Finally Read online

  to speak twice more then decided to speak for her. “Really, it’s okay. Too much information to absorb for—” She stopped talking when Willa’s head moved forward slightly. She waited, heart now thundering. For a moment it looked like Willa was going to—no, that was hope talking. Besides, Willa had halted her movement, briefl y closing her eyes. Again, she opened her mouth to talk, and Quinn waited, unable to move without brushing up against her.

  There it was. Quinn recognized the move she’d just made, looking away and to the left at absolutely nothing. Whatever Willa was going to say, she’d just decided not to say it. Any second, she’d take her up on her offer to get together after her road trip. Other evenings had ended the same way, and Quinn prepared her heart for that abruptness again.

  When Willa turned her head back, she didn’t stop the motion.

  Her face moved in precisely, lips fi nding Quinn’s without hesitation.

  Her abdomen felt the effect before her mouth did. The press of soft lips ignited a tickle of fi re inside her stomach. Perfection, that’s how she’d describe the kiss. Not too demanding or soft or searching or wanting.

  Wow! She can really kiss. Quinn’s feelings probably helped with that assessment, but it didn’t hurt that Willa’s technique left her breathless.

  Willa fi nished their kiss with a fi nal feathery touch of lips, causing Quinn to gasp sharply. “Sorry…I’m sorry.” She stepped back at the sound. Her hands shot up in front of her face, waving in a defensive gesture as she turned away. “I don’t know why I thought I could do that to you.”

  Quinn grabbed one of the waving hands, using it to twist her back around. “Perhaps because I’ve been hoping you would.”

  Wide eyes met her revelation. “Why didn’t you…?”

  “Ever do anything about it?” Quinn smiled softly. “Hence my bungled question earlier.”

  32

  Finally

  Willa sighed and looked away. “I think I’ve always known on some level that I’m gay or, at least, bisexual, but I’ve never done anything about it.”

  Shock hit Quinn’s system. The abandoned insecurity of that kiss told her that she must have been with other women. She could barely form the question plaguing her mind. “I’m the fi rst woman you’ve…”

  “Ever kissed? Yes.” Willa looked unsure in her admission. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that.”

  “You can tell me anything,” Quinn shared decisively. She didn’t want to say what she was thinking, but she knew she couldn’t just let it hang out there for another four months. “I’m a little overwhelmed. I hope you didn’t kiss me because I told you I was a lesbian, and you wanted to fi nd out if—”

  Two fi ngertips pressed to her mouth, stopping her words.

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you from the fi rst moment you smiled at me.”

  Quinn’s lips widened around the fi ngertips, spreading into that same smile.

  33

  SIX

  Feeling wrung out, I leaned back in my chair and let the business plan slip from my fi ngers back to the table. Nykos sat across from me, long ago having thrown his feet up on the table.

  We’d run the gauntlet with three different venture capital fi rms and one of them wanted a funding meeting tomorrow. The money was ours for the taking. One more meeting, possibly two, and our dream of starting a software fi rm could be realized.

  But all I could think about was that kiss, which was insane, really. In all my life, I’d never been a romantic or even remotely invested in a relationship. I was invested in starting my own business, had been for over a decade. Now that we were on the verge of doing just that, I should be reveling in the rush of that achievement. Instead I was focusing on a fi ve-second kiss with a friend. I’d never had trouble with priorities before that kiss.

  “Will?” Nykos tossed a pen at me. “Did I lose you again?”

  “Huh?” I caught the pen on refl ex, bringing my thoughts back to the present.

  “I know shopping isn’t your thing, but I killed my only dress shirt with that coffee spill the other day. I don’t have a tie big enough to cover the mark.”

  “How about an ascot?” I offered, laughing at the thought of him in a snooty neck scarf.

  “Now that’s a look I could rock!”

  34

  Finally

  I snorted, grabbing for the printouts of the slides we’d use tomorrow. There weren’t many red marks on them. Either he’d been too lazy to add comments or they really were the most polished we’d get before our last effort to get this start-up capital.

  “What’s with you today?”

  I should have known I couldn’t fool him. He must have noticed that I’d been preoccupied. I could distract him by springing up from the table and leading him to the mall to get a new shirt.

  Or I could tease him about his latest disaster date. I could do any number of things to sidetrack him because he was so easily distracted. But I didn’t. “I kissed her.”

  After fi ve full seconds, his feet dropped to the fl oor so he could push forward in interest. “Let’s break this down. First, you kissed someone, which I didn’t know you even knew how to do. Second, you’re telling me you kissed someone, which you’ve never shared because you’re more private than a hermit, and third, ‘her’? You kissed a her? As in someone of the female persuasion?”

  Maybe this had been a bad idea. Nykos wasn’t exactly an Oprah watcher. The likelihood he’d become suddenly sensitive enough to help me sort through these feelings was slim. The only thing I could do was shrug in reply.

  His smirk died a bit, knowing I wasn’t in the mood for too much teasing. “Don’t get all quiet now. By her, you mean…?”

  I glanced away, wondering why I’d brought this up. Nykos and I didn’t have international coffee drinking moments. I’d talked him through a couple of his breakups, but more as a confi rmation of his actions rather than a cookie and ice cream wallow fest. He’d met a few guys I’d dated, but we didn’t spend a lot of time going over relationship turmoil. This was defi nitely a bad idea.

  “Please say it’s some hot Hollywood actress that has an equally hot actress friend for me,” he joked. When he failed to 35

  Lynn Galli

  get a rise out of me, he leaned back and crossed his arms, waiting me out. He wasn’t very patient, though. “You’re killing me here!

  You tell me you kissed a woman for the fi rst time and you clam up? It was the fi rst time, right? You haven’t been holding back raunchy girl-on-girl stories from me our whole friendship, have you?”

  I laughed, something he’d been making me do since I fi rst stumbled across him in college. And by stumbled, I mean that literally. He’d been passed out one night in the dorm hallway during a lightning storm that he and several others took as a reason to celebrate. With the lights knocked out, I never saw the big lump and fell right over him. We’d been friends ever since.

  “Who?” he persisted.

  “Quinn,” I admitted.

  It looked like a million thoughts fl ittered through his surprised brain. “I guess you weren’t kidding when you said you were friends.” His tongue poked his cheek as he settled in for what he no doubt hoped would be a long and detailed discussion. “Please tell me she kissed you back. You didn’t just slip and fall onto her face with puckered lips, did you?”

  Another laugh snuck out. “She responded.”

  “By smacking your kissing face? Or did a large vat of pudding suddenly appear and you two fell into it for some wrestling with only bikinis on?”

  I raised my eyebrows at his imagination. “There is something seriously wrong with you.”

  “Thank you,” he accepted smugly. “Get on with it. You kissed her, she responded, which I’m guessing is your repressed way of saying that she kissed you back. Then what?”

  “She left?” Obviously. Did he think that I’d kissed her and we immediately jumped into bed? Of course this was Nykos I was talking to. First kiss sex wasn’t out of the nor
m for him.

  “That’s a question? You don’t know if she left?” He couldn’t 36

  Finally

  seem to stop poking fun at me. “You didn’t lock her in your basement and now you’re coming to me for help in transporting her body out of state, are you?”

  “Will you knock it off?”

  “Then talk, you closed-lipped freak,” he ordered.

  I shook my head, half glad I’d started this and half ready to kill him for not making it easy. “We were getting ready to have dinner, and I don’t know, I just had this urge to kiss her. I’d been having the same urge for a few weeks, but this was overwhelming.

  So I did it. I didn’t know I would. I just did.”

  “And?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t make me ask.”

  I really shouldn’t tell him, but I’d gone this far. “Comparatively?

  The best. By miles.”

  He nodded, fl ashing a know-it-all smile. “Is she…?”

  “Yep.”

  “That makes it easy then.”

  “For what, exactly?”

  He threw a glare at me. “Whatever you want. Have you given that any thought? Because until now, I don’t think you have.”

  Before I could object, he qualifi ed, “Personally, I mean. We’ve been working on what you want professionally for months now, but we both know you’ve been treading water personally ever since I met you.”

  I’d never thought of it that way and certainly never thought my buddy would have noticed. Since his divorce, he’d been doing nothing but dating one woman after the other with no real purpose. I didn’t think he’d be able to focus on my lack of interest in relationships. “I don’t even know if it was anything more than a kiss. I could be turning this into a big deal all on my own.”

  He scoffed. “You do know, and you’re not that carefree with your feelings. You wouldn’t have made a move without being 37

  Lynn Galli

  almost certain about her.”

  It was rather eye-opening how well he seemed to know me.

  “She’s famous, at least around town. People notice her. I’d have to be nuts to want to be involved in that.”

  “It’s not like you’ll be living on some reality show with cameras in your face the whole time. So she’s occasionally noticed when you guys are out. They’re looking at her, not you.

  Get over your abnormal witness protection fetish.”

  “You’re making me feel all warm and fuzzy with this talk.”

  He snorted loudly. “You couldn’t handle warm and fuzzy.

  Rational and real is all you understand. So here’s rational for you: in all the years you’ve been with men, have you ever once felt like you do now?”

  No. Not even close, and he knew it. Apparently my poker face sucked when it came to Nykos.

  “As for real. You’ve been friends for months. Then you kissed her and she kissed you back. The fact that she didn’t smack you afterward should tell you all you need to know. Stop trying to talk yourself out of it. Don’t let this chance get caught up in a lot of details.” He pushed back from the table and stood. “And I want to meet her. Soon.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. He and Quinn would get along great. Not that I’d been worried about that.

  He grabbed his keys. “Enough with the mushy talk. Let’s head out to get me a new shirt. I’m the beauty to your business savvy. I need to look the part while you’re wringing the money out of them tomorrow.”

  I liked how certain he always sounded when doling out advice. It was almost enough to convince me he was right. I just had to stop thinking about it and go with my feelings for once in my life.

  38

  SEVEN

  Just the sight of her drove me crazy. When Quinn’s face rose over the roof of her car, mine split into a wide smile. The last time she’d been at the house, we’d kissed. Sometimes it still felt like a dream. I’d thought of little else during her road trip.

  This wasn’t a good time to be obsessing about a kiss with everything in our lives so up the air. Quinn’s season was ending soon, and her off-season coaching plans weren’t fi rm yet. Nykos and I would hear back from the venture capital fi rm by the end of the week. If we received funding, I’d be spending every waking moment trying to get this software business up and running while still maintaining my day job. I couldn’t afford to quit until we had an income producing product.

  Timing didn’t scare me as much as acting on these feelings, though. They hung heavy in every room, suffocating me. We’d only kissed once, and I was completely lost.

  A week later, Quinn was walking up the front steps with a beautiful smile. I opened the door before she reached it. She came through; not stopping until she’d pulled me into an intimate embrace. I felt her athletic body fi t against mine. Strong thighs surrounded my left leg, hips caressed my midriff, breasts pressed in above mine, and her face tucked against my head. Elated laughter escaped my mouth before I could rein it in. I knew she could feel my heart crashing around inside me, but I only felt the 39

  Lynn Galli

  intensity of her body crushed against mine.

  “Hi, Willa,” she greeted softly. Breath licked at my ear. My belly started to fl op like a fi sh just out of water. I was glad that she was holding me so tightly or this new feeling of dizziness might cause me to collapse.

  “Quinnie,” I whispered back.

  She pulled back from the close hold to stare into my eyes.

  “Did you just call me Quinnie?”

  A fl ush of heat started at the base of my neck and suffused my face within a second of the intense stare. I felt like I was broadcasting every thought. Mentally, I smacked myself and looked down. “Quinn. I meant to say Quinn.”

  She tilted my chin up to make eye contact again. “No, I like Quinnie. I especially like how you say it.” Embarrassment forced my chin down again. She switched her hands to squeeze my shoulders as she bent slightly trying to reestablish eye contact.

  “Do you mind when people call you Will? Or do you only like Willa?”

  “I’ve been called Will my whole life. Wills, I’m not as crazy about,” I tossed out casually. When it rang untrue in my ears, I abruptly turned and led her into the living room, suddenly aware of the sensations attacking me from every direction.

  “I think Willa suits you better. It’s a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” Desire fl ared in her eyes.

  “You think I’m beautiful?” I couldn’t stop the incredulous question from being voiced. Plain, I could understand, but beautiful?

  “Very beautiful,” she confi rmed with a confi dent smile, reaching out to run her fi ngers through my hair.

  “So…you like me?” I smiled shyly, very aware of her hand combing a path through my hair.

  Her jaw popped open and rapid breathing pumped her chest up and down. She bent to kiss me hurriedly in response. Tentative 40

  Finally

  innocence, so apparent two weeks ago, was gone from this kiss.

  This kiss sent me a message that she was very interested and already invested in this relationship.

  “Oh my,” I breathed out when the kiss broke. Lust, desire, and yearning combined to make me brave enough to want to try anything with this woman. “Is this a good idea?”

  Taken aback, Quinn asked, “Do you mean because you may actually be straight? If that’s the case, I’m still willing to put my heart on the line.”

  I raised a hand up to her cheek. She turned her head and kissed the center of my palm, pulling my breath from me. The wet imprint drew every bit of my attention. “No,” I denied her concern. It didn’t seem to sink in, so I brought one of her palms up to mimic her kiss. “No, I meant that in less than a month your season is over, and you’ll probably be hired back at Oklahoma.

  As soon as next week, Nykos and I might get our fi nancing, which means I won’t have time to breathe let alone think about maintaining a long distance relationship.”

&nb
sp; “I’ve been offered an assistant coaching position at the U. I was going to tell you at dinner.”

  “Congratulations!” Things just became more real and more diffi cult. I gave her my best imitation of cheerful. As if the prospect of dealing with a full-time job and launching a new business venture wasn’t diffi cult enough, now the woman I was crazy about would be moving across the country for the next eight months. “The University of Oklahoma is very fortunate to have you.”

  A slow smile appeared on her beautiful face. “At the University of Washington.”

  A surprising shriek of joy leapt from my mouth. I threw my arms around her, more happy than I could ever remember being.

  My lips brushed the soft skin on her neck as I spoke. “I can’t believe it. This kinda luck just doesn’t happen to me.”

  41

  Lynn Galli

  “Perhaps your luck is changing?” she asked seriously.

  “I feel like my luck changed the moment I met you.”

  She rubbed her hands along the length of my arms. “And how do you feel about pursuing a relationship with a woman? I don’t think I could handle it if we went much further and it turned out to be curiosity for you.”

  I tilted my head and kissed the indentation at the base of her throat. A moan sounded as my lips worked along the line of her exposed clavicle. “I’m pursing a relationship with you.”

  Retracing my path, I found my way toward the other shoulder.

  She pushed me gently to get me to stop. In a grave voice, she told me, “Coming out isn’t a picnic. You’ll lose friends, you’ll disappoint your family, and you may have trouble at work.”

  I didn’t need to give it any thought. “I don’t have friends that would be horrifi ed by this. If they were, I wouldn’t want them as friends. As for my family, our private lives are private. Both my parents got remarried without telling us in advance. They don’t get the chance to be disappointed.” Worry creased her forehead.

  “Really, you’d have to know my family to understand that judging someone’s personal life just isn’t done. I’m not worried.”