Aspen's Blaise Read online

  It had been weeks since the couple managed to go to bed at the same time, and despite her bone-deep fatigue, Lorelei was determined to wait until Aspen was done. Aspen only had one more day of school to get through before she was free for winter break. Lorelei couldn’t wait.

  After restarting from her last save point, Lorelei leaned forward with her undivided attention on the screen. She was going to get into the bad guy’s study, once and for all!

  “Take that, you bastards,” she grumbled as her character bowled his way through a group of guards, “Run, run, run, run! You son of a bitch, I said run!”

  Just as the character vaulted over the last of the henchmen and finally came face to face with the big boss, a sparkly blue navel ring came into her line of sight, obstructing her view of the screen.

  “No!” Lorelei groaned pitifully as the controller in her hand vibrated with the violent, unseen death of her character. Irritated, she flopped herself back against the couch and dropped the controller to scrub at her face with both hands.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, baby,” Aspen said, her voice low and seductive as she straddled Lorelei’s thighs with her knees. She braced her arms on the back of the couch above Lorelei’s head, allowing her long blonde curls to brush over her wife’s face. “Did I get your explorer killed?”

  Lorelei sucked in a breath and dropped her hands to rest on the outside of Aspen’s knees. She wanted to rest them somewhere else, but knew that if she did, Aspen wouldn’t be ready for her test in the morning.

  “Babe, what are you doing?” Lorelei asked, flushing when her voice cracked, “we agreed that we’d wait until this weekend. It’s already been a month and a half; one more day isn’t going to hurt anything. After tomorrow, we will have eight whole days before you have to start studying again.”

  As per their agreement, Aspen would be allowed to take a break from studying for exactly half of her winter break. Then, because of midterms in mid-January, it would be right back into the books.

  Aspen shrugged and lowered her head to flick her tongue over Lorelei’s ear. “I can’t wait until the weekend. I want you now,” she whispered breathily.

  Lorelei shivered, despite the warmth from the still crackling embers in the fireplace. It had taken all of her resolve to keep turning down Aspen’s advances over the past few weeks, but that resolve was quickly abandoning her now.

  “Aspen,” she moaned softly, “not tonight. Please; go finish studying so we can go to sleep. As soon as you get home tomorrow, I promise, I’ll take you to bed and we can stay there until I have to go back to work.”

  Aspen pushed herself upright and quickly stripped off her cropped t-shirt, revealing firm, supple breasts that were unencumbered by a bra. Lorelei’s eyes bulged, and she suddenly forgot what they had been talking about.

  “No,” Aspen said firmly, her eyes narrowing into a glare.

  With the absence of Aspen’s seductive lilt, Lorelei’s brain remembered that she was supposed to be encouraging her wife’s success.

  “Sweetheart,” she said gently, lifting her hands to rest on Aspen’s hips, “We talked about this, remember? You need to focus on your school work, so you don’t fall behind. We made that mistake at the beginning of the year, and you failed your quarter-term math test. We were lucky your teacher agreed to let you retake it.”

  Aspen’s glare immediately dissolved into a glower. “For the past month and a half, it’s been school, cheerleading, fire calls, drills, homework, study, sleep, repeat. Every single day. We haven’t gone anywhere or done anything or even taken a break from that stupid routine since the Halloween party!”

  Lorelei grimaced. Aspen was right, but there was a reason for it. Aspen needed to do well on her make-up test tomorrow, or she was in real danger of being a credit shy of graduating at the end of the year.

  “Aspen, honey,” Lorelei started, “it’s just one more night. Then…” Lorelei’s words were cut off by the angry growl that rumbled from Aspen.

  “No, dammit!” Aspen barked. She lunged forward, darting her hands out to support her weight on the back of the couch as she hovered over her wife.

  “I’m sick of this shit! You’re always at work or on a call, and I’m either at school, studying for school, or at cheerleading practice!”

  Lorelei started to speak, but one look at the onslaught of emotions swirling in Aspen’s deep green eyes shut her right up.

  “I’m tired, Lorelei. I’m tired of always being too busy to just sit down and relax. I’m tired of staring at page after page of material that may, or may not, help me pass my test. I’m tired of always being on the go, and I’m tired of never having time with you!”

  A fleeting look of sadness passed over Aspen’s pretty face, before being replaced by a look of absolute hurt.

  “But, most of all,” she went on, her voice dropping from a yell to a near whisper as she pushed herself off Lorelei’s lap and back onto her feet, “I’m tired of being rejected by my own wife.”

  Lorelei felt the sting of Aspen’s words like a physical slap to her face. Her heart thudded in her chest and her jaw dropped as she stared into the pained eyes of the young woman she loved more than life itself.

  “Rejected?” she asked incredulously, “Baby, is that what you think I’m doing?”

  Aspen shrugged and swiped at the tears that started to trickle down her cheeks. “Every time I try to be intimate with you, you push me away. How else am I supposed to feel? That’s not what I agreed to, Lorelei,” she said softly, her chin trembling as she spoke.

  Lorelei felt tears sting her own eyes. She couldn’t bear the sight of Aspen’s sadness, and knowing that she was the cause of those tears, brought a physical ache to her chest.

  Aspen waited as Lorelei tried to find the words to explain herself. Several times, Lorelei opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t seem to put her frantic thoughts into a coherent explanation. When Lorelei blew out a frustrated breath and shoved a hand through her hair, Aspen let out a sigh and turned to step away from the couch.

  “I’m sorry I interrupted your game,” she said, not bothering to look at Lorelei as she grabbed her shirt and walked toward the hall, “I only have one more chapter to go, but it could take me a while to get through it. I know you’re tired, so you can go to bed if you want.”

  “Aspen,” Lorelei lunged off the couch and started to follow her wife toward the office, “Sweetheart, please come back here. I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby, I swear I didn’t.”

  Aspen didn’t bother to acknowledge Lorelei, but the redhead could clearly see the slumped set of the blonde’s shoulders and the slight trembling of her jaw when she stopped herself from looking back.

  “Goodnight, Lorelei,” Aspen said, stepping into the office a few paces ahead of her wife, “I’ll lock up and put out the embers when I’m done.” With that, the young woman pressed the door closed before Lorelei could stop her.

  Lorelei tried to open the door, but when she realized that the lock had been set, she let out a shout of frustration and slammed the side of her fist on the frame.

  “Goddammit, babe, I’m sorry!” she called, trying in vain to force the door knob to turn. “Please open the door and talk to me.”

  After a moment of silence from within the room, Lorelei realized that Aspen wasn’t going to open the door. Angry, at both Aspen and the situation, Lorelei growled and spun around to storm off toward the living room. She didn’t bother to turn off her game or the TV, just grabbed her keys and wallet before slamming the door behind her on her way out of the house.

  ***

  Aspen sat at the desk with her head held sadly in her hands. I didn’t sign up for this shit, she thought tearfully, how can it be so easy for her to keep putting me off?

  When Aspen agreed to focusing more on her schoolwork, and less on physical pleasure, she hadn’t realized that she would be giving up sex completely.

  At first, Aspen was grudgingly content with limiting their escapades to bedtime. But, after t
heir last visit with Aspen’s father on Thanksgiving, Lorelei had stopped being amorous at all; instead suggesting that Aspen study until it was time to sleep.

  Aspen sucked in a breath and glanced around helplessly at the chaos strewn about the desk. There was no way she was going to be able to focus on her studies anymore, so she set about straightening the scattered notes.

  As the pages were organized and cleared away, photos came into view beneath the Plexiglas surface of the desk. Aspen stacked the last of the notes atop her math book and moved the whole pile to the floor. She inspected the photos carefully, drawing her fingertips over each one with a smile as the memories of each captured moment played in her head.

  Each of the pictures on display were from their wedding night; candid, uncensored photos she and Lorelei had taken of one another, and selfies they’d taken together, to mark the end of their first day as a married couple.

  Most of the photos were of her; lying nude on the bed, various seductive poses she’d struck to taunt her new wife, even a few of her sleeping in the aftermath of post-coital bliss.

  But there was one photo of Lorelei that made Aspen’s heart race. It was the first she’d taken of her new wife that night, and even now it was still her favorite.

  Lorelei’s black and red vest was caught around her elbows and her white silk blouse was unbuttoned to below her breasts, revealing just enough curve to be tantalizing. Her hands were working a button on the blouse, the fingers slightly blurred from their haste. The black silk trousers she’d worn were already gone, and for the life of her, Aspen couldn’t remember how Lorelei had ended up in just her boxer-briefs before she’d managed to remove her shirt.

  Aspen smiled as she traced her finger over Lorelei’s face, noting the smudges of lipstick on Lorelei’s jaw, throat, and collarbone. She remembered, all too clearly, how those got there. When she looked into Lorelei’s eyes; those piercing blue eyes that never failed to leave her hypnotized, tears began to prickle behind her own.

  Aspen had been lying on her back on the bed when she’d taken the photo, with Lorelei standing between her legs and staring directly into the camera. The smoldering look of desire in Lorelei’s eyes hadn’t escaped the camera’s lens, and it was that look that had the tears now streaming down Aspen’s cheeks.

  Was it just a fluke? Are those days already over? Maybe my mother was right. What if we really did rush things? God, please don’t let her be losing interest in me already. I love her so much. I just want her to look at me like that again.

  ***

  God, I hate fighting with you, Aspen, Lorelei thought as she stood in the doorway of their room and watched her wife sleep.

  Aspen was curled up in the bed with Lorelei’s pillow clutched tightly to her chest. It made Lorelei’s heart hurt to see the tear stains on Aspen’s cheeks, highlighted against her pale skin by the moonlight streaming through the window.

  I just want you to succeed, baby, she thought miserably as she quietly made her way over to stand at her wife’s side.

  It took everything in her not to reach out and brush aside the curls that covered Aspen’s face, and Lorelei felt the tears of frustration sting her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and apologize to Aspen; to kiss away the pain that she’d caused and show her wife how much she truly desired her, but Lorelei knew she couldn’t do that.

  Aspen had a test tomorrow; one the young woman needed to be ready for. She couldn’t afford to be distracted, and Lorelei wasn’t about to be the reason her wife failed that test. She couldn’t bear the thought of being the reason Aspen’s mother got her way.

  If Aspen didn’t graduate, she wouldn’t get the inheritance her grandfather left her; it was as simple as that. Graduating high school was the only stipulation the old man had listed for his favorite grandchildren, and Talia Aldrich was the kind of mother who would revel in Aspen’s failure.

  Talia seemed to hate everything about her daughter, ever since Aspen hit puberty and decided she didn’t want to date any of the boys Talia tried to set her up with. When Aspen admitted the reason, at fourteen, it was all Ambrose could do to keep his hotheaded wife from sending his beloved daughter to some extremist deprogramming center.

  Aspen, for her part, didn’t care what her mother thought and thrived under her father’s approval. When Lorelei asked for Aspen’s hand in marriage, it was Ambrose’s support that lessened the burn of Talia’s blistering response. Lorelei’s hands clenched in fury at the memory of the awful things that vile woman said to her own daughter.

  “Let the little whore get married, Ambrose,” Talia had said scathingly, “Aspen will end up spending so much time on her back, she won’t have time to study. It’ll be her own fault she let your father down. Oh well, when she fails to graduate high school her inheritance will revert to us. At least then her shameful existence won’t have been a complete waste.”

  Ambrose had stepped in then, his booming voice echoing through the halls of the family’s mansion with admonition. It had given Lorelei a great deal of satisfaction to watch Talia scramble out of her husband’s sight, and it soothed her ire to watch the man’s rage-hardened face soften when his gaze turned to his daughter.

  Lorelei stood over her wife now, teeth buried in her lip as she watched the woman she loved sleep. She wished with all her heart that it could be June already. Her first Christmas with Aspen was just under a week away, and Lorelei just wished summer would hurry up and get here. Hell, she wasn’t even looking forward to their first anniversary as much as she was the end of the school year.

  You can do this, she told herself firmly, Aspen might be pissed off now, but once she gets home from school tomorrow, you can show her how sorry you are. She knows what’s at stake here, and she agreed to all of this. She’s not a child; she’s an intelligent woman who’s just stressed out. She’ll be okay.

  With a quiet, heavy sigh, Lorelei moved around the bed to grab her spare pillow. “Goodnight, Aspen,” she whispered softly, “I love you.”

  Shoulders hunched sadly, Lorelei made her way out to the couch to sleep. She’d almost climbed into bed with Aspen, but was afraid that once she did, she wouldn’t be able to keep hold of her restraint. God only knew how much study time Aspen had lost because of their little fight, and Lorelei knew that if she started touching Aspen tonight, the younger woman wasn’t going to be anywhere near rested enough for her test in the morning.

  At least if I sleep out here, I’ll be able to wake up and have breakfast with her before school, she thought as she flopped onto the couch. Cordy was right, the beer did help.

  When she’d left the house earlier, Lorelei had intended to walk off her anger. Cordy and Jenica had been returning home from an evening out when they’d seen Lorelei storm out of her house, and Cordy had intercepted the obviously angry redhead before she could blow past them.

  She’d spent the next three hours sitting on the neighbor’s back porch, relieving herself of her frustrations as she and Cordy finished off a twelve pack of beer. While nowhere near drunk, Lorelei did manage to get a decent buzz going by the time she finally felt calm enough to go home.

  Now, as she lay there on the couch with only a slight fuzzy feeling in the outer reaches of her mind, Lorelei smiled as she thought about the next day. Chief Andrews had agreed to let her take a personal day so she would have all of Thursday off, as well as her usual Friday and Saturday.

  Without work keeping her away from the house, Lorelei would have plenty of time to prepare for her apology to Aspen. Because of the end of term, Aspen’s school day would end and noon, but cheerleading practice would keep the young woman busy until three.

  That should give me plenty of time to make a run into Marilynn for a few essentials, she thought dreamily as her eyelids began to get heavy, then I’ll show her just how hard keeping my hands off her has really been.

  Chapter 13

  “Aspen is going to love this,” Lorelei grinned to herself as she placed two heavy foil packets on a sheet p
an and slid it into the oven to bake. Dinner wouldn’t be ready for another two hours, and those ribs were going to need every minute of it. Making Aspen’s favorite dinner was a huge part of Lorelei’s plan for the evening.

  I’m already on thin ice as it is, she thought morosely, two for two is bad enough, the last thing I need is to break a promise, too.

  Lorelei chuckled humorlessly to herself as she set about straightening the kitchen. She’d managed to sleep through her alarm that morning, missing Aspen by nearly half an hour. Lorelei’s reaction to discovering this had been a very convincing impression of a two-year-old in need of a nap, for which she was grateful there had been no witnesses.

  She’d found the note Aspen left beside the coffee pot, which hadn’t helped the redhead’s guilt-ridden frustration.

  I see that not touching me extends to not sleeping in the same bed anymore. Hint taken. Coffee’s fresh as of 6:30.

  Lorelei had immediately texted Aspen, hoping to catch her before she began the first class of the day.

  Thank you for the coffee, baby. The only reason I didn’t sleep in bed with you, was because I didn’t want to wake you up. I knew you were exhausted and I was angry at myself. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m making you Texas smokehouse ribs for dinner tonight.

  She’d followed the text with a string of heart and kissy-face emoji, hoping to bring a smile to her wife’s face. When Aspen didn’t reply, Lorelei assumed that she’d been too late with her text and kept herself occupied with housecleaning and preparations for the night’s meal.

  As the day went on, Lorelei sent Aspen a few more messages, each one laden with positivity, love, and support. She tried not to let it bother her that Aspen had maintained radio silence, reminding herself that it was against the rules for students to have a cell phone in the classroom.

  I know she’s seen the messages, dammit, why is she leaving me on read? she wondered angrily when another check of her phone revealed no new messages. It was nearing 3:30, and Aspen always sent her a message when she finished cheerleading practice at 3.