Looking at the Sun

For Sasha, it was the Sienna she had always known: Sasha kissed the birthmark on Sienna's right shoulder and knew immediately to look for and kiss the other one on the inside of Sienna's forearm; Sasha knew to press her lips harder against Sienna's ribcage -- it would have been too ticklish otherwise. But yet it was new: Sienna's breasts were beautiful orbs Sasha eagerly explored; the slight slope of her hips and the valley leading to her mound were smooth, firm, and eminently kissable; and then there were Sienna's legs -- long, muscular limbs that were begging to be licked and stroked.

"Ooooh, Sasha," Sienna cooed as Sasha slid her hand up and down the inside of her thigh, she could feel Sasha's warm breath approach, "Oh yes, Sasha, oh yes...."

Sasha's mouth parted Sienna's slit and began its sensuous exploration. Sienna gasped when she first felt Sasha's tongue stroke her folds. Clusters of pleasure gushed through her body. It felt like Sasha's hands and tongue were everywhere, "Unghhhhh, oh fuck Sasha, yessssss," Sienna felt like someone had plugged her directly into an electric grid and it felt amazing. A small pulse of adrenaline flared at the tip of her clit. As if she sensed it, Sasha started sucking right on the tip. "OH HOLY HELL, SASHA, right there...."

Sasha needed no further encouragement, sucking and squeezing her lips simultaneously. Sasha thrust two fingers inside, pushing deep into Sienna's slick, hot core.

Sienna bounced her hips in response, and dug her fingers into Sasha's hair as she thrust into Sasha's face. Wherever her skin made contact with Sasha's, Sienna felt a shiver of unbounded joy. Combined with Sasha's tongue and fingers, Sienna was a goner.

It felt like forever and it felt like a split second: the build up to her orgasm was this new, powerful, and beautiful tension of muscles contracting and capillaries opening and nerve endings firing... until it imploded into her center and rippled out again... and again... and again.

"Oh, Sasha," Sienna muttered as she tried to get her bearings after coming off her climax.

Sasha relished the view. Making Sienna come had been... well, orgasmic. Sasha still couldn't really believe what just happened, but there was Sienna, sprawled in the middle of the bed, naked, her breasts heaving invitingly as she caught her breath.

Eventually, Sienna opened one eye and looked at Sasha, "Jackass."

"What? Me? Why?"

"Because we could have been doing that for the past three years and you made us wait."

"Me? You were the one who stopped talking to me!"

"And you made zero effort to let me know this was possible." Sienna stretched.

"That good, huh?" Sasha cocked her head, enthralled with the way Sienna's body moved.

"You get an A minus, tops." Sienna said with a playful grin, very much enjoying Sasha's eyes on her.

"Liar," Sasha objected.

Sienna shifted on top of Sasha, letting her hair hang down to frame both their faces, "I just want to give you something to work towards... now, show me what you like."

"I like you. I like everything about you," Sasha ran her hands up and down Sienna's back.

"You should have said so sooner, dork." Sienna smiled. She leaned down and kissed Sasha. Their mouths opened and their tongues met hungrily.

Sienna ground her hips against Sasha's and was thrilled to hear Sasha's sharp intake of breath. "What else makes you do that?" She wondered out loud as she nipped Sasha's skin, along her jawline, down her neck, and across her breasts.

Sasha's breathing quickened the closer Sienna's lips got to her nipples. She groaned when Sienna's lips clamped around her nipple and squeezed. Sienna looked up and smiled, "I would like to know what happens if I do this..." she pinched one of Sasha's nipples with her fingers, "And this..." her lips found Sasha's other nipple. "Ah!" Sasha shouted as her hips jerked. Sienna caressed Sasha's breasts with both hands as her mouth wandered lower.

"Oh, you have been working out, Sasha James," Sienna mused as she ran her tongue over Sasha's abs.

Sasha's clit tingled and throbbed in anticipation of Sienna's tongue; Sasha couldn't decide whether to luxuriate in Sienna's worship of her stomach muscles, or to signal her impatience for attention elsewhere. Holy shit. I might come just thinking about what's about to happen...

"You look so fucking sexy right now, Sash," Sienna had shifted lower, and was drinking in the sight of Sasha: legs open, hands gripping the sheets, body humming with arousal. Sasha's opening was glistening with desire, screaming for Sienna's touch.

The first slow gentle lick by Sienna sent a wave of pleasure all the way up Sasha's body until it crested above her heart.

"Again." Sasha whispered.

Sienna's tongue began to dance with abandon, tasting every part of Sasha's warm and swollen lips, it circled her clit and flicked back and forth. Sienna's fingers sought out Sasha's depths. Sasha lost track of everything because she was so consumed by what Sienna was doing to her. A scream of pleasure erupted when she came; she felt like Sienna had split her wide open. Sienna was right. We have been jackasses.

Chapter 11: The Morning After (Summer Before Junior Year - Tuesday)

Sienna was lounging in bed, blissfully sated in both body and mind. Sasha was getting dressed -- again. She'd actually gotten up early to go to work, but Sienna managed to convince her to delay her departure... multiple times.

"Here." Sasha threw something shiny at Sienna.

"What is it?" Sienna made a graceful grab, "Keys? To this place?"

"Yup. I've been thinking of having some poor starving undergrad help me keep this place clean... might as well be you."

Sienna tried to look offended, but couldn't fight the smile off her face, "Does that include laundering underwear usually worn by teenage boys?"

Sasha blushed furiously when she saw Sienna hold up a pair of royal blue X-Men boxer briefs. "Uh, you saw those?

"I was kinda distracted last night, but they are hard to miss in the cold light of day." Sienna twirled them around her finger as she approached Sasha for a kiss.

"I didn't know we were going to do that last night," Sasha mumbled as Sienna's lips found hers, "I probably wouldn't have worn them otherwise."

"I wouldn't have wanted you any other way..." Sienna smiled.

Sasha's arousal spiked immediately, "I guess I'll wear them more often!"

"Call in sick." Sienna snaked a hand through Sasha's shirt

"Si... I've put this shirt on three times this morning already. I'm late."

"It's 9am, you're not late."

"I usually get in at 7:30, so I can catch our portfolio managers in London before the markets close over there."

"Oh. Sasha, I'm sorry, I didn't know..."

"It was worth it," Sasha planted one more warm lingering kiss on Sienna's lips before finally heading out.

Sienna listened as Sasha bounded downstairs. She looked around the tiny bedroom, flipped onto her front and screamed happily into the mattress. With a grin plastered on her face, Sienna took a quick shower, put on her jeans and a t-shirt she found hanging behind Sasha's bathroom door. She strolled out into the summer morning and headed back to the sublet she and Hannah shared on the far west side. The apartment was quiet, and Sienna assumed most of her other roommates were still asleep, or already at work. She quietly opened the door to the room she was splitting with Hannah.

Hannah sat up immediately, "How was... Oh my god. You guys did it."

Sienna grinned and nodded. She threw her shirt into the laundry pile and sat down on Hannah's bed.

"So did you guys just meet up and say, 'let's jump into bed now, enough with the bullshit?'"

Sienna shrugged, "She kissed me. I jumped on her. I made her late for work this morning."

"Work? Sasha works here now?"

Sienna nodded, smiling even wider.

"Awwwww. Was it good? Was it better than the dream?"

"What? Oh, wow, I didn't even think about that," Sienna shook her head, "Oh yeah, definitely better than the dream."

"I'm so happy for you. You know what this means, right?" Hannah's eyebrows bounced up and down.

"What?"

"I am going to get this pathetic excuse of a room all to myself this summer! I'm going to smash these two twin beds together..."

Sienna laughed, "Hold your horses, Hannah, I just did the walk of shame back here. Can you not plot to get rid of me just yet?"

"Stop over-thinking it, Logan. I mean, it's you and Sasha, for god's sake. It's a mortal lock."

Sienna tried not over-thinking it (as was her wont), and for once it wasn't hard: there were too many delicious just-made memories bouncing around in her head. "She made me dinner..." Sienna gushed.

Hannah made a choking noise and fell back into bed, "Ok. Go moon around somewhere else. I'm going back to sleep so I won't be smothered by the post-coital bliss that you are throwing off."

Sienna settled onto her bed and pulled out her laptop. There was an email from her parents, probably a quick report on their trip to the west coast, an email from her internship coordinator on some background check stuff she had to do before her first day at the lab, and then the usual mix of spam and sales offers from retailers. She shut her laptop and picked up a book. All she really wanted to do was go back to Sasha's apartment and roll around in bed, and wait Sasha to get home. Hang on a sec... That's it!

Sienna leapt off the bed and dialed a number she's known by heart since she was 5. She waited impatiently, hoping that Maria would be able to pick up.

"West Valley Pediatrics, Dr. James's line," came the receptionist's voice.

Sienna felt nervous all of a sudden, "Oh hi. Is she in? It's Sienna, her daughter's uh... her daughter's friend."

"Just a moment."

"Sienna! Is everything ok?" Maria was concerned. The last time Sienna called her at the office was when Sasha had her collarbone accident.

"All fine, I was calling because I need your help. And nothing is wrong. I promise."

"Ok, what is it?"

"What's Sasha's favorite pasta dish?"

Maria was silent for a split second. The wheels were turning very quickly in her head. She needed to buy some more time, "Oh, you know, Sasha pretty much eats anything. Why do you ask, Sienna?"

Sienna smiled, and knew exactly why Maria was stalling. "Oh, just to settle a bet that I have going on with my friend Hannah."

"Oh," Maria was disappointed. She had thought that finally, something had happened between the two of them. "You can't go far wrong with the Pasta Vongole."

"Got it," Sienna replied. Fuck. How the hell do I make that? Too late, Sienna realized that Maria was asking a question.

"Sorry, Maria, I didn't catch that -- what did you say?"

"Did you win the bet?"

"No... it's more complicated," Sienna said, quickly trying to form a white lie that would fly, "It was about whether foodies can make the kinds of foods that they like. I was making a bet that most of us can't make the dishes that we like...."

"How about this: My next patient isn't due for another hour, I can go home and send you the recipe and you can try it out!"

BINGO!

"Great! Thanks, Maria." Sienna hung up, satisfied with the outcome.

Maria stared at the phone thoughtfully. "It doesn't add up..." She picked up the phone again and called Sasha.

"Hi Ma," came her daughter's voice on the other end of the line.

"Hi honey, how are things?"

"They're pretty awesome. Yeah, things are good."

Maria smiled, her intuition kicking into gear. "Want to tell me about it?"

"Not yet. But I will. Ma, I gotta run, I have a meeting."

"Okay Sasha. Love you."

Placing the phone back on its cradle, Maria sat at her desk, thinking. A few moments later, she left her office and drove home. Maria went into the kitchen and pulled down her mother's recipe book from the shelf. She started transcribing the recipe into an email, adding notes here and there to help Sienna navigate through it. Then, with a sly smile, she added one last comment. She checked the wording, and then sent it off.

Sienna opened the email eagerly, and read through the list of ingredients. "Little neck clams, garlic, spaghetti, parsley - ew, butter... olive oil. Seems simple enough. Right. Let's get some shopping done."

When Sienna returned from the supermarket, Hannah was in the living room, blow-drying her hair.

"You're back. Good. I blew the fuse in the bathroom. Where do you think the fuse box is in this apartment? It's not in the kitchen, and it's not anywhere in the living room."

Sienna took stock of the apartment's layout, "I bet Maddie's room used to be part of the living room. She's at work, right?" Sienna texted Maddie, {SL} Is apt's fuse box in your room? Big metal door.

Sienna grabbed the phone the minute it beeped. She read the new text message and smiled.

"So? Is it in her room?" Hannah asked, coiling the cord up from the hair dryer.

"Oh, uh, that wasn't Maddie. It was Sasha."

Hannah smiled, watching a slow blush spread on Sienna's face, "And I am thinking Sasha was suggesting some sort of physical contact with you that is not appropriate for public consumption?"

"No... she just said she missed kissing me." Sienna closed her eyes, a little dazed by the happiness sparked by her mental mastication of those words.

"OH why did I even ask?" Hannah shouldered Maddie's door open, "You were right -- the fuse box is in here!" Sienna heard Hannah flip a couple switches and emerge, "You were my witness, I didn't look at anything and I didn't touch anything."

Sienna nodded, and sent a text to Maddie letting her know what happened.

"What d'ya get?" Hannah eyed the grocery bags.

"Ingredients for pasta vongole tonight. I'm making dinner for Sasha, as a surprise."

Hannah rolled her eyes, "Oh my god, two days in and you guys are off the charts cheesy already."

Sienna smiled, bouncing happily on the balls of her feet, "I know. And you know I am NOT cheesy. At all."

Hannah laughed, "Yes, I remember you telling Sydney that you didn't think flowers were necessary for Valentine's Day. She looked like you had told her romance was dead. It's ok. It was clearly not the right match... for either of you... Now. Sienna Logan, before you disappear into another night of passion with Sasha, do you want to have lunch with me?"

"Deal. Your choice."

Hannah chose a small Ethiopian restaurant just off the theater district, where the service was slow but the food was amazing.

"Hey Hannah?" Sienna said at the end of lunch, "Thanks for pushing me to get in touch with Sasha yesterday. I think we might have ended up circling around each other in perpetuity if you hadn't done that."

"You both totally owe me." Hannah dipped her head in a mock bow, "Your parents are going to go ape-shit over this. When are you going to tell them?"

"Really? But they've known Sasha for forever?" Sienna looked worried.

"No, 'ape-shit' as in over-the-moon excited."

"Ah, got it." Sienna threw some bills on top of Hannah's, "I dunno, probably when they get back from San Fran. I almost let the cat out of the bag when I talked to Sasha's mom this morning."

"What?"

"I made up a stupid story to get tonight's recipe out of her. I think it worked; Sasha should be the one to tell, not me."

Hannah looped her arm through Sienna's as they meandered back to the apartment, as neither was in a hurry, "I wouldn't be too sure. Maria's got crazy mom-intuition-antennae. Remember the time she came down to the basement at three in the morning during a sleepover just to check in on us and found a bag of marshmallows next to the heater that was two seconds away from turning into a small fire? She probably already knew the truth before you picked up the phone."

"I'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

Back at the sublet, Sienna packed a change of clothes; she didn't want to freak Sasha out, but if last night was an indication of the way things were going to go, she'd need that stuff tomorrow morning.

"Ok. I'm off. I have a family recipe to conquer before Sasha gets home from work."

"God speed, young squire! I'll see you soon... hopefully before the year is out." Hannah pretended to wipe a tear from her eye.

Sienna blew a raspberry and gave her friend a hug, "We'll have you over for dinner. Sasha turns out to be rather handy in the kitchen..."

Sienna took the subway downtown and let herself into Sasha's apartment. She laid out the ingredients on the tiny kitchen counter. "No wonder everyone orders in in New York, I can barely chop a green bean in this space..."

She got the print out of Maria's email and looked around for a place to put it. She laughed. "I'll just have to tack it on to the fridge..." she used one of Sasha's fridge magnets to attach the piece of paper to the door.

"Purge clams. Ok." She read through the email again. "What else... boil water, chop parsley.' Ugh. I hate this stuff."

Sienna dutifully chopped up the parsley and set it aside. She looked at her watch... Almost 6. Sasha had texted that she'd be back around 6:30. Sienna turned up the heat for the pot of water and started moving through the recipe. She was grateful for Maria's additional notes, which always seemed to anticipate her questions.

With all but the last step done, and the dish looking pretty decent, she worked on the last flourish. She took all her clothes off, folded them in a neat pile on Sasha's bed, and put on the "Keep Calm and Kiss the Chef" apron she had found at a store in the Village earlier that day. She smiled, feeling little lurches of arousal between her legs as she moved about the apartment.

She took one last look at the print-out: "Final step... drizzle olive oil.. stir in parsley, however... 'however?' However what? Oh shit." The email must have been two pages long, but she remembered only grabbing one page off the printer.

Worried that she had made some monumental mistake, she quickly pulled up the email on her phone and scrolled manically through it. "Here it is. '...however, I always think of the parsley as optional, because some people (like Sasha) really don't like it, and it ruins the dish for them. Have fun making this!'"

"Oh good. I hate parsley too." Sienna put the phone down and plated the pasta. Waaaaaait. Wait-wait-wait-wait. Sienna read that sentence again. And again. She totally fricking knows.

And that is what Sasha walked into when she got home. Sienna, naked except for an apron, looking at her phone, horrified, with her hand on her mouth. Sasha shut the door behind her, and dropped her backpack onto the floor.

Sienna looked up, "Sasha!"

"Luuuuucy, you've got some 'splaining to do!" Sasha surveyed the scene.

"I made you dinner," Sienna smiled shyly.

"I can see that," Sasha kicked off her shoes.

"And I took my clothes off..."

"Uh-huh, that is also a statement I agree with."

"... and I might have accidentally tipped off your mother that something happened between us." Sienna said the last bit very, very quickly.

"You are three for three, Sienna Logan. My mother called me twice today. Once this morning... and once again before I came home. She was incredibly curious about whether we had plans to get together any time soon."

"Sorry Sasha. I called to ask her what your favorite dish was. And it wasn't until she asked why did I realise I should have been a little less obvious."

Sasha wrapped her arms around the blonde and gave her a kiss, "Mom was bound to find out, so I just copped to it. She was so happy she broke into Italian. Hey -- look at that!" Sasha spotted the plates.

"This looks delicious," Sasha pinched a noodle and tasted it, "Oh wow!" She picked up a clam and popped the meat into her mouth, "Hmmm. Good. Is this my grandmother's recipe?"