I dunno what chapter it is. Is that really important? Right now I think not. :-P
All thanks goes to Jessie on this one. JD you are wonderful. You really are. You just...are. :-D I love you so much. You're a great friend and an inspiration. *kisses*
I'm keeping my love-life comments out of this note. Just b/c they're stupid comments. *G*
Enjoy the chapter. Seriously...any comments go to JD. This is her doing. Unless it sucks. Then you can blame me.
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Her body sliced through the air and into the water cleanly, barely splashing her red-headed friend at all. She surfaced next to a blue inner tube and used one hand to slick her hair off her face, the other helping her to tread water.
“How’d you sleep last night?”
Willow smiled, having watched Tara’s diving-board antics with an appreciative eye. “Not too bad,” she said, pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head. “Better than normal.”
“Good.”
“Did you see your name?” Willow asked, swirling a slender finger in the pool water, pointing to the bottom.
Tara nodded, her arms and legs moving furiously to keep her above water. “That was sweet of you.”
Will blushed. “Dawn helped,” she supplied, reaching out and catching one of Tara’s hands.
Tara’s hands snaked out quickly, grabbing Willow’s arms and yanking the slender woman into the pool waters. The force of her pull had launched Willow almost over Tara’s head and into the water.
The redhead surfaced, sputtering and looking utterly perplexed. “Hey! What was that for?”
“That swimsuit makes you look hot,” Tara smirked, her eyes gleaming. “Thought I’d cool you off.”
Willow shook her head, dislodging the hair from her face. “Takes more than that to cool me off, baby,”
Willow teased back. “I’m always this hot.”
Tara chuckled, splashing a handful of water Willow’s way.
What started as a teasing exchange of a spray of water soon developed into a full out pool-splash-war.
“Truce, truce,” Tara said around breathless giggles.
“Yes! Haha! I am the champion!” Willow gloated, raising both hands in the air and dancing around in the shallow end of the pool.
The blonde watched and laughed at her friend’s antics. “God, I missed you,” she laughed, splashing Willow half-heartedly.
Willow smiled in return, pulling herself out of the pool. “Lemonade?”
“That’d be great,” Tara said, tipping her weight back and floating along the water’s surface. Earlier, during their water-war, she had snagged Willow’s sunglasses and now they shielded her eyes as she watched the petite redhead head inside.
Yum was the only coherent thought Tara could form when she watched Willow stroll across the patio to the house. Though there wasn’t a square inch of Willow’s flesh that Tara didn’t already know by heart, the black bikini left little to Tara’s already over-active imagination. A new freckle or two graced the alabaster skin along Willow’s abdomen.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember a time when she would have been the first to know of such mischievous little freckles. It didn’t seem so long ago nor did it seem so different.
But it was.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Willow’s voice. “I think we got more water out of the pool than we left in it,” she said, noticing the large puddles that swamped the rim of the pool.
Tara opened her eyes, tugged the sunglasses down with a stray finger and looked over the top of them at her friend and former lover. “It was worth it,” she admitted. “I have no complaints.”
Willow nodded. “Lots of fun was had.”
“It was.”
“And now its time for my ritual sun bathing and skin-cancer-obtaining sessions,” Willow teased, setting Tara’s glass of lemonade on the edge of the pool.
“No skin cancer allowed,” Tara replied, standing up and heading to the edge of the pool.
Willow smirked. “When’s your dress fitting?” she asked, trying to change the subject.
“Tomorrow. Noon I think.”
“So’s mine.”
Tara nodded, pulling herself out of the pool. She picked up her glass of lemonade and went to sit on the sun-chair next to the redhead. After a moment’s internal debate, she set her glass down, trading it for Willow’s SPF-hefty sun-block. “Roll over,” she said.
The only reply was a confused look from Willow.
“Roll over,” Tara repeated, her voice only slightly more confident this time. As soon as Willow had shifted to her stomach and was looking away, Tara took a deep breath to settle the dancing butterflies that had taken up residence in her belly.
She loaded her hands with a dose of the cool white cream and began to gingerly massage it into the fair skin of Willow’s back. She heard a sharp intake of breath from her companion. “Too cold?”
“No,” was the strangled reply.
Tara smiled to herself. She knew that voice. That was Willow’s “I know I’m not supposed to but I can’t help myself and I really want something right now” voice. It had been a regular occurrence at the beginning of their relationship when neither one was sure of the other’s wants yet. It was somehow comforting to Tara to hear that voice again and, oddly enough, settled the butterflies in her stomach.
She can feel it, too, but she’s still not sure. Good to know. Tara thought as she worked her way across the entire expanse of Willow’s back. There was definite chemistry between them and it wasn’t purely sexual, either, Tara knew.
She paused at the strap across the back. With a quick flick of her fingers across the eye-hook latches, she released the eye-hook latches in one motion before she continued to spread sun-block where the strap had previously been.
“The sun must be sneaky, getting under the strap,” Willow breathed, her voice ragged.
“Sneaky suns are dangerous,” Tara replied, slipping her fingers, and some sun block, under the spaghetti straps of the suit.
“I can’t do that to your suit.”
“It’s a sacrifice I’ll make knowing that my suit hides my stretch marks,” the blonde said, finding a knot in the muscles near Willow’s middle-back and working it out with deft fingers. With the remaining lotion, she ran her hands down Willow’s arms and then to her hands. Tara paused on each hand, massaging it sensually and allowing their fingers to interlace for a few minutes. When she finished, she stood from the corner of Willow’s deck chair she had stolen, sighing.
She put the sunglasses down on the ground near the chair. “I’m going to take a shower. Get the chlorine out of my hair. Don’t stay out too long; you tend to burn even with SPF 9000,” she said lightly, trying to ease the tension that had been building since she first touched Willow’s.
“Hey! It’s only SPF 30!” Willow looked up slightly, smiling as Tara walked away. Uh…one-piece or not…yummy!
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Edited by: Kerrison at: 6/27/02 10:57:58 am
Poor Tara. And no... Willow can't go on a date with someone else. She should be going out with Tara. 
at: 7/1/02 11:14:30 pm