French considered her options. She could think about the best way to get into Fry’s pants in the next few hours, without disregarding her needs, or she could concentrate on how it was that Louisa’s box of goodies had backfired on her. Decisions, decisions...

Fry won that contest hands down. French turned the force of her mind to plotting. She’d come up with several approaches and had to scrap them all.

Indicative of her attempts was this finely shaped piece of mental gymnastics. It hadn’t taken French long to find a loophole in the social contract subclause on giving other people’s feelings due regard. She reasoned that feelings were changeable, fickle things. And being sensitive to them on the whole was probably a bad idea.

Damn, she’d have to go the sensitive route until she could come up with something better, or Fry caved in to her aggressive form of desparation.

With that settled, she let the Louisa conundrum float through her mind. Louisa had to have a connection on the inside somewhere. Was it Nigel? French didn’t think that was likely. That snake wouldn’t have shared the information. He’d have used it himself. Someone French didn’t know perhaps?

The day struggled by. French was locking up and doing rounds. Everybody had gone except Fry who was downstairs putting linens away and waiting for her to finish up. Then, French had told her, she’d take her home. The best thing she could come up with in the being sensitive to Fry’s needs department was to do a condensed version of the ‘getting to know you’ buffer time Fry had requested. Then they could get on with it.

She was walking down from the second floor dining room when she felt a breeze. Someone had come in the side door. It didn’t take her long to figure out who it was.

“Hello French, Mrs. Redmond would like a word with you.” It was Tim and a couple of Mitchell’s boys. They had fanned out in the hallway.

“She can make a reservation like everybody else. Now get out of my restaurant before I kick your ass. Again.” French didn’t have time for this crap, there was a woman downstairs who needed her feelings seen to.

Tim smiled, he’d hoped French would be difficult. “She said she didn’t mind if you got accidently damaged on the way over. Just to keep the blood to a minimum because she’s got a new carpet from Pakistan or something like that. So this can go either way.”

French shrugged and walked toward the three men who’d formed a ‘V’ type formation with Tim at the apex. She stopped six feet in front of him with his lackeys flanking her on either side. These were fit young men who looked like they’d probably broken a few bones in their time. Not their own.

They were standing in the hall in front of the kitchen door and French hoped Fry would stay put for a few more minutes. This shouldn’t take longer than that. If no one pulled a gun. And the fact that no one had, indicated that these were the macho kind of guys that would have cut their own throats before admitting they needed a gun to bring her in. Lucky French.

“You know Tim, I have a hunch that no matter what I do, you’re going to try to pop me one. So why don’t we have at it? Or are you afraid I’ll make you look bad in front of your friends?”

He was going to get the opportunity to find out. There was a noise in the kitchen and the lackey next to the door turned his head to look through the window into the room. French had positioned herself well and delivered a roundhouse kick to the side of the other guy’s head on her right. She hoped it would scramble his brains long enough for her to deal with her next objective - the guy looking through the window. She came back around in time to see that he’d spun back at the sound of his comrad being bashed and he took a dive at her.

French ducked and slammed him in the gut with her shoulder. He doubled over her back, and she jibed upward viciously with her opposing elbow, catching him right in the face. The weight on her back went dead. She braced herself at the knees, because it would have been a really bad moment to strain her back. She pushed upward with all of her strength, throwing him as much as she could manage in Tim’s way.

It wasn’t like Tim had never seen a woman fight before. He’d been to the movies. But there was a part of his brain that couldn’t accept that French had done what he’d seen her do. And even though she’d kicked him senseless a while back, he couldn’t help but think that had been a freak accident. After all, he’d hit his head as he’d fallen, right? He pulled his gun.

Of course Fry chose that moment to poke her head through the kitchen door. She glanced at the bodies on the floor. She looked at Tim who was holding a gun on French. They both looked at her.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

“Shut up!” Tim was feeling out of sorts.

“Fry, why don’t you call it quits for tonight? I’ll catch you later. Bye.”

“No, I think she stays.” Tim said. “You get your hands where I can see them.”

French raised her hands slowly. She was standing midway between Fry and Tim. “She’s not involved. Let her go.”

“Gee French, you didn’t used to care so much about your girlfriends. Could it be you’ve actually fallen for one of your whores?” Tim was feeling more in control. His two coworkers didn’t look so good, but he was doing alright and he may even have had an insight. When he’d called the little woman a whore, they’d both flinched.

French turned slowly to look at Fry who was directly behind her. “Get back in the kitchen.” She ordered in the most authoritarian tone she could dig up.

“You’re kidding right?”

That was Fry, true to form with a question. French decided she liked consistency in a woman.

“Would you shut up and do what I tell you for once?” French gestured broadly with her arms. Her frustration and anxiety beginning to show, or so she wanted Tim to think. So that Fry wouldn’t think it too, she winked at her.

“You think you say ‘jump’ and I’ll say how high, is that it?” Fry picked up on the game plan.

“Christ are you married? Move it, I don’t care what you do with the bitch, just get her to shut up and let’s go.”

Too bad Tim was paying more attention to his repartee and not how French’s arm lagged behind as she’d turned back to face him. If he’d been Mitchell, he might have recognized the feint. He may also have moved. As it was, he didn’t and the knife that French whipped out from the back of her jacket sliced into his hand and knocked the gun out of his grasp. It stung too. “Son of a bitch!”

French was standing a few feet from him, she stepped forward. Not only had he said three very nasty curse words in the space of two minutes, but two of them had been directed at Fry. She was surprised the sensitive woman hadn’t had an attack. She’d have to take care of Tim quickly, in case he decided to curse again.

A perfectly executed windmill kick is an awesome physical display. Being on the receiving end of it sucks. Tim’s head was whipped one direction then slammed in the other. He hit the wall and was out before French had regained her footing.

“God, that must’ve hurt!” Fry exclaimed.

“It’s not so bad, I’ll put some ice on it.” French noticed the blood that had stained her jacket at the elbow. The lacky’s face had bled on it. The bone was kind of sore from hitting his teeth.

“Oh, your arm!” Fry noticed the blood too.

“Yeah, my arm. Don’t tell me you meant Mr. Potty Mouth over there!”

“Didn’t you hear that crunch?”

“Fry, the guys who’re attacking us, who try to do us harm? They’re the bad guys. If they get banged around in the process of being bad, that’s their problem. If you can remember this, I’m the good guy. At least for the time being. I would appreciate that if I get banged around in the process of being the good guy, that I get a little credit. Okay?”

“Well sure. I didn’t know you felt so strongly about it. You don’t seem to like that kind of attention. As of now, I’m put on notice. Next time you get so much as a scratch in the name of the greater good, I’m all over it.” And wasn’t that the truth.

“Well alright then. Let’s get these guys out of here.”

“What are we going to do with them?” Fry asked.

“Bring them back to where they came from.”

French tied the men up and they dragged them out to their car in the parking lot. French began to stack them in the back seat, but Fry insisted she sit them up. This was beyond puzzling to the chef, but she did it anyway. When it came time to drag Tim in, French joked that she ought to stick a bar of soap in his mouth, just to emphasize a point.

Fry got a sinking feeling. “Tell me you didn’t nearly crack his skull open because he cursed at me.”

“Well I know you don’t like that kind of language. But no, it wasn’t the cursing.”

“That’s good.”

“It was the implications of the cursing.”

Fry covered her eyes and rubbed her temples. Being around a French who was callous and insensitive to her feelings had been a difficult thing to take, but maybe one who cared wouldn’t be any easier. “Let’s get them home. I don’t think I can take much more today.”

They’d deposited the unconscious trio at a side gate to the Redmond estate. Someone would see them sooner or later. French wanted to pile them at the roadside and take the car. Fry insisted they leave it.

They’d arrived at Fry’s house without much incident. There were a few small ones along the way. They mainly consisted of French trying to drag her onto park benches or back her into shadowed doorways and the like. But Fry had made up her mind. It was all moving too quickly. She wanted to actually talk to French about what was happening, but the chef wasn’t giving her an opportunity, and to be honest, Fry hadn’t been difficult to sidetrack.

French had finally come to the conclusion that she’d waited an entire shift, so what was the problem? Who was being insensitive to whom? She had needs too didn’t she?

Fry was well aware of French’s needs and became worried that they’d encountered another stumbling block in their newly sprouted relationship. French wasn’t used to waiting for anything and she was making that abundantly clear. It wasn’t like Fry wanted to hold her off for more than one darned conversation. French had declared her frustration when Fry had jumped off of her lap in the park after the chef had cleverly maneuvered them onto a bench. She’d said, “Maybe I’ll sit here and wait for someone a little more cooperative to wander by. I’ve had luck here before.”

Fry had responded with the maturity that comes from long hours of introspection. She’d said, “Ew.”

French had laughed and followed her out of the park. It kind of cleared the air to have Fry call her bluff like that.

Fry wasn’t thinking ‘Ew’ several minutes later. Anything but. French had agreed that they’d worn that day right out and they should have a chaste goodnight kiss and try it again tomorrow. She’d quickly amended her slip to see each other again tomorrow, but Fry wasn’t buying it. Either French had no experience or understanding of the word chaste, or she’d misrepresented her intentions.

It’s not that she hadn’t been kissing French back. She just wasn’t kissing her back with the same end result in mind. Or so she gathered from the way the chef was working at the buttons of her shirt and pushing into her in general. And it’s not like she was one to point fingers, as she was pushing right back and doing her darndest to pull French as close as she could get her without occupying the same space in time.

When French broke the kiss and began to make her jolly way down Fry’s neck with kisses and bites that were just this side of gentle, a small voice in Fry’s head began to speak up. It was so small she might not have noticed it. The protest it made was heartily ignored elsewhere in her body. Her hips for example hadn’t heard a thing, they were paying closer attention to the sensation being caused by French’s teeth grazing the sensitive skin below her collar bone. The voice, knowing that it was about to be history, grew more insistent.

It said, “If this is what she thought when I said ‘slower’, I’d hate to see what she does when she’s in a hurry. Maybe I ought to ask Skyler and find out.” That threw a little water on Fry’s overheated response to the hands that were easing the hem of her shirt from her pants. It didn’t snuff it, but it did give her pause for thought. She knew Skyler and Alyssa were dating and it seemed like they liked each other, but Fry hadn’t asked anyone about particulars. She made a mental note to start asking more of them, to someone other than French.

“Hey, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I was talking about a date.” She tried for light. She couldn’t get herself to let go of French, but she was able to pull back.

French wasn’t in a talking mood. She had an urge and conversation had very little to do with it. She attempted a brief response to get Fry back on track. “Let’s improvise.” She moved forward again, and as Fry hadn’t backed away, French leaned down to capture her lips. Fry, the sneak, turned her head at the last moment, and French was presented with an ear. She was improvising, so it wasn’t a problem.

Fry’s knees went weak at the sensation that French’s tongue on her ear shot down her spine. “But what about Skyler?” She persisted.

Skyler could bug off and get her own, French wasn’t sharing. But what about Skyler, she thought. She cursed herself for letting Fry distract her and took the bait. “What about her?” She wasn’t giving up Fry’s ear entirely, not for anything. She licked at the lobe again and nuzzled Fry’s hair. She smelled good.

“Ummm...” Fry was having a hard time remembering what it was she was supposed to be asking. Skyler, right. “Are you two... I mean, I thought that at the beginning of the summer you two were involved.”

If there was one thing that might put a damper on the fire raging in French’s body. Fry had found it. French’s actions slowed. She didn’t withdraw, she wasn’t that far gone. But she leaned back, took Fry by the shoulders, looked in her eyes and asked, “What?”

“I thought...”

“I have no idea what gave you that impression, but you’re wrong. She’s a kid Fry, come on! And I haven’t had the urge in months. This is the closest I’ve come to sex since I met that damned Frenchman and I don’t feel like talking.”

“She’s not a kid. Anyone who looks at her can see that. And what do you mean, you haven’t had ‘the urge’? What Frenchman?” Fry’s resolve strengthened. They really did need to talk.

“Do we have to talk about this now?”

“No, we can talk about it on our date.” She wasn’t thinking clearly, it was the one thing that kept popping in her mind to say. French didn’t strike her as the date kind of date which was probably why they’d gotten as near to having sex on the walkway in front of Fry’s home as she’d ever hoped to get.

“We’re back to that again are we?” French got the hint. Fry was only going so far that night.

“Like you said, if you haven’t had ‘the urge’ in a while, maybe breathing a bit beforehand is a good idea.”

“We have very different approaches to this situation.” French buttoned Fry’s shirtfront for the second time that day. She smoothed the fabric, then leaned down and kissed her a good one on the lips. For good measure. When she felt the smaller woman’s knees falter, she backed off. Smiling a friendly, albeit predatory smile. “But I see your point.”

“You do?” French was backing away, removing Fry’s hands from her waist. It felt so wrong that Fry made a feeble attempt to hold on.

“Sure. You don’t want to rush it, I can see that. So we won’t. We’ll draw it out, make each other crazy and then bamb! We’ll do it on the beach or wherever.”

She was feeling pretty good about herself. For a frustrated woman. She’d left Fry just short of begging on her doorstep. That’d teach the upstart to go interupting things.

She was walking back to the restaurant, enjoying the moist, slightly foggy air on her heated skin.

Why Fry had such a bug in her ear about taking it slow was beyond her. They’d known each other a while. Fry was obviously willing. What was the big deal? But it seemed important to her, so she figured she ought to play along for a night. After all, it couldn’t kill her, could it?

French had never been so out of control of her mental process or her body in her life. Fry had done something to her. She felt like a rubber band, snapping back and forth between a moderate regard for Fry’s feelings and an all out assault on her body.

French opined that the urgency had something to do with the fact that she hadn’t gone a four month stretch without sex in... she couldn’t remember.

She acknowleged that her desire for Fry felt different. She attributed it to the fact that she liked Fry. It was probably normal to feel differently about sex when you cared about the person on the receiving end of your attentions. It might even be interesting.

She was looking forward to it. She stopped and considered that fact. She really was, and in a nice kind of way. So why wasn’t Fry? And that’s when it started. That small motor in the back of her brain that powered her paranoiac response kicked in. She’d never had a doubt about her ability to get what she wanted, sexually or otherwise. She had a reputation built on that fact. A formidable reputation. And this was something she hadn’t considered...

Fry was putting her clothes away. She’d finally started to calm down. Her body had been on overdrive, still responding to French’s touch long after the chef had left her there gasping on the sidewalk. She’d climbed the stairs to her room and paced until she felt less out of sorts. That woman was evil alright. Her mother had warned her, but had she listened?

And what was she? Shouldn’t she be trying to encourage French to concentrate on the murder? They were so close to figuring it out, she could feel it. And then what? That was one of the things she wanted to know from French. She’d become attached to her in a way that went beyond a simple physical attraction. She cared for French. And she wanted to iron out a few ground rules before she put herself on the line. Because that’s exactly what she felt like she was doing.

She threw on a t-shirt and got her journal off of the shelf next to her desk. Maybe writing would distract her. She had no idea how she’d get any sleep. Her body was still buzzing and every other thought was interrupted with a memory of French’s taste, or her smell or the sensation of touching her skin. Fry had a vivid memory. She stalled in the middle of her room while walking over to her bed. An insistent noise beckoned her to return from the land of French. It went, “Pssst. Pssst.”

She placed the book down and walked over to the open window. It looked out over the kitchen roof and the back yard. There was a cool, damp breeze, and the yard was dark, except for the light cast out from her window. The house and the rest of the neighborhood were mostly quiet. Her parents went to sleep around eleven each night and there weren’t a lot of partiers in their residential neighborhood. Midst the continuous trilling sounds the crickets made, she heard the noise again and peered into the darkness. She didn’t see anything.

“I’m over here, in the tree.”

“French?”

“Yeah, were you expecting someone else?”

Fry couldn’t tell, but French sounded kind of suspicious. “No, who would I be expecting in the tree in my back yard?”

“You tell me.”

“I can’t see you.” Fry said.

“For someone who asks a lot of questions you don’t answer many.” French jumped from the limb she was standing on, caught one a few feet away and swung the length of herself over and onto the roof. She landed like a cat. On her feet and without much in the way of noise. Her hands were raw from the friction of the swing, but she had something else on her mind. She had to get one thing straight, then she’d leave Fry to her beauty sleep.

“What are you doing?” Fry asked.

“I was wondering...” French crouched at the edge of the roof. She wasn’t so sure this was a such a good idea anymore. Since she’d left Fry she’d developed a nagging suspicion that Fry might have been putting her off for good. What other explanation could there be? No one had ever resisted her like Fry had today, not with the kind of real heat that was pumping through her veins. As she’d stood there letting the paranoiac haze overtake her better sense, it occurred to her that someone as sensative and kind as Fry, might be trying to let her down easy.

As insane as that sounded, she needed to check. But she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought it out, couldn’t believe how pathetic it was... But she was there and she wanted to know. Post haste. So she asked, “By ‘Take it slow...’ do you mean, when we’re ready? Or were you trying to spare my feelings and get rid of me? I have a certain reputation that may be offputting to someone like you, I just wanted to know.”

Fry stood in her window, slighly chilled by the spray of the light fog that had blown in. She’d been distracted for a minute, wondering what kind of muscle it took to make that climb and jump. When French finished speaking, she could hardly believe her ears. She tried to make sense of the sudden and bizarre insecurity. She couldn’t. “Let me get this straight. I’m kissing you for all I’m worth one minute, and the next, you’re off wondering if I meant it?”

“No!...Yeah. Kinda? Look, I want to make sure we’re on the same page here. Sampling the same recipe, so to speak.”

“Come here.”

“Why?” French didn’t need her finely tuned sense of paranoia to recognise the tone in Fry’s voice.

“Just come over here.”

French considered the woman in the window. Fry wasn’t so big. She could take her if it came to that. She half walked, half crouched over to her. Fry didn’t look mad. From the edge of the roof all she’d been able to see of Fry was a contrasty silhouette. Up close she looked kind of perplexed.

“Obviously, I was doing something wrong. I want to be sure you get the right message this time.” She took a firm grasp of French’s collar, pulled her forward, and kissed her gently, if not a little sloppily, on the nose.

French reared back a hair and gave Fry a look. “What was that?”

“I missed, let me try again.”

By the time Fry had pulled her through the window, lips first, French was thouroughly reassured that she wasn’t being blown off. Finally, a situation she understood. Woman, bedroom, bed. Ugh, small bed, twin-size bed... she felt Fry press further into her, forcing her back against the window sill. Small bed... she could work with that.

“What about ‘slow’?” French asked as Fry sucked at her neck.

“We’ll take all night. How’s that?” Fry wasn’t sending French away again, not for anything. They’d talk in the morning.

“Sounds good.”

Fry had assumed that French would be pushy and aggressive when it came to sex. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The problem was, since she’d been relieved of her clothing and directed ever so promptly onto the bed (pushed might have been a more accurate description) she hadn’t had an opportunity to touch French. Not with her hands anyway, because they’d been seized and French had her wrists pinned to the bed above her head. Her body was on overload and screaming for more, more of French, more sensation, and maybe some touching too. And had she not been utterly fascinated by the play in the muscles of the one arm that seemed to hold her wrists so effortlessly, she might have spoken sooner.

“French?” The moment she spoke, her mouth was covered by the voracious chef. Fry was lost in the heavenly sensation of French’s exploration. The woman’s unearthly scent was surpassed only by the taste of her.

French began kissing her way down Fry’s neck again.

“I need to touch you.” Fry managed to get the words out through labored breaths.

“You are touching me.” French pressed into her. “Here.” She did it again, this time with her hips. “Here.”

“If you don’t let me touch you with my hands, I’m going to explode.”

Fry felt a half growl, half chuckle against her collar bone. “Maybe you haven’t done this much, but that’s kind of the point.”

While it was like her to be aggressive in all things, sex being no exception, French was rarely so insensitive to her partner’s needs in bed. She’d always exploited them to get exactly what she wanted out of people. Being attentive to your partner’s needs was good business sense. But she’d developped another niggling feeling at the back of her mind since she’d gotten a hold of Fry. It boiled down to a simple worry that if she loosened her grip on Fry’s wrists, she might get away.

As it turned out, French’s fear was unfounded. The moment she let up on the pressure, Fry was all over her. Getting away didn’t seem to be high on her list of priorities.

The two of them wrestled and touched, kissed and writhed, pushing their bodies beyond overload right into the realm of pure sensation. They spent a lot of time there that night.

As she drifted off to sleep, Fry knew one thing for certain, she’d never get over the taste of her. If she didn’t ever get to touch French again, she might survive it. But to be made to go without the sensation that flavor caused in her body... that would make her a bitter old woman at the age of 26. No doubt. She’d never tasted anyone like French before. She’d never touched anyone like her before either, and she’d thought that would be the thing that would make an impression, but that’s probably why the taste thing stood out as the experience to be pressed between the pages of a book had it been a flower petal or a leaf. The woman had nerve to go around tasting like that.

Of course she had nerve, she was French. At that moment her nerves were something like the consistency of a fine aspic, maybe chilled consumme. She lay there, recovering her breath with an arm over her forehead. Fry had collapsed next to her and was snoring softly in her ear. French shifted so that Fry’s breath wasn’t tickling the small hairs there quite so much. It was turning her on. She’d never been turned on by a snore before. She wondered if she ought to worry.

French woke the next morning with a start. She was being smothered. Someone was trying to kill her. She should have known it was Fry, sprawled over her like a blanket. It didn’t surprise her that her half jump out of the bed only caused the sleeping woman to roll her head to the other side and squirm a bit.

Could she be comfortable like that? French was intrigued. Fry slept like a rock. It wasn’t like you could call what she was doing cuddling, it was more like weighting, as in paper weighting, as in holding French to the bed lest she too try to get away. Funny thing was, French didn’t feel much like going anywhere.

As a rule, French couldn’t stand cuddlers. She’d figured Fry was one. But now that she’d experienced Fry’s version of it, she wasn’t sure the term fit. French always considered people who crowded her in bed as nuisances who were infringing on her inalienable right to cling free sleep. She’d nearly sprinted from the bed when she found out Mitchell did it.

But that bed hardly had room for one, much less one of her size and Fry. And it was probably a good thing Fry was on top of her, because it was drafty in there.

There was a quiet knock on the door. And a voice asked, “Violet honey, would you and your guest like some breakfast?”

Well didn’t that beat all? The question thing ran in the family. French looked down at the sleepy woman who’d opened her eyes upon hearing her mother’s voice.

“No Mom, we’re sleeping in.” Fry responded automatically. Her voice still rough from sleep and all of the panting she’d done the night before. Then she woke up.

“...”

“Well good morning to you too.” French gently closed Fry’s gaping jaw.

Fry ducked her head onto French’s chest. Her embarrassment clearly visible in the flush of her skin. She wanted to crawl under the bed, but French had slipped her arms around her waist.

She looked up to try it all over again. Looking at French didn’t do much to help the early morning shock to her emotions. The chef’s hair was undone, her eyes were bright. “Hi.” Was about all Fry could manage. She wasn’t a morning person by nature.

French leaned forward and kissed her. She leaned back and said, “Hi. Nice setup, room service and everything.”

“I hope you don’t mind, she doesn’t always do that. But once she didn’t know I had someone over and she came in.”

“I’ve been interrupted by room service before, but I’ve got to tell you Fry, I’m not sure I’d know how to tip your mother.” French made a mental note to skip the mother jokes, Fry wasn’t laughing.

“I know this probably isn’t what you’re used to and I’m not like your other girlfriends...” Fry began to pull away. She knew they should have had that talk first.

“No, it’s not.” French tightened her grasp on the retreating woman’s waist. “If it was, I’d be back at the restaurant by now, showered and picking out a clean jacket for the day. You wouldn’t get much more out of me than a stray thought.” French smiled. “Against my saner judgment, I like you. You’re nuts, and I like you.”

Fry stilled, “I’m glad that you find me amusing.” She was so not a morning person. And she didn’t like the idea that French saw her as some screwball oddity, an entertaining caricature.

“Good. You’re also insightful, intelligent, gentle and a great lay. Did I forget anything?”

It occurred to Fry that this was not a conversation to be having while lying on French’s stomach. She let out a sigh and collapsed back onto French altogether. “Sorry, I guess I’m feeling jittery. You can be overwhelming first thing in the morning, you know? And I don’t know what to expect.” She hurried to reassure French, “Not that I’m expecting anything, it’s just that you’re different for me. If that makes any sense?”

“Yeah. It makes a lot of sense.” French tilted her head and gave Fry a half smile. “You’re different for me too. Maybe this is the part we can take slow? Try that talking thing.”

“Sounds like a plan. Does that mean that we can still do this?” Fry made a vague motion toward their bodies with her hand. The casual gesture belied the intense attachment she’d grown to her position.

“Don’t see why not. I could keep a closer eye on you this way, keep you out of trouble.”

“Wouldn’t that be like inviting the fox to guard the henhouse?”

French chuckled. Fry felt it as a vibration that moved through her in a not so mysterious fashion.

“You may be right.” French leaned forward and kissed her again.

Fry returned the kiss and followed it up by tasting French’s full lips delicately with her tongue. Fry’s tasting became more insistent and she inferred that she’d like to continue on, maybe in. French obliged, moaning at the skilled and deliberate attentions. She gently sucked Fry’s tongue and felt the rest of her begin to move in sync. Fry buried her hands in French’s hair, pulled her in, and held her fast. French shifted her leg, parting Fry’s thighs and lifted her knee until Fry could move against her in a more productive manner. And productive didn’t seem to be a problem for Fry. Why should it be? As far as she was concerned, lying atop French had been arousing in it’s own right and now her senses were being further engaged by a veritable cornucopia of stimuli. French was that good.

The chef wasn’t wasting any time getting introspective. She had more important things on her mind. Like, was it possible to consume Fry whole, and still have some left for later?

Urgency was the underlying theme of their entanglement. French’s entire body was in motion, her hands were everywhere, making patterns on Fry’s back, pulling her closer, guiding her hips, caressing her into a frenzy. She couldn’t take all of the credit for the frenzy, the sounds of their strained breathing and moaning, not to mention the scent and taste were helping too. And when French started thrusting her tongue deep into her mouth, Fry had about come on the spot.

She did come soon afterward, when she felt the unmistakeable shudder in the body straining beneath her own. The intensity and unexpected pleasure of it had blown her mind, and the rest of what was left. They lay panting and trying to catch their breath.

“Who knew?” French mumbled.

“Knew what?” Fry asked.

“That you could do so much in such a small bed.”


Continued in Chapter 37.