Never Too Late Read online

  “What’s wrong?”

  Jamie stepped into her arms. She was trembling. “I haven’t been this happy since that night. I wish…” Jamie’s voice broke.

  “It’s the same for me, but it’s never too late to find our happy-ever-after.”

  Jamie kissed the angle of her neck, then trailed her tongue up to Carla’s jaw and across to her mouth. The kiss was so heartbreakingly tender Carla’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” Jamie said, her lips against Carla’s.

  “Just returning the favor.” Carla took Jamie’s hand and led her to the bed. She was going to share it with the right woman. Sliding between the sheets they snuggled against each other, Jamie’s cheek above her breast and her palm on Carla’s stomach. They sighed at the same time.

  “So what happens next, Ms. romantic-comedy expert?”

  “Well, Ms. I-want-a-little-action-with-my-kissing,” Carla said, stroking her fingers through Jamie’s hair, “the lovers look longingly at each other and dissolve into a heated kiss as the music swells. Speaking of which.”

  “I’m not sure if I want to do this next part with anyone else in the room, but that first part sounds worth exploring.” Jamie slid on top of Carla and fit their centers together as Carla spread her legs.

  “That night I learned what blind need was, what I’d only read about in romance novels. Remind me,” Carla said, exaggerating her Southern accent. Jamie’s eyes darkened and her chest moved in quick, shallow, breaths as she rocked against Carla.

  Carla cupped the back of Jamie’s head and pulled her face down until their lips grazed each other. Sliding her tongue along Jamie’s lips, teasing her, she let passion escalate the kiss to a prolonged caress of tongues.

  “Move with me, my beautiful Southern girl,” Jamie whispered, as she rocked her pelvis, matching her rhythm to Carla’s.

  Carla slid her heels up Jamie’s calves, opening herself. Wetness coated her thighs, whether hers or Jamie’s she didn’t know. Jamie stopped rocking, her face tight and flushed. Carla held Jamie’s butt and pushed herself up into the heat of Jamie’s center, responding to the depth of need in Jamie’s eyes. “Don’t hold back. Let me see you come.”

  Jamie moaned as they ground against each other. Bracing herself on her elbows, Jamie lifted her center. “Inside. I want you inside me when I come. Hurry.”

  Carla found Jamie’s opening and slid into her. Her heart opened in a flurry of desire at the rightness of being inside the woman she’d never stopped wanting. She needed this connection in her soul. Stroking deeply, she watched Jamie’s face change with the first flicker of her orgasm. Her jaw tightened and then relaxed as Carla felt the warm flesh tighten around her fingers.

  “Oh, God…yes…yes.” Jamie arched her back as she came, crying out Carla’s name. She rode Carla’s fingers, driving them deeper. With one final thrust she collapsed onto Carla, trapping her fingers inside.

  “Guess you had a little pent up—” An urgent mouth on hers, a demanding tongue, teeth that gently nibbled her lips, cut her off. Jamie straddled her thigh, leaving a trail of wetness. Carla groaned when familiar fingers stroked her clit. She lifted into the touch, her belly full with demanding need. She wrapped her arms around Jamie’s back and found Jamie’s mouth as fingers entered her, gentle but demanding.

  Jamie traced a path with her tongue across Carla’s cheek, then sucked on her ear lobe. “I want to take you in my mouth.”

  “Yes…please,” Carla croaked. Jamie slid down her body, stopping to take a breast into her mouth and tease her nipple to a painful peak. She arched into Jamie’s touch as anticipation of what Jamie would do sent desire, hot and demanding, through her body. Heat flared in her center as she waited for Jamie’s mouth to give her release. She moaned when Jamie’s tongue traced delicately around her clit and again as the teasing tongue refused to give her what she needed. She held the back of Jamie’s head and pulled her mouth against her. She felt Jamie smile against her flesh, and then her hand covered Carla’s breast and played with her nipple.

  Tension built in Carla’s belly and her muscles tightened around Jamie’s fingers. Her heart was pounding against her ribs. She was so close. Jamie pressed her tongue flat against Carla’s clit and stroked it hard and fast as she moved two fingers in and out. When Jamie stroked harder with her tongue, a deep rumbling started in Carla’s chest and escaped her mouth as a long cry of pleasure. Carla’s voice was thick with her Southern accent as she urged Jamie not to stop, demanded more pressure, a deeper thrust. She shoved herself onto Jamie’s fingers and against her tongue. Carla rode out another orgasm, crying out Jamie’s name over and over, as her body melted.

  Jamie laid her head on Carla’s thigh, but kept her fingers deep inside as their breathing quieted. “You had a little pent up, too.” Jamie slid up and kissed Carla tenderly, spreading Carla’s wetness across her lips.

  “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, Jamie. My memories of that night were so accurate I swear part of me feels twenty-two again.” Carla opened her eyes and laid her palm against the soft cheek. “But…all those lost years…” Her eyes filled. “I don’t know how I lived without you, without this, all those years.”

  “Hey. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Carla sat up and pulled Jamie into a fierce hug. “I can’t lose you again, not even for a minute.” Carla was shaking with joy and need and an irrational fear of losing Jamie, as if the universe would continue to torment them.

  “I’ll move in with you tomorrow—”

  “Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”

  “Would this weekend be soon enough?”

  Carla devoured Jamie’s mouth with a possessive kiss. “If that’s the best you can do.” Carla laughed, releasing all the tension of the last couple months. This was her future and it was perfect. They fell onto the bed in a tangle of arms and legs, kissing and laughing, murmuring all the longed-for words of love and commitment.

  *

  Carla set two cups of coffee on the nightstand and slid onto the bed, careful not to wake Jamie. She was content to just watch her sleep, letting the sadness of that young woman who’d had to walk away release into the joy of knowing she’d have every morning of her life with Jamie. They’d made love deep into the night, healing their past and sealing their bond, leaving each other breathless and sated time and time again. This was the new life she wanted.

  Finally Carla snuggled against Jamie. She stirred when Carla blew on her neck, squirmed when she traced her tongue around her ear. Flipping onto her back she smiled and sniffed the air between them. “You have coffee breath,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

  “And so will you in a minute.” Carla tilted her head toward the nightstand. She couldn’t stop staring at Jamie as her fantasy ending to that night played out before her. “Happy?”

  “Indescribably,” Jamie said. “A little sore, though.”

  “Guess running isn’t the right kind of cross training, is it?”

  Jamie kissed the top of Carla’s head. “Do we have any orgasms left in us?” She gasped when Carla slid her hand under the sheet and stroked her clit. “Okay, you made your point.”

  “Can we call in sick today?” Carla snuggled into the crook of Jamie’s arm.

  Jamie groaned. “Damn. It feels like a weekend.”

  Carla sighed. “It’s going to be a long, long, long day. Maybe we can come home for lunch.”

  “I like the sound of that. In fact…if my amazing office manager can arrange it, maybe we just won’t go back after lunch.”

  “Consider it done.” Carla rolled on top of Jamie. “We’re going to have a great life.”

  *

  Warm hands slid under Jamie’s T-shirt and warm breath tickled her neck as Carla snuggled up against her back. “When did you do this?” Carla’s bedroom was filled with dozens of flickering candles. A trail of rose petals in a rainbow of colors led from the door to the bed. Carla took her hand and led her to the bed. A single r
ed rose lay on top of a pillow, a card tucked under it.

  “When I sent you to the store. Open it.”

  Jamie looked from Carla to the card. She’d been redefining happiness by the minute all day as being with Carla and absorbing the love between them thawed the cold, empty spaces in her heart. They’d spent the afternoon in bed, letting their bodies catch up on years of unfulfilled passion. They’d called Penni and Lori and basked in their congratulations. They’d had dinner on the couch watching another of Carla’s favorite movies. They’d talked about changes for the clinic and about holiday plans like a long-partnered couple. Jamie felt her dreams coming back to her. She’d found the most important of them, the one that made her happier than she’d ever been. Her mother would heartily approve.

  Jamie opened the card and stared at the two tickets nestled inside. She read the name of the performer and the date of the concert—Melissa Etheridge on New Year’s Eve. She threw herself into Carla’s arms, peppering her cheeks with soft kisses. “When did you get these?”

  “Last summer. Mike won’t mind if I take you instead.” They tumbled onto the bed in each other’s arms as the past merged with the present, waiting to become their future.

  About the Author

  Julie Blair has always believed that fiction is one of life’s great pleasures. From the time she was old enough to hold a book, escaping into worlds where anything is possible and endings are usually happy has been a favorite pastime. Growing up a tomboy before it was fashionable, Julie attached herself to sports, especially softball, which culminated in her pitching in the Women’s College World Series. Finally forced to grow up and get a real job, she landed in restaurant management for a decade before entering the rigors of chiropractic school. She has been a chiropractor for over two decades.

  Julie has sat atop the ruins of Machu Picchu and stood five feet from mountain gorillas in Uganda, but her favorite place is curled up on her couch with her Labradors, Magic and Mandy, reading or writing. Living in the quiet of California’s Santa Cruz Mountains, she enjoys gardening, hiking, red wine, strong coffee, smooth jazz, and warm fall afternoons.

  Never Too Late is Julie’s debut novel. She’s hard at work trying to give voices to other characters with stories to tell—their struggles, their triumphs, their love affairs—mostly in self-defense, hoping they’ll stop waking her up in the middle of the night with snippets of dialogue or ideas for scenes and settings.

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