“Perhaps you’re right,” said Malini. “But I didn’t want to celebrate with them. I wanted to… reflect. And I wanted to wait.” Her gaze drifted. Traced Priya’s jaw. Her throat.
She opened the wine. One easy, graceful motion of her hands. “And now here you are.”
“Here I am,” Priya whispered back.
Malini leaned toward her. She raised the bottle, pressing the coolness of the rim against Priya’s lower lip. “Will you drink?” she asked.
“I think I’ve had enough,” Priya said softly. But she raised her own hand, tilting the bottle along with Malini, and felt the wine brush her lips—felt the sweetness of it burst on her tongue. And then they were lowering the bottle together. Letting it meet the floor. And Malini was cupping Priya’s face in her palms and tilting her face up.
The kiss was—gentle. There were no words that Priya could find inside herself for it. No more than a brush of their lips; nothing more than the caress of Malini’s breath on her skin, and the scent of her—smoke and salt, and sweet jasmine oil.
Malini leaned in closer and touched her fingertips to Priya’s upper arm. A light touch. Almost a question. When Priya said nothing, Malini dragged her fingers down. Her fingers were still soft, unmarked by calluses from weapons or physical work, but her touch was firm. When she drew her fingers up, her nails scraped Priya’s skin, leaving a slow, steady line of fire in their wake. Priya couldn’t help but make a noise—a thin, wanting thing.
“Do you still want to see if I’m capable of breaking you?” Malini asked. “Do you still want me to try?”
Something hushed, almost reverent in her voice, in the shape of her mouth, the look in her eyes. It made Priya feel dizzier than any wine; made her body feel like something alchemized.
“Yes,” Priya said. “Always. Yes.”
Malini tilted Priya’s face up herself and kissed her again; a slow, lush kiss that made Priya’s mouth part; made her feel drunk with desire, more human and more present in her own flesh than she had been in so long, so long, perhaps ever.
She could taste the wine on Malini’s lips now.
“Look,” Malini murmured. She took Priya’s hand and led her fingers to the chain around Malini’s throat. Guided them along her collarbone, down the ridges of metal against the skin and bone, to the husk of a flower that lay above her breasts.
“You still wear it,” Priya managed to say. It was hard to think, when Malini was so near her. Hard to think through the faint, warm haze of wine and the sight of Malini’s hair escaping its braid, sweetly unraveled, Malini’s throat bared.
“I do,” Malini said. “It reminds me of what I survived. And what I still have to do. And of you.” She curled her hand over Priya’s. Strong though Priya’s hand was, callused from war and work, it fit perfectly inside Malini’s own. “I would not be here without you.”
“Malini,” Priya said quietly.
“I like carrying a piece of you with me. A little of your magic. Sometimes when I lie back to sleep I feel it pulsing like a heartbeat. I feel it like your heart against mine. The warmth of it seeps right through me.” She hesitated, her thumb brushing shapes into Priya’s skin. “It makes me feel human.”
Priya was powerless to stop Malini encircling her wrist and drawing her hand down over soft skin, over the buttery silk of Malini’s blouse, over the shape of her body through cloth—the curve of her breasts, rising and falling with her breath. The narrowness of her rib cage. The velvet of Malini’s stomach. The curve of her hip, warm through the cloth of her sari.
“I am tired of wanting and not taking,” Malini said. So honest and clear. It felled Priya, just a little. Made her breath catch inside her.
“Then take,” Priya said. Wanted and wanted, with an ache that ran right through her. “Take, Malini. I’m here.”
“Come with me to the bed,” Malini whispered, and how could Priya refuse her? How could she want to?
There was hesitation in Malini: in the way she traced the lines of Priya’s throat with her nails, almost grasping, circling,holding, but not quite; in the bruising, then carefully softened pressure of her hand at Priya’s waist as she lowered her down to the bed. The punishing warmth of her mouth, then the tenderness of it, the feather-lightness of the way she kissed the corner of Priya’s eye, her cheek, the shell of her ear.
You want so much, Priya thought, her heart almost bursting over it. It shouldn’t have made her feel so fond. Shouldn’t have made her want to smile, or laugh with joy over it, even as she felt hot all over; even as she wanted to bare her throat and her wrists for the taking, part her legs and invite Malini to take anything, everything.You want so much, and all I want is for you to have whatever you desire.
She didn’t know if Malini had lain with anyone before. But she didn’t want to ask, and she wasn’t sure she truly cared. All that mattered was here and now, and the act of gently nudging Malini’s face with her own, Malini’s eyes meeting hers, so Priya could see nothing but the deep darkness of them, and Malini’s flushed cheeks. Her swollen mouth.
“Let me show you how to break me,” Priya said. She raised her hand to cup Malini’s cheek; to hold her as tenderly as she always wanted, and hardly ever could. “Please. Let me.”
Malini gave the barest nod. And Priya held her one moment longer, drinking the sight of her in, then began the work of gently unhooking Malini’s blouse and easing it from her shoulders.
“Like this,” Priya whispered, as she undid the perfect pleats of Malini’s sari and brushed cloth away from Malini’s skin; as she touched and kissed her way over supple flesh and sharp bones, the faint silvery tracery of marks where skin had stretched or scarred; as she bared Malini entirely, pressing her down to the bed. Malini watched her all the way, gaze never wavering.
There was a biding, hungry patience in those eyes, learning every time Priya touched her; as Priya’s hair brushed her thighs and Priya nudged with her nose at the soft skin at the bend of Malini’s knee. She smiled up at Malini, and Malini’s dark gaze went warm in response. She reached down—touched her thumb to the curve of Priya’s eyebrow.
“Will you let me in?” Priya asked softly, flushing all over even as she said it. But Malini did not blush or squirm; only held Priya’s gaze as she parted her legs and pressed a hand gently, inexorably against Priya’s scalp, her fingers tangling deliberately into the lengthy darkness of her hair.
“Priya,” she whispered, and that almost undid Priya—almost made her fly apart, as if her own skin couldn’t contain her. “Priya. Sweetheart. Show me.”
