"Jennie," Lisa says firmly, "we are not hooking up in the library."
Jennie grins, wolfish despite Lisa's statement. "Fine."
"I mean it." Lisa keeps her hands resolutely on the table, where she has deemed them safest. "I have to work here."
"Okay."
"And I will not be able to do so if I have," a breath as her girlfriend–her girlfriend! a part of Jennie's brain still trills in excited italics everytime she says it, even in the privacy of her own thoughts, Lisa is her girlfriend!–thinks of the appropriate wording, "images flashing through my head every time I sit down at this table."
"Images, huh?" Jennie likes the sound of that very much, actually. Has several such images popping to mind in fact. "Tell me more."
Lisa rolls her eyes to the ceiling as if appealing to a higher power for strength.
"We can compare notes." She's quite interested in hearing just what Lisa is thinking. Would love to know particularly which images she finds most distracting. She runs her fingertips lightly up the outer edge of Lisa's arms, then, in a stroke of self-diagnosed-genius adds, "For academic integrity purposes." Surely this scholastic reasoning will win ever studious Lisa over to her side of seeing things.
It's a side she herself was not expecting to be on this fine Thursday afternoon, and yet. Jennie likes to think of herself as adaptable. When the opportunity for a little alone time with Lisa presents itself, she'd be crazy not to take advantage.
So, here she is, sitting on the very library table that started it all, once again coaxing her dear reluctant Lisa into a little fooling around. The echo is not lost on Jennie. She savors it. "It's poetic, if you think about it."
"Poetic," Lisa laughs, the sound coming from low in her throat. "Sure. If we're taking a page from Yeats, I'm sure you're right. He would be so proud to see such an event transpire in his name."
Jennie does not know who Yates is, let alone whether this is a good comparison or bad, but, as she said: adaptable. She bumps her nose against Lisa's and winds her arms around her neck. "Glad to hear you're warming up to the idea, hot stuff."
Lisa's cheeks are a delicious shade of pink as she says, "There is absolutely zero warming happening. I am not changing my mind on this, Jen."
"Hmm." Jennie shrugs it off. She can see the proof disproving Lisa's statement with her own eyes, but decides to let it lie. Even now, after countless hickeys (of both their doing, Jennie is happy to report now), Lisa can still be a little, well, skittish. The last thing she wants to do is spook her.
She knows Lisa has her reasons for being wary of opening up emotionally and physically. Over the months of knowing each other Jennie has learned a few of them, and she's hoping to eventually show Lisa she is trustworthy enough to learn them all. Step one of that plan (really more like step one hundred and one, if Jennie is being honest with just how long she has been planning Mission: Get Lisa Out of Her Own Head--GBOOHH, for short) is not scaring her the hell off.
Despite the unusual start to their relationship (see: Jennie essentially tricking her friend into giving her multiple hickeys under increasingly false pretenses), she is determined now to respect Lisa's boundaries. Though, if she has a little fun in learning just what those boundaries are, who is to blame her?
Jennie has yet to brush up against a hard limit in her quest to map their newly discovered field of play (damn, if that doesn't sound like something Lisa would say). Until that time, she fully plans to enjoy prodding at Lisa's buttons. Read: being, admittedly, a bit of a brat.
When Jennie arrived at the library this afternoon, her girlfriend had been studying so nicely. The picture of scholastic productivity. Like, truly, something out of a university pamphlet. The whole 'Send your kids here; we'll teach them how to have perfect posture while studying gibberish' schtick and all that. Actually, maybe their school should put Lisa on the cover of the recruiting shit. Hell, if high school Jennie had seen Lisa in an Ivy League circular, she would have studied much harder for the SATs, done all of those extra projects her counselor was always yammering on about, and probably taken out several wildly unwise student loans--anything in order to go to school alongside this girl right here who is too busy studying to give Jennie more than a brief smile hello.
Next to her, Lisa, focused and unaware of her fanciful thoughts, continued taking detailed notes on whatever dense passages she was close-reading today. Jennie had snuck a peek over her shoulder as she sat down, and while today's book had been in English, it might as well not have been, as incomprehensible as she had found it to be.
As it was, Jennie had been quite content to watch her work. Sure, she supposed she could pull her own homework out. That is why she was here, after all. Coach Supes has been railing on them about their grades, so Lilith had proposed a team study session before practice later this evening. Lisa had of course quickly agreed, so Jennie of course had followed suit, ever eager to show her girlfriend support.
That being said. Their scheduled studying wasn't set to officially begin for another thirty minutes. So, Jennie figured she might as well take advantage of the downtime and do what she does best: fuck around a bit.
She'd been intent on amusing herself with playing around on her phone. It wasn't her fault that her girlfriend was imminently more interesting than connecting strings of similarly colored candy.
Plus. Well. She didn't know a person could hold a pen in a hot way. But sitting there, Candy Crush forgotten and timing out on her phone, watching as Lisa wrote line after perfectly straight line in her spiral, Jennie discovered it was indeed something a person can do. Huh.
(She has been learning a lot of things about herself since meeting Lisa.)
Actually, she has been meaning to mention this to her, but Lisa's notes are truly a thing of beauty: color-coded and clear; miles better than Miguel's, actually. She should tell her that. It would probably make Lisa happy to hear herself so favorably graded against 'that boy' as she still refers to him from time to time.
"If you're bored," Lisa said without bothering to look up from where she was tracing a finger down the open spine of a book (well, would you look at that: another newly discovered hot thing), "why don't you find something more stimulating with which to amuse yourself?"
"Yeah," Jennie responded, still a little dazed, watching that pointer finger move so confidently down the page. She'd never been jealous of a book before, but here they were. Lisa's words clicked, then. She could indeed do 'something more stimulating.' "Yeah," she repeated more confidently this time, nodding to herself.
She set aside her phone and hopped up onto the table, ass perhaps a bit too close to Lisa's notes to be ignorable, because it was then that her girlfriend finally looked up from her work. "What–"
Jennie didn't let her finish, just tugged her up by her shirt, and kissed her.
"Oh." Lisa, bless her, didn't even have a chance to close her eyes. When Jennie pulled back, grinning from ear to ear, she was greeted by the welcome sight of a gobsmacked Lisa.
She probably looked just as dazed and she had had the benefit of knowing the kiss was coming. What can she say? Kissing Lisa, Lisa kissing her– it's all still new and startlingly technicolor. Even the barest peck against Lisa's cheek sends thrills up her spines.
Judging by the slightly dopey smile mirrored on Lisa's face, she wasn't the only one so affected. What a rush it was to cause pulled-together, unflappable Lisa to look at her like that.
God, was her girlfriend cute. Jennie kissed her again for good measure.
And, okay, maybe she might have gotten a bit more into the kiss than she had anticipated. Maybe watching Lisa's hands work had gotten her more worked up than she had originally intended. Maybe things slid from cute and lovestruck to hot and heavy. Maybe maybe maybe.
But. Jennie would like to remind all consenting adults present, that it takes two to tango.
And that was very much what they had been doing, mouths moving together in rhythm, Lisa's tongue just brushing along Jennie's, when Lisa had pulled away abruptly as if suddenly remembering the day, her name, and their current location, and issued her understandable, but no less heartbreaking, edict against hooking up here.
But, "That's fine," Jennie agrees now easily enough. Adaptable, remember? "No hooking up here. I can live with that."
She leans in and kisses Lisa. Lips sliding over hers, the barest hint of teeth scraping across flesh, and then she's pulling back again, careful to not lean too hard into her lest she push her luck and push Lisa away all together.
"That leaves plenty of other activities on the table."
Lisa narrows her eyes. "Is that a pun?"
"It wasn't not a pun?" Jennie offers with an elaborate shrug. She loosens her hold on Lisa to sweep her palms back and forth across the shoulders of her crisp shirt. "Do you iron all of your shirts?"
"Just the ones that call for it." Then, Lisa's perfect nose wrinkles. "And you know I hate when you use double negatives."
It's true, she does. In fact, Jennie has made it her mission to tally up every one of Lisa's likes and dislikes. This, admittedly, started even before they began dating. Call it research, call it being a good friend, call it whatever. When Lisa talks (with her words or body language), Jennie listens.
So, yes. Jennie knows exactly how Lisa feels about double negatives (right up there with political fundraising spam texts but not quite to chewing with one's mouth open), which is why she is counting on those feelings to distract Lisa from her concerns about the publicness of their current location. So far, this tactic has proven to be quite successful on Mission: GBOOHH.
"Sorry," Jennie says, very clearly not meaning it. She tilts her head. "How do you decide which shirts call for ironing?"
"By reading the tag." Lisa answers then stops and narrows her eyes. "I know what you are doing, Jennie."
Jennie widens her eyes in a 'who, me?' facial expression as she continues to plot the line of fabric beneath her fingers. She's always been tactile, but somewhere along the way, Lisa unknowingly switched her touchiness up to an 11. At the risk of another dreaded double negative: she just can't not touch her.
"And," Lisa is still saying, tone and eyes unimpressed, "I want you to know that it will not work."
Jennie presses her thumbs into the joint of Lisa's neck where it meets her shoulders. The muscle there is decidedly tense. "What am I allegedly doing?"
She presses harder into the knot until Lisa's eyes flutter. The taller's voice is less firm, more breathy, when she answers, "Trying to persuade me to change my mind."
"Not exactly," Jennie says. "You said no hooking up, so no hooking up. Easy as that."
There are plenty of other things they can do instead. Jennie can work with this. At least, she can until Lisa tells her to stop.
Lisa looks at her closely from beneath lowered lashes. Jennie feels like she's being scanned for dirty thoughts and/or ill-intent. "Really," she says slowly like she's weighing the veracity of the word in this given situation.
"Of course," Jennie has to laugh at her suspiciousness. "I'm thirsty, sure, obviously. But not in a 'not take no for an answer' kind of way. Never that– And yes, Lisa, before you say it, I know that was a double-negative."
She wants to add that brattiness aside, she'd rather drag her body over broken glass than knowingly do something Lisa does not want. But that seems a little dramatic even for her usual brand of word vomit. Plus, easy breezy beautiful joking aside, this is an important conversation.
So, instead she just cups the back of Lisa's neck, lightly enough her girlfriend can pull away if need be, and hopes her eyes convey her sincerity. "You know I want what you want, Lis. Whatever that is or is not, just tell me and we'll do it."
Lisa thinks about this for a moment. "And what if," she says slowly, watching Jennie's face closely, "I want to study?"
She grins, can't help it. One track mind this one. "Then we'll study. Scout's honor." Palm still resting on Lisa's shoulder, she holds three fingers up like she did before, back when she was promising not to grab Lisa's ass the first time she gave her a hickey.
Hmm.
Speaking of which, Jennie wonders if that promise still holds now that they're no longer hiding behind the guise of platonicness. She'll have to ask Lisa about that one of these days. Preferably sooner rather than later. Her girlfriend has a cute butt.
For now, Jennie releases Lisa, and goes to hop down from the table in compliance with her request.
She makes it as far as lifting her ass up a centimeter, hands wrapped around the edge of the table to push off, weight levered forward, before she realizes Lisa has yet to step back. Jennie has to pull her body to a hastily stunted stop to keep from headbutting her.
Her girlfriend is still standing close enough to kiss, arms on either side of Jennie's body and very much blocking her from moving. "Uh," she says, unsure what she's supposed to do now.
A warm hand moves from the table to her leg, just above the bend of her knee. "And what if," Lisa says, eyes dark and deep enough to fall into and still on Jennie's face, "I want to hear more about these other non-hooking-up activities?"
"Oh." Jennie finds her mouth has suddenly gone dry. "Oh."
"Unless you–?" Lisa takes a step back, immediately un-crowding Jennie's space. At once, she misses her presence.
"Oh, no." Jennie reaches for Lisa's hand before she can get too far. Tugs her back so her thighs are touching her knees. Tugs her a little bit more. "I am very much down for other non-hooking-up activities."
"Yes?" Lisa scans for any sign of hesitation but finds none.
"Very much yes." It's a little silly how yes she is, actually. The phrase 'enthusiastic consent' flits through her mind. To demonstrate this, Jennie takes Lisa's hands and deposits them back on her legs. Firmly presses Lisa's palms flat across the muscle of her quads.
"Very well then." Lisa flexes her hands as though to get accustomed to the feel. Jennie, to her immense credit, only nearly shivers. "You were saying...?"
"Oh, yes." Jennie slides her hands up Lisa's strong arms, cups her palms around the curves of her biceps and triceps and deltoids and rests them back on her shoulders, fingertips pressing into the meat of her trapeziuses. Shit a brick, she likes this woman's body.
The thing about Lisa is that she's sneaky hot. You wouldn't be able to tell from her outfits, but her girlfriend is kind of deliciously ripped underneath all those buttons and, apparently, when it is called for, ironed long sleeves, and Jennie, truth be told, has been enjoying the ever-loving fuck out of exploring all the firm yet sensitive areas she can find.
For a brief, transcendent moment, Jennie contemplates the singularly glorious experience that would be to feel each of these muscles against her mouth. To drag her lips over all of that skin.
She knows what it's like to feel Lisa's body move against hers as she bites down hard on her shoulder. Oh, how wonderful it would be to have that happen now. She squirms a little, despite Lisa's hold on her thighs–which does nothing to dissuade her suddenly rampant libido.
She wonders what it would feel like to have Lisa use that grip to intentionally pull her ass to the edge of the table. Her brain times out and Jennie has to shake her head to dispel the image.
Not now, horny hormones, thank you. She's trying to show some restraint here. Both in general and in this specific instance of the here and now.
However, it is getting increasingly hard to do that the longer Lisa watches her with those eyes, a light smile tugging at the corner of her full lips like she knows exactly what Jennie was just thinking.
Which. Fine. If Lisa wants to be smug, she can play, too.
"We could always get a little handsy," she says bluntly and intentionally misleading and waits for the blush to spread up to the tips of Lisa's ears. Lisa does not disappoint.
"Jen," she exhales, in that adorably scandalized tone she tends to use when Jennie suggests most activities from this to bleaching the opposing team's grass in the design of their school's logo. "We, literally, just said no hooking up."
"Ooh, dirty mind, Lalisa," Jennie scolds. Her delighted smile pulls a chuckle from Lisa who has just realized she's been had. Jennie, enjoying herself immensely, waggles her eyebrows as she leans forward and adds, "Good to know you'd be interested in using hands, though."
A not insignificant pause as her own words sink into her belly like a pound of molten lead.
"Uh, I mean." Woof.
Hard to tell who has been had with that one. Maybe both of them, Jennie concedes before steering them back on track. She needs to pull herself from the gutter she just waltzed into, STAT.
"There are other uses for these bad boys though, you know?" She jazz-fingers her hands where they rest on either side of Lisa's neck.
"Good save." It may be her wishful thinking, but Jennie is pretty sure she detects a note of throatiness in Lisa's voice.
"For instance," she presses into the muscles at the top of Lisa's back. "They can help you with some of these knots you have back here."
Lisa, as though against her better judgment groans as Jennie hits a knot. She tries not to let the sound go to her head or rather her pu–
Focus.
"That does feel," –exhale– "ooh, good."
Oh, that's just unfair. Jennie feels herself sway closer, suddenly lightheaded. "Good," she croaks out.
Lisa flexes her fingers where they rest on Jennie's legs. Her eyelashes a dark fan along her cheeks as they flutter at her ministrations. As if unaware of the torment she is raining down on Jennie, Lisa's tongue peeks out for the briefest, most maddening moment as she licks her bottom lip.
As a reward for somehow managing to keep her hips still, Jennie leans forward and presses a remarkably chaste kiss to the corner of Lisa's mouth.
"You're so tense, Lisa." Jennie sweeps her hands down the top of her back, allows her lips to brush off-centered against Lisa's mouth once more. "Let me help." Doesn't mean for her voice to come out so rough, but she's only human. She curls her fingers, makes a solid line of the tips, and then presses them firmly along the drop off of Lisa's shoulder blades.
Against her own lips, Lisa's part to allow another breathy little groan to escape. "Hh'kay," she consents.
Jesus, okay indeed.
Under the auspices of pressing harder into the muscles along the back of Lisa's neck, Jennie guides her down to rest her forehead against her own shoulder. Truthfully, Jennie doesn't know if she could trust herself with Lisa's mouth so close to hers as she makes those sounds. If Lisa moans, she just may lose her shit here.
Jennie spreads her legs to allow Lisa to step in that much closer. Slides to the edge of the table and wraps her thighs around Lisa's hips for better leverage. Lisa, ever the gentlewoman, helps pull her snugly to her.
"Ooh," Lisa breathes, labored and rueful, against her neck at the contact, "this may have been a bad idea." She does not, however, Jennie notices with mouth-drying clarity, pull her hips back from where they're pressed firmly to Jennie's.
She's beginning to think Lisa may be right. "You say that about most things."
"Do you think, perhaps," and Jennie can hear the smile shining through Lisa's words, can feel it resting just shy of her pulse-point, "that is due to the fact that most things you suggest are in fact a bad idea?"
"Hey now!" Jennie replies mock affronted.
Lisa shrugs elaborately against her as if to say, 'I don't make the rules, don't look at me.'
Jennie chuckles and drops a kiss to Lisa's hair. "If I recall, it was my idea that got us here."
"'Here' being?" Lisa asks, deliberately obtuse in the specific way that she only allows herself to be with Jennie. She loves it, smiles against Lisa's hair, because there's something especially adorable about serious, straight-faced, deadpan Lisa playing along with her silly antics. It is its own thrilling gift, really. "I know you don't mean the library."
"No," Jennie rolls her eyes after first pulling back enough to make sure Lisa can see it. "Pretty sure that was actually Lilith who suggested we meet here. Though I doubt she had this in mind when she proposed the location..."
"And you did?"
"One can always hope, Lalisa." Does this woman think Jennie wears her crop tops for just anyone these days? Get real.
"Bloody hell."
"What?"
"You're going to be the death of me, aren't you?"
"And perpetuate the bury your gays trope?" Jennie presses a hand to her chest in indignation. "I'd never." She turns her face, breathes her next words into Lisa's ear. "Come on, Lis. You know me better than that."
"I do know you," Lisa groans against her throat. Jennie feels it between her legs. "Which is exactly why I am fearing for my life here."
"No one's here." She gives in and kisses the top of Lisa's ear. "Just you. And me. And all of your beloved books."
"My beloved books that you are intent on traumatizing?"
"Lisa, I've seen the covers." Jennie slides her hands back up to her strong shoulders, "Some of them are older than I am."
She's rewarded with a delightful little snort against the collar of her shirt.
"Fair warning," Jennie says, "I am about three seconds from kissing you."
"Thank you for your warning."
"So, that's a yes–"
Lisa leans up and kisses her, fully on the mouth. Fucking finally.
Despite all of her professed good intentions, things quickly skid out of hand.
She blames Lisa's mouth. The woman is just. So good with it. It makes her a little crazy. Lisa, to no one's surprise, least of all Jennie's, kisses carefully. Every move of her lips is precise, calculated. She kisses Jennie slowly, taking her time and taking Jennie apart with every swipe of her tongue.
And then, just when Jennie is melting into it, a nice little puddle of goo for Lisa to work her magic upon, Lisa surprises her with a quick little nip to her bottom lip. Just enough to shock a shiver out of Lisa.
It forces Lisa out of rhythm; she can't settle. Just gets dragged along for the glorious ride. Nothing for Lisa to do but make her mouth soft and pliant for her. She is more than happy to let Lisa lead. Anything to feel Lisa's tongue moving with hot intent against her mouth.
She groans and Lisa smirks, honest to god smirks into the kiss. It'd be annoyingly cocky if it wasn't so fucking hot.
Jennie drags her closer. Feels one of Lisa's hands slide up to the waist of her jeans, pinky finger hooking in her back pocket.
Jennie, fumbling for an anchor in the sea of want, thumbs at the top button of Lisa's collarless shirt. She circles the hard disc, taps it once. Twice. Before pulling back. She knows her eyes are hazy as she asks, "May I?" At Lisa's startled, wide-eyed look, Jennie can't help but laugh. "No," she shakes her head, "not all the way, just." She taps the top button again. Bites her lip. "A little of the way?"
She keeps her thumb on the button and skates the remainder of her fingertips along the top of the collar of Lisa's shirt. Lets her short fingernails drag slightly, just barely edging along the skin.
"We don't have to, obviously," she rushes, flustered from the kissing and the rush to explain herself, "I just, I like the feel of your skin against my fingers when I kiss you."
As far as admissions go, it's relatively benign. It seems to affect Lisa all the same, judging by the way her lips part, mouth wet and open before she swallows and grits out a bitten and chewed, "fine."
Then she's gripping Jennie's wrist, just firmly enough for her to imagine her doing it in another more heated situation. Over the rush in Jennie's ears she hears Lisa say, "But just the top two."
Jennie gulps. "Okay."
Immediately she gets to work. Eager to take advantage of the reprieve she's been offered. Sees it for the gift it is as she slides the first button free and presses her lips to the hollow of Lisa's throat. Feels her swallow against her.
She feels feral, finger shaking as she undoes the second and folds the shirt back so she can get at all this soft hot skin Lisa has allowed her access to.
"And for the record," Lisa says, voice breathy and decidedly high and distracted as Jennie licks the sharp line of her collarbone. "I do, too."
Jennie can't even gather her wits enough to ask what Lisa is talking about. Which is okay, because Lisa shows her by finally, finally, finally falling for the trap Jennie laid in wearing this crop top. She shivers at her girlfriend's warm fingers spanning her side.
She feels small under Lisa's hands. Her outstretched fingers covering so much distance, touching so much of her at once. It makes her head spin. If Lisa shifted her palm just a hair north, she'd be–
"Jesus wept."
Against her, Lisa goes absolutely marble statue still.
"You guys have got to be fucking kidding me."
So that wasn't Lisa's cute accent, then. Got it.
Jennie unhooks her mouth from Lisa's chest. "Um."
"Can you guys not behave for two minutes?" Lilith asks from behind Lisa's back. "There are children present."
"Hey," Carla cries–great, because apparently the whole team is here for this, of course they are. Jennie wonders how they lost track of so much time. "Why did you look at me when you said that?"
"You're early," Lisa says simply, hands gone from Jennie in a flash as the taller girl steps back from the table, forcing Jennie to unhook her legs, lest she get dragged to the floor. Judging by the disgusted yet thrilled tone of Lilith's voice behind her, she's going to get dragged plenty as it is.
Jennie watches, heartbroken and sadly horny, as Lisa's deft fingers do up the top two buttons of her shirt. In the background, Lilith, now joined by Mary, continues bitching. Jennie mourns the loss of skin like a limb.