Chapter 23
Joanne grinned. “Wish granted. Next time Miss Bitch bothers you, let me know. I’ll send her packing. I’m good at getting rid of girls like her.”
Edie gave her a sad smile. “I don’t want to get you involved…”
“Too late,” Joanne said sweetly. “I’m already involved. Here’s the thing, Edie. I like you, okay? I really do. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you might like me, too.”
“I do,” Edie confirmed. She eased her arms around Joanne’s waist and hugged her tight, enjoying the feel of their bodies pressed together, the warmth generated between them and the promise of so much more. “I do.”
“I had fun tonight,” Joanne continued, “and it’s going to take a lot more than a sketchy scene with your boozy ex to scare me off. I want to see you again, to do thisagain, and go out, have dinner, have drinks…who knows where things will lead between us eventually?”
Edie snickered. She knew where she’d like them to lead, just not yet, not tonight. Not now, after Charlene.
With a smile, Joanne ground her hips into Edie’s. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly,” she said, apparently thinking along the same lines. “And if things start getting serious between us, hon, I want you to know I’m more than ready to stand up for you, okay? For us.”
Edie sighed. “Thanks,” she murmured. “It’s just…I mean, what if it turns out that I’m not worth the effort?”
For a long moment, Joanne stared at her, those dark eyes unreadable. Whatever thoughts swirled behind them were closed off to Edie, and she worried how Joanne might answer that question. Would handling Charlene be too much of a hassle on their budding relationship? Would Joanne give up on her before even bothering to give her a fighting chance?
Then Joanne leaned close, closer, her eyes slipping shut, and the next thing Edie knew, their lips touched in a sweet kiss.
Edie gave into the moment, letting Joanne’s mouth guide hers open as Joanne’s tongue delved between her lips, tasting her, teasing. Testing.
It was a tentative kiss, gentle in its tenderness, but beneath it lay a hunger, a passion, ready to burst into full flame if given half the chance. It was like the first spark, the kiss of flint and steel, kindling something within Edie that flared to life under Joanne’s touch. When Joanne leaned in, deepening the kiss, Edie felt that fire in her catch—her blood ignited, her heart quickened, her pulse flared. Between her legs, she grew warm and moist as lust raged within her.
All from one sweet kiss.
When Joanne pulled back, her lips were damp and slightly swollen, her eyes soft, her hair mussed. There were high spots of color on her cheeks as if she, too, felt the same flames inside her that Edie felt burning within.
With a breathy sigh, she assured Edie, “Oh, I think you’re definitely worth it.”
Edie leaned forward to kiss Joanne again. “I don’t want to rush anything,” she said, her mouth against Joanne’s, “but would you like to come back to my place? For…whatever?”
Joanne hugged her close. “Do you even have to ask?”
THE ENDHeat Wave: Wildwood
When Tara Harrison received her cousin Amanda’s wedding invitation, she deleted the email without reading it. Who sent an evite to a wedding, anyway? It struck Tara as vulgar and rude, and the message went into her trash folder with the rest of the spam, right where it belonged.
But the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t go. It wasn’t as if she and Amanda were close—they weren’t, not by a long shot. Amanda had to be a good eight years younger than Tara, barely out of her twenties, and if her Instagram pictures were any indication, she still spent most of her weekends getting wasted in bars all up and down the Jersey shore. Tara, on the other hand, had gotten all that out of her system back in college. Now that she was turning forty soon, her idea of a night with “the girls” was a glass of wine and a marathon of Orange Is the New Black on Netflix.
And weddings…don’t get her started. Everyone Tara knew seemed to be on a marriage kick. Ten years earlier, there’d been a few months where she had back to back weddings booked every weekend as all her straight friends got hitched. When they started having kids and doing “mommy” things, Tara found she wasn’t able to maintain the same level of interest in their lives as before, so they drifted apart. No big deal. Then came the push to legalize same-sex marriage, and Virginia jumped on the bandwagon. Suddenly all Tara’s lesbian friends talked about marriage, too, and once again, she found herself making the rounds as everyone around her paired up and said, “I do.”
How could they all be lucky in love when she wasn’t?
Now Amanda was tying the knot. Amanda, of all people. In Tara’s mind, the name still conjured up a precocious little girl with blonde ponytails, a child’s potbelly, and skinned knees. She knew that couldn’t be right; she’d reconnected with her cousin online a few years ago, so she saw the selfies—the perpetual tan, the bleached hair now worn long and straight, the heavy makeup, the bar drinks. With the passing years, Amanda had grown into the spitting image of the aunt Tara remembered when she used to visit Wildwood over the summer while growing up.