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“I didn’t think it was possible for a person to look so bored.” The voice comes from behind Cat’s shoulder, quiet and amused, and Cat plasters on a sarcastic smile and readies her best acidic retort as she whirls around, prepared to completely eviscerate the stranger who’s dared to provoke her.
Those words die in the back of her throat as she takes in the woman standing just behind her, because she is definitely not what Cat had been expecting.
She’s young and beautiful, blonde hair in loose curls around her shoulders, and a smile on her mouth that disarms Cat, wholly and completely.
“This not your idea of a fun Friday night?” The woman continues, smile widening as she meets Cat’s eyes. Hers are a blue the colour of the ocean, hidden behind the thick black frames of her glasses, and Cat thinks it would be very easy to drown in them.
“Not exactly,” Cat admits, because this woman talking to her is the most interesting thing that’s happened to her tonight so far.
Gallery openings are in her top five least favourite events to attend, but they’re a necessary evil in the career she’d chosen, a way to increase PR and also to hunt for potential new investors.
Her lack of date tonight makes it especially boring, and Cat finds herself longing for her empty home, Carter at their neighbour’s for the night, for a long bubble bath with a glass of red wine and a good book, an indulgence she rarely has the time for, anymore.
At least she can have one of those three things tonight – she’s already on her second glass of red.
“I can tell.” She has a sweet smile, the kind that Cat wouldn’t mind seeing more of, and Cat finds herself turning towards the woman more fully, thinks she also wouldn’t mind her company, even if it were only for a little while.
It certainly beat the middle-aged guy who’d last strolled up to her, and spent most of the time staring at her breasts rather than at her face.
Cat knows that she looks pretty damn good in this dress, black silk that hugs her every curve, but that was no excuse for the leering, and she’d quickly sent him on his way.
Cat finds she has to make a valiant effort not to let her gaze wander when faced with this gorgeous stranger, her red dress drawing the eye.
“Don’t tell me it’s yours?” Cat asks, tilting her head to one side as she takes a sip of her wine, smirking when she sees the woman’s gaze drop, watching her throat work when she swallows, and decides that she can have some fun with this. “Staring at obscure paintings and pretending they’re the most profound things you’ve ever seen?”
“How can you be a journalist and not appreciate art?” She looks personally offended, like Cat has insulted her, specifically, but that’s not what makes her quirk an eyebrow upward in interest. “It’s kind of hard not to know who you are, Miss Grant,” she adds, noticing the look on Cat’s face. “You’re kind of well-known in this town.”
Cat’s smile is smug, because that’s exactly what she’d set out to do when she’d started to build her empire.
“I hardly think it’s fair,” Cat murmurs in reply, tapping her fingers against the stem of her wine glass. “that you know my name and I don’t know yours.”
“Kara,” she offers, along with her hand, which Cat shakes, letting her fingertips linger against soft skin for several long moments before she pulls away.
“This isn’t your painting, is it?” Cat asks, inclining her head towards the one she’d been stood in-front of, but Kara grins and shakes her head.
“No. I paint, but… I’m nowhere near good enough to have any pieces in a place like this.” There’s a self-depreciating smile on her face that makes Cat purse her lips as she turns thoughtfully back to the painting, smiling when Kara steps up to her shoulder, so they’re side-by-side.
“I don’t know,” Cat drawls, shooting Kara a glance out of the corner of her eye, “I’m no painter myself, but I don’t think it takes much effort to draw three circles and a rectangle in different colours.”
“I think it takes a little more finesse than that,” Kara replies around a grin.
“Doesn’t look like there’s much finesse here. Just draw some shapes and call it a fine work of art, and,” Cat waves her hand, “here’s where you could be.”
“Art is more than just shapes, Miss Grant.” The words are injected with a passion that Cat recognises, that she feels every time she sits down to write her latest masterpiece. “It’s all about interpretation, it’s all about emotion.” Cat turns her head to watch Kara speak, to watch the way her eyes sparkle, brighter than the fluorescent lights high above them, her hands gesturing wildly. “It’s about what feeling it invokes when you stand in-front of a piece and take it in. It doesn’t just stop with the artist, it inspires and it lives in every single person that looks at it, it’s… it’s beautiful.” Kara looks away from the painting, meets Cat’s gaze, and her cheeks colour the most delightful shade of pink. “And I’m rambling, aren’t I? Sorry. I do that sometimes.”
“Don’t apologise,” Cat murmurs smiling softly at Kara around another sip of her wine. “I found it… oddly charming.” Kara grins, and reaches up a hand to fiddle nervously with the frames of her glasses, blush deepening. “So then tell me, Kara, what does this,” she waves towards the painting once again, “make you think about?”
“Honestly?” Kara asks, grin still on her face. “All I see is three circles and a rectangle.” Cat laughs, low and rich, the kind that’s often hard for others to draw out of her, but Kara makes it feel easy, glows at the sound. “But there are lots of other pieces here that are different. That actually mean something.”
“Well, then,” Cat says, sensing an opportunity to spend more time with this intriguing young woman who had chosen to approach her, out of the dozens of other people that milled around the gallery (the dozens of people that Kara had made Cat forget all about), “how about being my guide for the night?”
“Deal,” Kara replies softly, “if you let me buy you another drink first.”
“Trying to get me drunk?”
“Just tipsy enough to think I’m fun to be around for more than five minutes.” Cat laughs again, downs the rest of her drink in a single gulp and is very glad that she can handle her liquor, because she doesn’t want to forget a single moment of this night, if she can help it.
“Very well then.” Kara’s smile is shy, and Cat feels her heart pound at the sight of it. “Lead the way.”
Kara does just that, leading her to the bar before steering her around the gallery with a gentle hand on her elbow, the occasional soft brush of her fingertips setting Cat alight.
She talks about some of her favourite pieces, a spark in her eye and that passion in her voice, and Cat thinks that she could happily listen to her talk all night long.
“So, Kara,” Cat murmurs when they’ve made a circle of the room, coming to a stop beside where they’d started and leaning one shoulder back against a white column, letting Kara step in-front of her, pressing close. “Can I expect you to come swopping in to save me from boredom at events like this in the future?”
“I doubt it,” she says, with a rueful little smile. “Middle school teachers don’t tend to be on the guest list for the kind of events you’re usually invited to.”
“You look young to be a teacher,” Cat replies, surprised, but Kara merely grins.
“Only just graduated. Still looking for my first job.”
“I doubt there’s no shortage of them in the city.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Well, then, I wish you the best of look for the future.” Cat doesn’t particularly want to leave, because Kara is absolutely intriguing and this is the most fun she has had in a while, and Kara is the most attractive person she’s spent time with in a while, but she doesn’t think she can stand to be in this gallery for much longer, no matter how excellent the company. “I should probably be getting home.”
“Oh.” Kara looks disappointed, and Cat dares to hope that she’s had just as much fun tonight. “Okay. Unless…” She trails off, biting her lip and looking uncertain. “Unless you’d maybe like to have a drink with me somewhere? I know it’s late but I’ve had a really great time with you tonight, and - ”
“Kara.”
“I told you I ramble a lot,” she replies, with a sheepish smile, and Cat shakes her head, unable to stop a smile of her own.
It is late and she has to be up early in the morning, but she doesn’t think she’ll mind being tired tomorrow, if she gets to spend a little more time with this woman who’s managed to make tonight so wonderful.
“I’d love to.”
“I don’t really… I don’t really know where the best bars in town are,” Kara admits, still sheepish. “I only moved here last week.”
Cat sees a chance, then, because it’s been a long, long time since she did something for herself, something that felt good, something selfish, since she blew off a little steam.
It’s been a long time since she’s met anyone who makes her heart race like Kara does, longer still since she’s taken a chance on a relative stranger.
She doesn’t date, and she doesn’t do relationships, because she’s much too busy for both and she’d given up on love a long time ago, but she thinks one night of fun with a beautiful woman will be a much better ending to her night than a bath and her book and curling up in a cold bed, alone.
So she glances up at Kara through her lashes and puts on her best sultry smile, watches the way Kara’s eyes go wide and her throat works as she swallows thickly.
“How about we go to your apartment, instead?”
Kara stares at Cat like she can barely believe she’s real, before she nods so empathically that her glasses nearly fly right off her nose.
x-x-x
“Sorry about the mess,” Kara apologises as she leads Cat into her modest studio apartment. It’s in a neighbourhood she normally wouldn’t frequent, and the cab ride over had made her skin itch as she’d wondered what kind of germs were festering on the leather seats – but then she’d glanced over at Kara sitting beside her, chattering away, and decided she was more than worth it. “I wasn’t really expecting company.”
There are boxes littering the wooden floors, but despite her only moving in a week ago, the apartment has a homely feel, a few pictures of Kara and her sister dotted around the place, an easel and some paints already set-up beside one of the windows.
“You mean you didn’t you to the gallery opening in the hopes of picking up women?” Cat teases as Kara locks the door beside them and pads over to her kitchen, twisting the cap off the bottle of wine they’d bought whilst they were waiting for the cab and reaching for two glasses.
“I wasn’t,” she replies as she hands one of the glasses over to Cat, brushing their fingers together deliberately. “But then I saw how beautiful you looked in that dress and knew that I had to go over and talk to you, even if I made a fool out of myself in the process.”
“I can assure you, you made quite the impression,” Cat murmurs, taking a sip of her wine. “And you don’t look so bad yourself.” Just as she’d expected, Kara’s cheeks colour pink at her words, and she ducks her head to hide her shy smile. “Am I allowed to look at your paintings?” Cat asks then, noticing the stack of canvases in the corner of the room. “Now that you’ve made me an art expert?”
“Sure,” Kara laughs, setting down her glass and reaching for Cat’s hand, tugging her gently towards the pile. “They’re no circles and rectangles, but,” she shrugs, letting go of Cat’s hands so she can riffle through them with careful hands.
“Kara, these are beautiful,” she says, voice coloured with awe, pausing on one that’s a landscape of the view from the top a cliff, waves crashing into the jagged rocks below and the sun hanging high in the sky above.
“Not quite good enough to be in a gallery, though.” She still looks shy, leaning against the back of the couch with her hands braced on either side of her hips, watching Cat closely. “But maybe one day,” she shrugs. “That’s the dream, anyway.”
“I know a little something about achieving your dreams,” Cat tells her, setting the painting back down very carefully before turning, making her way back over to Kara with quick, sure steps.
“Oh yeah?” Cat settles her hands on either side of Kara’s and leans close, close enough to hear her breath catch in the back of her throat, close enough to watch blue eyes darken as they glance down at Cat’s lips, close enough to watch her pulse beat a frantic rhythm at the base of her neck.
“Mhm.” Her tongue slides along her bottom lip, wetting it, and she hears Kara suck in a quiet gasp.
“What’s that?” Kara breathes, gaze flitting between Cat’s eyes and her mouth, and Cat leans a little closer, until there’s less than an inch between their lips.
“If you want something badly enough,” she murmurs, eyes fluttering closed, “all you have to do is reach out and take it.”
She groans when Kara does just that, curling her hands around Cat’s hips and tugging her forward that final inch, tilting her head to press their lips together in a kiss that’s pure desperation.
Her own hands tangle in Kara’s hair like she’s been dreaming of doing since she’d first laid eyes on her that night, and she gasps when Kara uses her hold on Cat’s hips to spin them around, pressing Cat against the back of the couch and sliding her tongue into Cat’s mouth and a thigh between her legs and oh, Cat definitely made the right decision in coming back here.
Kara’s kisses are hot and hungry, and Cat kisses her back with fervour, scarcely able to remember the last time she felt so alive, the last time she felt so wanted, and she revels in the moan that tumbles from Kara’s lips when she drags blunt nails across her scalp.
She trails questing fingers across the back of Kara’s neck and down as Kara parts their lips to press a kiss against the corner of her jaw, mirroring the path of Cat’s fingers with her mouth, kissing and nipping at the side of her neck and leaving Cat panting, hips grinding against Kara’s thigh as her fingers fumble with the zipper of Kara’s dress.
“Help me get this – oh,” she breathes out a moan as Kara bites at the fleshy part of her shoulder, eyes rolling into the back of her head and her other hand curling into a fist in blonde hair. “God, Kara.” Her hips jerk as Kara’s tongue dips and swirls in her collarbones. “Help me get your damn dress off.”
Kara chuckles hotly against her skin but complies, raising her head and kicking off her heels as she tugs the zipper down, letting the dress pool at her feet before stepping out of it, and Cat licks her lips at the sight before her, of Kara in nothing but matching black lace.
“I don’t care what you say,” Cat murmurs, breath catching as Kara’s sure hands drag down the zipper of her own dress, torturously slowly. “You were definitely planning on getting lucky tonight.” Kara laughs, eyes dark with desire, as the top half of Cat’s dress falls to her waist, eyes widening when she realises that Cat had deigned to wear a bra tonight.
“I promise I wasn’t,” Kara murmurs, hands fanning across Cat’s ribs, look of wonder on her face as she inches them upwards to cup her breasts and Cat arches into her. “But,” Kara ducks her head, presses her lips against one of Cat’s nipples as her fingers tease at the other, and a breathless moan falls from Cat’s lips as both of her hands delve into loose curls. “I’m very glad that I did.”
“I’m glad, too,” Cat manages to gasp, though any other coherent though is lost when Kara takes her nipple between her teeth and sucks. She can only groan, hips pressing against Kara’s thigh, and she knows she’s already slick beneath the thin scrap of lace underwear, already aching and desperate for Kara’s fingers to slip between her thighs.
She lets her own hands explore, as Kara seems content to worship her breasts, twisting the clasp of her bra and teasing at the straining peaks beneath, making Kara moan against Cat’s skin, damp from her mouth.
Her heart beats loud in her ears and Cat doesn’t remember the last time someone took their time with her quite like this, kissing almost every inch of her skin, and she almost sobs with relief when she feels Kara’s hands slide along her inner thigh.
She tugs Kara’s head up, catches her lips in a searing kiss, and feels Kara groan when she discovers how slick Cat’s thighs have become.
Kara kisses a path back down her chest, fingertips brushing teasingly against her through soaked lace, and when her thumb presses against her clit Cat’s knees nearly buckle. Kara chuckles, and then she’s sinking to her knees, looking up at Cat through hooded eyes as she tugs her dress the rest of the way down.
She noses her way between Cat’s thighs, kisses her through her underwear, and Cat reaches down to thread one hand through Kara’s hair, the other curling around the back of the couch she still leans against to steady herself as Kara drags her underwear down her thighs and throws one of Cat’s legs over her shoulder.
She isn’t finished with her teasing, though, pressing a bite to the inside of Cat’s thigh that leaves her trembling, and she thinks, as Kara’s tongue tastes her for the first time, tracing the length of her sex and curling around her clit, making her eyes slam closed and a desperate moan fall from her lips, that she won’t survive the night.
She comes mere minutes later, holding Kara tightly as her hips jerk against her face and her nails bite into the leather of the couch, left breathless and boneless by a beautiful woman with a wickedly talented tongue.
She urges Kara back to her feet and kisses her hot and dirty, heedless of her soaked chin and tasting herself as she sucks on Kara’s tongue.
Cat pushes at Kara’s shoulders, knees feeling shaky, and leads her towards the bed she’d spotted earlier, the two of them falling onto it in a mass of tangled limbs, Cat intent on making Kara cry her name.
It’s hours later before they’re too exhausted to go another round, both sweaty and sated, and Kara is asleep before Cat has even completely caught her breath.
She watches her for several long moments, marvelling that someone like her exists – but knowing that it’s unlikely she’ll ever see her again.
Kara is drop-dead gorgeous and amazing in bed, but she’s barely out of college, has her whole life ahead of her, a life that doesn’t need a forty-eight year old workaholic mother in it.
Not without some small sense of regret, but glad she’d taken a risk and not dismissed Kara the second she’d opened her mouth, Cat crawls quietly out of the bed and slips back into her dress, calling one of her drivers to give her a ride home.
She takes one last look at Kara before she slips out of the front door, sleeping on her side and illuminated by the moonlight that filters in through her windows, tries to memorise the sight of her, before she sighs quietly and heads home, content to file this night away as the one night stand she’ll always remember fondly.
x-x-x
Eight months later…
Cat freezes as she walks into Carter’s science classroom, eyes widening and mouth falling open as she recognises the woman sitting behind the desk.
Sure, her hair is scraped back into a ponytail and she’s wearing a blouse and a hideous cardigan that are a far cry from the red dress she had been wearing the last (and only time) they’d met.
But it’s completely undeniable that the woman sitting behind that desk, looking at Cat with a wry smile that tells Cat that she knew exactly who was next on her list of parents tonight, is the same woman she had pretty phenomenal sex with one night, eight months ago.
Kara.
Danvers, apparently, according to the little slip in Cat’s hand, with the list of Carter’s teachers and their classrooms carefully printed onto it.
The same Miss Danvers that Carter has been unable to stop chattering about since the school year began. At the dinner table it’s ‘Miss Danvers this’ and ‘Miss Danvers that’, and he’s always been enthusiastic about school and particularly about science, but never to the extent she has seen this year.
She’d long suspected that he has a crush on his teacher, and now, frozen in the doorway, her hand still on the handle, Cat can more than see why.
She’s still beautiful.
And when she smiles it takes Cat’s breath away.
“Miss Grant,” she murmurs, eyes bright behind her glasses, and Cat’s mind flashes back to that night, to those eyes staring down at her with hunger, to those lips sliding across her skin, and she remembers the sound of Kara moaning her name and swallows thickly, throat going dry. “Please, come in.”
“Kara.” Her smile widens, just a little, when Cat remembers her name, and Cat is amazed when her voice doesn’t shake like she feels her knees definitely are. She closes the door quietly behind her and makes her way over to one of the two chairs poised in-front of Kara’s desk on unsteady legs. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Is it?” Kara asks lightly, shuffling some papers in-front of her. “Cause you kind of look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“I just… wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“I wasn’t expecting to see the name Grant on my roster, either, but here we are. He looks just like you.” She smiles softly, and there’s an affection in Kara’s eyes that makes Cat thinks that she might be just as enamoured by Carter as he is by her. “He’s a good kid. Not that I’d expect any less, being raised by you. He usually says goodbye before he leaves, though.”
Cat winces at the not-so-subtle dig.
“I’m sorry.” The apology surprises her – and Kara, judging from the way her head snaps up, eyes widening as they meet Cat’s.
But there’s a part of her that hasn’t been able to stop thinking about that night ever since it happened.
Sometimes she dreams about it, about blonde hair and blue eyes and that sinful mouth driving her over the edge time after time after time.
Sometimes she hates herself for leaving the way she did, slinking out of Kara’s front door in the dark of the night and never looking back.
She hates herself for not getting a last name, because when she’s been dressed to impress at some event or another over the past few months, there had always been a part of her that was hoping to turn around and find Kara hovering over her shoulder, rescuing her from boredom.
The more she’d thought about it, and the more she’d remembered how captivated Kara had kept her that night, from start to finish, the more she’d regretted leaving.
“Are you?” Kara asks, and her voice is still light, but there’s something darker glittering in her eyes.
“Yes,” Cat says, and she means it, holds Kara’s gaze until she nods and looks away, back to the papers she still holds in her hands. “For what it’s worth, I am.”
“Yes, well.” Kara clears her throat. “We’re not here to talk about that.” She glances up, and there’s something on her face that makes Cat think that she’s not the only one with memories that linger, that maybe Kara had been hurt when she’d woken up in bed alone the next morning, wondering what she’d done wrong. “We’re here to discuss your son’s progress.”
“Okay.” Cat lets it go for now, and Kara sighs with something that sounds like relief.
“I’m sure you’ve heard from everyone else already tonight that Carter is quiet and reserved, shy and unwilling to participate in discussions in class.” Cat nods, because that’s all she hears at these things, usually, over and over again, and she has to fight the urge to roll her eyes each and every single time because if they only took the time to get to know him, to make him more comfortable, she knows he’d open up the way he does with her.
She’s a little disappointed, because with how Carter talks about Kara, she’d expected this to go differently, had been looking forward to meeting his favourite teacher.
“Well, he’s not like that in this class,” Kara tells her, soft smile on her lips. “He was, at first. But… I spent a little time with him. He reminded me a lot of myself, when I was his age. I’d just lost my parents and I was in a new school and everything was big and new and scary. Overwhelming. Science was my favourite class back then.”
“It’s his, too. Especially now that you’re his teacher,” Cat admits, relaxing a little as she gets to talk about Carter, always her favourite subject. “You’ve made quite the impression on him.”
“He’s made quite the impression on me, too.” Kara’s smile widens. “He really is a great kid. He’s my best student, much more advanced than I’d expect him to be, at his age. I was actually hoping to talk to you tonight about him entering the school science fair. It’s not usually open to kids in his grade, but I think he’d have a really great shot at winning.”
Kara gushes about him for a while longer, shows Cat some of his work and tells her about some extra-circular programs it would be good to get him involved in.
Cat’s pretty sure that Kara could talk about Carter all night long, but there’s soon a knock on the door, Kara’s next set of parents waiting for them to finish, and Cat is startled to find that she’s been in there for over half an hour.
She isn’t entirely sure that she’s ready to leave, could listen to Kara talk for hours, isn’t sure she wants to let Kara slip through her fingers once again.
Her reasons for leaving the first time no longer seem to hold any water, and as Kara starts to gather up her papers to slip them back into a folder neatly labelled ‘Carter’, Cat finds that her throat feels tight as she thinks of never seeing Kara again.
“Guess we should wrap this up, huh?” Kara asks, her smile tight. “It was nice to see you again, Miss Grant.”
Taking a chance, Cat reaches for a blank piece of paper on the desk and scrawls a number across it, handing it to a stunned-looking Kara before rising to her feet.
“If you ever feel like calling,” she explains, voice quiet, and she doesn’t know what she’ll do if her phone never rings. “I really am sorry, and if you forgive me, I promise I won’t run away again. And please, call me Cat.”
Kara nods, and Cat takes one last look at her before hoisting her purse onto her shoulder and leaving the room.
x-x-x
“I didn’t think you’d actually call,” Cat murmurs later that evening, an embarrassingly huge smile on her mouth as she settles on her couch, phone pressed against her ear, the TV playing quietly in the background.
“I thought about keeping you on edge for a little while longer,” Kara admits. “But I thought we’d already wasted enough time.”
“Thank you. For giving me another chance.” It means more than she thinks she’ll ever be able to put into words.
“Just don’t make me regret it,” Kara warns, though her voice is soft, and Cat vows that she won’t let her doubts and her insecurities get in the way of this, because she’s barely been able to stop thinking about Kara since that night and now she has a second chance and she isn’t going to waste it.
Kara Danvers is one of the most fascinating people she’s ever met, and she’s drop-dead gorgeous and amazing in bed and, perhaps most importantly, she gets along swimmingly with her son, and Cat doesn’t think she’ll ever find someone who’s quite so perfect for her for as long as she lives.
“I won’t,” Cat promises, voice laced with conviction. “I’m not letting you get away again. If I do you’ll realise there’s someone much better than me out there for you.”
“Is that why you left?” Kara asks, curiously.
“It might have been part of it.”
“You’re an idiot,” Kara tells her, and Cat smiles. “Because you’re a catch, Cat. You’re hot as hell, you’re a really awesome kisser – not to mention awesome at other things – you’re smart, you’re successful, you’ve raised a really awesome kid… Do I need to go on?”
“It wouldn’t hurt my ego if you did.”
“How about I tell you the rest over dinner?”
“Smooth, Danvers.” Kara chuckles quietly in her ear. “How’s Friday for you?”
“Friday’s perfect.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight.” Cat hangs up, after a few more minutes of small talk, with a wide smile on her face, her heart feeling light than it has in years.