"I know."
"They're going to destroy me. Shaw has been waiting for this. He's going to use your audit to end my career."
"I know." Marianne's voice was heavy with guilt. "Isla, I'm so sorry. I never meant for the documentation to be used like this."
"I know you didn't." Isla pulled back just enough to look at her. Marianne's face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She had been crying too. "I don't blame you. You were doing your job."
"I was supposed to protect you." The words came out broken. "I was supposed to find a way to make this work."
"You tried. We both tried." Isla cupped Marianne's face in her hands. "Right now, I don't want to talk about the audit or the board or any of it. I just want to forget. For a little while. Can you help me forget?"
The kiss was desperate from the start.
Isla pressed Marianne against the wall of the entryway, her mouth hungry and demanding. She needed to feel something other than fear. Needed to lose herself in sensation, in pleasure, in the woman who had become her anchor in this chaos.
Marianne responded with equal desperation, her hands pulling at Isla's clothes with none of the careful patience they usually showed. This wasn't about tenderness. This was about survival. About two people clinging to each other in the face of catastrophe.
They made it to the bedroom in a tangle of half-removed clothing and urgent kisses. Isla pushed Marianne onto the bed and climbed on top of her, needing to feel the weight of her own body pressing down, needing the physical contact like she needed air.
"Touch me," she demanded. "Make me feel something other than terrified."
Marianne's hands found her hips, pulling her closer. "I've got you."
The sex was rough and frantic, born of desperation rather than desire. Isla needed to feel something other than the cold dread that had taken up residence in her chest. She needed Marianne's hands on her, Marianne's body beneath her, someproof that this connection was still real even as everything else fell apart.
"Harder." She gasped the word against Marianne's throat. "I need to feel you."
Marianne's fingers pressed deeper, curling them so deeply it made Isla's back arch, and pushed away thought and fear and replaced them with pure sensation. Two fingers became three, the stretch and fullness exactly what Isla needed. Her own hand mirrored the movements, working Marianne with the same intensity.
They moved together in a rhythm that was more battle than dance. Sweat-slicked skin sliding against skin. Muscles tensing and releasing. The sounds of their breathing harsh in the quiet room.
"Look at me." Marianne's voice was strained. "I need to see you."
Isla opened her eyes and found Marianne's gaze locked on her face. There was something desperate in those blue eyes, something that looked like fear and love and hopelessness all mixed together. The same emotions Isla was feeling.
They climbed together, bodies pressed tight, breath mingling in gasps and moans. Isla felt the orgasm building from somewhere deep inside her, felt it coiling tighter with each thrust of Marianne's fingers, each brush of her thumb against the sensitive bundle of nerves.
"I'm close," she gasped.
"Me too. Together."
Marianne shifted her angle, pressed harder, and Isla felt herself going over the edge. She cried out as the orgasm crashed through her, her inner walls clenching around Marianne's fingers, her whole body shaking with the force of the release.
She felt Marianne follow seconds later, heard her voice joining in a chorus of pleasure and pain. Their bodies trembled together, aftershocks rippling through them both.
Isla collapsed forward, pressing her forehead against Marianne's shoulder, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Marianne's fingers were still inside her, and she could feel the flutter of Marianne's pulse where their bodies were joined. For a long moment they stayed like that, tangled and trembling, neither willing to break the connection.
Then Marianne withdrew her hand, and the loss felt like something more than physical.
"Again," Isla whispered against her throat. "I need more."
Marianne responded by rolling them over, pressing Isla into the mattress with the weight of her body. Her mouth found Isla's breast, teeth grazing the sensitive peak while her hand slid back between Isla's thighs. She wasn't gentle this time. Her fingers pushed inside with an urgency that bordered on rough, and Isla arched into it, welcoming the stretch, needing the intensity.
"Is this what you want?" Marianne's voice was rough, her breath hot against Isla's skin. "To feel something other than afraid?"
"Yes." The word came out broken. "Make me feel something. Anything."
Marianne obliged. She fucked her with a relentlessness that left no room for thought, her fingers curling against the spot that made Isla see white. Her mouth moved from breast to collarbone to throat, leaving marks that Isla would have to hide tomorrow. Her free hand pinned Isla's wrist to the pillow, holding her in place while her body writhed beneath the onslaught.
