Her Favorite Bad Influence — Bonus Chapter

An Exclusive Scene by Aurora North

This bonus chapter contains explicit sexual content not available on Amazon. Reader discretion advised. 18+ only.

The Introduction

The apartment had a new couch.

This was significant because the old couch — the one where Evelyn had sat with a glass of Tempranillo and told a stranger about the worst parts of her life, the one where she’d straddled Sabrina Vale’s lap and kissed her for the second time, the one where they’d sat with their foreheads together after the reunion and said nothing because nothing was enough — had been retired. Not thrown away. Donated to a women’s shelter in Southeast, because Bri believed furniture should have a second act, which was one of approximately nine hundred things Evelyn loved about her.

The new couch was dark green. Evelyn had chosen it. Bri had said, “You want a green couch?” and Evelyn had said, “I want everything in my life to remind me of the moment I stopped being afraid,” and Bri had bought the couch without another word.

It was a Saturday in January. Three months after the election. Two months since Evelyn had officially moved in — not the gradual colonization of drawers and shelves that had preceded it, but the deliberate, documented, lease-signed act of a woman putting her name on a mailbox beside another woman’s name and meaning it.

Evelyn Hart and Sabrina Vale. Apartment 2B. Adams Morgan.

It looked good on the mailbox.

Bri was at the store. She’d gone for wine and come back with wine and flowers and a small paper bag from the bakery on the corner, because Bri had a habit of turning errands into gifts, which was another thing Evelyn loved about her.

Evelyn was on the green couch in one of Bri’s T-shirts — the Howard one, which she’d claimed as her own and refused to discuss — reading a policy brief on her laptop. She’d started the think tank job three weeks ago. The work was good. The commute was reasonable. The colleagues argued about education funding with the passion of people who actually cared, and nobody once asked her to smile for a camera.

Her phone buzzed. Her mother. She let it go to voicemail. Catherine was a work in progress. They had dinner once a month — stilted, careful, improved by fractional degrees. Last time, Catherine had asked about Evelyn’s job and almost sounded interested. Progress. A semicolon.

The door opened. Bri backed in, arms full — a bag of groceries, a bouquet of yellow tulips, the bakery bag, and a bottle of the Tempranillo that had become their wine. Their wine. They had a wine now. Evelyn found this unbearably romantic.

“Help,” Bri said.

Evelyn rescued the flowers. Set them on the counter. Pulled the bakery bag open and found chocolate croissants, still warm.

“You went for wine and came back with a romantic gesture,” Evelyn said.

“I went for wine and got ambushed by tulips. They were right there. I’m not made of stone.”

“You’re a little bit made of stone.”

“Take that back.”

“Make me.”

Bri set the groceries on the counter. Turned. Looked at Evelyn — standing barefoot in the kitchen in a T-shirt and underwear, holding a chocolate croissant, her hair down, her legs bare, the January light coming through the window and catching the gold hoops she now wore every day like a uniform she’d chosen for herself.

“You’re doing it again,” Bri said.

“Doing what?”

“Standing in my kitchen looking like that and expecting me to function.”

“Our kitchen.”

“Our kitchen.” The correction made Bri smile. The real smile. The one that started on the left side. “You’re standing in our kitchen looking like that and I have groceries to put away.”

“The groceries can wait.”

“The ice cream can’t.”

“The ice cream can absolutely wait.”

Evelyn set the croissant down. Walked to Bri. The distance between the counter and the grocery bags was six feet — the same distance as the doorway, the first time. The same distance as the hotel corridor. Every significant moment in their relationship could be measured in the space between them and the decision to close it.

She closed it.

She kissed Bri against the counter — their counter now, the one where they’d had their first morning-after kiss, the one where Bri had pressed her back and said that’s the version of me that’s real. The kiss was slow and tasted like the chocolate croissant Evelyn had been eating, and Bri made a sound against her mouth — half surprise, half surrender — that Evelyn collected and kept.

“The ice cream,” Bri murmured.

“I’ll buy you more ice cream.” Evelyn’s hands were under Bri’s jacket, pushing it off her shoulders. “I’ll buy you a freezer full of ice cream. Later. After.”

“After what?”

Evelyn pulled back. Looked at her. Dark eyes, sharp cheekbones, the scar above her left eyebrow, the beauty mark below her right ear. The face she’d been waking up to for two months and still found devastating.

“After I take you to bed and make you forget your own name,” Evelyn said.

Bri’s eyes went dark. The jacket hit the floor.

“The ice cream is going to melt.”

“Let it.”

They didn’t make it to the bedroom immediately. They never did anymore — one of the unexpected developments of cohabitation was that every surface in the apartment had become a possibility. The counter. The hallway wall. The new green couch that Evelyn had chosen because it reminded her of not being afraid.

Bri lifted Evelyn onto the counter. The granite was cold against the backs of her thighs and she gasped, and Bri stepped between her legs and kissed her neck — the spot, their spot, the place below her ear where Bri’s mouth had first landed in the hotel corridor and had returned to a thousand times since.

Evelyn wrapped her legs around Bri’s waist. Pulled her closer. Her hands were in Bri’s hair — the twists she wore loose today, soft and thick between Evelyn’s fingers. She tugged, gently, and Bri responded the way she always responded — by biting down on the junction of Evelyn’s neck and shoulder, not hard enough to bruise but hard enough to make Evelyn’s vision blur.

“Bedroom,” Evelyn managed. “I want to do this properly.”

“This isn’t proper?”

“I want room. I want—” She pulled Bri’s shirt up, ran her hands over the warm skin of her stomach, the lean muscle, the ribcage where the tattoo lived. “I have plans.”

“Plans.” Bri’s voice dropped to the register that still, after months, made Evelyn’s nervous system reorganize itself. “Tell me about these plans.”

“I’d rather show you.”

Bri carried her. Arms under her thighs, Evelyn’s legs locked around her waist, mouths connected for the entire journey from kitchen to bedroom.

The bedroom. Their bedroom. New sheets — not charcoal anymore but white, because Evelyn had said she wanted to see everything and Bri had turned the color of a sunset and ordered white sheets that afternoon.

Bri set her down on the bed. Evelyn pulled her own T-shirt off — no hesitation, no self-consciousness. Three months ago she’d needed permission to want things. Now she took them.

Bri stood at the edge of the bed and looked at her — bare-chested, legs apart, gold hoops catching the light — and said, “I still can’t believe you’re real.”

“Get undressed and I’ll prove it.”

Bri stripped. Fast, efficient, the way she did everything — and then she was naked and climbing over Evelyn and their bodies aligned and the full-length contact, skin on skin, was an electric shock even after hundreds of repetitions. Some things didn’t diminish with familiarity. Some things got better.

“I love the white sheets,” Evelyn said, pulling Bri down.

“You love watching yourself get fucked on white sheets. There’s a distinction.”

“Both. I love both.”

Bri laughed against her mouth. The laugh turned into a kiss and the kiss turned into Bri’s hand sliding between Evelyn’s thighs, and Evelyn was already wet — had been since the counter, since the tulips, since the moment Bri walked through the door looking like the kind of woman who buys flowers on impulse because she can’t help making the world more beautiful.

“Already?” Bri murmured. Her fingers stroked through the slick heat, lazy, teasing, her mouth against Evelyn’s ear. “I’ve barely touched you.”

“You walked in with tulips. That’s foreplay.”

“Noted. Tulips equal foreplay.” She circled Evelyn’s clit slowly. “What else?”

“The croissants.”

“Pastry is foreplay.”

“The way you said our kitchen.”

“Domestic acknowledgment is foreplay.” Bri’s fingers pressed firmer, found the rhythm that three months of dedicated study had perfected. “What else?”

“You. Breathing. Existing. Being in a room.” Evelyn’s hips were moving, pressing into Bri’s hand, her body chasing the pleasure with the unashamed greed of a woman who’d learned that wanting wasn’t a weakness. “Everything you do is foreplay. I’m turned on approximately ninety percent of the time I’m in your presence and the other ten percent I’m asleep.”

“That tracks. You’re very responsive.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It keeps being true.” Bri slid two fingers inside her and Evelyn’s back arched off the white sheets and the sound she made was not quiet and she didn’t try to make it quiet.

“I want to try something,” Evelyn said.

“Tell me.”

“I want to be on top. But facing away.”

Bri’s hand stilled. Her eyes went dark — darker than the register, darker than the first time. “You’ve been thinking about this.”

“I’ve been thinking about it since Tuesday.”

“It’s Saturday.”

“I’m aware.”

Bri withdrew her fingers — the loss made Evelyn whimper — and lay back against the pillows. Evelyn turned. Positioned herself over Bri, facing the foot of the bed, and sank down onto Bri’s offered hand. The angle was different — deeper, the pressure hitting a spot that made her vision white at the edges — and she braced her hands on Bri’s thighs and rode her fingers with a rolling motion.

“Jesus Christ,” Bri said behind her. Her free hand gripped Evelyn’s hip, guiding, steadying. “You look — from this angle you’re—”

“Tell me.”

“Incredible. You look incredible. Watching you move like that, watching you take what you want—” Bri’s voice was strained, affected in a way that Evelyn found deeply satisfying. “You’re so beautiful I can’t stand it.”

She came. Arched backward, one hand reaching behind to grip Bri’s shoulder, her body clenching and pulsing around Bri’s fingers, and the cry that came out of her was loud and unashamed.

“Your turn,” Evelyn said.

She kissed down Bri’s body — the throat, the collarbone, the Be not afraid tattoo that she kissed every time because it was their scripture, their covenant — and settled between Bri’s thighs.

She used her mouth. She used her fingers — two inside, curling upward. She used her voice — murmured praise against Bri’s skin between strokes: “You taste so good. I love doing this. I love making you—”

“Evelyn — I’m — don’t stop — right there — fuck—”

Bri came with a shout — full-voiced, unrestrained — her back arching, her thighs shaking.

Then she crawled up. Lay beside her. Face to face on the white sheets.

“Hi,” Evelyn said.

“Hi.” Bri’s voice was wrecked. Her eyes were soft.

“The ice cream definitely melted,” Bri said.

“I’ll buy you more ice cream.”

“I will buy you ice cream every day for the rest of my life if you keep looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m the best decision you ever made.”

“You’re not a decision,” Bri said. “You’re a discovery. You were always there. You just needed someone to stop telling you to hide.”

Evelyn kissed the fingertip on her lip. “You didn’t corrupt me.”

“No.”

“You introduced me to myself.”

“There she is.” Bri’s smile. The real one. Left side first. “There’s my girl.”

Evelyn pressed her face into Bri’s neck. Breathed sandalwood and skin and home.

“I love you,” she said. “I love our apartment. I love our green couch. I love our white sheets. I love our kitchen where you bring me tulips. I love every single thing about this life, and I’m never going back.”

Inside, two women held each other in white sheets and didn’t let go.

They never let go.

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