Lola’s eyes widened, flicking down to Brighton’s naked chest, breasts swaying as she came closer.
“Oh yeah?” Lola said, deftly peeling back the duvet to reveal her own full nakedness. She folded her arms. “Like what?”
Brighton had made it to her side of the bed now, and she slid her hands up Lola’s shins, over her knees to her thighs. Stopped right at their tops, reveled in the goose bumps she felt under her fingers.
“Charlotte…Mildred Donovan.”
“Over my dead body,” Lola said.
Brighton laughed, curled her hands toward each other. Lola sucked in a breath.
“Charlotte…Millicent Donovan.”
“What’s with theMnames?”
Brighton’s hands stilled, and she straddled Lola’s legs, pulling herself closer until their torsos met, Lola’s hands going to her hips.
Brighton looked at her—at her Lola—pupils wide, swollen mouth open a little.
“Charlotte…Beautiful,” she said, leaning down to kiss her.
“Now that’s just silly,” Lola said, but her voice was raspy and low.
“Charlotte…Sweet.” Another kiss.
“Who’d believe that?”
“Charlotte…Brilliant.”
“Obviously.”
Brighton laughed, then grew serious. “Charlotte Rosalind.”
Lola blinked for a second, her fingertips pressing into Brighton’s waist. Rosalind, for her violin, her quartet, the Shakespeare heroine who made her own way, adapted, fought for what she wanted no matter what.
“Charlotte Rosalind,” Brighton said again, a whisper against Lola’s mouth.
Lola met her kiss, then another, and soon there were no more words, just breath and sweat, Brighton’s body wrapped around Lola’s, moving, seeking. Lola slipped her hand between them, curled her fingers, and Brighton was crying out in a matter of seconds, Lola’s name on her lips.
When she recovered, Brighton climbed off and pushed Lola’s legs apart, then settled between them, not wanting to wait another second to taste her, tease her, slide her tongue right where Lola wanted it. Lola grabbed Brighton’s hair, tugging hard as she came, her cries so loud that Brighton felt a swell of pride, of pure elation that she could make this reserved woman sound so wild and frantic.
“You,” Lola said as Brighton kissed her thigh, Lola’s fingers still tangled in Brighton’s hair. And that was all she said. Justyou, but somehow those three tiny letters felt like the world, like five years evaporating.
“You,” Brighton said back, pressing her cheek to Lola’s leg, peering up at her.
She’d just decided she could stay like this forever, food and the outside world be damned, when both of their phones went off.
Brighton groaned. “Don’t. Don’t look.”
Lola laughed and grabbed her phone off the nightstand, then sighed wearily at the screen. “Looks like we’re free.”
“I refuse to admit defeat,” Brighton announced, sliding off the end of the bed, then walking to the nightstand to get her own phone.
Adele:Our front doors are clear, roads are plowed!
Manish:Thank god. I was about to eat my own leg
Sloane:Meet at the cars in ten?
