The wild one, p.11
The Wild One, page 11
Rachel moaned, heard a voice so unlike her own murmur Quinn's name as Quinn's fingers slid inside her, her thumb gently caressing Rachel's clitoris. Rachel arched against Quinn's questing fingers, her hands holding Quinn's dark head, keeping Quinn's lips to her breast.
Rachel's body was alive, nerve endings tingling, her arousal clutching at every corner of her being. And when she climaxed again she cried out, her arms crushing Quinn to her, her spasms tugging at Quinn's fingers held deep inside her.
Slowly Rachel's breathing returned to normal, and she realized her cheeks were wet with tears.
Quinn slowly removed her fingers and slid up beside Rachel, kissing her, her fingers brushing at the dampness on Rachel's face. Rachel caught the scent of her arousal on Quinn's hand, and her eyes met Quinn's.
"That was just, well..." She paused as her voice broke. "Just indescribable."
Quinn smiled. "I'm glad."
Rachel pulled her close again, kissed her, her hands reaching for Quinn's breasts, fingertips rubbing her nipples.
"I want to . . . Tell me what to do. What you like."
Quinn laughed softly again. "Just what you're doing, for a start." She rolled on her back, and Rachel continued to caress her, delighting in the feel of Quinn's breasts beneath her fingers. She let her hands wander over Quinn's body, filled with wonder at its smoothness, the firm musculature. She paused when she reached Quinn's lower stomach, and she swallowed nervously.
"Rachel?" Quinn's soft voice made Rachel look up at her. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, that you're not comfortable with."
Rachel nodded. "I know. It's not that I'm ... I want to please you too. So much. I'm just unsure, well, how to . . . But I need to."
"Oh, darling," Quinn whispered and reached out to brush Rachel's hair back from her face, one fingertip tracing the line of Rachel's jaw, lingering on her mouth.
Rachel caught her breath. "I want to make love to you very much," she murmured brokenly, and she leaned down, kissed Quinn's flat stomach, drew in the heady scent of Quinn's skin.
With a sigh of pleasure, Rachel's fingers slipped into the wondrous slick warmth between Quinn's legs. She watched Quinn's expression, felt her body's response, caressed her, loved her with her fingers and lips, until Quinn's body spasmed, collapsed against hers.
Rachel shifted up to lie beside Quinn, snuggling close, felt a wondrous oneness with her, their arms and legs entwining as though they had been made to fit together.
"Quinn." Rachel sighed, and Quinn's lips nuzzled her warm cheek. "So beautiful, Quinn." She felt herself smile as she drifted into a deep sleep.
Outside the window the birds were chattering. Sparrows. Must be later, Rachel reflected sleepily, otherwise it would have been the raucous laughing of the kookaburras. She sighed deeply and rolled on her back, her eyes fluttering open to the splash of clear blue sky through the curtains.
It was then she realized she was naked beneath the light sheet, and she turned to glance at the other side of the queen-size bed. She was alone, but the indentation made by Quinn's head on the pillow, the wrinkles of the bedcovers, were proof that Quinn had indeed been there, that the memories that tumbled into Rachel's consciousness had some basis in fact rather than sybaritic fantasy.
Maybe she'd dreamed . . .? No. Last night had been no flight of fancy, no fabrication of her wishful thinking. She and Quinn had made love, made incredible, astonishing, wonderful love. And Rachel knew those moments had changed her whole life.
Her body seemed to hum, and it felt marvelously alive. Each cell, every sinew. She lay there and grinned inanely up at the ceiling, ran her hands lightly over her breasts, her stomach, reliving each electrifying moment, every touch, every murmur. She raised her hands above her head and stretched languidly, feeling the pull in muscles reused.
"You look like the cat that stole the cream," a soft voice said from the doorway.
Chapter Fifteen
Rachel raised herself onto her elbows. "I think I am. And I did," she said, flushing beneath Quinn's hooded gaze.
Quinn came into the room and placed the tray she was carrying on Rachel's bedside table. She was dressed in her discarded T-shirt from the night before. "I was starving, so I thought you would be too. Fancy some of my famous scrambled eggs?"
"Famous?"
Quinn shrugged. "Well, it sounds better than my 'indifferent' scrambled eggs. Where do you want this?" she indicated the tray. "Want to sit up, so I can put the tray on your knees?"
Rachel pushed herself into a sitting position, and the sheet fell away from her breasts, leaving them bare and drawing Quinn's narrowed gaze. Quinn sat down on the side of the bed, leaned across, and slowly licked first one rosy peak and then the other with her warm tongue. Rachel arched toward Quinn's questing lips.
"Mmm. Now that beats the eggs," Quinn said and grimaced. "No pun intended." She turned to lift the tray and set it across Rachel's knees as Rachel giggled.
"Maybe I should put on my nightshirt," Rachel began, and Quinn gave a crooked smile.
"Leave the poor old cook something for her trouble. The scenery here is delightful."
Rachel laughed, lifted her cup of coffee, sipped it, and sighed. She took a few mouthfuls of egg and raised her eyebrows appreciatively. "Definitely 'famous.' And you're right. I'm starving, too."
"Must have been the, um, activity," Quinn teased. "It's supposed to make you ravenous."
Rachel flushed. "I'll have to stock up on provisions then," she said, and Quinn put her hand to her mouth in feigned shock.
"Why, Mrs. Weston. What scandalous behavior."
They laughed together and ate their eggs. Rachel sighed contentedly as she set her coffee mug back on the tray.
"Finished?" Quinn asked. When Rachel nodded, she stood up and returned the tray to the nightstand.
Rachel relaxed against her pillows and smiled at Quinn. "This is five-star service. You know, I've never had breakfast in bed before. It's so decadent."
"Never?"
"No." Rachel shook her head. "Oh, apart from when I was in hospital having the kids. Rob didn't, well, he wasn't very romantic in that way."
Quinn sat back down on the side of the bed, her T-shirt sliding up her smooth thigh, and a spiral of delight clutched low in Rachel's stomach. Quinn took a bite of the piece of the toast she'd smeared with strawberry jam.
Rachel swallowed. Discussing her late husband with Quinn didn't seem right somehow. Not now. "So. Do you make a habit of giving women breakfast in bed?" she asked lightly.
Quinn looked down at her toast for long moments before she met Rachel's gaze. "No. I guess this is a first for me too."
Heavy silence filled the room.
"It is? But. . .?"
"But it wasn't my first time with a woman," she finished, and Rachel flushed again. Quinn sighed. "I guess the general consensus is that women in prison, well..." She shrugged. "But I didn't. Not in prison. It was before."
A feeling of dread tore about Rachel's stomach as a vivid picture flashed into her mind, of Laurel Greenwood moving disinterestedly between the colorful rows of plants in the Garden Center as she waited for Quinn. Rachel wanted to change the direction of this conversation, but she didn't know how. "Quinn, you don't have to . . ."
"I know. But I didn't want you to think ... I wanted you to know the truth." She turned away, returned her half-eaten toast to the tray. She looked back at Rachel. "I knew I was a lesbian when I was about twelve years old. Oh, I didn't exactly have a name for it at the time, I don't think. But I knew I was different." She pulled a face. "Well, even more different than everyone thought I was. But I hid it pretty well." She sighed. "Heaven only knows why when I was so blatantly rebellious about everything else. When all my friends were raving over male pop stars, I was far more interested in their female partners. And I had the usual crushes on women, but they were my secrets. I didn't even tell Laurel about them."
Rachel tried to absorb this disclosure, and for a moment she wondered if Colleen's gossip had been untrue after all. It wasn't Laurel who . . .
"Laurel and I had been going around with Mark and Graham by then." Quinn picked at a thread on the hem of her T-shirt. "They were friends and Laurel and I were friends, so Laurel decided . . . Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But I hated it. I just didn't know what else to do."
Quinn looked back at Rachel. "What about you? With guys?"
Rachel flushed again, feeling indecision clutch at her, her loyalty to Rob warring with her need to be honest with Quinn. "There was only Rob, so I wasn't exactly experienced. But to answer your question, no, I couldn't say I enjoyed it. I mean, it wasn't unpleasant but ..." Rachel stopped. But it was nothing like last night, she wanted to say, yet the words caught in her throat.
"You and Rob. Were you happy?"
"Rob was a good man. He deserved better than me."
"Johnno said Rob was one of the most easygoing guys he'd ever met."
Rachel nodded. "He was certainly laid back. Nothing seemed to get to him. I guess I used to worry for both of us."
"Did he know that you . . .? I mean ..."
"That I had this secret yearning deep inside me?" Rachel shook her head. "No. No one did. I wouldn't even admit it to myself."
"We all have to find our own way there," Quinn said softly. "It just takes some of us longer than others."
"I guess I was a 'longer than others.' " Rachel took a steadying breath. "And in this town, where everyone knew me, knew my family, it was easier, doing what was expected of me," she finished lamely, feeling as spineless as she sounded.
"I know all about doing what's expected. I know people were scarcely surprised I ended up in jail. But by the time I got out, I'd decided I wanted something different. Maybe you could say I wanted what was expected of everyone else." Quinn hesitated, unconsciously making a negating movement with her head. "Not easy to achieve when you've done time."
"Was it really bad in jail?" Rachel asked.
Quinn unconsciously touched a small scar above her right eye. "I guess it was pretty bad," Quinn said flatly. "I made it worse for myself. I didn't have a hope of getting out when it was time for my first parole hearing." She glanced at Rachel.
"When I first went in, I was half mad. Scared. Confused. Guilty. Angry. You name it. If there was a hard way to do something, that was how I did it. I thought I was literally going insane. I could see myself doing crazy things, but I couldn't seem to stop myself. I even tried to escape. Didn't succeed, of course.
"I'd racked up nearly two years extra on my sentence before I saw this counselor. She was new, and all I remember of that session with her was that she asked me offhandedly if I ever wanted to get out of jail.
"Until that moment I don't think I even considered whether I wanted to get out or not. But everything became crystal clear to me. I don't know. Maybe my life flashed before my eyes or something, but I knew I had to change or I never would get out. Not alive."
Quinn smiled crookedly. "Funnily enough, it was more difficult for me to be a model prisoner than it was to be a hardhead. No one could believe I'd decided to change, least of all my fellow inmates."
She touched the scar above her eye again, and Rachel put her own hand up, ran her finger along the fine ridge. Quinn held Rachel's hand there for long moments. "If one were generous, one would say I got this in a fight for my honor. One day one of the women, a real troublemaker and tough as they come, decided she didn't like her girlfriend talking to me, thought she was two-timing her.
"She started a fight, and then hit the other woman. Then she was kicking her while she was down. I grabbed her to stop her, and they both turned on me. I ended up with this for my trouble.
"They decided it was all my fault, and things got worse.
Eventually I was moved for my own safety, and I worked myself out on the farm. Eventually I got my life back."
"I'm grateful you did."
"Me too. I decided to take control of my life. I wanted to, well, try to make up in part for what I'd done. And I wanted a family. I wanted to make something of my life. So I decided to go straight."
She gave a derisive laugh. "In every sense of the word. When I was released, I shared a flat with a woman I'd met at the prison farm. She was a nice woman who'd made some mistakes like I had. She introduced me to her brother, and he was interested in me. He was a nice sort of guy, so I thought, why not?"
Quinn sighed. "Remember when you asked me about Katie's father and I said we didn't love each other enough?"
Rachel nodded.
"That was only part of it. We began our relationship for the wrong reasons. I wanted to prove I could be just like everyone else, and he, well, I'd told him I preferred women, and he told me later he thought he could change me. We were both crying for the moon."
"But you had Katie."
Quinn gave a quick smile. "That we did. And I guess you could say she was the best of both of us. When Doug and I got together, I knew I'd made a mistake pretty well the first night, but I tried to make a go of it. Then one day a couple of months later, he said he'd decided to go down to Adelaide with his sister and her new boyfriend. They'd been promised jobs down there. He didn't ask me to go with them.
"I was relieved. And he left me expecting Katie. I hadn't been trying to get pregnant, but I can't say I wasn't overjoyed. When Katie was born, it made my whole existence seem worthwhile for the first time in my life. Now I don't know what I'd do without her."
Quinn shook her head. "It's strange, isn't it? If things had gone differently before it all happened, who knows what kind of life, what sort of person I'd be now. Where we'd both be."
Rachel wondered that too. She saw Quinn again in the shower block, turning toward her, her towel barely covering her naked body. What if she, Rachel, had stayed that afternoon? What if she'd told Quinn how she felt, that she was attracted to her?
"I suppose it's all relative now," Quinn continued. "I guess I should have known I'd never make a go of it with Doug. My earlier experiences with hetero sex should have told me something."
"It was that bad?" Rachel asked gently, and Quinn nodded.
"It was pretty bad. Physically and emotionally. And looking back, I still can't believe I let Laurel talk me into ..."
She shook her head. "We'd been going out on double dates with Mark and Graham for a couple of weeks, and Laurel decided it was time we stopped holding them at arm's-length, that it was time we both lost our virginity."
Quinn gave a derisive laugh. "Everyone in town would have been surprised if they'd known we hadn't already but, for all our rebelliousness, we never got into sex. Till that night.
"We were at Laurel's. Her parents were out. The guys came over, and we were drinking. One thing led to another. It was awful. I hated it.
"Afterward, when the guys had left, Laurel and I were in Laurel's room. We decided to take a shower, and she laughingly said we should conserve water, shower together. She seemed to delight in discussing the evening in minute detail, in glowing terms. All I could see were her naked breasts and ..."
Quinn stood up and walked over to the window. "A couple of days later I came upon an advertisement in a newspaper for a women's information line. I memorized the number, kept repeating it to myself for days before I got up the nerve to make the call."
She sat back against the windowsill, looked across at Rachel. "I poured out everything to the poor woman who answered. Told her how I felt about women. And men. All my fears. She was great. Let me talk it all out. I also stretched the truth, put my age up, told her I was nineteen, and she gave me the numbers for a couple of women's groups. Lesbian groups.
"I rang one, and they gave me some venues. One was a bar, so I figured I'd be at home there." She grimaced. "I went alone, complete with fake ID."
Rachel tried to imagine herself doing something like that back then and knew she wouldn't have had Quinn's courage.
"I met some great women, talked to them. They made me feel as though I wasn't the weirdo I thought I was." Quinn paused. "Actually, I revisited the old haunt the other night after Laurel came to the Garden Center."
So Quinn hadn't been meeting Laurel, as Rachel had surmised. Knowing the truth only made Rachel feel even guiltier for her suspicions.
"But the whole place had changed. Different decor. Different clientele. Nothing stays the same, I guess."
"Did you meet someone special there? When you first went there?" Rachel asked.
Quinn shook her head. "No. Not really. But I made some friends there who made me feel less of a freak." She walked back, sat down on the bed again, picked up Rachel's hand and held it lightly in hers. "After a couple of weeks, Laurel started getting curious about where I was the nights she'd ring and I wasn't home. She teased me about two-timing Graham. I denied it, and she then decided I must be with him. It was easier to let her think that.
"Until she saw Graham somewhere else when I said I was with him. She teased me incessantly, started on again about me seeing another guy, so I told her the truth. I expected her to run screaming with revulsion. But she told me she was interested."
Quinn looked at Rachel. "Interested in me. In that way. That was the beginning. I was half in love with her before, and I wanted us to go away together. She said she loved me too, and she agreed to go with me as soon as we finished school. As long as we kept up the pretense we were just friends. After the accident she changed her mind."
Rachel leaned over and took Quinn in her arms.
"I don't suppose I could have expected anything else. I killed Mark and nearly killed Graham and Laurel. She rang me before the trial to tell me it was over."
"I'm sorry." Rachel kissed Quinn's warm cheek.
Quinn pulled back a little so she could look at Rachel. "At the time I thought she'd broken my heart. But here I am, and it's still beating."
"I can testify to that," Rachel said, moving her hand until it rested on Quinn's breast.
Quinn relaxed back against the bed, pulling Rachel after her. "So what about you, Rachel Weston? What's your story? Why haven't you run off with a gorgeous woman?"
