Kansas watched the brunette walk away.

***

Kansas was livid as she stormed into her house.  She knew her mother was home, having seen her car parked at the curb.  Slamming the front door closed, she glanced to the couch in the living room- no Marina.

"Mother!" she called out, heading deeper into the house.  She heard pounding feet on the stairs, Marina hurrying down, still pulling a tank top over her head.

"What?" she asked, looking around for the fire.

"How could you?" Kansas fumed, throwing her backpack to a nearby chair.

"How could I, what?" Marina asked, calm and cool, getting ready for battle.

"Nina came to the festival today.  She told me about your little phone call to her."  She was so angry, her nostrils were flaring.  Her green gaze bore into her mother, daring her to look away.

"You are a child, Kansas, and you are still under my roof," Marina said, meeting her emotion for emotion.  "I will not have that woman come in here and mess with you!"

"She did nothing to me!" Kansas fired, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

"It's not right, Kansas," Marina said, following her daughter into the kitchen.  "She spends far too much time with you.  She has lived so much more life than you have.  Don't you understand that?"

"Damn it, mom, what if I want to spend all that time with her?  And what if she wants to spend it with me?"

"Kansas-"

The blonde whirled on her mother, can of soda in hand, cold air from the open fridge felt good on her heated skin. "I am not  a child, and I am not stupid.  I turn 18 in two days, and know damn well what I'm doing.  We care about each other."

Marina softened, her heart reaching out to her daughter.  "Kansas, no, you don't understand.  What about Dan in all of this?  How is this fair to him?  What about the fact that she's married?"

"She doesn't want to be," Kansas said, knowing it was wrong even as she said it.  She turned away, setting the cold can on the counter as she closed the fridge.  Without another word, she headed up to her room, Marina starting as a door was slammed on the second floor.

***

Nina was recovering from yet another fight with Dan.  The age-old argument of why she doesn't just quit her job and go out on the road with him, had arisen again.  She had thought that one had been put to bed for good.  Stupid.  She could hear the big rig start up on the street, then pull away from the curb as her husband drove off into the unknown.

The brunette made herself a glass of iced tea, her mind running on a hamster wheel in her head.  She had never felt so distant from Dan, and to make that worse, she hadn't seen Kansas in a week.  She hadn't realized just how much she depended on the blonde's friendship until it was unceremoniously taken from her.  She had damned herself more than once over the past week for bringing up the conversation with Marina to Kansas at the Blues Festival.  It had driven the blonde even further away.

She was startled from her thoughts by the sound of the lawnmower roaring to life in the backyard.  Nina slammed the glass down onto the counter and hurried out the back door.  Sure enough, there was Kansas, gearing up for another pass in the pristine yard she had help create.  She hurried over to the teen, wanting to catch her before she got involved in her work.

"Hey!" she yelled over the engine of the mower.  The teen looked at her, sunglasses firmly in place, hiding the green eyes Nina loved to look into.  "We need to talk!"

Kansas began to move away from her, but was stopped with a hand on her arm, and the engine being cut on the mower.

"Don't walk away from me, damn it," Nina said, anger rising.  "We need to talk, Kansas."

"About what?" the blonde said, feeling stubborn pride rising to save the day from more embarrassment.  Every time she looked at the brunette she felt stupid.

"You know damn well what."

Kansas looked up into the electric blue eyes, and sighed.  With a small nod, she followed Nina inside the house.  They were both quiet, each lost in her own head as they stood in the kitchen.  Kansas stood, feet wide, arms crossed over her chest, ready for battle.  Nina hugged herself as she leaned against the counter.  Finally the older woman spoke.

"I want to know about the drawings."

Kansas felt her stomach drop, a lump forming in her throat.  She was afraid she'd throw it up.  "What do you want to know?  You were there."

"Then apparently we saw two different things," Nina said.  It was so hard to describe what she felt inside as she looked at the accusing green eyes aimed at her.  Yes, she had been angry when she'd found out about the drawings, but at the same time. . . not so much.  It had hit her in a place she thought long locked away.  Not even Dan had been able to touch her there.  Now, as she stood across the room from Kansas, she felt a deep curiosity to know why the drawings had been altered so much.  She wanted to see them.

At the brunette's words, Kansas raised her chin a bit, defiant.  She knew it had been wrong, but at the same time, she wasn't sorry for doing it.  They were for her eyes only.  Her mother had never been meant to see them.  "Great thing about art- poetic license."

"Oh?" Nina said, a dark brow raised. "With my body?"

Kansas lost the battle of the wills.  She looked down as the toe of her tennis shoe tapped the kitchen tile.  She started when she felt soft fingers raise her chin.  Her breath caught when she looked up into Nina's eyes.  Something had changed in the older woman's demeanor, and it wasn't her sudden close proximity.

"Why did you do it, Kansas?" she asked quietly.

The blonde swallowed, her heartbeat picking up painfully as she tried to hold Nina's gaze. "Because I knew I'd never get to see you in real life."  She tried to drop her chin again, but Nina wouldn't let her.

"Oh, Kansas," the brunette whispered.  She moved her hand to the side of the blonde's face, feeling the soft skin beneath her fingers.  Incredibly sad green eyes looked up at her.  Nina studied the gaze, seeing the deep need mixed in there.  She realized in that moment that her own need matched it; that thought made her breath catch.  She felt herself drawn to Kansas, their breath mingling. "God," Nina breathed, a hair's width from the blonde.  "We can't do this, Kansas. . . "

The teen was struggling as every nerve ending in her body jumped to life, shouting out desperate pleas to her brain.  Her own hands raised, finding their way to the soft material of Nina's shirt and firmness of her hips.  She couldn't think, her brain frozen as her heart and need took over.  She raised her face that much more, giving Nina all the invitation she could without reaching up and pulling her dark head down to her.  She could feel Nina's body heat spreading through her own body, the fire raging within her.

Nina, for her part, was definitely losing the battle between her mind and heart.  She could feel Kansas so acutely, it was almost painful.  Her body thrummed, sex clinching with every out of control heartbeat.  Her hand slid around from the blonde's face to the back of her head. . .

"Kansas?"

Green eyes blinked open, meeting startled blue.  Neither woman sure for a moment what had interrupted.  Then they heard Marina call for her daughter again.

"Shit," the blonde murmured, hurrying toward the back door.  The last thing she needed was for her mother to go looking for her.

Left alone, Nina fell back against the kitchen table, hand going to her chest.  "Jesus Christ," she blew out.  "What the fuck am I doing?"

Marina saw her daughter emerge from Nina's back door.  "I thought you were going to mow?" she asked from across the chain-link fence that separated the two yards.

"I am," Kansas indicated the mower, which still sat in the middle of the yard.  Her brain began to work again, trying to come up with a good cover story for why she'd abandoned it.  "Nina called me inside to pay me for the week."  She patted the empty pocket of her shorts for effect.

"Oh.  Okay."  Marina glanced once at her neighbor's house, but believed her daughter.

Kansas blew out a long, ragged breath as her mother turned and headed toward her own garden at the other end of their yard.  She was shaky, fear of almost being caught, as well as adrenaline and arousal from what had almost happened.  "Holy god," she muttered, running trembling hands through her hair. "This is nuts."

***

  Nina was reading her twelfth case file, her eyes beginning to burn.  For the fifth time in an hour, she glanced up, yet again disappointed to see Kansas' window still dark.  She wondered where the teen was.  After the events in the kitchen earlier that day, she hadn't seen her again, though the main reason was because she left the house.  She didn't need anymore temptation to do something stupid.

Suddenly the light flickered on.  Nina removed her reading glasses, sitting back in her chair, rocking gently as she watched.  She could barely see movement through the half-closed blinds, but then they were opened fully, pulled up to reveal Kansas standing there.  The brunette felt her heart flutter and loins clinch.  The blonde waved, Nina returning it.  Kansas tapped her window, then pointed down.  Nina nodded, immediately shutting off the desk lamp.

Kansas felt her breath catch when the older woman agreed to meet her.  She quickly tied her shoes and hurried- silently- out of the house.  Her mother had gone to bed hours ago, claming she had a headache.  Kansas had made herself stay downstairs and finish the movie she was watching before running upstairs to her room.  It was now almost 1 a.m.  On her way up, she had checked on her mother, deciding to just tell her she wanted to make sure she was okay, were Marina to be awake.  The older blonde was sound asleep and breathing slow and even.

Kansas hopped the fence easily, Nina sitting on the back stoop of her house, one bare foot crossed over the other.  Sitting next to her was a wrapped gift.  "Hey," Kansas said, sitting next to her.

"Hi.  Here."  She handed the package to the blonde.  "You weren't talking to me during your birthday."  She gave the teen a rueful smile.  "Happy birthday."

"Thanks."  Kansas took the small package.

"I wasn't sure what to get the girl who has the world by the tail." Nina smiled at the look she received.

"I hardly think that's true, but thanks, anyway."  Kansas quickly unwrapped the gift, thrilled to find a brand new iPod with headphones.

"Figure you can finally let your old one retire and put some new miles on this one."

"Thank you, Nina," the blonde said, truly touched.  She ran her thumb over the smooth packaging of the music player, then looked over at the beautiful woman sitting next to her.  "You know what I would have loved to get for my eighteenth birthday?" she asked softly.

"What's that?" Nina brought her legs up, feet dangling off the stoop.  She wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her cheek on them as she looked over at her friend.

Kansas met the blue gaze, quickly getting lost in it.  "A kiss.  From you."

Nina felt her heart skip a beat, the pounding resuming with a slowly released breath.  She lifted her head, unable to break the intense gaze aimed at her.  Without a word, she reached a hand out, cupping Kansas' face and drawing it toward her.  Kansas gripped the step beneath her to balance as she leaned over.  She was shocked at how soft Nina was, how gentle.  The couple groping sessions she'd had with her one and only boyfriend hadn't prepared her for the wonders of a kiss with a woman.  A kiss with Nina.

The attorney slid her hand around to cup the back of Kansas' neck, gently pulling her in closer, tilting her head slightly as the kiss deepened.  Her heart was pounding, warning bells going off in her head as she used just the barest tip of her tongue to touch the inside of the blonde's lip.  She couldn't stop what was happening, even though somewhere inside she knew she had to.

Kansas was filled with fire, a life-long need exploding within her.  She brought up a hand, needing to touch Nina, to feel her skin, and know she was truly there.

Nina started, gasping as her breast was taken in a hot hand, through her t-shirt.  "Whoa," she panted, breaking the kiss and covering Kansas' hand with her own. "Wait, Kansas. . . "

"What?" the blonde asked, her body demanding more.  She was nearly out of control of it.

"I can't," Nina whispered, "We can't."  She gently removed the hand from her breast, tucking her fingers through Kansas'.  "Please understand that."  She looked into hooded green eyes, seeing her own desires reflected back at her in Kansas' flushed features.