Page 44 of SapphicLover69
“What if I can’t keep up with you?” I asked. “What if you get bored with me?”
“Ha!” she emitted and rolled her eyes with a pained expression. “Please! You’re far too creative for me to ever become bored with you. Besides, I spend all day with mathematicians and scientists. When I come home, I’m ready for a break. And clearly, I took up writing because I had nobody to come home to. My stories have kept me company, but it’d be wonderful to spend time with you, Mary.” Pausing, Chloe fixed me with a considering gaze. “It’s a pretty name, but Aspen suits you, I think.”
“I don’t mind if you call me Aspen.” Smiling, she leaned in for a slow, sultry kiss that lingered on my lips and in my imagination long after that night.
“Ugh!” Chloe groaned when she checked her watch. “I have to be at the airport in two hours to line up for security for my flight home.”
Her news hit me harder than Cary’s fist had. “Why don’t you run upstairs and pack while I pack down here?” I suggested. “I’ll set my alarm if you’ll come back and snuggle in the bed with meuntil time. Then we can both check out, and I’ll drive you to the airport.” I hungered to spend every remaining minute with her.
“I’d love that,” Chloe answered. “But I don’t want to put you out. I can get a cab.”
“You’re not putting me out,” I avowed. “I’m just not sure how I’m going to let you walk through the security check without me.”
Chloe molested me with another searing kiss that could have fueled a rocket ship with its energy before pulling herself away. She slipped on her shoes, picked up her coat, and claimed, “Bet I’m back here with my bags before you’re done packing.”
“Not on your life!” I grinned.
When she returned less than fifteen minutes later, she was in jeans and her Literary Laurels rainbow T-shirt, and all my packed bags waited by the door. I was running on nothing but adrenaline and hope.
When she melded into my embrace, I clung to Chloe like I’d never let her go. Her body fit mine like a matching puzzle piece, and she smelled intoxicating. Our heartbeats found their duet just as they had when we hugged after escaping the fire. We assuredly had lit a spark; only time would tell if the fire would grow.
For an hour we lay in bed sharing caresses and kisses, tender exchanges of genuine affection. While a part of me was wanton with desire, wise judgment won out. It wouldn’t be right to rush through mind-blowing sex and then pop Chloe on a plane. I wanted our first intimate experience to be unrestricted by time and to evolve naturally from a solid emotional bond, which meant patience.
Even without the abandonment of driving passion crashing into new heights of ecstasy, every sensory touch, every tender kiss, was an erotic expression flooding my body with delight and eager anticipation for what was to come. It was like Advent,building expectations with each box checked for the prize waiting at the end.
Unwilling simply to drop Chloe off at the departure doors, I whipped my car into short-term parking and walked in with her. We got her bag checked, and I stood with her in the security line chatting about mundane matters just to spend a few more minutes in her vibrant energy. They made me leave the line once she reached the checkpoint. I hugged her, brushed a kiss to her lips, and commanded her to call me as soon as she landed so I’d know she was safe. She promised, insisting I have plenty of coffee before heading down Interstate 10.
I hung around the airport for a while, my body vibrating after the lack of sleep and all the craziness that my writers’ imagination could have never dreamed up. I watched planes take off, not knowing which one was hers, for about half an hour, still working on processing the events of a weekend that changed my life. Pulling out my phone, I thumbed through the pictures I’d taken and lingered over the selfie of Chloe and me pressed tightly together, sporting big grins at the table in the lounge after she’d performed her karaoke tribute.You could be right, Chloe of the unpronounceable Polish name. Maybe I do belong with you. I guess time will tell.
Epilogue
Goodbye Mary, Hello Chloe
Five months later
It was the week before Thanksgiving, and my parents had made it clear they expected me to attend the family gathering at my grandparents’ house in St. Petersburg. I wanted to go see Grandma and Grandpa, but I also had to finish editing my latest novel so it would get a release date this year. I felt it was my spiciest, steamiest yet, with an intriguing plot and realistic enough characters to snag the big brass bell of Best Contemporary Romance. Sales had been up after winning the Laurel, and several top authors had approached me with opportunities to partake in a few joint projects—an anthologyand a spicy romance series where our stories would slightly overlap, being set in the same fictional small town. Naturally, I was on board with them all. Writing wasn’t making me rich, but it was keeping me happy.
I had re-established my online presence and was already up to half the number of followers as before the debacle. It felt great to be interacting with writers I’d met at the conference, readers and fans, and commenting on people’s funny memes. I’d forgotten how much I missed my community.
Chloe hadn’t become bored with me, and I’d held up better with the distance thing than I’d thought I would. We started out talking on the phone several times a week, shooting a few texts in between. Hers were always so cute, consisting mostly of abbreviations and emojis. Each time I got one, my heart fluttered, and I felt lighter. Soon we had established a regular nightly Skype at nine my time, eight central—except a few occasions when she had to stay late to work on a time-sensitive project. Our dates were the highlight of my days and nights, and I came to look forward to them more than food or sex.
Well, actually … I never realized how erotic interactions without touch could be. The written word alone, when done correctly, could bring one to arousal. Between Snapchat and Skype, we could employ as many visual cues as we desired to accompany the suggestive text as we described what we were doing to each other in our minds. You know, those gurus who talk about how imagination creates reality might truly be onto something, because every thought turned into a word or phrase resulted in some very real reactions—for me, anyway—and Chloe attested to the same. The groundwork had been laid, and we were both monumentally ready for an up close and personal rendezvous.
Based on my thoughts and feelings, and compared to my prior experiences, I was left with only one reasonable conclusion—I had fallen for a sci-fi-writing robotics engineer who lived fourteen hundred miles away. It was crazy but true. Of course, I hadn’t told her that part, in case it never worked out for us to be together. I’d given a little thought to picking up and moving to Wisconsin but … the snow, the cold, not knowing anyone. Writing is a solitary profession at best. If I did that, I’d be completely alone most of the time. At least I’d have Chloe in my bed at night, though.
In other news, I had filled out paperwork to legally change my name to Aspen Wolfe. Mom was livid, and Dad shrugged. “Even if she gets married to a guy, she’d have a different last name, anyway. Who cares?” Did he still not understand I was never getting married to a man? And if I married a woman—Chloe Dziedzic, for example—I’d probably keep my professional author name since it’s the one readers would recognize. I came to realize what Tammy and Chloe had been trying to tell me—I am whoever I want to be. Creating the persona I aspired to become and going around pretending to be her had, in reality, transformed me into that person. So why not adopt her name?
The closer it got to nine o’clock, the more delight danced in my heart. I made sure everything was set. I had my drink, had gone to the bathroom, finished all my chores, and sat propped up in bed with my laptop waiting for nine o’clock so I could click the call icon. No sooner than Chloe’s beautiful face lit the screen, Furball slinked across my keyboard, causing blips and errant keystrokes. He rubbed the screen and meowed, flicking his tail as he tried to hog all the attention.
With an annoyed groan, I hefted him off and tossed him to the foot of the bed. “Stay,” I commanded as if it would do any good. “Hey, sweetie. Sorry about that. You know Furball—he always wants to be included.”
“Yep, even in activities to which he was purposefully not invited,” she observed with a playful wink. I laughed. Since Iwas always so happy to see her, laughter lived less than a breath away. “How was your day?” she asked, just like she might if she’d come home from work at the lab.
“Mostly editing. You know me, must have every word precise.” I grinned, and my body hummed with joy. “I got my marching orders for the Thanksgiving Day feast at Grandma’s house. Will you be going to a family gathering back in Beaver Dam?”
“Darn tootin’!” She presented a big, toothy grin that made her cheeks bunch up under the big, round glasses.
“The paperwork came through,” I added with a hint of mystery.
