34. Hunter

Playlist: Holy | King Princess

I push Jo up against the door as soon as it closes behind us. We hustled back to our room, pausing for a moment at Kelsey and Becky’s door to see if we could hear any fighting. That was my idea.

The room was silent, so they must have already fallen asleep. I don’t know if they’ll be sleeping for long.

“I want to make you scream,” I tell Giovanna before licking the length of her neck, her breath hitching in her throat. “I want to make you come so hard, teasing and edging you until you can’t help but fall apart. Until you can’t keep that perfectly composed facade up any more. I want…”

“You want? It sounds like you think you’re in charge here honey. That’s pretty silly of you.” With seemingly no effort, Jo captures my wrists in her grasp and spins us so I’m pinned against the door with my hands above my head.

“Oh, god,” I gasp. “That was so hot. How did you do that? Do it again.”

She nips at my neck and I’m lucky that she’s holding me up, because otherwise I would fall to the floor in a horny puddle of Hunter. “See? All I have to do is talk to you to make your legs shake.”

“God I want to make fun of you right now, but I can’t. You’re too hot,” I gasp before she crashes her mouth to mine. She adjusts her grip on my wrists so that she’s holding both with her right hand, lightly running her left down the side of my body until she’s toying with the hem of my skirt.

“ Jo .” I don’t know what exactly I’m begging for…except I do. I’m begging for her. For all of her. For her tonights and tomorrows, her mornings and nights. Her kisses and touches and orgasms and snort laughs. Her family, her heart, her honey bears.

Her eyes meet mine, and I watch as they soften. “You are magic, honey. Goddamn magic, and you make me a believer.”

Tears are stinging at my eyes. “I’d go through everything again if it meant we both ended up at Tyler’s wedding.”

Her eyes search mine. “Everything?”

I know what she’s asking. If I’d lose my family again, go through all the pain and grief and loneliness that followed that loss.

“Everything,” I assure her, meaning it with every part of me. Because finding her, finding myself, is worth more than anything else in the world.

She drops my hand to cradle my face, kissing me in a way I’ve never been kissed. She kisses me how only a person who sees, knows, and loves me could.

She breaks our kiss and brushes the tip of her nose against mine. “Me too. I’d go through it all again if I got to plan all of these asinine events. All of it.”

Everything happens so fast, it feels like a montage. Our clothes fall to the floor, and we clumsily stumble into the shower.

“Shit!” I shriek as ice cold water comes out of the showerhead.

“Fuck, sorry!” Jo hurriedly fumbles to adjust the temperature before pinning me against the shower wall. She nips and sucks at my neck and I feel like I could fall apart just from this. I trace her CGM with my fingertips, feeling the shape and texture, and, maybe it’s silly, but I feel an overwhelming wave of gratitude for the tools that help her take care of herself.

“I’ve missed you,” I whisper, tilting my head back into the hot water. “I feel like I’ve spent twelve years waiting for you.”

“Being with you again is a homecoming. I don’t think I’ve shown the real me since you. I chased after that feeling for twelve years, almost marrying a woman who hurt me so fucking much. All because I never thought I’d get to be with you again. You’re home to me, honey.”

Tears stream down my face, hidden by the shower stream as I weave my fingers into her hair, holding her head to me. “I was so scared,” I whisper after a moment. “I was so, so scared when I left Georgia. I didn’t even have a place to live lined up, I lived in my car outside the city while touring apartments.” I inhale shakily. “Eventually I found a place to sublet for a few months and Tyler told me they had a friend who was looking for a roommate. I was so grateful. And then…it was you. You opened up your home to me and even Dolly Parton and…you’re home to me too, Jo. Wherever you are, it’s always been you.”

Giovanna presses her lips to the left of my belly button, her nose nudging my piercing. She’s silent as she kisses lower, lower, lower until she’s lifting my leg up and over her shoulder.

“I might be sandy down there.”

She lifts her eyes to mine. “Luckily, the shower head is detachable.”

I reach up to grab the shower head and then pass it to her. Our fingers brush as she takes it from me and that small touch is so electrifying, like we’re yearning lovers from a Lisa Kleypas novel, brushing hands and exchanging lingering stares from afar. Not like she’s kneeling in front of me, my leg strewn over her shoulder while I clutch onto the safety handle.

She keeps her eyes on mine as she parts where I ache for her and aims the shower spray at my pussy.

I gasp at the pressure of the water on me, making me impossibly more wet for her. It feels so good, but it’s not enough.

“Looks like we got all the sand,” she says after a few moments of intense eye contact, averting her eyes to examine my cunt.

It feels almost clinical, she’s so close to where I want her, but her expression is serious, taking my comfort and cleanliness seriously.

She’s so hot.

“I need you,” I plead, knowing how I sound. But I think she likes me when I’m begging and needy and pathetic for her. If we’re being honest with ourselves, she’s just as needy and pathetic for me.

She smirks up at me before leaning in and licking from my entrance to my clit in one smooth stroke.

I whimper, toes curling and fists clenching at the euphoric sensation. “More.”

“I thought we established you aren’t in charge in this situation?” Jo says, batting her ridiculously long eyelashes, little water droplets hanging to the ends.

“‘I thought we established you aren’t in charge in—’ oh, fuck .” I tried to mimic her, tease her, and she went straight for the home run. She thrust two fingers into me, and sucked my clit into her mouth.

It’s a dirty move. I’m pretty sure she’d get a red card, or at least be benched, if this were a professional sport.

“Point taken,” I gasp, and she smiles against me.

“You gonna smile for me honey? Giggle that precious way you do when you come?” she asks.

I moan. It’s all I can do. Her being horny and lovey turns me on so much .

She flicks my clit with her tongue, firm, fast movements that have me winding tighter and tighter at an alarming speed.

I cry out loudly as my orgasm peaks, pleasure overtaking my body and mind as I fall apart for her. I try to stay present, to not zone out and to really feel all that she’s giving to me. I feel when I smile. I can hear the tiniest giggle, and even better, I’m hyper aware of how Jo’s nails dig into my thigh as I do.

I’m panting, out of breath, until she’s on her feet, pressing her mouth to mine. God, we taste perfect together. It’s so soft as I come down, the way she holds me up, thumb drawing tiny circles on my hip. I break our kiss and slump forward into her, resting my forehead against her shoulder.

“Ready to go to bed?” Jo asks.

I growl. “No. Gimme a sec. You…that was…a lot.”

“You’re so sensitive,” she muses, cupping the back of my head and massaging my scalp with her nails. “So responsive to how I…augh!” She yelps and pulls her hand away like my hair is made of fire. “There’s sand in your hair.”

I can’t help it, I cackle. She sounded so disgusted by the fact that she found even more sand on my person, like the beach hadn’t stolen my undergarments.

“Ugh, fuck off,” Jo grumbles, playfully jerking her shoulder away so we’re no longer touching. “I have sand under my nails.” She’s so pretty, even as she scowls under the water, trying to pick out tiny pieces of sand from beneath her nails. I can’t help but lean forward and steal a kiss. And this grumpy demon of mine can’t help but kiss me back.

“I’ll wash my hair so you can play with it without being attacked by a million grains of sand,” I say against her mouth.

She’s quiet for a moment before responding. “What if I wash your hair?”

My heart pirouettes in my chest, and a little plie at the end for pizazz.

“You wanna wash my hair?” I ask, pulling away from her.

She blushes, and goes back to picking under her nails. “I mean, I guess. If you want me to. It’s intimate, right? Like washing your hair is something you’d do for someone you love? Or something?”

Goddammit, she’s so precious and scared and unsure and she gets to be all of that with me.

What a life.

I usually only wash my hair twice a week, so I didn’t bring the curly shampoo I use. But I’m willing to compromise my hair’s health for Giovanna Quinn to wash it.

“It’s so intimate. You’re the queen of intimacy.”

She blinks at me in confusion. “Is that…can I? God. I’m embarrassed by how much I want to wash your hair.”

“Never be embarrassed by the soft parts of you. I love the prickly bits too, because they protected you when I couldn’t, but the soft, sweet parts of you are so special to me.”

She kisses me, and it’s a sweet, languid kiss that has me forgetting everything besides the fact that I’m hers and she’s mine .

Jo reaches behind me and grabs a travel sized bottle of shampoo. I’m hypnotized by the simple process of her squirting shampoo out of a tiny bottle. The way her arm jiggles with her movement, how her eyes are focused on the liquid as it makes a small pile in her hand. Her perfect hands as they lather the shampoo…well, that has me biting back a moan and squeezing my thighs together.

“Turn around, honey,” Jo instructs. I happily obey, and I can almost hear her rolling her eyes.

“I’m only a brat when I’ll get an orgasm out of it,” I inform her.

Her hands are in my hair, massaging the sweet-smelling shampoo into my scalp and I moan, leaning back against her.

“I figured,” Jo answers teasingly. “I like you both ways. When you’re naughty, and when you’re my good girl.”

“Mmm,” I moan, having reached nirvana in this hotel shower. I think I black out for the rest of the process, until Jo’s taking down the removable shower head again and carefully rinsing the suds from my hair. She kisses my cheek when she’s done and it’s one of my new favorite kisses, so sure and loving.

She conditions and rinses my hair before turning off the shower. My teeth immediately begin to chatter, and I realize Jo had been out of the spray.

“Aren’t you cold?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself as I shiver.

She offers me a towel, which I immediately wrap around myself.

“Yeah, but I wanted to do that for you. God, I hate hotel towels,” Jo grumbles. “They barely cover anything.”

“Lucky me,” I tease, before realizing that’s probably not the best response at this moment. She looks genuinely uncomfortable. “Sorry, you should tell Audrey.”

She shakes her head. “Nah, this is just like…how hotel towels are. They’re always too small for people with bodies like mine.”

To be fair, my tits are squished together to fit in the towel, but it’s not particularly uncomfortable or upsetting for me. Annoying? Sure. But for Jo to brush aside the dignity of being able to have a towel that covers her body as the reality of staying in a hotel breaks my damn heart. She might not want to talk to Audrey…but I sure do. Simply because I think it may not be something she ever thought about.

I never had.

I step towards her and rest my head on her chest. Sex with her is incredible, but the ability to have this comfortable, casual intimacy with her is life-affirming.

“You don’t have to say anything to her, but I think you know that doesn’t mean I won’t.”

There’s a shift in the universe when she smiles, and I feel it now. It feels a little easier to breathe, my skin clears up, etcetera. “I wouldn’t ask anything less of you. Who am I to stop you from being a feral guard dog?”

I laugh. “I’m not sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be. Not for wanting to keep me safe. Even if your methods are fucking terrifying.”

Finally, we climb into bed, and she pulls me into her. She’s so soft and lush, except for her pod pressing against my hip.

“Hey, Hun?”

“Mmm?”

“Last night you said you weren’t sure you were bi. Do you…uh. Do you want to talk about it?” I guess she can feel the way my body tenses, because she quickly amends her question. “If you want and feel comfortable.”

“I’ve been talking in therapy a lot about the fact that I was raised being told I would break boys’ hearts one day.” I say quietly. “Men in my family made comments about how I’d make a lucky man happy one day at my first communion.”

“Christ,” Jo breathes.

“Yeah. I came out of the womb and was immediately taught to cater to the male gaze. I never knew a world existed where I could simply not be attracted to men.”

It’s hard to say out loud. I’ve talked to Krista, my therapist, about it. I’ve been unpacking it more and more for weeks, whether me flirting and sleeping with men was out of a genuine attraction, or simply because I was taught that’s how things were.

Jo rubs soothing circles on my back. “I understand that.”

It feels selfish and silly saying this to Jo, who was raised in the same faith. Whose mom didn’t react the way she’d needed when she came out. Who also struggled to accept her sexuality.

“Does this sound selfish?” I ask.

“No, it sounds like you’re still figuring yourself out, which makes sense. You weren’t allowed to do that before,” she answers comfortingly.

I bury my face in her chest, inhaling her floral scent. “It’s hard,” I admit. “I feel so, so ridiculous saying that, but it’s hard . Because I always thought I knew who I was. I was secure in the fact I was bi. I’m a Cancer. I’m kind of chaotic and a hot mess, but I’m me. Now I don’t know if I’m actually even bi.”

“Josh identifies as queer, and doesn’t identify with a label. One time I asked him about it, and he shrugged and said that he never found a label that felt right to him. He just knew he wasn’t straight. Nic’s attracted to men, women, and other genders. She identifies as bi, as does my younger sister Alex. My sister Millie’s attraction isn’t impacted by gender, and she identifies as pansexual. Their labels are what felt right for them. Not because it was owed to anyone else, but because it felt like it was a part of them. What feels right to you?”

“I don’t know.” It’s painful and humiliating to say out loud.

“There’s no rush to figure out what, if any, label feels right. You’re still you. It’s so, so normal for people’s sexualities to evolve or for them to realize a label they once used no longer fits. It’s okay to grow, to get to know yourself. We said we wanted to do that, grow and bloom together.You’re still growing into you.”

An unexpected sense of peace washes over me. I wanted a definitive answer, for Jo to tell me how I should identify based on the information I gave her. This kind of inspirational poster stuff was possibly better.

I’m still growing into me .

We’re silent, and she keeps her hands on me, continuing her slow circles on my back, and periodically kissing my temple before returning her cheek to its place atop my head.

I inhale shakily, and for once the uncertainty doesn’t scare me. Not knowing exactly who I am doesn’t scare me, because I’m not alone.