Page 23 of Strap In

Ava opens the door, clad in a raincoat and subtle bronze lipstick. Her hair’s in a bun – not scraped back like at conference, but pinned proud on top of her head, loose curls framing her face. She looks beautiful. And she looks like someone about to leave for a night out.

‘Jean,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘Sorry. I should’ve realised you’d have plans – it’s Friday night. I just… I wanted to talk to you.’ Jean backs away, pressing the button to summon the lift. ‘Never mind. It can wait.’

‘Come in for a bit. I don’t need to leave right now.’

Even mashing the button doesn’t bring the blasted lift. ‘No, no. It was nothing important.’

Ava steps out into the hallway, covering Jean’s hand with her own. ‘Come in.’

Inside, Jean lingers by the door, toying with an opal on her ring as she speaks. ‘I’ve been thinking. About what you asked me.’

Ava’s expression remains carefully blank, but her breath stutters – silence, then a sweet little gasp. The exact same sound she makes whenever Jean catches a nipple between her teeth. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yes.’ Jean shifts her weight from foot to foot, the friction offering a moment’s relief to the ache between her thighs. ‘Actually, I can’t stop thinking about it. Day or night. I keep trying to imagine what it would feel like.’

‘Fuck,’ Ava breathes. Her eyes close, and the knowledge that Ava’s picturing it – savouring the thought of her sex – has slick heat pooling silken smooth between Jean’s thighs.

‘Precisely. It’s been torture.’

Ava licks her lips. And when she opens her eyes, there’s resolve in the set of her jaw. ‘Hang on. Just let me text Lin and Petra to cancel. Then you’re all mine.’

A pulse jump starts in Jean’s clit, relentless. Yet her conscience prickles. ‘If you’ve made plans, you should keep them. We can do this another night.’

Ava scoffs. ‘Don’t be such a tease – you can’t just show up talking about how you’ve been dreaming of me eating you out then act like it’s no big deal.’

‘It’s not the only thing that matters.’ The words ring hollow even to Jean’s ears.

‘But it is a particular fantasy of mine.’ Ava’s thumbs fly across the screen, and there’s the whoosh of an outgoing message.

And Jean knows that she should feel guilty. That she’s crossing all kinds of lines, and there’s nothing remotely casual about her behaviour. But the tension melts from her shoulders in an instant. Ava has chosen her; this untameable thing between them. ‘You’re staying, then?’

‘I’m staying.’ Fondness softens the sharp edge of lust in Ava’s eyes. ‘Listen, if a hot woman showed up on their doorstep begging to get eaten out, I’d want Lin and Petra to live their best lives too – they’re in an open relationship.’

Jean bristles. ‘I did not beg.’

‘Not yet.’ Ava steps closer, into Jean’s space. So close that Jean must look up to meet her gaze. ‘But you will.’

Lust rolls over in the pit of Jean’s belly. ‘Prove it.’

Ava’s eyes darken, pupil melting into iris. She pulls the combs free from Jean’s hair and tangles both hands in, pulling just hard enough that Jean tilts her head up for a kiss.

They end up on the bed, limbs knotted like vines. And Jean rocks against the sharp point of Ava’s hip, craving friction. Her bliss proves short-lived: Ava wriggles away, pinning both wrists above Jean’s head.

She cups Jean’s sex with her free hand, surely able to feel the heat of it even through tights and silk.

But the touch is fleeting. Even when Jean whimpers, Ava doesn’t return the pressure.

Instead, she descends, rolling Jean’s tights down, inch by inch, pausing to kiss every last square centimetre of newly exposed flesh.

Her lips find the hollow behind Jean’s knee, a startling intimacy.

Her fingertips trace a vein down Jean’s calf, ghostly pale beside the bronze of Ava’s skin.

Then Ava works her way up the other leg, eyes meeting Jean’s as she plants a trail of kisses up the swell of her inner thigh.

Jean shifts so that her legs tip open – a not-so-subtle hint – and Ava’s smile becomes wicked.

She plants a kiss square against Jean’s cunt through the thin scrap of satin, already hopelessly ruined, contoured to her folds by desire.

The sight of it, or maybe the scent, drives Ava into a frenzy. She nuzzles Jean’s sex, the fleeting pressure of it stealing a gasp from Jean’s throat.

‘Fuck,’ Ava says, in a dazed voice. ‘You’re so wet.’

Jean inches her thighs together, swallowing back disappointment.

It’s not as if she’s in a hurry to bury her face in another woman’s slippery want, so why should she expect the same in return?

‘Sorry. You’re right.’ She sits up, glad the fairy lights are dim enough to conceal the worst of her flush. ‘I’m all sticky – it’d be too messy.’

But Ava only smiles, resting a hand on Jean’s bare knee. ‘Oh Jean, that’s the point. You’re delicious and I want a proper taste.’

Jean’s pulse quickens, the throb of it rattling in her very teeth. ‘It’s not something that’s ever done much for me – and you should know that I’ve never come that way.’

Even in the early days of her marriage to Henry, it had felt like being lapped at with the finesse of a dog drinking from its water bowl. By tacit agreement they’d removed cunnilingus from their sexual repertoire, and Jean has turned it down from all her one-night stands since.

But Ava’s undeterred. ‘That sounds like a challenge.’ Though for all her confidence she stays put, tracing Jean’s rib with her fingertips. ‘Do you really not want me to?’

‘It hasn’t worked for me before, and I don’t want you to be disappointed if you can’t get me there.’ Jean flops back against the pillows. ‘Don’t feel obliged to keep going – you can stop when you’re bored.’

‘I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,’ Ava says, with the rigid expression of someone trying not to laugh. But a crease appears between her brows. ‘You sure you’re up for this? Sweet as you taste, I’m not going to do anything if you don’t want it.’

Jean laughs, reaching down to stroke Ava’s mop of curls. ‘I trust you. And, well – I’m curious.’

Jean’s thighs relax, sinking into the mattress. And Ava’s breath comes sharp and urgent as she draws close, though her touch is gentle now.

She puts an arm beneath Jean’s thigh, bringing it to rest pillowed against her shoulder.

Places her other hand on the swell of Jean’s lower belly.

And Jean winces at the direct contact with a problem area she was unable to shift even in her early twenties – FUPA, as Grant calls it, claiming even Beyoncé struggled wit— FUCK .

The glide of Ava’s tongue obliterates all coherent thought. Jean’s hips arc from the mattress of their own volition. Only the arm locked round her waist keeps Jean from bloodying her nose.

Ava pulls back, breath hot against Jean’s thighs. Her shiny lips stretch into a smile. ‘You alright, Jellybean?’

‘Y-yes.’ A shuddering breath. Her body’s taut as a bowstring. ‘Don’t stop.’

A huff of laughter blows through her pubic hair. Then Ava bows her head. Her mouth is on her, tongue circling, probing, always teasing.

Ava sucks Jean’s clit into her mouth. And Jean’s brain short circuits.

The tip of Ava’s tongue catches that tender pearl again and again, flicking until she writhes.

Only when her lungs begin to burn does it occur to Jean that mewling sound is coming from her own mouth.

She scarcely has time to draw in a shaky breath before Ava’s fingers play at her entrance, pushing Jean to the very precipice.

Then Ava thrusts inside, fingers curling against Jean’s front wall.

And there’s no controlling the tremor that runs through her body, no escaping that tongue.

Ava holds fast as Jean bucks against her, lashing Jean’s clit through the storm of her climax, holding her on a knife edge between pleasure and pain.

Jean’s too weak to push her away as the orgasm ebbs. But Ava, better versed in Jean’s pleasure than any other, draws back. She presses one final kiss against the inside of Jean’s thigh and climbs up the bed.

The lower half of her face is coated in Jean’s desire – even her nose shines with it. And even after Ava wipes it off with a tissue, her eyes remain wild; intoxicated. Yet Ava’s gentle as she folds Jean into her arms, stroking her hair until Jean stills.

‘You alright?’

Though her muscles feel limp as cooked spaghetti, Jean manages to nod. She rests a hand against Ava’s collarbone, trusting the gesture to say what words cannot.

‘Go to sleep. I’ve got you.’

‘What about…?’ Jean trails a limp hand down Ava’s belly. But before she can reach her destination Ava takes it, presses a kiss to the back of Jean’s knuckles, and brings their linked fingers to rest outside the duvet.

‘It’s been a big night for you. And I loved every second of it.’ The brush of lips against her temple. ‘Rest now.’

And Jean does.

In the morning Ava takes great pleasure – almost as much as Jean – in a repeat performance.

She kisses a trail from Jean’s lips, down her collarbone and throat.

Months have passed, and the wonder she finds in Jean’s breasts shows no sign of dulling.

Fervent lips lock around her nipple, Ava’s tongue lashing the bud into a stiff peak.

Only when Jean knots her fingers in those silken brown curls and pushes Ava’s head down does she move on.

Ava covers Jean’s cunt with her mouth, tongue darting inside until Jean’s trembling grows uncontrollable.

Then Ava hums as her tongue finds purchase on Jean’s clit, and that vibration as she suckles sends Jean tipping headfirst over the edge.

Ava doesn’t relent there. With Jean’s sex at eye-level, she skates her fingers through the slippery folds.