At Your Most Beautiful by Harper Bliss (best free ereader .TXT) 📗

eyes. “Hey.” Maya was even more surprised by the mellowness in her own voice.

“Hey, yourself.” Quinn briefly touched the tip of her nose against Maya’s. Then she brought her hand to her stomach which made a gurgling sound. “I’m starving.”

“I did offer you dinner last night, but you stubbornly refused.”

Quinn shook her head. “Not stubbornly. I’d even dare call it wisely.”

Maya couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll make us some eggs.”

Quinn brazenly brought her hand to Maya’s backside and pulled her close. “I’m not that hungry.” She kissed Maya on the cheek again.

“Do you have to go to work?” What day was it again? Maya mostly taught after-school afternoon classes and was used to leisurely mornings, although her mornings had become much less leisurely since Ethan had arrived into the world.

“That’s the beauty of being freelance.” Quinn squeezed Maya’s ass again. “I set my own hours, which makes me free as a bird this morning. You?”

Maya could easily make up a reason to get out of bed instantly—or to ask Quinn to leave—but no part of her wanted to do that. “My first class is at three,” she said truthfully.

Quinn chuckled. “And you don’t want to throw me out yet?”

“To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what to do with you, Quinn.” Maya made sure to at least grin while she said that.

“You seemed to know very well throughout the night.” Quinn sucked her lower lip between her teeth.

It was Maya’s turn to chuckle—she also figured her cheeks had just turned a shade pinker. “We should probably talk. How about you take a shower while I make us some breakfast?”

“Am I hearing that right? You’re offering me a shower and breakfast? What kind of alternate universe have I landed in?”

“Keep that up and I’ll boot you right out.” Because Maya didn’t mean that in the slightest. Instead of kicking Quinn out, she pulled her as close as she could. She inhaled her scent and luxuriated in the warm softness of Quinn’s skin against her own.

“You’re right,” Quinn whispered in her ear. “We should probably talk.”

“I’m supposed to go on a date on Friday.” Maya wrapped her hands around her mug of steaming coffee. “Needless to say, this kind of situation is quite new to me.”

“You did move to the city to sow your wild oats.” Quinn sat on the other side of the kitchen island. She’d wolfed down her eggs earlier.

Maya had done the same because, as it turned out, a night of hot sex did leave one rather famished. “Sow my wild oats?” she repeated.

“Play the field. See what’s out there. Get your lez on.”

“Now you’re just making fun of me.” Maybe Maya needed to be mocked a little bit.

“I’m sorry.” Quinn sounded sincere. “I don’t really know what to do with this either. All I know is that last night was spectacular. Even more so than my memory of our previous night together.”

Maya nodded. She could hardly deny that they’d had an amazing time together.

“Ordinarily,” Quinn said, “if it were only up to me, the chemistry we have is not something I would walk away from.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that maybe we should go on a date. Have a night out on the town. See where it leads…”

“If you put it like that,” Maya replied. You make it sound so easy, so plausible. She didn’t say that last bit out loud because she wasn’t sure she should be putting ideas into Quinn’s head—or her own.

“Just for the record, I would never ask you to cancel your date with Beverly. I know you like her. That’s not what I’m after here.”

“I—I just don’t see how I can go out with her now. After last night, it wouldn’t feel right.”

“I can’t help you decide that, Maya. That’s your own thing.”

Maya would need to sleep on it. It wasn’t as though she and Quinn were dating now. “You’re right.”

“Will you go out with me, though? We can make a night of it in Brooklyn. Have you even crossed the bridge since you moved here?”

“If I say yes to that, you have to promise that you won’t take me somewhere that’ll make me feel much older than I actually am. You know, one of those hipster millennial places where all the guys have their hair up in a bun and the girls…” Maya didn’t really know how to describe millennial girls, even though she had one sitting right in front of her.

“Don’t worry, Maya. I know exactly where to take you and it will make you feel like a million bucks, I promise you.”

“Oh, yeah? Where would you take me?” Maya’s interest was already much too piqued.

“You will only ever know if you agree to go.”

“Wow. Such manipulation.” Maya put her mug down.

“You’re right.” Quinn smiled at her as though she didn’t agree with that at all. “It’s up to you, Maya. I’ve put my cards on the table. I would love to take you out and while I can’t guarantee you will have the time of your life, chances are you might have the most fun you’ve had since moving here.” There was the grin Maya remembered from ten years ago. “You think about it and let me know.”

Maya shook her head. “Is this the NYC way of asking someone out?”

“I don’t know, but it sure is my way after I’ve had the most amazing night with someone.”

“But, Quinn…” Maya took a deep breath. “We have to be realistic. Sure, we might have a great time, and then what?”

“Then we will have had a great time. We will have made a memory worth keeping.” She shrugged. “Isn’t that enough?”

“More than enough, and that’s the problem. Say we go out and we…” Heat bubbled up from Maya’s core. “We sleep together again and we want to do it again and again.”

“Say we start dating and it gets serious,” Quinn stated matter-of-factly, saying what Maya had trouble articulating because it sounded so ludicrous.

Maya nodded. “What if that happens?”

Quinn chuckled. “I