‘Morning.’ Ruby turned to her. In the morning light, her hair seemed to glow. Heather smiled, and the rest of her lit up too.
‘I’m a bit surprised you’re still here.’ Heather reached out to tuck a loose curl behind Ruby’s ear, and Ruby’s insidesfizzed. ‘You were telling me last night all about your disappearing acts.’
Ruby tensed. How much of herself had she revealed? ‘Well I normally end up regretting my choices once I see them in the cold light of day.’ Her tone was defensive, though she tried to inject it with humour, and Heather rolled away. Ruby felt a flash of panic. ‘Sorry, I was … it’s a joke …’
Heather stared at the ceiling, her expression impassive. Ruby reached for her, a touch on the shoulder to plead for her return. ‘I don’t regret anything about last night, but I did want to apologise for the other day, after the party. That was shitty of me.’
‘It was.’ Heather took a moment to deliver her verdict, but when she turned back, there was a sly grin on her face. ‘And have you considered the possibility that the person lying next to you is thinking the same thing? Because I know that when I woke up I was hoping and praying that it was all a terrible dream …’
‘Oh don’t say that!’ Ruby was grinning now too. She sat up and looked down at Heather. ‘You don’t mean it!’
‘I do! MaybeIshould just leave instead.’ Heather made to get out of the bed and Ruby pounced, pinning Heather’s arms either side of her head.
‘You wouldn’t dare.’ Ruby was panting from the exertion and the giddiness. The two tussled. Heather was stronger than she looked but at a certain point she stopped fighting back, and they just stared at each other, smiles wide and breathless.
They didn’t have much clothing to remove, and Ruby suddenly felt self-conscious, straddling Heather as she was in the bright daylight. She stood, crossing the room to pull the curtains that they’d left open the night before.
‘Don’t do that.’ Heather came up behind her, snaking her arms around Ruby’s waist and planting hot kisses on her neck and shoulder. ‘Why on earth wouldn’t I want to see this?’
Ruby was torn, her desire facing off her pride. She was worried about being a bad fuck. With men, she’d had a decent amount of practice, and anyway, when in doubt a bit of performative moaning usually did the trick. She found it astonishing how often men seemed perfectly satisfied with her simply lying there. With Heather it couldn’t be like that; she didn’t want it to be like that.
‘I’ve never done this before,’ Ruby confessed.
Heather sank her lips into the nape of Ruby’s neck and snaked her fingers down Ruby’s belly. ‘I don’t believe it,’ Heather whispered in Ruby’s ear.
Her fingertips reached the softest part of Ruby’s thigh and Ruby couldn’t help but shudder.
‘You’re telling me that you’ve never done this.’ Heather ran her thumb softly over Ruby’s clitoris. Ruby whimpered.
‘Or this,’ Heather continued, dipping her finger inside Ruby softly and then spreading her wetness. Ruby braced herself against the bay window frame. Below them she could see a gardener with shears in hand in the distance. She worried he might look up.
‘You must have been a very very good girl if you’ve never tried doing this.’ Heather grazed her teeth along Ruby’s shoulder blade as she sank more fingers inside her. Ruby’s knees threatened to buckle as Heather began to slide in and out of her. Ruby was wound tighter and tighter, until the slowness of the build became agonising.
Agonising, because Ruby wanted more. ‘Please.’ Ruby didn’treally know what she was begging for, but she wasn’t sure she could bear to climb much more. Heather pulled away and Ruby gasped at the departure. Heather spun her around.
‘What do you want?’ Heather’s voice was low and steady. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ Heather’s voice softened a touch for that question. Ruby could hardly catch her breath. She shook her head helplessly.
‘Please don’t stop.’
‘I want to watch you.’ Heather led Ruby back to the bed and laid her down on her back. She paused for a moment, and they admired each other. Ruby drank in the curve of Heather’s breasts, the dip at her hip bone, the dapple of freckles across her collarbones. Heather leant down and Ruby reached up for her, impatient to taste her mouth again.
Ruby was floating down, one foot almost back down to earth, when Heather began to stroke her again, and she was lifted back up and away from the solid ground. Ruby wasn’t sure she had ever known that she could be touched like this, that anyone could manoeuvre her body into such depths of pleasure with only an expertly well-placed flick of the wrist.
Ruby came undone more suddenly than she’d expected. A collision that seemed further away, until you realised how fast you were driving. When her eyes drifted open again, the aftershocks were still fizzing down her legs, and Heather’s head was nestled into the crook of her shoulder.
‘You can go now if you want,’ Heather murmured, with just a hint of self-satisfaction in her voice. Ruby wound her fingers into Heather’s hair.
‘Yeah, I might head off actually.’
Heather’s head shot up, her expression one of mock hurt.Ruby laughed and pulled her into a kiss. ‘I guess I can’t very well fuck off until I’ve repaid the favour.’ Ruby leant back to look Heather squarely in the face. ‘Although I might need a little bit of instruction …’ Ruby felt the creep of nerves, but Heather’s smile dispelled most of them.
‘That can be arranged.’
Chapter 40
For the days after that dinner, Opal felt as though she was watching her life pass by through a slightly misted windowpane. The fragments of the night came back to her over the course of a week, each slotting into the empty space left by the last.
This time at least she remembered that it wasshewho turned Noah away. It had been expecting too much of herself, perhaps, to think she might be able to tolerate a very public reminder of her dead daughter on the same night as she was to have sex with the first and only other man since her husband.
