She wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, though at some point Paige distinctly noted that their position had shifted about three feet to the left and two back, because the round body of a wine barrel was now pressed against her back. Their heads were tilted at complimentary angles, noses brushing against each other, lips and tongues, breathing together. Paige wrapped her own arms around Jennifer’s waist and pulled her body closer.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the kiss ended. Lips separated, hovered mere millimeters from each other. Noses rubbed again. Eyes fluttered open, an extremely close view that didn’t offer clarity, but detail shone. Flecks of brown in Jennifer’s hazel eyes.
Sound began to return as Jennifer exhaled an almost silent laugh. “Sorry,” she offered.
Paige’s loud laugh startled all of them. “Sorry?”
“I should’ve asked,” said Jennifer, stepping back a bit.
“Oh, well,” Paige said, and immediately regretted the laugh, “listen you lovely thing, that was… amazing.”
“Yeah, it was,” Ryan said, though it wasn’t clear if he was talking to the group or assuring himself he’d actually seen it.
“I just,” she searched for the words, “didn’t expect it.” She gripped both of Jennifer’s arms, pulling her closer again. “Thank you so much for doing that.”
This reassured Jennifer, her bashful smile returned. “So, we were talking. And. Um.” She looked at Ryan, who nodded. “Want to come back to our place? Tonight? Like, I mean I know it’s late, so right now. Maybe?”
“I’ll be honest,” Ryan added. “We don’t know exactly what inviting you over after a date, erm, dinner, means or implies, but we’re intrigued enough to take the risk anyway.” He took a long pause. “So, thoughts?”
Paige blinked her surprise and turned her head to Bruce.
He pursed his lips for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m game,” he said, but then poked his finger toward the small tray with the bill and Ryan’s credit card on it. “Though if you think for a moment I’m going to let the two of you subsidize my ridiculous wine habit, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Oh, thank god,” said Ryan, “I just thought it was a good move, but damn, that wine was expensive.”
“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing,” said Bruce, throwing his own credit card on the bill.
20
Their car cut through the night. A giggle escaped Jennifer’s lips. Ryan followed with his own laugh. They held hands across the center gap between the seats. “I mean,” said Ryan.
“What?” she asked, trying to affect a coy attitude, but coming across far more seductively than she even intended.
Ryan turned to face her, and she could see something in his eyes that she hadn’t expected. Her husband was impressed. She’d expected surprise, perhaps shock and awe, had been prepared for jealousy even, but she hadn’t expected him to be joyously impressed. “What?” he asked, emphasizing it with what sounded like an entire paragraph’s worth of exclamation points and question marks.
“Okay.” She felt she should be bashful. Everything told her she should be bashful, embarrassed, something. Wasn’t what she did the same thing that college girls did at bars to impress their boyfriends? Make out with the hotties? Make out with each other? To amp up their men for a good pounding later in the evening. To bring out… well, honestly, having worked through college and lived at home, she didn’t quite know beyond what she’d seen on TV, but it seemed like it brought out the worst in them.
“Barsexual,” Ryan had called it dismissively, once upon a time. “They don’t want to do it, they just do.”
Tonight hadn’t been that. Not with Paige. Tonight had had been… “Wow.”
“Wow, indeed,” returned Ryan. “I applaud your form jumping in. That certainly seemed to catch them off guard.”
“Oh, god,” she said, considering that. “You don’t think in a bad way, do you?”
“I don’t think they’d be coming over right now if you’d caught them off guard in a bad way.”
“You’re sure?”
He smiled. “I’m sure of nothing here, hon, we’re sort of off the map. I’ll tell you a few things from my perspective, though. One, you surprised and delighted Paige. Two, you surprised and delighted Bruce. Three, you surprised and delighted me.”
“Yeah?” Jennifer lost herself in the memory of the kiss. The way Paige had felt, the moisture on her lips, the scent and taste of her breath, her perfume, her hair, all mingling together to form a most intoxicating bouquet.
“And how about you?”
“Hmm?” she asked.
“How do you feel?”
“God, she was soft.” Jennifer lightly ran her tongue over her lips. “And she tasted good.”
He laughed. “Fuck.”
“An operative word.” She took a deep breath and squeezed Ryan’s hand. She let the processing take over and took another deep breath. The realization that the evening, rather than ending, had just begun, pounced on her. “We invited them back to our house to fuck them, right?”
“I think so,” he said, his face also growing pale.
“Is the bedroom clean?”
“I can throw everything in the closet if we spend some time downstairs first.”
“Good. Maybe light some candles. I don’t know. Is that weird? That’s weird, isn’t it.” The welling panic, her heart pounding.
“It’s not weird.”
“What the hell are we doing?” she asked.
“Do you want to call it off?”
“No!” She stared at Ryan, shocked he might even suggest it. “I may be freaked out about the particulars, but I damned sure want to see what else that kiss might lead to tonight.”
“Okay,” he smiled, holding his right hand up, palm out. “Well, before we do this, do you think there are any like, details, limits, stuff like that we should work out?”
She nodded. “Probably.”
“Okay.”
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t have any on deck or anything.”
“Condoms?”
“Condoms, absolutely.” She nodded. “Penetration?”
“Meaning penis and vagina.”
“Yeah.” She frowned. “Or butt, I suppose.”
“Not off limits?” he asked.
“Not for me. I mean, I don’t want it, but it’s not a limit where I would say you shouldn’t do it or anything.” She thought about it and turned to him. “But we sleep together. Right? No matter what?”
“End of the night sleep, or sex sleep?”
“End of the night,” she said, “I want to be with you for that.”
“Yeah, absolutely. I want that too.”
“Good,” said Jennifer. She turned to look out the window, seeing the SUV behind them. In the passenger seat, Paige put on lipstick. Her breath fluttered at the sight.
Paige snapped the mirror closed and flipped the visor back up.
Bruce hit his blinker upon seeing Ryan turning right. “I think we need to assume that they’re just exploring. We shouldn’t read too much more than that into it.” He thought for a moment. “I mean it’s probably just—”
“Misplaced college experimentation?” offered Paige.
“Yeah.”
She shrugged. “I could be okay with that. Being the token wild swingers. Couldn’t you?”
He laughed. “Yeah, I think so.”
“I mean he’s really cute. And, well, Jennifer…”