A Ghost in Mind [Part Three]
Title: A Ghost in Mind [3/6]
Pairing(s): JeTi
Rating/Genre: NC-17; AU Angsty Romance
Warning(s): Sex.
Disclaimer: I don't own Soshi. I don't own anyone, in fact. All Fiction.
Chap. Summary: Tiffany finds her own ways to cope with new feelings.
Author's Notes: Ahhhh--so nervous about this chapter. >.< Hope it’s not moving too fast; but, we only have six chapters, so onward and upward! Drop a line if you get a chance. ^^
Part Three: Tiffany
--
Tiffany stirred into consciousness, mood just as off as when she’d crawled into the unfamiliar sheets. She swore that she’d sleep it away--even dream it away, if possible. But, she woke up partially rested and stuck in her head. 4:09am beamed in green from a desktop alarm clock. Dark eyes rolled at the offending numbers.
God, did things get intense earlier.
Running to technology as distraction, she scrolled through the email app on her phone. Nothing eye-catching. Revisions from clients, invitations to galas, Kickstarter spam, and tracking confirmations held no weight compared to the happenings in Tiffany Hwang’s brain.
Arguing with deceased friend’s lady squeeze? Fine. Witnessing her break a glass in a fit? Okay. Catching a penetrative spark in her eyes…
Jessica’s stark, unnerving eye assault on Tiffany.
She knew she'd crossed numerous boundaries by agreeing to spend the night. Once she voluntarily cleared the tables, she should have called the closest cab service because when Tiffany Hwang went out of her way for anything, there was good reason. Usually involving a beautiful woman.
Fuck, she admitted it to herself. Jessica was bloody beautiful.
Even her sullen expressions--eyelashes pointed south and cheeks lacking rosiness--upstaged any cover of Harper’s Bazaar. Tiffany had mistaken her inclination to stare at the woman (when Jessica wasn’t already staring at her) for jealousy. It started off as such, then molded into something new. Something alien, unacceptable and god, it’s her ex’s girl on the side! Jessica was practically a widow at that point.
While they drank and bickered earlier, Tiffany caught herself flirting. Thank goodness for Jessica’s debilitating self-involvement or she would have surely noticed. As insurance, Tiffany spoke extra harshly. Every word her version of the truth, but she wouldn’t have venomously spat them off had the situation been different.
That glint in her eyes, though.
Tiffany hadn’t seen one since her last happy day with Bora. Or Sooyoung. Or her. Damn her for scoring a babe. Everything would’ve gone a lot smoother if Jessica Jung had a severe case of uglyface.
Jessica’s face--in the heat of the moment--had softened completely, growing warm in Tiffany’s hands. Her skin rivaled a baby’s--completely unscatched. And supple and…
Ugh.
Topped off with how Jessica’s gaze devoured her while she pretended to take interest in the house’s value. Jessica wasn’t merely sizing her up; those were slow-mo elevator eyes. Usual suspects of that lingering inspection were entitled higher-ups, one-night standees, smoky-eyed power dykes, and sexual predators. Not physically-blessed poets.
Tiffany dug the heels of her palms into her eye sockets. It did nothing to stave off mental recollections, frame-by-frame, of the blonde gazing at her as if she fell in love. If only she had looked away when that happened because it tapped something deep in Tiffany’s core and it gave her tingles. So did sleeping in Jessica’s bed.
Her pillow smelled of organic hippie shampoo--an uncommon fruit she couldn’t quite place. Nice, though. Damn, she smelt pure.
Prior knowledge aside, Jessica gave pure vibes. The outright opposite of all her past girlfriends. Including her. Especially her.
Tiffany’s imagination traveled to darker places. Had she and Jessica made love since the last time the linens were changed? She could literally be soaking in their cells, residue, sweat. Were Sirena blue fingernails scratching and grazing at the very material that Tiffany lay upon?
Damn her unorthodox kinks. Damn this detachment.
Without detachment, why else would she fantasize about Jessica and the dead woman’s sex life?
As close as she and Tiffany were while growing up, time and distance manipulated her perspective. She’d been separated for so long, she could barely picture her post-adolescent living face.
She’d lost the will to feel guilty, anyway. Sungmin and Mi-Kyung made their judgement call loud and clear: Tiffany was lesbian scum. So, she allowed herself to envision Jessica’s climax face like lesbian scum.
The past was the past. She had no time machine to go back and...do what? Tell her that she’d been with other women? That, yes, she did move on. Because that’s what normal adults do. They count their losses, learn a lesson, and climb the next obstacle. Whether there was a teachable moment from their strained relationship was still up for debate.
A faint light peeked through the seams of the bedroom door. Jessica was awake.
Tiffany lay mutely, absorbing the sounds of kitchen activity. Seemed like she wasn’t the only one who couldn't sleep through the night, if at all.
Surely, they both could use company.
…
Smirking, Tiffany outlined Jessica’s unsuspecting figure as the woman busied at a sleek coffee maker. “Late night caffeine fix?”
Jessica spun around, concern automatically weighing her features. “Did I wake you? I’m so sorry.”
“How’s your hand?”
She smiled sheepishly. “A few shallow cuts. Nothing major.”
“Good. I was worried.”
“You were worried about me?”
Tiffany crossed her arms beneath her breasts, fighting an angry blush. “I don’t know what everyone here takes me for. I’m not devoid of compassion.”
“Sorry, I…” Jessica drew a fingertip along the length of her forearm. “I’m still embarrassed. That’s never happened before.”
“You don’t Hulk out regularly?”
“I don’t.”
Tiffany nodded to nothing in particular. “Smells good.”
“I’m making decaf. Iced coffee tends to calm my nerves.”
“Decaf and coffee don’t belong in the same sentence.”
Jessica twitched on a smile, returning her attention to the machine. “Then, you’ve never had this blend. If you ask nicely, I’ll make you a cup.”
“Are you sure I have the ability to do anything ‘nicely’? I am a major bitch, after all.”
“You do give off that impression,” Jessica sighed, emptying an ice tray into two matching mugs--one burgundy, the other blue. A very familiar blue.
“Is that your favorite color?”
“What?”
“Sirena blue.”
“You know your colors.”
“I know nail polish.”
Jessica searched her own hands, staring through them, almost. “She loved this color on me.”
“Is this some sort of coping mechanism?”
“My color of mourning.”
“That’s dismal.”
“I can’t mourn too openly for too long or people will…” She poured steaming dark solution into the red mug. “...they’ll notice. Cream and brown sugar?”
“I’ll take care of that. You don’t have--”
“I insist.” Jessica blocked her outstretched hand. “Let me prepare this for you, please.”
“Fine. God. Be healthy with the sugar. Only a spot of cream.” She watched Jessica hurry to the refrigerator as if Tiffany would race to the counter and allot her own fixings like a controlling loon. “You’re a giver, aren’t you?”
Jessica’s pretty lips bent into a shy smile. “I am.”
“Are you a giver in other situations?”
The blonde froze, more than likely sorting out her borderline lecherous tone. “I’d say giving serves a part in most circumstances. Here.”
Tiffany accepted the jingling coffee, taking a hearty sip. Now that she’d slept in her bed and ran Jessica through various hypothetical positions, she readied herself to delve deeper. To see what made the poet tick. “Don’t you get bored of helping people all the time?”
Tone defensive, Jessica shot back, “Not in the slightest.”
“When do you treat yourself?”
“Times like now. With iced coffee.” Jessica inhaled a mouthful to emphasize her point.
“You give off this...guilty air. I could cut through your apartment’s tension with a machete. Like it’s bottled up too many secrets.”
“Secrets,” she started, cadence grim, “were a big part of our relationship. I won’t lie about that.”
“Are you determined to assist others out of a deep need of repentance? Supression through altruism?”
“So, you’re a shrink now?”
“I’m one of the few people who knows about this, aren’t I?”
Jessica exhaled, staring into the mug like it held her response. “You’re the only one.”
“What?”
“We were really careful.”
“Damn.” Jessica’s struggled through a tarnished conscience for years without uttering a word to even her closest friends or family. Tiffany gained a strange sort of pride. “Stop it, okay? Quit beating yourself up over the past. You’re human. She was human. On whose goddamned moral compass should we live by, anyway?”
“You’re way more evolved than I am, Tiffany.”
“Did it feel wrong, though? Think about how she held you. Motivated you to write. Was it all wrong?”
“Not when we had our own world. When she wasn’t with Sungmin or talking about you…”
“Forget about that,” Tiffany groaned, flustered with shame. She glanced around the well-designed kitchen while she drank. “Good coffee. It’s...fruity.”
“Coconut. Her--our favorite.”
“You two spent a ton of time together.”
“She was my other half.”
“It’s time to make you whole again, girl.” Tiffany reached to flick at Jessica’s sandy fringe. Even silkier than she imagined. “I can’t believe you convinced her to dye her hair. She used to be irrationally against it.”
Jessica laughed. Sweet and sharp, like a melody. All color drained from Tiffany’s face before coming back with a vengeance. “With the dye job, she looked like no-one else on Earth.”
“She was special.”
“Very.”
“You’re special, too,” Tiffany tried, expecting another defensive retort. “Your existence wasn’t a mere extension of your girlfriend's.”
“Feels like it. A part of me died with her in that car.”
Tiffany changed the subject for the sake of all things less depressing. Her grin grew slimy. “Did you make love here, in the kitchen?”
Jessica shied behind her coffee cup. “You’re horrible.”
“Give me a break. Those old brunch crows blabbed about everything but the interesting bits...so, where’d you two get it on? On the counter?”
“Yes, the counter.”
Tiffany glided a knuckle along the edge of dark marble. Jessica’s eyes glued to the gesture encouraged her to continue. “How?”
“How what?”
A strap of the blonde’s tanktop hung distracting low on a fair shoulder. No bra--not that Tiffany hadn’t noticed the instant she stepped into the kitchen--breasts she only hoped to see hidden behind guarding arms. She extended the question. “How’d she fuck you?”
“Gently.”
Tiffany shivered at the answer, even if it was the product of misunderstanding. “I meant...what did she do to you?”
“Do you know what Sungmin says about you?”
The question came out of nowhere; Tiffany smiled through the confusion. “I’m very curious being that he knows nothing about me.”
Jessica swished the rest of her coffee within puffed cheeks. “He says you’re a sexual deviant and a seductress.”
“And how would he know that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe believing it helps him sleep at night. Though, after he met you at the funeral, he swore he’d hit the nail on the head.”
“As if being either is a bad thing.” Tiffany rested a forearm upon the counter’s edge, flexing just enough for the front of her cami to dip lower. Jessica’s renewed interest in the cup earned a chuckle. “Why would you bring this up now?”
Jessica snickered into the depths of her empty mug, eyelashes fluttering. “My apologies, Tiffany. It’s late. I’m still a little tipsy and scatterbrained…”
The brunette took a short, graceful stride forward. Her head tilted, meeting the other woman’s eyeline. “No secrets, remember? You’ve had enough while she was alive. No more.”
“Tonight,” she corrected. “No more secrets tonight.”
“Good. Now tell me how she made you moan.”
“W-with her tongue.”
She smiled. “Even when we were seventeen, she could never be fully sated when she had her head between my legs.”
Jessica’s chest shook as she mixed a giggle with a sigh. “Sounds like her. She didn’t change.”
“Of course she did. We were stupid teenagers with atrocious technique. I’m sure she worked you good.”
“Well.”
“Hm?”
“She worked me well.”
Tiffany grinned, purposefully pulling at her bottom lip with her teeth. “Bitch poet. Don’t correct me.”
“Sorry.”
“No,” Tiffany snatched the cup from her skinny fingers. It clinked into Tiffany’s ceramic counterpart upon the marble. “Stop these apologies and your pathetic fucking need to help everyone.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being nice.”
“When do you allow yourself to be needy?”
“I’m a grown woman. Why should--”
“There’s no shame in needing, Jessi.”
Jessica’s eyes grew three times their size. “You called me--”
“Jessi. It’s written on a picture in your bedroom. Is that what she called you? You were her Jessi and I was her Fany?”
Before the blonde could storm off, Tiffany snatched her wrist and pulled in. Their noses brushed and she sucked in a breath to contain herself. “No-one else is going to let you be needy, Jessi.”
“Don’t call me that. It’s not your name to use.”
At that proximity, Jessica’s beauty was nearly hypnotic. “I don’t take loss well, Jessica.”
“I can help you.”
“Help me out of my clothes.”
Jessica’s arm stiffened. “Ah, y-your...?”
“Or just let me lick you. I’m needy, too, and…” Tiffany hiccuped, cursing the dew that crept at the corners of her eyes without permission. “I know it’s messed up, but I wish I got to know her again and...to know you would be knowing her through you and...am I making sense? Do I sound crazy?”
“Berserk.”
“Then, we’re even. Get on the counter and I’ll make you moan the way she did. Maybe even louder.”
Jessica’s lips crashed against hers and Tiffany winced in shock. It was happening. Waves churned through her searching mouth, penetrating Tiffany’s outer layers in a way that shook her very being. She hadn’t kissed back in time for Jessica to thrust herself onto the counter, guiding her between her knees.
“This afternoon,” Jessica panted, slinging long hair behind her neck, “I thought I’d never have an orgasm again. That’s when I saw your treats.”
“Treats?” Tiffany breathed, mind stuck at her utterance of ‘orgasm’.
“Your rice krispie treats. I specifically said they were orgasmic and…” She threw the rest of the sentence with a wave. “Forget it. Am I talking too much?”
“Yeah, but--”
“I feel like I’m cheating on her. I’m anxious and freaking out a little. She’s not going to burst through that door or anything, so it’s ridiculous...”
“Shhh. Relax.” Tiffany lifted the fabric of Jessica’s tanktop and focused hazy eyes at the finely-toned abs. Femininely smooth muscles accented by faint sloping lines and underweight dips. Wasting no time, she circled her tongue over the skin of her choosing, dotting it with a moist kiss. She’d always considered the adult female form to be the most beautiful construction in nature. Jessica’s body did nothing but solidify her opinion by the thousands.
Two hands found purchase in Tiffany’s dark hair. She broke from honoring the stomach, dipping her head back to receive a rough sequence of desperate kisses. Jessica gasped whenever their lips parted and it drove Tiffany mad. She shouldn’t have been so turned on in that situation, but shoulds and should nots were of no concern. The thought of the twenty-something ex-mistress squirming from her strokes, releasing into her mouth, emboldened her to strip off flimsy white shorts.
“Tiffany, oh,” Jessica whimpered, guiding her down to glistening smooth skin. Tiffany spared no second to run a hot tongue deep into her folds. “Yes, god, yes.”
Jessica’s wetness was scorching. Tiffany moaned into her vibrating sex, allowing her tongue to bury into wanting depths until they found a pulsating opening. Jessica raspily keened in response and the brunette fought not to come up for a kiss. She wanted to kiss Jessica again so badly.
“Prolong it,” she murmured, rotating her hips, “make it last.”
Her wish was Tiffany’s command. Gulping away a groan, she split from the tanginess of the tight passageway to pucker her lips around her favorite kind of button. The clawing 0in her hair loosened as one hand slid down the back of her cami. Tiffany mewled at the five simultaneous scrapes prickling her flesh and microscopic hairs. They were bound to leave pink-hued souvenir lines.
Tiffany luxuriated in her feast. Women--Jessica, in this case--were too succulent to speed up the process. She thanked Jessica for her request to draw it out with a flat-tongued tickle beneath both labia.
“Tiffany, you’re a goddess.”
“Th-thanks,” she murmured into dense moisture.
“And to think I hated you.”
Right. The funeral. The rumors. The outcast status. Her last nip to her clit sunk in a frustrated bite. Jessica whispered that it hurt.
She sucked deeply to aid in the healing. “You don’t like pain?”
“I’ve had enough pain.”
Tiffany's chest ached at the quiet confession. “I...haven’t hurt enough. Scratch me harder. Punish me.”
“You don’t need to be punished.”
“Do it.”
Jessica rocked against hot, searching lips, conscious to give Tiffany space while she bore into her shoulder blades with Sirena blue. Tiffany pictured the blue seeping into her veins, making her bleed out violet.
“Tiffany...if--” The woman threw her head back, slurring obscenities. “If you want to talk…”
“I’d rather use my mouth on you.” She rammed the tip of her nose at her opening, quickly switching to the rigidity of her steady tongue. Going to the funeral barely helped. Neither did the brunch. Sassing at her ex lover didn’t do the trick. But sex with her--Tiffany pulled Jessica in by her buttocks--her sex could make this big nightmare of an ordeal worth it. Cause her to feel less vulnerable.
Jessica’s voice went tinier, down to a hushed plea. “God, ohhh...Tiffany...you’re the sweetest torture.”
Was that poetry? She batted at her clit a final time before stuffing her pliable muscle in a far as it’d reach, struggling from the pressure of pulsating walls. Power from every time she wanted to fucking punch Sungmin, Mi-Kyung, those old gossipy ladies, and even Jessica in their respective faces for casting her a wayward glance honed in at the tip of her tongue. Jessica couldn’t catch her breath and neither could Tiffany as a flood of molten release spattered up the latter’s nostrils. She gagged a bit, never having experienced this sensation, and retained mind to slurp up the wet heat.
“Tiff-Tiffany, we--”
“Jessi,” she interjected, capturing the lips she missed so much.
Their makeout, from a third party observer, was everything short cannibalistic. Tiffany plundered the widow’s mouth with a lover’s lack of restraint. She’d lost all control. Jessica followed suit, consuming her own arousal and leaving bite marks along Tiffany’s swollen lips. They moaned and swore and growled through countless minutes of raw pleasure. Pulling her bleeding upper lip from teeth that didn’t want to let go, Tiffany stepped back.
“I need to feel your skin,” she whined, throwing off her cami.
Jessica’s flaming eyes burned into both breasts. “How?”
“How?”
“How do you want me to fuck you?”
Tiffany broke character with a smile. “Anything but gently.”
Their foray of tongues and teeth continued throughout the apartment. Jessica’s lips had Tiffany on maddening levels of pleasure. This pure, guilty thing, who wouldn’t look her in the eye during the day, harbored passionate techniques that liquified Tiffany’s knees and soaked through her boxer shorts. She grasped at the door frame pressed into her back, determined to make it to the bed. Jessica had other plans. With a sweaty lick at her collarbone, Jessica tore off the offending boxers and positioned two fingers centimeters from Tiffany’s sex.
“Three,” she corrected, uncurling the pointer finger for her.
Jessica nodded and jutted them upwards, bringing relieved tears to Tiffany’s eyes.
“Do me as hard as you can.”
That, Jessica did. She pistoned deep and pauseless, gripping Tiffany by the waist to buoy her afloat. She kept her moans close to Tiffany’s ear, breathlessly complimenting her everything. Even when Jessica was fucking her like she’d lose her fingers tomorrow, the woman retained the ability to be kindhearted, generous.
Leaving her heart’s filter in the kitchen, Tiffany chewed at an earlobe and rasped, “Jessi, I would never keep you a secret.”
Fear groped at her instantly sober mind. Was she insane? Thankfully, she felt no hitch in Jessica’s rhythm. Actually, her pace picked up.
“Fany,” she sighed through a smile, “you’ve already gotten into my pants. Why would you say that?”
Tiffany’s heart exploded along with her orgasm. While she panted, bracing herself onto Jessica’s shoulders like an unsturdy anchor, she gained the wits to whisper into a fragrant neckline, “Because it’s true.”
[Author's Note]
A/N: How was that, people? :333 Btw, VOTE for Round 2: Go, #Sones!!