Frost and Frontiers Read online

  “I won’t,” said Ruby, smiling and pushing away her plate. “But listen to us, talking about work when we should be flirting and starting on the foreplay.”

  Jen leaned forward, looking smug. “This is foreplay,” she said.

  Ruby laughed. “Want to order dessert to go and take it back to my place?”

  * * * *

  The moment Ruby closed the door, Jen was all over her, kissing, touching. Despite all this time, her hands, her lips, felt comfortable, felt right. Ruby managed to set their dessert on the counter before Jen kissed her all the way across the room and to the couch. Outside the window, Earth turned slowly, so slowly—the planet they had both left behind for a new beginning here. Orbiting above their past, it was almost easy to imagine being with Jen like this regularly, like they had tried and failed to do decades earlier.

  “I missed you,” said Jen through her teeth as she bit Ruby’s bottom lip and pulled.

  “It’s been too long. A year?”

  “Two.” Jen moved closer on the couch and slid her hands along Ruby’s legs, up her skirt. Her touch tingled like the twinkle of a thousand stars. “Remember what happened last time you wore this?”

  “Mmm.” Ruby dove in for another kiss. Her hands moved up Jen’s arms, taking their own personal inventory of Jen’s body. They stopped to caress her breasts through her shirt and Jen breathed in sharply, tickled the sensitive skin behind Ruby’s knees. Jen twisted, pushed Ruby down on the couch on her back, straddled her.

  “Lucky the couches in this place are so large,” she said, mouth at Ruby’s neck. Her hair cascaded down and around them and Ruby slipped her hands up under Jen’s shirt. She would never get too old for this. She only hoped it wasn’t their last time.

  “Do that thing you did last time,” breathed Ruby, hoping it came out more like a sexy gasp than a plea.

  Jen pulled back, grinning, and descended. Ruby rolled briefly and grabbed the lube she had set out near the couch before changing. She almost felt guilty the Earth was looking on as Jen pushed up her skirt, kissed her inner thigh.

  “No panties?” asked Jen, her breath curling around Ruby’s thigh as she slowly kissed her way up.

  “You make me feel young and rebellious.”

  Jen laughed lightly.

  “You’ve always been young and rebellious. I never made you that way.”

  Ruby wanted to protest but Jen was spreading her legs wider now, sucking on her labia, first one and then the other. Instead Ruby laid back to enjoy herself, feel Jen’s tongue on her, prying gently, then intensely. When they were younger, they did it quickly, desperately, fingers finding clits in the privacy of a back room at a party, or grinding up against each other on a bench in a park in the dark. Even when they had been dating early on, attempting a relationship, they had been forced to see to themselves more often than not. Conflicting schedules, long hours.

  Jen flicked her tongue across Ruby’s clit, steadily, slowly, nothing too intense yet. Ruby yearned for more, body striving toward it, and then Jen slid a lubed finger up inside her, pulled it back, slid two fingers in. Ruby’s breath caught. In all their years together, she had only felt Jen inside her recently, far better than any toy they had tried, much closer.

  Jen slid three fingers in, worked her, sucked harder. Ruby loved it, heard herself mumbling something to Jen but not sure what it was. The Earth seemed to spin above her head, she had no idea which way was up, or even if there could be an up here, swirling in the stars, circling the past. Jen pulled the three fingers out and, after a moment with the lube, slid everything in.

  Ruby gasped. With Jen’s mouth around her, Jen’s hand in her, she came hard, hearing it echo up through her throat as she arched against the couch. Jen wouldn’t let her be, though, mouth still working her until Ruby pushed the woman away with a foot on her shoulder.

  “Damn,” said Ruby, looking down at Jen, whose eyes were glittering. She pulled her hair back over her shoulder and surged up toward Ruby’s face, other things on her mind. Ruby met her eagerly, tasting herself on Jen’s lips, on her tongue. What a full kiss this was, Ruby leading now, massaging Jen’s breasts as she went, twisting the nipples through the cloth. Jen had her pants undone and her hand buried in them, but Ruby growled into her mouth.

  “What?” asked Jen, panting hard.

  “I want to taste you. I want to make you come,” said Ruby.

  Jen shifted immediately, losing her clothes to the floor. She moved to straddle Ruby’s face, to tangle her fingers in Ruby’s hair. “Like this?”

  Ruby nodded, letting Jen guide her where she wanted. She smelled better than Ruby remembered, but then, she always did. Ruby ran her hands up Jen’s dark thighs, searched with nose and tongue, tried to do to Jen what Jen had done to her. She teased with her mouth, caressed everywhere with her tongue but the clit proper, drawing out sensation over the hood, deep where Jen was warm and wet and smelled like dreams threading through galaxies. They would think later.

  Jen’s hands grasping Ruby’s head increased their grip, guided her. Ruby took the direction, swirled her tongue where Jen indicated, stopping on the motions that made Jen gasp and put a hand out against the couch to brace herself. She repeated, not daring to change anything she was doing now that Jen was letting out the most amazing moans. When she stiffened, Ruby made sure to hold her tight, to not let up, until Jen’s voice gave out and she pushed Ruby’s head away.

  When Jen sat back on the couch, eyes closed, savoring their closeness, Ruby moved forward and kissed her. Jen smiled when she pulled back.

  “Dessert?” asked Ruby. “I have a bottle of red.”

  Jen began laughing. Ruby stood up, kicked off her disheveled skirt, and moved to open the degradable to-go containers and pour the wine. She couldn’t help but grin herself when she returned to the couch with two glasses and snuggled up to Jen, both naked from the waist down.

  “Damn, we’re getting old,” said Jen, accepting the wine and sipping at it.

  “Based on that encounter, we’re not.”

  Jen gave her a little nudge with her shoulder, set her wine aside for the chocolate raspberry tart.

  “Dr. McCullough, who else but old women cuddle with their shirts still on, eating post-coital chocolate?”

  “Don’t forget the wine.”

  “Right,” said Jen, and took another drink of hers.

  They finished their dessert in lighthearted, satisfied silence and lingered on the couch working on the bottle of wine, looking out at the expanse of stars and the large marble of the Earth. Ruby wondered how long it would take to get used to never going back, the knowledge she’d seen her last lake, last mountain, last sunset. She wondered why she wasn’t sadder about it, and wished she and Jen could lounge like this forever, or at least the rest of their lives. Maybe she was getting emotional. Beside her, Jen sighed.

  “What?” asked Ruby, raising her head.

  “Can you believe how far away we are?” asked Jen, swirling her wine. “I hope it doesn’t mean the people here on Raft forget their connection to people on Earth.”

  Ruby didn’t know what to say about that. She breathed out.

  “It’s going to take me some getting used to,” she said at last. “But I’ll remember to track that, if I can. In myself, too. I’m not going back.”

  Jen tensed for a moment, then moved to top their glasses off.

  “No? What’s there to stay for?”

  “Where’s there to go? This is it. I can’t get any better new research if I tried. And, like you pointed out, I am getting old now.” Ruby breathed out. “But I could definitely get used to a view like this.”

  “Me, too,” said Jen, but when Ruby glanced over at her, she was looking into her eyes, not out at Earth. Something in Ruby’s gut lurched.

  “You can’t be planning on retiring here,” she said.

  Jen smiled, leaned closer to nuzzle Ruby’s neck. “Retirement? What’s that?” She paused. “Everything you say about yourself applies to me, to
o, you know. There’s going to be nothing else that can really compare to being the first to document and observe animals long-term on a satellite colony. I wasn’t planning on going back, either.”

  In the pause that followed, Ruby’s mind raced. She didn’t know what to think, didn’t know whether Jen was suggesting anything or just stating a fact. Funny how all their dodging around over the years had led them both to a place where it would be difficult to hide from each other for long.

  “I guess we’ll bump into each other more than I was hoping,” said Ruby.

  “Much more,” said Jen. “Even…”

  “That didn’t work out the first time,” said Ruby, remembering the fight they’d had, how they’d parted. The reason why they had spent so many years hooking up and then avoiding each other, always drawn together, ever wary. Neither of them had liked the breakup.

  “We were barely twenty-five then,” said Jen. “Still so young. Clearly you could never stay away.”

  “More like you couldn’t,” said Ruby, giving Jen’s foot a little kick with her own.

  “Well, maybe it’s time.”

  Ruby buried her mouth in her wine. Her heart raced as if Jen had just said she was going to fuck her again. To spend the rest of her days with such an amazing woman…

  “Interesting neither of us were planning on going back down.”

  “It’s time,” said Jen, setting aside her wine. She took Ruby’s hand with both of hers. “Ruby. Please. I would love to share Raft with you for the rest of our days.” She paused. “But before you move in with me, you should know we’re going to end up with rescue pets. A lot of them. Probably several cats, maybe a dog, some of those chickens…”

  Ruby couldn’t help but smile at her. Jen was right. They were old enough to know what they wanted. It was time to stop orbiting.

  “How could I turn you down?” she asked.

  Jen was grinning now, too. “You never could.”

  THE END

  ABOUT JESSICA PAYSEUR

  Jessica Payseur lives and writes in Wisconsin, where she spends the long winters solving murders. Fictional ones, of course. With a bottle of mulled wine and more cats than laps, she crafts cheesy mysteries with sexy sleuths and happy endings. She enjoys snail mail, trying not to get lost geocaching, and bicycle rides as long as they end at wineries. Follow her on Twitter at @jessica_payseur for updates on what she’s currently drinking. For more information, visit pgofcups.blogspot.com.

  ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC

  JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!