Now, with Rory’s scent filling her nose and Rory’s fingers tracing the most delightful patterns across her shoulder, those sensations threatened to overwhelm her again. Her clit throbbed, and her body cried out for Rory’s touch all over. This time, however, she wasn’t a shy eighteen-year-old with her first female lover, now she was an experienced twenty-eight-year-old with more women in her rear-view mirror than she cared to admit.
With a smile, she allowed her fingers to caress higher up Rory’s thigh. As her little finger grazed over the seam of Rory’s trousers, she felt Rory shift awkwardly in her seat and heard a deep intake of breath. Rory’s fingers then traced a firm line down her exposed back to where her strapless dress sat just under her shoulder blades, and she took another deep breath as a wave of pure lust washed over her. Emboldened, Gemma pressed firmer into Rory’s centre. For a moment, she would have sworn that Rory had tipped her hips upward to increase the contact before she sat up sharply. Rory’s fingers stilled. Gemma pressed her hand firmer to Rory’s centre, and Rory closed her thighs together to trap Gemma’s hand.
Gemma turned her head slightly so she could see Rory out of the corner of her eye, and a smile crossed her lips. Far from the cool, collected seductress Rory had been portraying, she now looked flustered and totally turned on. Gemma would have given anything to know what was running through Rory’s head but trapped together in the private box she could say nothing. It was all at once simultaneously too public and yet too private. Gemma pulled her hand out from between Rory’s legs and let her hand rest on that hard, muscled thigh again. Neverin all her times of watching Rory run up and down the hockey field did Gemma envision being sat here with her hand pressed to Rory’s centre. She was about to move her hand back, briefly, the thought of trying to make Rory come flitting through her mind. Her lips curled up again at the thought, and several naughty scenarios ran around her brain.
Just as she was about to put her plan into action, a round of rapturous applause erupted around them, breaking the spell and intruding into their private moment. It was loud enough to wake both fathers, and Gemma looked around in time to see her own father clap enthusiastically along with everyone else even though he had not heard a single note of the aria.
Rory had pulled her arm away from Gemma’s shoulders to add her applause to the rest of the theatre, and Gemma felt a shiver waft across her at its loss. She brought her own hands together and applauded in a daze. As the clapping died down and the action continued on the stage, Gemma felt Rory’s arm return to her shoulders and the safe cocoon of familiarity surrounded her again. Rory reached across with her free hand and clasped Gemma’s hand, stopping her from any further exploration. At the same time, Rory’s head dipped towards her ear and she felt Rory’s warm breath tickle her ear.
“This is safer, don’t you think?”
Gemma looked in wonder at Rory and for a moment pretended not to know what she was saying. It appeared Rory was in just as much danger of combusting under Gemma’s fingers as Gemma was under Rory’s. She whispered back to Rory, “Then stop playing with my neck!”
She pulled back to see Rory’s smile shine at her in the darkness of the theatre.
“Only until we’re alone later,” Rory spoke directly into Gemma’s ear but punctuated her words with a kiss to the delicate skin behind Gemma’s earlobe. That fully combusted Gemma’s brain again, and she was completely unable to concentrate on any of the rest of the performance.
6
RORY
When the performance finished and the curtain calls were over, the families walked back out to the gardens. The grandmothers and mothers were waxing lyrical about the performance, but it was painfully obvious that neither the fathers nor Gemma and Rory had really been paying attention to the performance. “I don’t know.” Phyllis complained. “Why do we spend money on you lot just to have you sleep through the performance?”
“Must be the red wine.” Rory shot her grandmother an apologetic glance and hoped that the older woman believed her. She wasn’t being untruthful in what she said, just in how she allowed her grandmother to interpret those words. Rory knew she was playing with fire, but faced with the creamy expanse of Gemma’s back, she couldn’t help but trail her fingers across those perfect shoulders. Gemma in that dress was doing all kinds of things to her insides, and she 100% blamed the red wine and not having had sex in over a year for lowering her inhibitions and indulging in her desire for this woman.
When she had left home this morning, she had braced herself for a tedious evening of family chit-chat and an inquisition about her broken engagement, even though it had been several months ago. When her mother let slip that Gemma would be there, she’d tensed at the thought that the other woman would be frosty and argumentative, as she had every right to be after how Rory had treated her. But this warm and flirty version of Gemma was something her body was not prepared for, and her hands seemed to have a mind of their own. She would have given anything to have been alone in the box with Gemma, to allow her fingers to fully explore that voluptuous body. She took herself in check and again offered her arm to Mary to walk her back to the table. Even though the opera had finished, the gardens would stay open for another hour or so for those who wanted to enjoy the spring evening. Rory noticed Gemma hugging her arms around herself and was about to offer her jacket to her when Gemma’s dad spoke up.
“Look, rather than open another bottle of wine here, why don’t we head back to the hotel? We could have a few drinks in the bar before turning in?” George winked at Peter, and they shared a conspiratorial smile.
“You mean, we could sit in the bar and you two can slope off and play snooker.” Isabelle chided her husband gently but didn’t dismiss the idea.
“Not for me.” Phyllis addressed everyone in general and no one in particular. “If we are having a pool day tomorrow, then I will need my beauty sleep. I will go straight to bed as soon as we get back.”
Rory’s head snapped up. What pool day were they talking about?
“Umm, pool day?” Gemma spoke before Rory had time to express her own thoughts.
“Yes.” Gemma’s mum, Isabelle replied. “We discussed it while you and Rory were looking at the sculptures. There’s an outdoor pool at the hotel, and it’s going to be glorious weather tomorrow. We thought we could spend the day by the pool and then have a lovely family dinner tomorrow night before you go back to London on Sunday. I’m sure you can spend another night here; you said there was nothing on your calendar this weekend.”
Rory saw a flash of anger cross Gemma's face before it was quickly replaced by one of resignation. She remembered how pushy Gemma’s mum was and sympathised with her friend. Her sympathies only went so far, however, as she was desperately trying to think of a way to get out of being by a swimming pool all day. The last thing she needed was to be exposed to her family in swimwear. She racked her brain to try to get out of it but came up short. The champagne and red wine causing her synapses to run slower. Hopefully, by tomorrow she could come up with a reason not to attend.
“But I have to get the train back tomorrow.” Gemma sounded as uneasy about the plan as Rory felt. “I’ll have to leave just after lunch as there are replacement busses.”
“Nonsense,” Phyllis interjected. “You can stay another night, and Aurora will drive you back on Sunday.”
Wait, what? Rory’s mouth dropped open, and her frazzled brain tried to catch up.
“Close your mouth, Aurora.” Her grandmother snapped before moving the conversation on.
Rory quickly snapped her mouth shut and felt a chill wash over her at the use of her full name and her grandmother’s insistence that she do her bidding. As she usually did, Rory’s grandmother had issued an edict that no one would question. Rory knew she had no option but to acquiesce.Her immediate problem was how to get out of this pool-day idea that had sprung up. Before her grandmother had told her to drive Gemma home, she had briefly thought about inventing some reason to be back in London, but aside from apprehension about what she would wear, she was looking forward to spending more time with Gemma.
She was still thinking about it an hour later as she and her parents pulled up to the hotel. She helped her mother out of the taxi and nodded at the porter hovering near the door. Unlike Gemma, she had arrived earlier that afternoon and had checked into the hotel prior to the opera. She noticed Gemma heading to the reception desk and moved to join her.
“I need to take my case up to my room, could you tell my parents where I’ve gone?” Gemma laid a hand on Rory’s arm, and Rory felt the warmth from it through the fabric of her suit.
“I can, but why don’t you ask the porter to take it up?” Rory nodded at the young man hovering by the door.
“Um, okay, thanks.” Gemma handed over her suitcase, and Rory arranged for the porter to take it up to her room. Rory again offered an arm to Gemma and led her through to the hotel’s cocktail bar. The fathers ordered at the bar, and their mothers sat on a sofa.
