The First Time, Chapter 13
Title: The First Time
Rating: R
A/N: Here we are at lucky 13! I have to give a big shout out to supercontenta on this chapter. I will admit I was hesitant to write it, but she pointed out that the story needed it. She was right. Maybe she deserves that crown she protects so zealously after all. Maybe. And for everyone who wanted a longer chapter, well, here you go!
Read Chapter 1 here
Read Chapter 2 here
Read Chapter 3 here
Read Chapter 4 here
Read Chapter 5 here
Read Chapter 6 here
Read Chapter 7 here
Read Chapter 8 here
Read Chapter 9 here
Read Chapter 10 here
Read Chapter 11 here
Read Chapter 12 here
Chapter 13
The first time Marta kisses her, Pepa almost misses the signs it’s coming at all.
They’re at an outdoor film festival together, the kind where in the evening people bring their blankets and chairs and sit out on a large lawn at a local park and watch old movies on a giant screen. It turns out Marta is a movie buff.
It’s a warm night, and Marta spreads out their blanket on an empty patch of grass.
“This okay?” she asks.
Pepa shrugs her assent and plops herself down in an undignified manner.
“I still think my idea was just as good,” she huffs, no real irritation in her tone.
Marta rolls her eyes.
“For the last time, Pepa, the shooting range on a Friday night is not my idea of fun. In fact, it’s a lot closer to my idea of work.”
Pepa arches her eyebrows.
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” she drawls.
“You’re impossible. This is going to be fun. It’s a great movie. Can I trust you to stay here while I go get some popcorn?”
“Since you took away my car keys, I suppose I don’t have a choice.”
Muttering something that sounds like “so obnoxious,” Marta walks off toward the row of food vendors, leaving Pepa stretched out on the blanket. She looks around.
In truth, she’s perfectly fine being here. But she has found she likes giving Marta a hard time about things. Their taste in many things is so different, she finds it hard to believe they’re friends sometimes. Or possibly becoming something more than friends.
Pepa chews on her bottom lip in concentration.
She and Marta have been spending more and more time together. And recently, it’s been just the two of them - meeting for morning jogs, coffee breaks, catching a bite after late shifts. And though they haven’t labeled what they’re doing “dating,” it’s hard to ignore the lack of anyone else’s presence. But Pepa is more than a little skittish about what it all means, and Marta doesn’t seem inclined to push.
Pepa wonders if this is what it’s like to take it slow. She doesn’t have much experience in the matter. For most of her life, Pepa has gotten what, and who, she’s wanted pretty quickly. Being charming and slightly roguish has its advantages, and Pepa has always known how to use both. Women (and men) rarely say “no” to her once she sets her sights on them. But it also means that Pepa has never really had to work for anyone’s attention before, and so doesn’t know quite how it works.
Even with Silvia, she’d done things rather ass-backwards. It wasn’t until she and Silvia had given in to the more physical demands of their attraction that she’d really gotten to know her redhead. Not that learning Silvia labeled the shelves in the kitchen would have in any way stopped her from kissing her in the bathroom that night, from undoing those buttons, and running her hands over impossibly soft skin. Hell, she would have promised to label everything she owned that night, from towels to panties, without batting an eye. She would have done anything.
But she did acknowledge in some part of her brain that some people actually did things in order. Like meeting and then dating and then venturing into the physical side of things.
Pepa glances over toward the concession tents. There’s a long line, and she knows Marta will stand there as long as she has to. The woman loves her snacks. Sometimes Pepa wonders how she’s not three hundred pounds.
Marta’s insatiable sweet tooth is only one of many things Pepa is learning about the smaller brunette. She’s learned, for instance, that she’s one of those incredibly chipper morning people. When they meet for their morning runs, Pepa bleary-eyed and dragging her feet, Marta is fairly bouncing around, buzzing with so much energy that Pepa has had to resist the urge to smack her on more than one occasion. They’ve at last come to the agreement that there is no talking of any sort for the first mile, until Pepa has properly woken up and gotten her feet and brain into a steady rhythm.
She’s learned, also, that Marta can kick her ass at poker. Pepa’s initial assessment of the younger cop was correct - she likes a challenge. And she has a poker face to accompany her competitive spirit. Unfortunately for her, Pepa isn’t good about backing down from much of anything, and it’s caused more than a few shouting matches at some of the precinct’s Friday night tournaments. Pepa grins at a particularly entertaining memory of Aitor and Curtis having to restrain them one night. But it also taught her not to trust anything Marta might do or say with cards in her hands. And to think twice about agreeing to a game of strip poker.
She’s found out that Marta comes from a large family, four sisters and three brothers, and she’s the youngest. She claims that three brothers were good training for the police force, and no perp could be as clever as Miguel, David, and Hector when they were hiding her dolls from her. They’ve compared notes on big brothers on several occasions, Pepa usually walking away feeling insanely grateful for Paco.
And she’s found out smaller things as well. Marta likes spicy foods, but can’t stand cilantro. She believes in superstitions like not walking under ladders, and she swears up and down that a ghost lived in her childhood home. She’s got an incredible green thumb, and Pepa has never seen so many plants as in Marta’s apartment. She taps her thumbs on the pads of her other fingers when she’s really concentrating on something, like a report or a briefing. She chews the ends of her pen caps when she’s nervous. And along with being a serious film buff, she has a serious weakness for incredibly bad reality TV. Pepa smiles at the memory of Marta shouting at the television as if it was truly a matter of life or death if some airheaded blonde chose one guy over the other.
Pepa props her chin on her knees and is so lost in thought that she doesn’t even notice Marta appear over her until she hears,
“Hey, you in there? Earth to Pepa.”
She starts and looks up. Marta is standing there with a bucket of popcorn and a couple of drinks.
“Uhhhh, sorry, spaced out,” she says sheepishly.
Marta shakes her head and hands the bucket to Pepa as she settles down next to her, and sets the drinks down in front of them.
Pepa eyes the heaping mound of popcorn.
“Did you invite three or four other friends that I don’t know about?” she asks.
Marta makes a face at her and snatches the bucket back, wrapping her arms around it protectively and leaning away.
“See if you get any now,” she says.
Pepa reaches out and snakes a long arm past Marta’s possessive hold, and grabs a handful of popcorn. She pops a few kernels into her mouth.
“Oh, I’ll get some,” she says, waggling her eyebrows.
She means only to tease, but when she looks at Marta, she’s giving her a look back she can’t quite read. There’s amusement, and good-natured exasperation, but there’s also something…else.
Pepa sobers. “You okay?”
Marta blinks, looks away, and grabs some popcorn.
“Yeah,” she mumbles. “I’m fine.”
Pepa scoots closer to Marta and bumps her shoulder with her own.
“Hey. Thanks for getting the popcorn. I haven’t eaten in, like, at least three days.”
Marta looks sideways at her and finally smiles. She throws her shoulder back against Pepa’s.
“You’re such a pain,” she tells her.
Pepa grabs another handful of popcorn.
“Shhhh,” she tells her. “The movie’s starting. And I don’t want to miss a second of.…” She hesitates, having no actual idea what Marta’s dragged her to see. “…whatever it is we’re seeing,” she finishes.
Marta gives her an incredulous look. “Seriously?”
Pepa shrugs helplessly, and Marta blows out a sigh. She points to the screen and the opening credits.
“Just watch, okay?”
“Okay,” Pepa agrees diplomatically. They both settle into silence, the tub of popcorn nestled between them. Pepa casts a sideways glance at the other brunette, and notices that instead of watching the movie, her head is bowed, her brow furrowed in concentration. And Pepa is momentarily hit with the urge to reach out and touch her shoulder, to brush the hair out of her face, to sooth her, whatever’s bothering her. But then Marta takes a deep breath, looks up at the screen, and the moment is lost. Pepa turns her attention to the movie.
“Okay, so tell me that wasn’t great,” Marta says enthusiastically, munching on her ice cream cone as she commandeers one of the park’s benches for the two of them.
Most of the movie goers have dispersed, but Marta insisted on ice cream from the vendor who was smart enough to set up his cart near the exit of the park. Pepa settles next to her on the bench, working intently on her own cone. Even she has to admit that the mint chocolate chip hits the spot.
“It was fine,” Pepa says, chasing an errant ice cream drip with her tongue.
“Fine?” Marta squawks, looking at Pepa incredulously. “Fine?!”
Pepa looks up at Marta’s clearly distressed expression.
“Yeah, it was fine. Calm down. It was good!”
Marta groans. “It’s one of the best romance stories of all time!”
“Okay, I believe you,” Pepa says agreeably. “What?” she asks off Marta’s disapproving look. “I liked it!” She polishes off the last of her cone, and sees that some of the ice cream dripped onto her fingers. Without thinking, she brings her fingers to her mouth, licking the last of the sweetness from them. She knows it’s not exactly ladylike, but she doesn’t care. There’s no one really around to judge her.
But when she looks up, it’s obvious the action has caught someone’s attention. Pepa finds Marta staring at her, a slightly unfocused expression on her face, her own cone dripping and forgotten in her left hand.
Pepa looks at her curiously. “You okay?” she asks for the second time that night.
Marta doesn’t seem to hear her. “Do you have any idea-” she starts quietly, but then seems to snap out of it. “Um, yeah, sorry,” she says hurriedly. She turns her attention to her cone for a few seconds, and soon has the dripping under control.
“So,” she says, finishing her last couple bites. “Okay, what kind of movies would you rather see?”
Pepa grins.
“You know the answer to that. Action movies. Thrillers. People shooting each other. Chase scenes.”
Marta laughs. “You get that in real life!”
“I like what I do,” Pepa says, slightly defensive.
Marta stops laughing, hearing the tone of her voice. She smiles genuinely, and reaches out to touch Pepa’s arm, her fingers brushing the inside of Pepa’s elbow.
“No, Pepa, I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you. I think it’s wonderful you like your job so much. I do too. It’s just that sometimes I want to escape it, you know? Get away from someone wanting to gun me down. I love watching two people fall in love. Call me a hopeless romantic.”
Pepa nods, for some reason acutely aware of the warmth of Marta’s fingers on her skin. She can feel each point of where she’s touching her, and she seems in no hurry to remove her hand.
“I like romances, sure. They’re fine. But you know, they’re sometimes a little too mushy. Or too sad. They fight and you don’t know who’s wrong and who’s right. But in action movies, there’s always a good guy and a bad guy. The bad guy might be clever or funny, or clever and funny, but in the end, the good guy is always going to win because he’s, well, the good guy….”
Pepa is perfectly aware by now that she’s babbling and not making much sense. Or at the very least, pointing out obvious movie plot devices to someone who doesn’t need the lesson. Except that the entire time she’s been talking, Marta hasn’t moved her hand, and now she’s looking at her, with the same look in her dark eyes as she had when Pepa was teasing her earlier, and Pepa feels an unexpected fluttering in her chest. The rate of her breathing has definitely increased, and she’d like to take a moment to take a deep breath, except she can’t seem to stop talking….
“…and sometimes it makes me laugh because the kind of guns they use would be totally wrong in those situations....”
“Pepa.”
“…and sometimes even the way they hold them is totally wrong….”
“Pepa.”
“….but I love that they convince people that you can leap between buildings or throw yourself onto a speeding boat from another speeding boat. I would love to do that and…”
“Pepa!”
Pepa finally stops. Mercifully. She looks at Marta, who is leaning forward slightly, and the expression on her face is suddenly very clear to Pepa. A shiver runs through her.
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
And then Marta closes the distance between them, and presses her lips gently against Pepa’s. Pepa stills, momentarily caught off-guard.
Marta pulls back, and looks up at Pepa’s expression. Pepa’s not quite sure what she sees, because she’s not exactly sure what she’s feeling, but it’s enough for her to start back-pedaling.
She drops her hand and her gaze.
“I’m sorry, Pepa. That was…stupid. I shouldn’t have done that. Let’s just pretend-”
She’s halfway off the bench before Pepa catches her arm, pulling her back down.
“Marta.”
The smaller woman sits back down at the pressure on her arm, hands in her lap, not quite looking at her.
Pepa pauses, and then takes the hand on her arm, and reaches up to touch Marta’s chin, tilting her face up to look at her. Their eyes meet, Marta’s full of guilt and uncertainty, Pepa imagining hers mirroring much of the same. She offers her a small smile.
“Don’t be sorry,” she says quietly. “I’m not.”
Marta looks at her for a moment and then smiles back. Her eyes drop once more to settle on Pepa’s lips, and she hesitantly leans forward, but then stops, still unsure. Pepa erases the remaining doubt by meeting her half way.
This time, when their lips meet, Pepa responds. She presses forward, softly nudging Marta’s mouth open with her own, tasting the chocolate almond ice cream she so recently finished. Marta’s lips are soft against hers, yielding but confident, and Pepa feels something inside her she hasn’t felt in a very long time. It’s the feeling of anticipation, of something beginning, of wanting to know where it might lead.
The kiss is unhurried, without demands or expectations. Pepa sighs against Marta’s mouth, enjoying the way her lips fit against her own. She nips gently at her lower lip, and then soothes it with her tongue. She feels the other woman shiver slightly.
Marta pulls back for a second time, but this time with a much different expression. She reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind Pepa’s ear, and smiles at her uneven breathing.
“Okay?” she asks, her dark eyes holding what Pepa recognizes as desire, but also sincere concern.
It’s a simple question, but Pepa gives it serious consideration. After a moment, she nods, and slides her hand over Marta’s knee.
“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”
She leans forward to kiss Marta again.