She presses her lips to Danika’s, and they yield under hers. They are soft and warm, like most women’s lips, but there’s a tremor to them that is delightful. Kim caresses gently, coaxing Danika’s lips apart, just a little, to trace the inner surface with her tongue. She pushes her fingers into Danika’s hair.
Danika moans, a breathy sound, and her mouth opens under Kim’s.
Kim dances her tongue over Danika’s lips again, and the taste of her makes her head spin. If this is all there is, if this is Danika experimenting, if reality bites in the morning, they will have had this kiss and nothing can erase that.
She opens her eyes, sees Danika’s pale skin washed golden in the torchlight. And then Danika rolls onto her back without releasing Kim. She’s pulled down so that she’s lying half on top of Danika. Their breasts press together, Kim’s leg slides over Danika’s, and Danika’s arms wrap around Kim as if afraid she will withdraw.
No hope in hell of that, unless it’s what Danika wants.
The kiss deepens.
Danika arches her back, pushing her breasts into Kim’s. Sparks arc between them. Kim is sure they must be visible in the air, sure their passion will set the tent alight.
But she mustn’t presume. She draws back, enough to put air between their lips. “Are you okay? Is this what you want?”
“It’s what I want. Truly it is.”
But her words don’t match the tiny flinch of withdrawal.
Kim goes cold. She’s overstepped, read this wrong, and now it will be the worst sort of uncomfortable.
Danika presses a hand to Kim’s cheek. “No! It’s not what you’re thinking. The girls. They’re so close. And if they should wake…I can’t… here.”
She’s right.
Wherever they are going, whatever they are going to do, it can’t be now. Not with Bella and Cami sleeping only a metre or so away. If they wake, call out, or if they justhear. She pulls back, slips off Danika and moves back to her own sleeping bag, pulls the liner over her, the polyester shiny and artificial against her skin. For a moment, she thinks of the touch of Danika’s legs.
She nods, the words, “you’re right” scratching in her throat. She rolls onto her side, facing Danika. “What do you want to do now?”
“Now?” Danika hums. “Do you mean now, this moment, or now, going forward?”
“I meant going forward, but I’ll take either answer.”
“Now, I’m going to have some water, stick my head out the tent to see if we’ve woken the kids, and then I’m going to try to sleep. I think my dreams will be interesting.”
“And the future?”
“I don’t know, Kim. I really don’t know. But”—she reaches out a hand and touches Kim’s arm, then withdraws—“this wasn’t some whim, some experiment. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Every sapphic journey has to start somewhere.”
“Is that what this is?” Danika smiles, shadowy in the dim light.
“Only you can know that.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Danika
They swam, went bushwalking along a section of the Great Ocean Walk, played soccer on the beach, went on a nature walk with torches, constructed fantastical cities out of sand, and ate more than Danika would have thought possible. Yesterday, giving in to pleas, they drove to Port Fairy and went out on a boat, and, eschewing the leftovers (of which there weren’t many anyway) bought fresh bream from a trawler and marinated tofu from a deli and cooked them for supper.
And nighttime in the tent… Heat steals up Danika’s cheeks at the memory. They didn’t talk about it more. No lesbian processing, as Kim called it. When Danika pointed out that she certainly doesn’t qualify as a lesbian, Kim just shrugged. “Neither do I. I’m bisexual. Maybe pansexual.”
Instead of processing, they kissed. Nothing more. Just long, slow, silent kisses. Lips that drifted and meandered along cheeks. Fingers that tracked the same path, moved wisps of hair out of the way.
Danika isn’t sure what she’s doing. She isn’t sure what this is with Kim.
And, importantly, she doesn’t know what it will be. What it can be.
