The clear glass slipped from her hand before either of them noticed, rolling once across the carpet a quick, skittering circle before clattering to a stop. What was left of the drink emptied at once, darkening a small patch of pile with a sudden chill.
Grace Barron had no attention left for such trivialities. She was lost, consumed, grasping wildly for the thing her body screamed it needed.
Two breaths tangled, uneven and desperate, rising against one another until they blurred into one rhythm, one heat. In the golden sway of lamplight, the air between them thickened, sticky and heated, as if the whole room was caught in an endless fever.
Grace had lived more than twenty years, most of them in austere self-control, a person of simple wants and clean lines. She had never craved anything so recklessly, never let herself fall so wholly into hunger. Yet now she felt bewitched, strung with invisible threads, every action surging ahead of thought. It was as if her mind had burned away, leaving only raw want.
Inside her, an unseen flame caught. It burned slow but steady, licking through the hollows, and the ache it left behind demanded release—somewhere, anywhere, a place to pour all of it out.
The woman in front of her was so soft. Soft like a piece of cloud. Her mouth softer still, like a flower bud with venom on its lips. Whatever Grace did, it wasn't enough. She could not stop kissing her.
That strange, unsayable feeling took the reins and rode her hard. Grace gathered Oakley Ponciano in with both arms; the heel of her palm pressed and pressed, wrinkling the thin fabric at Oakley's waist.
She didn't know any answer except to hold on tighter, to find the mouth and return to it, to spend the heat before it ate her alive.
But nothing was enough. She pressed harder. The sound that rose from Oakley's throat—thin, helpless, breaking—struck straight through Grace like a live wire.
Mouth chasing mouth, Oakley's heart hammered—so fast it felt like it might leap from her chest. Her own arms locked around Grace. She tipped herself forward, offering what she could, trying to erase the inches between them.
How strange, she thought dimly—this kiss didn't quench a drought; it made her thirstier. Thirstier than before the first sip. So thirsty she didn't know what to do with herself. All she found she could do was answer Grace, lift her chin higher and higher to take more of that heat.
The small, eager tilt of Oakley's jaw only tightened the coil in Grace's nerves. Her palm eased from hair to skull, urging, deepening, taking.
Two pulses thudded faster in the dark.
The slick, tender give of lips felt like a potent draught, an elixir that overtook the blood; whatever she did, there was still a not-enough gnawing at the edges. Grace's mind had never unraveled this completely. She was a stretch of sand gone under midnight surf; what passed for reason in her was washed clean away, leaving only the pull of tide and breath.
They didn't know how long it was before they broke a little apart. Both of them panted, eyes open, and still they didn't quite surface. They hovered just beneath—thought submerged, body speaking.
Nose to nose, Grace slid her hand from the back of Oakley's head to the soft place at her nape and drew her closer by a fraction. "Oakley," she said, voice low, roughened.
"Mm?" Oakley's eyes, smoky with mist, found her. Every look was too tender, a hook that would not let Grace look away.
Grace swallowed and didn't speak. Something dark and bright moved in her gaze, a tide under moon.
Oakley bit her lower lip and straightened just enough to catch the hem of Grace's shirt. Her fingers tightened there. A whisper, small and bare: "I like you. So much."
"Hm?" Grace was still breathless, still unsteady; even her voice had dropped to a deeper key.
Oakley kept her chin tipped, lips parted around the soft draw of air. Her lashes hovered half-closed. She looked like a woman who hadn't had enough. "I—I think…"
She didn't finish the thought. Color rose, faint but definite, across her cheekbones. Whether she meant it or not, she seemed to be inviting Grace further in.
"Think what?" Grace's gaze fell from her mouth to the neat dip of her collarbones, the shallow bowl made by bone and light.
This woman was lethal.
Oakley worried her lip and leaned closer until her chin rested on Grace's shoulder. "A little uncomfortable."
"Uncomfortable?" Grace turned a fraction. "What kind?"
Was it the drink? Or—Grace heard again the phrase Oakley had tossed out earlier, something about a river breaking its banks.
Even letting that image in sent the fire racing again.
Oakley's cheek brushed her, a small, instinctive nudge. "I don't know. Just… uncomfortable."
The word was a veil. Everything underneath it was heat.
She bent to Grace's ear and breathed, "Kiss me."
It was a plea dressed as a pet name. It landed like the gentlest order in the world, and Grace's senses opened to it at once.
She turned her head, bewitched, one arm sealing Oakley at the waist, and found Oakley's mouth again.
When the next tide of breath came over them, Oakley's lashes trembled. The edges of the room turned to soft white fog.
Her already-blurred consciousness drifted further, and in the space that yielded, desire spread wider—a sea waking under wind. Water lifted and fell. Her scalp tingled, her limbs numbed, little shocks traveling out to her fingertips. Strength was a rope letting go.
She couldn't hold herself steady. She fell backward, pulling.
Grace missed the catch. They went down together, a tangle onto the bed.
Night deepened outside the windows. Their kisses went deeper too, one impulse sinking into the next until nothing held shape.
At some point they slept.
Morning found Grace first. Oakley was still under, heavy with rest.
Daylight had already flooded the room; it poured through white curtains and pooled on the floor. Grace half closed her eyes against it.
Her throat felt parched, a scratch she wanted to smooth with water.
She started to push up.
But the sight beside her tugged her gaze and kept it. Oakley lay on her side, warm and pliant, hair thick across the pillow, the hem of her slip tugged high enough to barely cover the tops of her thighs. She slept like a child invited to a kinder world. Her cheek looked as if an angel had stopped there and left the faintest kiss.
Grace stared, and with staring came a scatter of images—wild, hot, unruly. They rose together, fragments that still burned where they touched. Her hand went to her temple, pressing.
Had it happened? Or had it only been a dream? She couldn't tell. Not for sure.
She frowned, slid from the bed, found her slippers by muscle memory. When her feet met the carpet, she saw it: the empty glass lying on its side.
She bent to pick it up. The moment the cool, familiar weight settled in her hand, her pupils pinched tight.
So it hadn't been a dream at all.
The kiss had happened. Completely. Truly. Here.
She looked back at the woman asleep on the bed, set the quilt on the bedside table, and walked to the bathroom.
Light on. In the mirror, Grace pressed her lips into a thin line.
Honestly. She lifted a hand to her forehead, tipped her head toward the ceiling, closed her eyes, and let the ache ebb.
Was she really that kind of person? The thought knocked slightly askew the outline she kept of herself.
She opened her eyes again, rinsed her mouth, washed her face, and went back out. One more glance at Oakley—still sleeping, breath like silk—then she slipped from the room, hand on the banister, a little dazed as she went downstairs. In the kitchen she opened the fridge, took out a few things, and began to make breakfast.
When she tore open the bag of sliced bread, she paused, looking down at her own hands.
She hadn't done anything… more outrageous, had she?
She shouldn't have. There was no memory of it.
Grace shook her head, set the bread aside to air, and turned to a head of broccoli.
Half an hour later, two plates were on the counter. She wiped her hands, carried them to the dining table, and headed upstairs. The bedroom door opened to Oakley still asleep. At the sound, Oakley's shoulder stirred; a small, drowsy hum drifted out. "Your bed is so good," she murmured, voice thick and sweet as if with a candy resting on the tongue. "What brand is the mattress? I want one…"
Grace paused, moved closer. "Do you want to sleep a little more or get up and eat now? Breakfast is ready. If you're going back to sleep, I'll eat first."
Oakley shifted, a shallow yawn behind her lashes; the white of her legs nudged against the sheets. "I'll get up…"
"Mm." Grace angled toward the door. "I'll wait downstairs."