ALICE Ch 259

“Hey!” Val says, pushing Erica off as she goes in for a kiss.

“What?” Erica is confused.

“I just said you couldn’t kiss me!”

Val pulls free, apparently startled by how quickly Erica’s hands slipped around her waist and pulled her in.

Erica realizes that she has misunderstood something here, although she’s not entirely sure that anyone would blame her.

“Sorry,” she says helplessly.

“I told you we aren’t having sex. I have to be on a plane in six hours. Jesus.”

“Yes.” Erica heroically tries to redirect the freight train of lust that took off when Val brought her inside.

“You said you were gonna look at pictures of me,” Val says, walking away.

Erica is wrenched from her self-pity as Val pulls off her top, then kicks off her shoes and pushes her shorts down. It is the unsexiest show of taking clothes off that Erica has ever witnessed in a hotel room. Her heart still pounds, and her mouth goes dry.

Val wears a pink everyday-style bra and gray cotton panties that are a little skimpy, but that’s clearly a matter of comfort, not teasing. She sits on the edge of her bed with a grumpy look.

“This?” She gestures at herself with a snort. “Pictures of this.”

“Yes,” Erica says, exasperated. If Val thinks she’s going to embarrass her by making her admit to something, she is in for a surprise. But that doesn’t seem to be what Val is doing. If anything, Val seems annoyed that she can’t turn Erica off. Erica has to think for a moment to get the right English words. No. She can’t find them. “Yes, I like this. I would…” She trails off and sort of gestures below her waist.

“Is that what you want to do?”

Impossible question to answer. Now Erica’s annoyed. She wants to express that yes, she finds Val attractive enough that she would want to touch herself. But she doesn’t want to make it sound like she wants to touch herself right here. She feels like this would be easier if she were a native English speaker.

Val waves impatiently.

“If you’re going to do it, do it. Like, sorry to rush you, but I have to sleep.”

Startled, Erica cocks her head. “You want me to?”

“Do you want to? I thought that’s what you just said you were going to do. If you want to jerk off looking at pictures of me or me or whatever, I don’t mind.” Val shrugs. “I’m just tired. So, can you get on with it?”

Val is almost pointedly not turned on. Erica can’t help but be a little offended by that. That stokes her pride a bit. Maybe she can change that. She can understand Val’s hesitance to put out given Erica’s reputation. Val no doubt doesn’t want to be treated in the way that, admittedly, Erica has treated a lot of women. Not immediately folding to Erica’s advances is laudable. But Val should at least want to. The fact that she doesn’t seem to want it makes Erica bristle.

“OK,” Erica says defiantly.