“Tell me,” Rosalie says, slowing her fingers. It’s her turn to direct.
Catherine whines. “Keep going.”
Rosalie strokes her very slowly, nothing like the pace she knows Catherine needs. “Tell me.”
Catherine growls and bucks her hips into Rosalie’s hand. “I lie on my stomach, with my hand between my thighs. Sometimes I—I readFanny Hillfirst.”
“The first scene, or the second?”
Catherine forgets to keep scowling and Rosalie rewards her with a few quick strokes that make her groan.
“Both,” Catherine admits.
“You get yourself ready for imaginary me?” Rosalie presses, moving her fingers in circles.
Catherine’s whole body undulates against her.
“If I’m not distracted before bed, just thinking of you gets me ready,” Catherine whispers. “I think about that afternoon and—”
“...how I could have gotten on the floor right there, and crawled up your skirts, and pressed my mouth right here?” Rosalie suggests, rubbing firmly.
Catherine gasps, her body jerking. Her thigh slips in between Rosalie’s legs and Rosalie groans. Which makes Catherine smirk,which forces Rosalie to change the angle of her fingers so Catherine’s jaw goes slack.
She can’t stop herself from rubbing against Catherine’s thigh, and after a moment, Catherine’s mouth crashes onto hers, and it’s a fast, hot minute until they’re falling apart together, Catherine’s hips pressing Rosalie’s hand into her hip bone, Rosalie grinding furiously against Catherine’s thigh until they’re messy and spent and laughing against each other again.
They lie there breathing for a long, contented moment before Catherine slips to Rosalie’s side and sprawls on her back, blissful and so incredibly beautiful. Rosalie turns, wrapping her arm over Catherine’s stomach. She props her chin up on Catherine’s chest and looks up to meet her flushed, blinking gaze.
“You look incredibly pretty splayed all over my sheets,” Rosalie decides.
Catherine flushes more, if it’s even possible. “Well, you look like a goddess when you come,” she says, tugging on Rosalie until she shifts, stretching out on top of Catherine, legs tangled.
“I hope this lived up to your imagination from all those nights alone in your bed,” Rosalie says. The moment the words leave her lips, she realizes just how desperately she wants them to be true. Wants to be sure Catherine enjoyed this—that it was good for her—that she’ll want to do it again.
Catherine snorts and threads their fingers together on her chest. “My imagination could never have imagined.” She frowns. “Or something cleverer than that.”
Rosalie feels herself grinning, her chest so light and full andhappy.
“And just think, with more practice, and some trips to the more salacious bookstores, we can dream up more imaginative things together,” she says, already wondering if she can get AuntGenevieve to share where she gets the tawdry novels she never lets Rosalie see, but Rosalie knows live somewhere in her dressing room.
Catherine’s smile dims a little. “That sounds wonderful,” she says softly.
Rosalie’s breath is finally slowing down, but the look on Catherine’s face threatens to make it start up again. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s nothing. This is magical,” Catherine says quickly, running her fingertips up and down Rosalie’s back.
It would lull her into sleep if she weren’t more in tune with Catherine’s expressions. But she’s spent the last two months watching the woman, and the last hour cataloguing every minute twitch of her brow, smile, giggle—she can’t let this go, not now.
“What is it?” Rosalie asks, firmer.
Catherine sighs. “I don’t want to ruin the mood.”
“A little too late for that,” Rosalie says honestly. “We’re already naked, what’s the use in hiding from me?” she adds, trailing her fingertips down the side of Catherine’s face. “Can’t be that scary when our tits are pressed together.”
Catherine laughs, surprised, and Rosalie can’t help but grin back. She wants to know—needs to know—what’s troubling her... lover? But it doesn’t need to be grim.
“I want to just lie here and catch my breath, and then go another round, or two, and kiss you until dawn,” Catherine says, shrugging a little. “But I also want to know what happens after dawn.”
“What’s between this and the simple engagement, marriage, husband of it all,” Rosalie surmises.
