Macon's Heart, page 11
part #2 of San Francisco Series
“You tried something?”
“I kissed her, and then she kissed me back. And it was good, but she freaked out and sent me away. When I tried to talk to her about it, she rejected even the conversation and then ran off to Australia. She couldn’t get much farther away from me right now. So, yes, something happened. But, no, it’s not going to happen again.”
“Wait. Didn’t you tell me this morning you went out with Russell this week?”
“I did, because I told her I wouldn’t wait for her to get her ass back here, and she seemed to think I wanted men and wouldn’t ever want her for real. I said yes to drinks, and then we went out again last night, and he tried to kiss me.”
“Tried?” Keira dropped the fork she’d been holding still onto her salad plate.
“He leaned in, and, yes – our mouths connected. Technically, it was a kiss. But I didn’t kiss him back, and he pulled away as soon as he realized. I told him it wasn’t going anywhere between us. I didn’t tell him why, though, because I don’t even know myself.”
“Because you have a thing for Greene?”
“She won’t let me have a thing for her even if I do. So, what’s the point? I just know Russell’s not the guy. I tried to force something that’s not there just to see if she was right. But I can’t imagine kissing anyone other than her right now.”
“So, you liked it?”
“I loved it, Keira. She’s…” Joanna looked away from Keira. “I’ve never thought of a woman the way I think about her.”
“And you think about her like that? Like you’d do more than kiss her?”
“I have, yeah.”
“You have?”
“I don’t understand it. We’ve been friends; I love her as my friend. She’s such a great person. But, recently, I’ve been thinking about her in that way you shouldn’t think about friends, especially when you’ve always considered yourself to be straight and that best friend is a gorgeous gay lady.”
“You think she’s gorgeous?” Keira chuckled.
“Have you seen her? She’s hot,” Joanna said. “She’s beautiful, and she’s hot,” she clarified.
“And you want to have sex with her? You could have sex with her? With a woman?”
“It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t think I can. Actually, she thinks if I did – if we did – I’d snap back into my apparent straightness right after or the next morning.”
“You should talk to her.”
“I tried. She left.”
“She cares about you, Joanna. I know it; Emma knows it. Hillary can see it, and she’s hardly around these days. Hell, even Mason and Maggie noticed. It’s obvious.”
“And you warned her not to be with me.”
“No, I warned her to take care of herself, because I thought she was falling for a straight woman who would turn her down if she did anything. I was wrong. I knew it last Thursday night for sure.”
“What? How?” Joanna glared at her.
“I saw you two in the room: she was teaching you how to play, and you were enjoying it. When she moved back, your face changed. Emma caught it first. She said you were smiling and happy, and then you weren’t when Greene stepped back. Then, you two were doing something at the door; she put her hands on your waist. I saw your reaction, and it hit me that it’s not just one-sided.”
“It is, though, because she doesn’t feel it enough to try.”
“She does.” Keira placed her hand on top of Joanna’s on the table. “She does. She just doesn’t know how to tell you, or show you. She’s not exactly the relationship type, Joanna. She dates a lot, but she doesn’t do relationships.”
“You guys all make these assumptions about her; you know that? You assume that because she flirts with a woman at a bar, or because she goes out with one a few times, that they’re hooking up and then she drops them. But she doesn’t.”
“She hasn’t recently. Honestly, she stopped when she met you.”
“And I stopped dating when I met her.”
“Until Russell.”
“Russell was a mistake, and nothing happened.”
“So, I’m curious: if you and Greene don’t happen, would you be open to dating another woman?”
“I don’t want another woman.”
“But would you be open to it?”
“Are you trying to ask if I’m bisexual?”
“I’m just trying to figure it out probably in a similar way that Greene is.”
“I don’t know. I just know that I like her in a way I hadn’t expected. When I kissed her, it felt good. It felt right. I haven’t had that in a long time; maybe ever.”
“Then, you should really tell her that.”
“I tried. She’s not interested.”
“Try again. Nothing good seems to come easy,” Keira advised.
◆◆◆
“You were amazing, Greene,” Gail told her.
“Thanks.”
“Did you have fun the other night?” she asked as they made their way down the hall after Greene’s first of three performances with the symphony.
“At Betty’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure. Your friends are nice.” Greene headed to the outer doors.
“We have what, three more days here?”
“Four days and three nights,” Greene corrected.
“Right.” Gail pushed open one of the doors for them. “I was thinking that maybe you’d want to hang out tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, it’s only 9:30. I’m starving. We could grab a late dinner and then maybe go back to my place, or there’s always your hotel; I have two roommates.”
“Oh.”
Greene’s phone chimed with a text message. She’d gotten a few when she’d first arrived from her friends, checking on her and also expressing their anger with her departing so quickly. She pulled the phone out of her pocket with a jump in her heart rate, hoping to see Joanna’s name there, but she frowned when she saw Keira’s name instead.
Keira: You’re going to lose her if you don’t stop acting like an asshole.
“Everything okay?” Gail asked.
“Yeah, sorry.” She went to stuff the phone back in her pocket, but it chimed again.
Keira: She’s going on dates, Greene.
Greene shoved the phone back into her pocket and stared at the poster on the wall that had her picture on it, advertising the show.
“Do you need to make a call?”
“No, it’s nothing.” She looked over to Gail, who appeared confused. “Listen, Gail… I can do dinner, and I can hang out, but that’s it, okay? If you’re looking for more than a friend, I can’t be that for you.”
Gail seemed a little shocked at that response, but she smiled all the same.
“Something you want to talk about?” She nodded toward Greene’s pocket where she’d just stuffed her phone. “I can listen. I’ll admit that I did want more. I had fun the other night with you. But if you’re not interested, that’s okay, too.”
“I’m not,” Greene returned. “But it’s not about you.”
“I get it. Another woman?”
“Something like that.” Greene made her way to the parking lot, with Gail at her side. “How about we just go to the hotel restaurant? We can eat and charge it to the room.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
CHAPTER 12
Joanna thought back to the night with Russell as she stared blankly at her computer screen. She’d had a wedding shoot she needed to edit and get turned over to the client, but she’d been putting it off. He’d been a perfect gentleman. He’d asked her out officially, and they’d gone to dinner the next night. Again, he’d pulled out her chair and opened doors for her. He offered his arm to her as they walked. He probably would have offered his jacket had she not had her own. He’d been a perfect first date. They’d shared a great conversation about her work, his work, and how they intersected. They spoke about their upbringings, schools, and hobbies. When their conversation died out over coffee, he’d paid the bill, and they’d stood to go. He’d walked her home, and at her front door, he’d kissed her.
As she sat staring at her computer, she glanced at the time. It was six minutes after five. She’d been at the office for most of the day, meeting with existing and potential clients and scolding Keira for a certain text message she’d sent to Macon without telling her. Joanna had asked her politely to send Macon another one, clarifying that she was not dating anyone. She’d gone on one mistake of a date, and it had ended there. She wasn’t exactly waiting around for Macon Greene, but she couldn’t seem to move beyond what it had felt like to kiss her and be kissed by her either. She couldn’t remember how it felt to touch the last man she’d been with, or even how Russell’s brief kiss had felt against her lips – and that had only been a few days prior. She could remember every single sensation from her all too brief encounter with Macon: there were her soft and full lips, and they moved so perfectly against her own; there was the feel of Macon’s hands on her skin, and the feel of Joanna’s hands on Macon’s back; Macon’s bra that she’d almost undone but had hesitated. That hesitation was likely why Macon was in Australia, where it was six minutes after ten in the morning.
Her phone rang. She removed her headphones that had been plugged into the computer as she listened to the West Side Story soundtrack for the thousandth time. She glanced over at it, preparing to tell whoever it was that she was busy, when she saw Macon’s face and her name and number.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” Macon said. Joanna closed her eyes at the sound of her voice. “What are you doing?”
“In my office, editing. What are you doing?” She leaned back in her office chair.
“I’m lying in my hotel room. I have rehearsal in about an hour.”
“Sydney?”
“Last show,” she replied.
“Then?”
“Rome.”
“Have you ever been?”
“No,” Macon said. “I’ve never really been anywhere. I’ll be in all these cities for the first time, except for New York.”
Joanna stared at her floor for a moment and asked, “How are you?”
“Are you dating someone?” Macon asked almost at the same time.
“I’m going to murder Keira,” Joanna grunted. “No, I’m not. I went on a date; one date. And it was a mistake.”
“With whom?”
“Macon, you left. Why–”
“I know,” she interrupted. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
“Can we start over?”
“Why do we need to start over? How would we even do that, Macon?”
“I like when you call me Macon. No one else can do that; only you.” Joanna could hear Macon smiling through the phone.
“I don’t want to start over with you. I just want you to be honest with me.”
“About how I feel?”
“About that. About why you ran. About how you are there.” She hesitated and closed her eyes. “About if you’re dating anyone or–”
“No,” Macon said immediately. “No, I’m not. And I don’t want to date anyone.”
“Have you–”
“No, I haven’t slept with anyone, Jo. I don’t want to do that either.”
“I didn’t know. You just left. You were angry.”
“I don’t deal with my anger with sex. You know that about me.”
“I do.”
“Did you go out with a guy?” Macon asked.
“Yes. Because I did express my anger with you–”
“With sex?” Macon asked.
“What? No,” she rejected. “Macon, it was Russell. I ran into him, and he asked me out. I was upset with you, but I was also trying to figure out–”
“Why you kissed me?”
“Yes,” she confessed. “I thought, stupidly, that if I went out with him, and felt about him how I feel about you, that I could somehow get past it.”
“How do you feel about me?”
“Right now? I’m a little annoyed,” she admitted. “And I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you.”
She smiled at the sound of Macon’s voice saying those words.
“Macon, he kissed me. It was a peck really, and I pulled away.”
“Oh.”
“I stopped him, because he wasn’t you,” she revealed and stood. “Macon, I kissed you, and it opened this whole new world to me, because you opened this whole new world to me. God, when I first met Emma, I had to admit that she was the first lesbian I’d really gotten to know. Then, I met you. I felt like I had a real friend – and not one of those friends from work, or friends you have on Facebook or sometimes see after a few years, but someone I would be friends with forever.” Joanna paused and walked to her bed, sitting on the end of it. “But I think it might have always been more than that, and I just didn’t know.”
“For me too.”
“I don’t know what that makes me, but I don’t think that makes me straight, Macon. I’ve never felt how I felt when you kissed me. It was, God… it was perfect. I could do that for hours, I think: kiss you like that.”
“You could?”
“Yes.” Joanna practically giggled. “Never tell me how many women you’ve kissed like that, by the way.”
Macon laughed. Joanna adored the sound of it.
“I’ve never kissed anyone like that, Jo,” she shared. “I’ve kissed a lot of women, but I’ve never kissed anyone like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s all I want to do for the rest of my life,” Macon offered.
Joanna smiled at that and bit her lip to hold back a gleeful yet embarrassing outburst.
“So, you only want to kiss me? You don’t want anything else?”
“Oh, I want everything else.” Macon’s voice had grown sexier, deeper at that. “But do you want everything else?”
“I want you to touch me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You do? How?”
Joanna flopped back onto her bed, leaving her legs hanging over the side.
“I don’t know,” she replied, suddenly embarrassed.
“Yes, you do.”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“I had this dream one night.” Joanna toyed with the strings of her sweatpants.
“About me?” Macon asked.
“About you.”
“What were we doing?”
“We weren’t doing anything; I was just lying there. You were doing things.”
“I was?”
“You were between my legs.” Joanna felt the redness in her cheeks burn as she remembered what it had looked like to have Macon between her legs, but more importantly, what it had felt like.
“I was?” Macon was breathing a little harder now.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to do that to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
“No, Macon. It’s not like that.” Joanna stopped playing with the strings at the sound of Macon’s disappointment. “It’s not a woman thing. It’s because I haven’t done that before.”
“No one’s gone down on you?” the woman replied, surprised.
“No one ever seemed to want to,” she answered the question with a new surge of embarrassment.
“But I bet every guy you dated expected a blow job, right? Wait… Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” She paused, and her breathing increased again. “I want to do that to you, Jo.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” Macon gasped out.
“What else do you want?” Joanna asked and toyed with those strings again.
“You, in every way I can have you,” Macon returned. “God, I can’t believe we’re talking about this, and I’m not there to touch you.”
“Like I’d let you.” Joanna giggled and felt like a schoolgirl.
“What if I kissed you first?”
“Maybe.”
“And if I ran my hands up and down your sides?”
“Maybe,” she said between quick breaths.
“And if I kissed your neck and ran my tongue along your collarbone?”
“It’s possible.”
Her fingers had stilled. Her hand was now flicking at the waistband of her sweatpants.
“And if I lowered you onto the bed, climbed on top of you, and spread your legs with my hand so I could rest my hips between your legs and rock into them?”
“Jesus.” Joanna breathed and slid her hand just under the waistband and over the purple panties she had on under them.
“Yeah?” Macon asked, and Joanna realized the woman was breathing just as hard as she was.
“Yes.”
“And if I took off your shirt and your bra?”
“Macon, this isn’t fair.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re there.”
“I know.”
“And I want you here.”
“Pretend that I am,” she suggested.
“How?”
Macon didn’t answer right away. Joanna wondered if she’d said something wrong. Had she embarrassed herself without even knowing? She’d never talked like this before, and not just with another woman, but with anyone.
“Jo?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m touching myself,” Macon admitted.
“You are?” Joanna couldn’t believe it. She was listening to Macon while she was doing things to her own body. The jolt of electricity flew through her and down to the spot between her legs. She grew instantly wetter after having been turned on since this conversation had turned heated. “What are you doing? I mean, what–” She stopped. “I’ve never done this, Macon.”
“We don’t have to now,” Macon said, but Joanna could recognize her short bursts of breathlessness into the phone.
“No, don’t stop,” she replied. “Just tell me.”
“I’ve been thinking about doing things to you since I woke up this morning. I wasn’t going to do this, but then we started talking, and I couldn’t stop myself.”
“Then, don’t.”
“Jo, I want you.”
“Where is your hand right now?”
