#love is...eating ur girlfriend out on the kitchen counter quote me on this

[nevervalentines]

in which jamie forgets an anniversary and dani burns dinner. 

She wasn’t drunk when she started, but that was two glasses of wine ago, before she had burnt the first sirloin, and before Jamie had called to tell her she would be late.

Of the two of them, Dani was the better cook, but this wasn’t accounting for a new recipe borrowed out of one of Agnes’s yellowed cookbooks, dogeared and oil-spattered. This wasn’t accounting for the uneven burners on the ancient gas stove, for Jamie’s unexpected delay or for the cloudy, white wine induced fog that had descended on her quite suddenly, all things considered.

Making a simple pan sauce didn’t seem quite so hard on late night reruns when Julia Child was doing it, but searing off the meat was supposed to be the easy part, and here she was peering into the saucepan like she is trying to read tea leaves at the bottom of a cup.

She’s so focused on browning the steak, she almost doesn’t hear the door unlock, but Jamie drops her bag with a clunk just over the threshold, and Dani’s head swivels toward the kitchen door. Even without seeing her, Dani can picture the way Jamie will kick off her shoes, rifle a hand through her curls, toss her keys into the tiny, clay bowl sitting in the foyer.

There’s the pad of socked feet then, called from a few rooms away, “Is something burning, Dani?”

Two glasses of wine ago, that might not have stung. But now, armed with a wooden spoon and a little strung out from the alcohol-flush and the heat of the stove, it digs the knife a little deeper.

She clicks off the burner and turns just as Jamie graces the entryway, looking dashing and night-air ruffled, smelling a little like cigarette smoke, and a lot like the pub a few blocks away.

Jamie’s face breaks into a smile when she sees her, and even through her hurt, Dani finds herself a little enamored to see it. It dimples her cheeks in all the best ways, gives her chin that roguish, endearing tilt.

Her sleeves are pushed up above her elbows, a patchy, worn flannel sloppily tucked in, half-unbuttoned over one of her soft, thermal Henley’s that Dani loves so well.

Conversely, Dani thinks she must look something of a mess – nearly the suburban caricature she was always secretly terrified she would become:

Like the harried, half-forgotten wife, spending evenings in front of a stove, herding children and chores until a husband stumbles in at half past seven on their anniversary.

And it’s not that Jamie has ever made her feel like that, or meant to. They are equals in everything, and most nights, it’s Dani who urges them to go out more, drags them to movie showings or those cheesy neighborhood block parties every third Wednesday.

But like this, feeling frustrated and a little stood up, those fears creep in – like she’s back in the Midwest, watching a wedding day approach as the world moves in double-speed around her.

She can tell Jamie doesn’t know yet that she’s in trouble. If she did, she would have showed up sheepish, maybe armed with flowers, and wouldn’t have beelined across the kitchen for a kiss with so much confidence.

Dani turns her head at the last second, and Jamie’s mouth catches her nearly at her hairline, almost on her ear. Only does then does Jamie pull back to look at Dani, puzzled. Brow furrowed; her mouth pursed into a pout. Looking at her, Dani feels even more of her latent annoyance seeping away.

“What was that for?” Jamie asks. She reaches for Dani, fits two hands on her waist over the hemline of her skirt, tries to pull her to her.

Dani resists, and Jamie drops her hands, steps back.

Jamie looks around the kitchen, searching. Looking like she had showed up to a pop-quiz sans pencil, paper or even the faintest clue what class she was in.

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s –” Dani crosses her arms over her stomach, feels suddenly and terribly like she might cry. “I just – you’re late.”

“I’m late?” Jamie looks at Dani hard, then at the singed meat at the top of the garbage pail, the half empty bottle of wine on the counter. “Are you drunk?”

Dani shakes head her head. Reconsiders. Nods. “Only a little.”

“This is a bit of a fancy dinner you have in the works,” Jamie says. She tucks her bottom lip into her mouth. “Baby, I told you the guys wanted to buy me a drink after work and I could fend for myself, remember?”

Dani steels herself. Clears her throat.

“We had said we would celebrate the anniversary tonight.” She blurts it out, all at once, squeezes her eyes shut. “We talked about it last week, and I said I would make dinner and you said that sounds great, and I said great, and then I, well –”

She flaps her hand around the kitchen.

“I didn’t know how to remind you when you called without sounding,” her voice drops here, “well, nagging, I guess.”

Jamie’s eyes go wide, and the memory of the conversation seems to hit like a punch to the stomach.

“Oh, shit.” She brings a hand to her mouth, looking around at the kitchen with fresh eyes, the bunches of rosemary and thyme on the counter, the open cookbook. “Oh, shit.”

“I should have said,” Dani says weakly. “It’s really not a big deal. I just thought you might remember.”

And it wasn’t a big deal, it really wasn’t. Wasn’t even a proper anniversary, just six months since they signed the lease on the rental, six months since they decided they might settle here for a while. Take it one day at a time, see what happened.

It’s not a big deal, it can’t be. But, well, Dani wasn’t used to wanting to celebrate these sorts of things. Had used to feel a vague embarrassment every time Edmund insisted they celebrate a landmark. She cringed away from Valentine’s Days, and chocolates, and any sort of romantic gesture.

It had confused her to make such a show of the passage of time, really. Who wants an award for standing still?

But this – this had been different, somehow. And looking at the kitchen, knowing the dining table was set in the next room, made her feel flush and stupid. Christ, she had even lit a candle.

“I can just clean it up,” she said, watching Jamie’s face go through the five stages of grief at an astonishing speed. “We can just put a movie on.”

“Baby, baby, no.” Jamie reaches for her, and this time Dani lets her pull her into her arms, buries her face in Jamie’s shoulder. “This is my fault. I’m so sorry.” She chafes her hands at the back of Dani’s sweater, turns her cheek against her hair.

“With the store opening and everything, I completely just lost track of things.” She unearths Dani from her embrace to look her in the eyes, cheeks a little flush, mouth downturned. “That’s not okay.” A hand smooths Dani’s hair back from her face, thumbs at the corner of her mouth. “You are my first priority, always. I fucked up.”

“We just had opening day last week,” Dani says, sniffling a little, trying for a tremulous smile. “It’s so not a big deal. The shop – ”

“Fuck the shop,” Jamie says, cups her face in her hands.

This close, Dani can count her eyelashes. Having her in kissing distance always makes it hard to concentrate, and Jamie doesn’t help the issue, ducking in to press her lips at the corner of her mouth, like she’s making up for any earlier missed opportunities.

“I never would have gone to the pub if I remembered, you know that right?” She punctuates the question with another kiss, half on her chin. “I was jiggling my knee the whole time, just waiting until I could make an excuse to get back to you.”

Dani rocks to tiptoe, kisses her flush on the mouth, rocks back down.

“I didn’t even have a drink,” Jamie whispers, noses in. “But it seems like somebody had enough for both of us.”

“Only two glasses,” Dani mumbles. She turns her face into Jamie’s hand, presses a kiss to her palm.

“Why don’t I pour you another,” Jamie says, runs her eyes down Dani’s body like a touch, face sharp with interest, but a crease still disrupting her brow. “I would offer to finish up dinner, but neither of us want that.”

“Are you still hungry?”

“Randy’s shitty bar food has nothing on you,” Jamie says. Then, quickly, “Your cooking I mean.” The tips of her ears flush scarlet. “I know I’m not out of the doghouse yet.”

A laugh bubbles up from Dani’s chest, and she swats at Jamie, nudges her toward the kitchenette table. “I’ll finish dinner if you keep me company.”

Eagerly, Jamie rushes to obey. “To be safe, I think I might just not let you out of my sight again,” she says.

Dani turns back to the stove, reaches to fetch another wine glass from the shelf. Smiles. “Deal.”

**

Jamie drags a stool up to the counter to watch her cook. Chin propped in her cupped palm, she looked up at Dani adoringly, her whole body oriented toward her, socked feet tapping on the rungs.

The second steak was salvageable, and Dani leaves it marinating in the same brown butter and herbs it was basted in, heating a clean skillet to prepare the pan sauce under Jamie’s watchful eye.

She tops off Jamie’s glass as it does, then her own. Derailed, somewhat, by Jamie’s mouth on the lip of the wine glass, her quiet hum of pleasure as the wine touches her tongue.

“You’re being unfair,” Dani murmurs, turns back to the pan, begins to sweat the shallots, letting a few cloves of crushed garlic slide into the hot oil.

“Quiet,” Jamie says. Takes another sip, a little showy this time, catching on. “I’m learning.”

She cradles the glass languidly in her palm, twirls the stem as she watches Dani’s profile, studying her in that keen, fond way she does, even when Dani is doing something especially mundane – like folding laundry, or turning the pages of a book.

Dani peeks at her out of the corner of her eye. “You’re staring.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“Jamie,” she says, a little chastising, a little pleased. “Stop it.”

She watches Jamie take another sip, the pulse of her throat, the perfect line of it, a bruise that might be a love bite hidden under the fall of her curls.

“I’m not doing anything.”

It’s definitely a hickey. Racking her brain, Dani thinks she can remember the moment from the day before, remembers Jamie, flush with some sort of shop-related victory, clambering on top of her on the living room floor. Scattering puzzle pieces and throw pillows to rub her face in Dani’s neck. Can remember how fast the tables turns once she got on top.

“You alright?” Jamie asks.

Dani realizes she has been clutching a little desperately at the beef stock for the past thirty seconds and jump starts her brain with a squeeze of the carton.

“Fine, just thinking.” She hopes, uselessly, that Jamie doesn’t call her on it. She should know better, really.

“About what?”

Glugging the carton into the pan, she deglazes with the stock and a healthy pour of red wine, produced from its hiding place behind the pasta.

“Just,” a flap of her hand, “the recipe.”

Jamie reaches from her perch, peels the bottle from Dani’s hand, and takes a long swig. She emerges from the throat of the bottle with a sideways smile and a curl of her fingers, beckoning.

“Come give me a kiss.”

“I’m cooking,” Dani says. “Just because you burn everything, doesn’t mean I have to.”

“Oh, cheeky,” Jamie crows, delighted. Anytime Dani bites back, she gets a look on her face, like she ordered a tuna sandwich and was delivered a four-course-meal. She reaches for her, a little pouty, abandoning her glass of wine to dedicate both hands to reeling Dani in. “Just a little kiss, Dani. What could it hurt?”

“My painstakingly prepared meal,” Dani mumbles, but lets herself drift within arm’s reach, finds herself corralled between Jamie’s knees, finds Jamie’s arms wrapping around her neck.

“Love me a little bit,” Jamie says, noses in until their lips are almost touching. Waits. “Just a little kiss.”

This close, Dani can’t say no, isn’t even sure if she has the capacity. She closes the gap, finds the taste of wine on Jamie’s tongue, lets her hands drop to her waist and cup, pull her close.

“I’m sorry again,” Jamie murmurs, catches her bottom lip in her teeth, bites down soft. Dani hums low in her throat, pressing close enough that the metal of Jamie’s belt buckle digs into her stomach.

“You’re forgiven,” Dani manages in between kisses. She turns her head to the side to catch her breath, leaving her neck vulnerable to Jamie’s mouth and teeth and, most troublesome, her tongue, licking a hot, wet line up the column of Dani’s throat.

“The sauce –”

“It’s fine,” Jamie says, drags her mouth to Dani’s chin-jaw-cheek, catches her lips in another kiss. Her hands clutch, move lower to palm roughly at Dani’s skirt.

“It’ll burn,” Dani gasps, slips her tongue in Jamie’s mouth anyway, feels an electric jolt in her stomach, the satisfaction of Jamie’s muted gasp.

“I’m not stopping you,” this said against her cheek, fingers deftly untucking her sweater to splay wide across the warm skin of her back.

Dani lets the kiss drag a moment longer, Jamie’s tongue stroking into her mouth until her body is buzzing in that tuning-fork pitch, Jamie’s touch setting her humming. With a groan, she wrenches away, untangles herself from Jamie’s legs and moves for the stove, a little sluggish.

She lowers the heat of the burner, scrapes the spoon through the reduction, pleased to find it hasn’t stuck to the bottom the way she worried it would. Jamie makes a loud noise of protest, reaching for her wine and draining it a long, steady draw, eyes still fixed on Dani.

Surfacing, she frowns. “No fair, Poppins.”

“Consider this your punishment,” Dani says absently, drops a hunk of butter into the pan, melting into a beaded, oil slick.

“Oh, yeah?” Jamie’s mouth turns up, a little impish. “How else are you going to punish me?”

“Oh my God.” Dani jerks her chin to face her, cheeks flushing. “Jamie.”

Both hands up in surrender, lips pinching. “Just a thought.”

Dani levels Jamie with her best scolding teacher face, lips pursed, brow furrowed, then – “Hey, wait.” Twists her hand around to her back. “Jamie, did you undo my bra?”

Leaning forward, Jamie tilts her head for a better look, hums, like she’s only just noticed. “Oh, yeah, maybe.” At Dani’s looks she splays her palms out, open, innocent. “Habit?”

Dani looks at her silently, long enough that Jamie’s smile crumples into a shit-am-I-actually-in-trouble frown. She opens her mouth like she’s about to backpedal, and Dani holds up a hand to stop her.

Obediently, Jamie clicks her mouth shut. Dani turns off the stove.

“Are you really sorry?”

Jamie nods, forehead crinkling. Her feet hook over the rung of the stool, and she tilts forward, all doe-eyes and pretty, pink mouth – like she’s imploring Dani to touch. Dani knows, without thinking, that if she did something as simple as set her hand at the small of Jamie’s back, that Jamie would fold, pliant and wanting.

But that would be too easy, and she’s acutely aware of the wine now, of Jamie’s submission.  

Fingers slipped under the capped sleeves of her sweater, Dani drags down the straps of her bra one at a time, reaching under the hem to pull it free. She drops it to the kitchen floor, maintaining a slow, steady burn of eye contact.

Swallowing, Jamie tilts her chin up. Watches steadily, her only tell the rapid rise and fall of her chest, breath hiking.

“You really want to apologize?” Dani asks, absently shifts the cookbook off the counter, relocates the open bottles of wine to the table in the kitchenette.

Jamie’s white knuckles the lip of the stool, and she leans forward so far she’s liable to topple. “Yeah, I want to apologize.”

“And you’re sorry?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip, drawing the cupid’s bow of her mouth taut. “You know I am.”

Dani creeps forward, powerful with the knowledge of Jamie’s desire, the story of it written plainly on her face, expression earnest and embarrassingly naked. “How sorry?”

“So sorry, baby.” A bit of a drawl now, voice pitched low. Looking for permission, she starts to get up slowly, permitted by an incline of Dani’s chin.

“Prove it.”

And, yeah, that’s definitely the wine talking. That she would ever be brave enough to challenge Jamie like this would have seemed almost inexplicable to her a matter of months ago. But here she is, knowing Jamie can see the weight of her chest through the thin cashmere of her sweater, knowing her breasts and the shape of her nipples are visible under the tight fabric, knowing exactly where Jamie is staring.

And Jamie tips the stool in her eagerness, reaches for her and catches her by the waist, pulls her into a deep kiss. She backs her into the counter until the lip of it digs into Dani’s skin, her back bowing under the full body press of Jamie against her.

Hands go straight to her chest over her sweater, groping a little sloppily – a little high school, a little tipsy, moaning like it’s the first time a girl’s ever let her be so bold. Those hands slide to her hips and then around, cupping under her thighs and encouraging her up onto the counter. Dani hops up easily, scattering a salt shaker and nearly thumping her head back into the cabinets.

Peeling up the hem of her sweater, Jamie adapts well to having her chest at eye level. She presses sloppy kisses to her stomach, moves up until she can teethe at the curve of Dani’s tits, licks out until Dani sighs, buries her hands in Jamie’s curls and holds her firm.

It had been a surprise to find that strong, swaggering Jamie, with her big boots and sure, cocky grin, goes loose and pliant under Dani’s firm touch – that she submits easily and gratefully, that there are few things she likes more than sinking to her knees, hands digging dimples into Dani’s thighs.

“Good,” Dani hisses, tips her head back hard enough that the dull thump against the cabinets reminds her of the solidity of her own body, of Jamie’s knees grinding into the linoleum, her mouth working between her legs.

Dinner is cooling on the counter, the sauce congealing in the pan, and Jamie is sighing happily, nudging closer, her cheeks wet against the inside of Dani’s thighs. Her own pleasure seems perversely visceral in the mundane sepia glow of the tiny kitchen, the tasteless mid-century art watching her throat mottle with an ecstatic blush, her hands tightening in Jamie’s hair, her hips rolling.

Dani hopes, abruptly and breathlessly, that Agnes’s ghost isn’t also here to watch them desecrate her kitchen counter. Then, expletives rolling off her tongue as Jamie does something particularly innovative, moves her fingers to join her tongue, she realizes she doesn’t really fucking care.

Until Jamie, the power of sex had never belonged to Dani before. It was, at best, an inconvenience and, at worst, an obligation. Sex meant the stick shift of Eddie’s car digging into her back in empty parking lots, meant turning her head to the side and bearing the world around her.

When he kissed her, she felt the gestures – the rough chafe of stubble, the press of his mouth, the heat of his breath – but they never seemed to reach her. The flickers of sensation rolled off her skin, a storm over the ocean, missing the shore completely. And, after, the guilt wrung her dry.  

But this, just the flicker of Jamie’s eyes to hers before they flutter shut, lashes dark against her cheek, her hands spreading her thighs, Dani is submerged.

**

Dani Clayton didn’t believe in ghosts before she came to Bly, but now her own body is as haunted as a Victorian landscape, a dark manor on the moor, some rooms shuttered even to her.

But before Bly, Dani didn’t believe in this either – that she would ever feel the full-body pleasure of another person curled into her side, bare legs tangled and covered by a knit throw, feeding her bites of steak from sauce-sticky fingers.

“This feels absolutely animal,” Dani says around a giggle.

Jamie shrugs. “No reason to waste it.” She watches Dani lick her thumb clean with narrowed eyes, waggles a finger, a little admonishing. “And this time, I wasn’t the one who ruined dinner.”

“You played a very critical role,” Dani murmurs, and Jamie grins, a little pleased with herself. She shifts on the rug, trying to get comfortable, leans back into the couch.

“I like to think I played my part, yeah.” Turning her head, she drops a kiss on Dani’s bare shoulder. “How’d I do?”

Huffing a laugh, Dani offers her cheek for another kiss. “Five stars.”

They had retreated from the kitchen after Jamie began to complain of a leg cramp. The novelty of the kitchen counter wears off pretty fast, especially when any particularly creative maneuvers are likely to put something dangerously close to a hot burner.

Half-dressed and starting to shiver, skirt still hiked up to her waist, Dani had let Jamie tug her down onto the living room floor, finish what they started.

After, Jamie would put on a record, salvage what she could from the kitchen and rescue the half-drunk bottle of wine. It was still a good cut of meat, she insisted, marbled with fat and juice-dripping, and some people liked it better cold, anyway.

Now, the plate shucked somewhere under the coffee table, Dani rolls onto her back and drags Jamie with her. Drowsy, full of red wine and fine food, Jamie buries her head into the crook of Dani’s neck, leaves herself vulnerable to Dani’s naked, curious gaze.

Flush with the implicit permission to look, to explore, Dani trails a finger down Jamie’s arm, enamored with the smallest details – the dotting of freckles, the fine, soft hair on her arms, the tendons in her wrists that ripple when she closes her fingers gently around Dani’s wandering hand.

Eyes still closed, her words vibrating against Dani’s throat, she whispers, “good anniversary, then?”

“I think we salvaged it,” Dani whispers back, loathe to shatter the stillness of the room, the croon of the record and the impossibly light kiss dusted over her collarbone like an offering.

Despite the grind of the threadbare carpet against her back, the peace lulls her into the slow, syrup drift of near-sleep, but she stops her eyelids from drifting shut, wanting to continue her examination. She steals her hand from Jamie’s grasp to stroke lightly over the pink, raw divots where her clothes dug into skin – a band from the strap of her bra, the texture of her jeans leaving faint marks on her hips.

“I like living here with you so much,” Dani says. The honesty of her own voice a fragile thing, like an undressed windowpane, transparent in its nakedness.

She looks at the lines left behind from Jamie’s clothing, the fullness of her thighs and hips disguised by the drape of the afghan, teasing skin through its crocheted weave.

“I’ve never –” Dani starts, stops. Stalls, tries again. “– with anyone, before. Like, never –” She slips her hand under the blanket to stroke the plane of Jamie’s hip, draws a circle. “Y’know, never wanted to make someone dinner or come home to them or,” she pinches her eyes shut, “couldn’t wait to fuck them so we do it on the kitchen counter, instead.”

Jamie snorts, “And how was it?”

“Almost as good as kissing you,” Dani says, unthinking. She’s watching the shape of her hand through the thin blanket, but angles her chin to meet Jamie’s eyes when she feels her tense, finds her blinking up at her.

“Oh, yeah?” Jamie asks, a little dazed.

“Yeah.”

Tilting up, Jamie kisses her, slow. Lip to lip, the kind of kiss that drags on even after you pull away. Dani shivers.

“I can feel that in my entire body,” she says, a little dreamy. “Like you’re touching me all over.”

“You’re sleepy, baby,” Jamie says. She nuzzles in, “Talking crazy.”

She isn’t wrong – sprawled on the living room floor like cats in a sunbeam, the warmth of Jamie’s body, the smell of sex, the threat of the witching hour fast approaching, her eyelids are dragging closed, but – “I mean it,” she says, a little slurred now. “I can feel you everywhere.”

She loses Jamie’s reply to a foggy plunge into a deep, cotton sleep.