin.
She said them once.
In a dream.