Addie took a deep sniff and sighed. Toni Darbyshire. Dr. Darbyshire. Toni.Could she be any hotter?Addie knew that her late awakening meant that she could be a little backward on the dating scene. The time for experimentation had been fumbling with boys, and it had bored her. So she thought she was asexual. She’d dated only men, including a few actors who had seen her as a disposable accessory and one who thought of her as property.
By the time she realized she was a lesbian, she felt awkward at trying to figure out how it all worked with someone she didn’t really want to date, so she waited. She tried a few dates, but no one had been that person. So now she was a twentysomething virgin.
What if she had gone back with Toni, what if she’d truly tried to return the pleasure Toni had given her… and not known what to do?
Hey, I know you usually teach history, but what about lesbian lessons?
Addie winced at the thought of that conversation. Toni certainly knew how to please a woman. Addie’s drawers were still damp. Self-consciously, she shoved both her nightdress and drawers under her blankets. Addie’s face burned at the memory. She’d been positively wanton when Toni touched her.
And Toni? She’d been everything Addie could dream of, assertive to the point of dominating but still considerate. She’d made certain that Addie consented to every moment, and Addie had crossed lines that she’d not expected to cross tonight.
Am I still a virgin?
It was a complicated question. Until tonight, the only hand that had traveled there was her own. She’d typically cut things off after a few kisses. She certainly hadn’t moved at the speed to which Dr. Darbyshire was accustomed. Admittedly, Addie had thought all she wanted in a relationship was cuddles and sweet words. Tonight was proof that she wasn’t asexual, at all.
Demisexual, then?
With the right person, she was fine with a little debauchery in the garden. She brought the hand that had been in Toni’s knickers toher lips, wondering just how much further she’d have gone if she’d gone back to Toni’s hotel. But then Addie had realized, at a rather awkward moment, that Toni had not offered up her own surname even once. Addie meant nothing to her, and that wasn’t what she wanted. Not at all.
Addie washed her hands and then walked into the tiny living room where Eric was waiting.
“Well? Spill.”
She flopped onto the sofa. “I know. I know. I didn’t get that last role, but I have a real shot at the Mina adaptation, and there was this professor at the history conference…”
“So you were researching?” Eric guessed.
“Yes. Mostly.” Addie had listened to Toni’s talk, and she hadn’t actually heardallof it because she was caught up in the way Toni moved and the curve of her mouth and…
Addie sighed. That was not a safe direction to let her thoughts wander. “She’s brilliant, you know. Dr. Darbyshire.”
“A professor, huh?” Eric wiggled his brows. “Hot for teacher?” He pointed at the blazer she was currently wearing. “One with passable taste.”
Addie rolled her eyes and dodged the implied questions. “She’s notmyteacher. I’d read a few of her articles when I was preparing for auditions. Watched some videos online. Then I saw her talk and took a lot of notes. And tonight, I wanted to see if I was a more convincing Victorian.”
Eric gave her The Look, the one that said she was worrying him. He went still enough to pass for a sculpture for a moment, and then asked, “Ads… what did you do?”
“I just went to talk to her.” Addie silently added,And let her give me my first ever mind-blowing orgasm with another person.That was a topic she wasn’t ready to ponder. Not now. Not out loud.
“Mm-hmm.” Eric made a gesture with his hand like he was beckoning.
“At that lesbian bar that just opened last spring.”
“Withoutme?” Eric scowled. “You knew I wanted to go there.”
“And we still can. We aren’t moving home for a few months yet,” Addie reminded him.
She didn’t point out that Addie felt like it was different when they went to bars together. People looked at them like they might be a couple, which was the one and only downside to her best friend being a trans man. He was already a man before, but now his outside matched his true self—which was totally awesome for Eric! For her? It created conflicts when people assumed they were together.
“I wanted to meet her as my potential character, assuming I get the role,” Addie offered. “I went to the bar as a Victorian.”
Eric gave her a quelling look. “Ads, you went in public in a see-through nightdress. Do you not see how that could have gone terribly wrong? If Aunt Marlene knew—”
“But she won’t because you don’t tell my mom what I do,right?” Addie glared at her cousin. He was such a worrier; he was more like Addie’s mom than her actual mother was. “And anyhow, Toni was like a knight or a duke or some sort of other dashing hero.”
She sniffed the blazer’s collar again. She wasn’t sure what that cologne was, but she definitely liked it.
“You thought if I was there the professor might think you were straight? Or taken?” Eric guessed.
