Spring Tide (27 page)

“I hope she’s learned her lesson, that’s all.”

“You mean you think this will make her drop the jerky?”

Rosa nodded emphatically. “After almost killing her husband, I hope so.”

“I don’t think so. She’s just giving up the papaya thing, but I think she’s fully committed to this business.”

“Dios mio! Que está, loca
?” Rosa rolled her eyes in disbelief.

“Rosa won’t let my mother sell her jerky off her truck,” Jackie explained to Stef.

“No!” Rosa agreed. “And after what happened here today, can you blame me?”

“It’s not really the danger of poisoning somebody, is it,” Jackie suggested, “that stops you from selling her jerky?”

Rosa frowned. “No,” she admitted. “Like I told her, everything on my truck is authentic Brazilian food. What would happen if I started selling beef jerky and then, next thing you know, hot dogs and biscuits and gravy or whatever you or Becca or Rudy decided you wanted me to sell? My mama would be turning over in her grave.”

“Your mother isn’t dead.”

Rosa shrugged. “But she would be if I turned my truck into a free-for-all. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I do,” Jackie said. “But Mom doesn’t. I don’t think this problem is going away.”

“I’m not doing this just to be mean,” Rosa continued. “I love your mother, but if she asks me one more time to put that damned jerky on my truck, Ben and I are moving to San Diego.”

“So they don’t have jerky in Brazil?” asked Stef. “I mean, dried meat is sort of universal.”

“No! Not like this with the teriyaki and killer papaya zinger, whatever she calls it.” Rosa was about to continue when Ben appeared, approaching rapidly.

“There you are,” he said. “We need to get back if we’re going to catch the after-work crowd.”

They said their goodbyes, then Jackie and Stef walked through
the waiting room to the big double doors leading outside. Just inside the doors, Jackie’s mother stood talking on her phone. She didn’t look up as they passed. Jackie decided there was no reason to bother her. From the sound of her voice, she seemed fully recovered from her fright and no longer in need of comfort.

“You should have seen him,” Ida bubbled. “He looked like one of those Chinese dragons in the New Year’s parade, all red and puffed up.”

Stef and Jackie emerged into the afternoon sunshine. “I need to call the office and tell Niko everything’s okay,” said Jackie, “but he’s already canceled all my appointments for today, so it looks like I have the rest of the day off.”

After all the starts and stops between them, she didn’t know whether Stef would want to spend time with her or not, but she decided to take a chance, encouraged by the fact that Stef had dropped everything to run over here. “Do you have to get back right away?”

“Yeah, I should,” said Stef. “But if you don’t have anything else going on, I wouldn’t mind a little company.” She grinned, her eyes suggesting all sorts of mischief before she slipped on her sunglasses. Then she strode off through the parking lot toward her bike.

Jackie smiled to herself. Even when Stef was talkative, she thought, she wasn’t exactly talkative.

Though Stef seemed very mellow and less guarded than usual, perhaps even willing to talk about herself, Jackie had resolved not to push her anymore, to take Gail’s advice. When she was ready to ask for help, Jackie would be happy to give it. Until then, she’d try to respect her need for privacy and be content with getting to know her better. Apparently, the door was now wide open for that.

She realized she’d somehow won Stef over, somewhere along the way. She didn’t seem to be resisting anymore.

Once they quit fighting, there’s nothing left but to reel them in.

Stef and Jackie stood close together in the main cabin of the houseboat, kissing one another slowly and ardently. Deuce lay nearby on a throw rug, half asleep. Stef’s mouth was incredible. Jackie didn’t want to stop kissing her. Her lips were full and soft and expressive. Jackie’s back was up against the wall as Stef’s hands moved over her bare skin under her shirt. Her mouth grazed her ear, sending stimulating shivers through her.

Ten minutes before, Jackie had arrived to Stef’s eager embrace. There had been no preliminaries and no conversation. They were both way past ready for this.

Stef kissed the exposed skin above her bra, while her fingers tantalized her through the cloth until her nipples were hard and sensitive. Jackie clenched the back of Stef’s neck and closed her eyes. Stef slipped a hand under her bra, touching skin to skin, then lifted the bra to free Jackie’s breasts and make them available to her mouth. Stef’s breath came rapidly as she sucked hungrily, her arms holding Jackie tightly against her.

One of her hands moved up the back of her thigh, up inside the loose leg of her shorts, sliding over her thin underwear and gripping her firmly. Jackie pushed hard against the wall, her body tightening with expectancy as Stef tugged her shorts over her hips and let them sink to the floor around her ankles. Stef’s fingers moved over the silken material of her panties, playing along the edges of the elastic, brushing her skin as lightly as a feather while her tongue and mouth continued to tease her elsewhere. Jackie threaded her fingers through Stef’s thick hair, stiffening involuntarily as Stef’s fingers brushed lightly over her most sensitive and anxious center, sending a charge of pleasure through her.

***

Jackie lay naked under Stef’s unabashed gaze. She stood at the foot of the bed, smiling that crooked smile of hers for several seconds before she removed her clothes, piece by piece, unhurriedly, while Jackie watched from the bed. Stef’s body was muscular, which she had already known, but it was a beautiful thing to see in all its glory, the smooth, powerful thighs, the long, graceful arms, the lean stomach under shameless, opalescent breasts with ruddy areolae, drawn up tight around a pair of hard centers. The last thing, the panties, fell away to reveal a taut rear end that made Jackie’s fingertips ache.

Stef crawled on top of her, letting her stomach rest against Jackie’s as she kissed her mouth deeply and breathlessly. Jackie locked her legs around Stef’s back and moved against her, interleaving both pairs of lips together so they kissed one another in every way possible.

Stef made her way down across Jackie’s body, kissing as she went until she lay between her legs, breathing hotly on her thigh, then kissing her there, circling the area provocatively.

Take me
, Jackie thought, filled with yearning.
Take me now!

Stef nuzzled her way in deeper and opened her mouth to offer her tongue.
Her tongue, her tongue, her tongue!
It was everywhere, warm, wet and uninhibited, snaking its way up, down and in.

“Oh! Oh!” Jackie cried out.

Stef answered with a soft, approving murmur.

So much potential for power and pleasure were gathering there, gathering on the tip of Stef’s tongue, flowing like a flash flood in a canyon, surging wildly against its confines, desperate for a way out. Then, suddenly, when the exquisite agony seemed impossible to bear any longer, it burst free with an explosive force.

“Wow!” Jackie breathed in the benign aftermath. “That was fantastic.”

Stef lifted her head to look across Jackie’s stomach, an uncompromised smile on her face. “Yes, you were.”

Jackie reached her arms toward Stef, who crawled up to fill them. They held one another quietly while Jackie let the warmth of this woman’s love wash over her.

***

Stef knelt above Jackie, taking Jackie’s fingers as deep as she could, hard thrusts that sent waves of pleasure shuddering through her body. She tossed her head back, neck muscles tight, emptying her mind, letting her body take over. All she could hear was the sound of her own labored breaths and the creaking frame of the bed. Jackie pressed the palm of her hand hard against her, creating friction as they moved up and down together, a harmonic duo.

Right there, right there!
she breathed, her eyes shut tight, biting her bottom lip almost painfully hard.

As she came, silently, she became perfectly still, letting the wave roll deliciously over her.

***

Stef could see a half moon through the open window. It cast a cool, romantic light through the bedroom. She realized she’d fallen asleep, but didn’t know for how long. Jackie was curled around her back, a hand on her hip, surrounding her like a warm cocoon. Stef wondered if she was awake. She could hear nothing but the sound of crickets outside.

This wasn’t such a bad place, she thought, this peaceful Delta backwater. Jackie seemed to have a good life here and was eager to share it. As eager as she was to share herself. She was a beautiful, generous, loving woman. Like the town itself, she was a sheltering harbor, a place to take refuge in.

“Are you awake?” Jackie whispered.

“Yes.”

Jackie kissed the back of her neck. “Are you hungry?”

“Ravenous.” Stef turned over to face her. “Let me see what I can find.”

***

Stef had thrown on a long T-shirt to run to the kitchen to make snacks. She returned with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Jackie took one and immediately took a huge bite.

“Oh, thank you!” she mumbled with her mouth full. “I was so hungry.” She took another bite.

“You’ve been burning a lot of calories,” Stef said, pushing a strand of hair away from Jackie’s face.

Jackie nodded, reaching the halfway mark on the sandwich.

“Look what I found while I was in the kitchen,” Stef said nonchalantly, waving a medium-sized zucchini.

Jackie nearly choked. She swallowed what was in her mouth, then burst out laughing. Stef grinned and raised her eyebrows suggestively, her fist wrapped around one end of the vegetable.

***

Jackie moved slowly across Stef’s body, stroking her, kissing her, tasting her stomach, caressing her thighs. She moved closer, feeling the taut excitement of the woman’s body as it lay in uneasy anticipation of her next move, wanting her with a throbbing eagerness.

She opened the woman’s secret world with her hands, hearing Stef’s sharp, inhaled breath of expectation, and took as much of her into her mouth as she could, tasting her, smelling her, immersing herself into the rich wet beckoning center of her.

***

“Oh, my God!” Stef cried, her body lurching with a spasmodic
jerk. “What are you doing?”

“This,” Jackie cooed, her mouth next to Stef’s ear. “I thought you might like it.”

“Oh,” Stef said more calmly, relaxing. “Oh, yes, I—”

“Did I hurt you?”

“No. It was just a surprise.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Uh, I…I…oh.” Stef uttered a low moan, letting her head rest against Jackie’s shoulder.

“Stop?” Jackie asked again, rubbing her cheek lightly against Stef’s.

“No!”

***

Jackie rolled on top of Stef, pinning her arms to the bed by the wrists and grinning down at her. Stef tried to buck her off, but Jackie held her position, her sweet, bashful breasts glowing like two round moons above Stef’s face in the gray light of dawn, so close she could nearly touch them with her tongue.

“It’s no use,” said Jackie, “you can’t escape.”

“Alas,” Stef said in a tragic, feminine voice, “I fear it’s true. What will you do with me, you brute?”

“I’m going to make you do unspeakable things.”

“Oh!” cried Stef in mock despair. “What things?”

“I said they were unspeakable.”

Stef burst out laughing and Jackie followed suit. Deuce ran into the bedroom and jumped up between them, licking Stef’s face, causing her to laugh even more.