“Not anymore.” Anne hated her triceps with the kind of loathing she usually reserved for incompetent people. They’d betrayed her in the last five years, the skin beginning to sag below the taut line of her arm, and she’d finally been forced to acknowledge that no amount of exercise could defeat time and gravity. “They’re not my best feature, not by a long shot, and that’s just an objective fact.”
“Quit that nonsense right this second.” Before Anne could answer, Sadie let go of her hand and began, very carefully, to push up the left sleeve of Anne’s shirt. “Let me show you how deserving they are.”
A new shock of expectation surged through Anne. “Is this part of the sex talk?”
“I’ve always said practice outranks theory.” Sadie stroked Anne’s exposed forearm, her fingers gentle. “One word from you, though, and I’ll stop.”
Anne closed her eyes. “Don’t stop,” she managed.
“You’re very soft,” Sadie murmured. “I should’ve expected that—Ididexpect that—but it’s nowhere near the same as feeling it for myself.”
“La Mer moisturizer,” Anne said inanely.
“Are all women this soft?” Sadie didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course they aren’t. You’re extraordinary in every way. Why would this be the exception? Don’t try to deny it. I can’t be convinced otherwise.”
Back and forth, back and forth, Sadie brushed her fingertips over Anne’s skin, and Anne felt the touch like a silk snare, wrapping her in need. She inhaled sharply.
Sadie clearly heard it. She paused, just for a second, then resumed her caress, a little slower this time. “You don’t believe me, do you? You don’t think you’re exceptionally soft.”
Not a question but a statement. “I don’t,” Anne said, stammering a little, “don’t know.”
“Then I’ll collect more evidence,” Sadie told her, and lifted Anne’s arm at the elbow.
Anne’s eyes flew open. Paralyzed, she couldn’t do anything but wait, wait, wait as Sadie dipped her head and pressed her warm mouth softly against the inside of Anne’s forearm.
At the light weight of contact, the perfect pressure of the kiss, Anne gasped. Sadie’s lips. Sadie’s mouth. Touching her. Claiming her.
On instinct, her thighs parted, just a little. Her head lifted, tilting back. If this was what arm-kissing was like, if this was what she’d been missing—“Oh, oh, please—”
Against her skin, Sadie made a low, needy sound, the tiny noise vibrating into Anne’s arm. Hearing it—feeling it—Anne twitched. An ache, sweet and terrible, was beginning to bloom between her legs. Somehow, she managed not to push herself down against the bed and seek the pressure she needed.
“You’re already so turned on, aren’t you?” Sadie ran the tips of her fingers up Anne’s arm, short nails scraping just slightly. “I can hear you, I can hear it in your voice—I’ve barely even touched you, and you’re, you’re getting ready for me—”
“Sadie—”
“I told you what I like. How I like to be kissed. Tell me—” She paused. “Tell me how you touch yourself. Do you touch yourself? Have you?”
Anne’s breathing rasped loud even in her own ears. Oh God. Oh God. She nodded, a quick jerk of her head.
“Tell me about it,” Sadie continued, “and look at me, too. Please? I need—I need to see your face.”
“Just—keep touching me.” Anne didn’t recognize what she asked, or the thin, frayed sound of her voice. “I’ll tell you, I’ll look at you, whatever you want; just whatever you do, I need you to keep touching me.”
“I will. I promise—”
She turned to face Sadie, and Sadie turned toward Anne, matching her breath for shallow breath. The stunned expression on her face was the same one she’d worn when sitting on the couch while she tried not to think about Anne undressing. The same one she’d had at Burger Bliss, watching Anne give herself up to something good. Sadie, Anne realized with dizzy amazement, was just as aroused as Anne, and trying just as hard to hold back.
She grabbed Sadie’s hands.
Yet another secret she’d never told anyone: Until after the divorce, Anne hadn’t really touched herself. Oh, she’d tried a few times as a teenager and gotten bored. The termself-pleasurehad seemed like an oxymoron. But those instances had followed a rulebook: Anne pushing herself to think about the football team’s quarterback or Chris Hodges or any of the other faceless faces that flitted across her shut eyes.
She’d tried again once she was on her own, not expecting much, and had shocked herself by how much better it felt when she didn’t force her mind to conjure a man.
“I’m slow,” Anne said softly. “That’s what I like. I take my time.”
A fast, loud exhale from Sadie. “Slow,” she repeated as though she wanted to memorize the details. “Time.”
“I try to clear my mind, not to think too much. Sometimes”—it felt so vulnerable to share this with someone else, even Sadie—“I picture shapes.”