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“Lilly. This is a nightmare.”
Anni can literally feel Lilly smirking at the other end of the line even though she’s clearly trying her hardest to suppress it.
Damn, her friends are no help whatsoever these days.
Anni sits down on the hotel bed, kicks off her shoes and lies back with her eyes closed and her phone still pressed to her ear.
“It’s one night, Anni, you’ll live,” Lilly eventually says.
“This is all your boyfriend’s fault.”
This time Lilly laughs. “Well, you could’ve just said no, Anni.”
“Not really.”
“You aren’t working for her anymore,” Lilly says, “So yeah, you absolutely could’ve said no.”
Anni hates how right her friend is. She could’ve said no, she most definitely should have said no. But Katrin had basically begged her to come along – what on Earth was she supposed to do? She simply couldn’t say no to this, to her.
God, she’s so fucked.
//
Katrin wakes up with a gasp.
What the—
She sits up in her bed. It’s pitch-dark outside and around her so she fumbles for the light switch of the bedside lamp and eventually puts the room in a soft light.
Her heart is still beating way too fast, her throat is slightly dry so she pulls back the covers and gets up from the bed to fetch herself a bottle of cold water from the mini bar.
This dream didn’t come out of nowhere and that’s the scariest part of it. This thing had started developing even before their kiss, but especially since their kiss. And most definitely since that afternoon at "Vereinsheim” where she'd 'met' Rosa who had shamelessly flirted with Anni right in front of her, inviting Anni over to her hotel for the night.
To have dinner, apparently, but come on. Katrin isn’t naïve.
She’d thought – if she just ignored this, played it down and pushed it to the very back of her head it would eventually go away, but – not a chance. And now she’s standing in a hotel room in the middle of the night, the images from her dream still vivid in her head – Anni unbuttoning her shirt / Anni cupping her face, kissing her softly / Anni standing behind her, kissing her neck— and, damn, her heart-rate is picking up again just thinking about this.
And Anni – the real Anni – being next door, probably in bed, isn’t helping things in the slightest.
//
“Are you okay?”
They’re on their way back from Neuruppin to Berlin and Katrin has been both extremely quiet and avoiding any kind of eye contact with her over the past half an hour. Anni has started wondering if maybe she’d imagined last night’s dinner – Katrin’s hand on her thigh, Katrin’s lips against the corner of her mouth – it wouldn’t be her first daydream after all - damn her stupid brain - and Katrin has done one hell of a job blanking her all morning.
“Have I done anything wrong again? Any unprofessional behaviour I’ve somehow missed out on?”
That seems to finally get her boss’ attention.
“What?” Katrin turns around to look at her for the first time since they’d started their journey back home, “No. Why—what makes you think this?”
“Well, you seem pissed,” Anni shrugs, her eyes back on the road.
“I’m not.”
“You’ve been ignoring me all morning,” Anni adds.
“I haven’t,” Katrin states, “I don’t know what you expected?”
Anni laughs at this. “Nothing, Katrin. I expect nothing from you.”
Katrin sighs. “I thought we’d cleared that up.”
Okay. Just no.
Anni takes a look in the driving mirror, slows down the car, takes the very next exit and parks them on a small parking lot just a few miles away from Berlin.
“What are you doing?” Katrin seems genuinely confused. Good.
“Listen, Katrin,” Anni says then, “I thought we’d cleared that up, too, but then you put your hands on me last night—
“I didn’t—“
“You had your hand on my thigh for several minutes, in front of all those people, and you basically kissed me Goodnight. And now I’m the idiot again who,” and Anni pauses to take a deep breath – God she’s getting angry now, “The idiot who's reading too much into things? What the Hell is wrong with you?”
Katrin says nothing at that. She swallows hard, looks away. Anni just waits – she won’t let her get away with this one.
“Look, I’m sorry if—“ Katrin begins then.
“No, don’t you fucking apologize now,” Anni snaps, “I want to know what’s going on. What do you want from me?”
Katrin sighs, clearly struggling with several inner demons at the same time. As she should be, Anni thinks, and then she stops thinking altogether, because suddenly Katrin brings up a hand to her face, pulls her close and kisses her.
It is a lot less hesitant and testing than their first encounter all those days back in Katrin’s office. Katrin is downright controlling the kiss now, leading it, which is – shit – sexy as Hell. She tugs at Anni’s hair, sucks on her lower lip and smiles into the kiss when Anni lets out a low moan at this. Anni gets a little bolder, too, then. She unbuckles her seatbelt, leans closer, hovering over the other woman for a while to remove her seatbelt as well and then she moves in to kiss her harder.
Anni just wants to climb on top of her and devour her. She hasn’t been that taken with someone in quite some time. Katrin has been driving her absolutely insane with this back and forth between clearly signaling that she wants her and then taking it back again within minutes, going back to hiding behind that cool, seemingly unbreakable business façade. It frustrates Anni to no end, it makes her angry, but she also cannot help but be fascinated by it, cannot stop herself from desperately wanting to be the one that breaks through that façade. Over and over again.
“Uh, Anni—“ Katrin tries, but Anni makes sure to right away silence her again by biting her neck, sucking on the skin there, possibly - hopefully (?) - leaving an angry red mark.
“Anni, stop.”
“Why?” Anni nips at her skin then, soothing it.
“Not here…”
“Why?”
Katrin places a hand against her sternum and pushes her back a little. Anni stares at her from dazed eyes and God – Katrin looks fucking edible. Her hair is slightly disheveled, her lips are swollen, her eyes are blown wide. Anni slides her hand behind the other woman’s neck again and leans in to kiss those lips once more.
But Katrin stops her. Again. “Anni, seriously, we can’t---“
“Can’t what? Fuck in your car? Yeah we can,” Anni grins, “Let’s do it. Let’s fuck in your car, Katrin. I want to.”
Katrin visibly swallows at that, her eyes dropping to Anni’s lips, but then she looks away, clears her throat and Anni already knows what’s coming.
“We have to get back,” Katrin says, “I’ve got an appointment at 10.”
Anni sighs. She gives it up then, doesn’t even argue. She gets back into her seat and fastens her seatbelt. She shakes her head slightly, takes a deep breath and starts the engine.
//
“She—“, Sunny pauses and stares at Anni, “She asked you to work for her again? After you two almost—?”
Anni rolls her eyes, shrugs. “I may not accept.”
“You already did.”
“I should take it back.”
“Maybe, yeah,” Sunny agrees. And when Anni doesn’t reply she adds: “What happened means that Katrin wants you, too, though. Maybe you should make a move on her again.”
Anni snorts. “Definitely not. I’m sick and tired of that game.”
“She might just be insecure.”
“Certainly not.”
“Well,” Sunny starts, “She’s never been with a woman before so—“
“I’m beginning to doubt that,” Anni says, “She’s— ,” and Anni swallows, her thoughts drifting back to the scenes in the car, “She knows what she’s doing.”
Sunny grins. “So it was good, uh?”
“Shut up.”
“Seriously, though,” Sunny says then, “You usually don’t give up so easily. Katrin is interested, you know this for sure now. So why not approach her again?”
“Because I have too much pride for this shit,” Anni snaps, “She’s toying with me.”
Sunny looks at her then like she’s having some kind of spontaneous epiphany. Anni doesn’t even want to hear it.
Not that it stops her friend. Of course not.
“You have feelings for her.”
Anni shakes her head at this. Laughs. But says nothing in return.
//