Kim props herself up on one elbow. “What are the choices?”
“Kiss you.”
Kim smiles. “That sounds like a good option.”
“Or go to sleep.”
“Tough choice.” She tilts her head. “Is it something you want to talk about?”
Danika opens her mouth, the words already on her tongue. Kim would understand. But no. Now is not the time.
“I will. I have to. But I can’t now. I’m still working through…something.” She keeps her voice low, mindful of the kids close by.
“And this something is camping out in your head? I’m not trying to persuade you either way, Danika, but I can hold you if you’d like. Support you. I don’t need to know what your problem is. Sometimes it’s just good to be held by someone who cares.”
Someone who cares. Kim cares. Danika sucks a shuddery breath. Does that make it an easier or harder decision? But then, on some level, she’d already known Kim cares.
Just as she does.
But she owes Kim honesty now. “Thank you. But it concerns you, and it feels wrong to deepen what we have between us when…when I’m keeping something from you.”
Kim is silent for a moment. “Is it something bad? Something that I won’t like? Something that isn’t good for Bella or Cami?” Kim’s voice is also quiet.
“I don’t think so. Just something I have to work through.”
“I trust you, Danika. Whatever it is, I trust you to come out of this process in a good way. So I will hold you, kiss you, if that’s what you want. Or leave you alone to try to sleep.”
The concern in Kim’s voice is Danika’s undoing. The offer of comfort, the lack of prying. She turns off the torch then wriggles across the small space between them.
Kim rolls onto her back and opens her arms. Danika pushes aside her sleeping bag, Kim throws hers open and Danika settles against Kim’s side, one leg over both of Kim’s. She rests her head on Kim’s shoulder and sighs.
The wispy end of Kim’s plait tickles her cheek as Kim presses a kiss to the top of her head.
There’s a muted giggle from the other tent. So the girls aren’t asleep.
It’s comfortable lying here with Kim. Her chest rises and falls steadily, her arm wraps around Danika to stroke Danika’s upper arm, and the thump of her heartbeat resounds up through her chest.
Kim smells of wood smoke, and of the eucalyptus leaves they put on the fire. The skin of her shoulder is soft under Danika’s cheek, and she shuffles a bit to avoid the joint. Her cheek now rests on Kim’s chest, just above where her breast swells.
A burn starts in Danika’s belly, a pool of heat spreading out, spreading down. Kim’s not wearing a bra, and her breasts spill slightly to the sides. She’s a mature woman, not a perky teenager. There’s life and pregnancy changes to her body, as there are to Danika’s.
Kim’s thumb rubs a gentle back and forth on Danika’s upper arm.
Danika wraps her arm around Kim’s waist, and Kim’s touch moves to Danika’s shoulder, smooth caresses that touch on her collarbone. It’s not a sexual caress, but more the touch of a friend. Mirza has held Danika and comforted her in a similar way. But Kim’s touch doesn’t feel like Mirza’s. Mirza’s touch didn’t spark heat, didn’t ignite longing. Didn’t make Danika want to stretch up and kiss her.
She wants to.
She shouldn’t. Her thoughts are loud and insistent: she shouldnotdo this. Not now. For so many reasons, not now.
Danika closes her eyes and the yearning for Kim washes over her. She raises her head, stares Kim in the eyes for a moment, checking this is okay.
Kim smiles, and that’s enough. Danika lunges forward, presses her lips to Kim’s, grips her shoulder and rolls so their upper bodies touch. Kim’s breasts push into her own, and her nipples are hard bullets. The knowledge that Kim is aroused gives her confidence.
She deepens the kiss, letting her tongue drift across Kim’s lips until they part, then daring to dip her tongue inside. She doesn’t want to compare. Apart from Kim, Chris is the last person she kissed—the only person she kissed for so many years, and right now the comparison is odious and wrong. But one part of her mind registers how well Kim kisses, how soft, how smooth, how unhurried. As if kissing is the endgame, not just a prelude to fucking.
Kim smiles against Danika’s lips. She’s seemingly content to let Danika set the pace, and that emboldens her. She drifts her hand up Kim’s ribs, on top of the singlet, and her fingers stroke the lower curve of Kim’s breast. For long moments, that is enough. The only breasts she’s touched in this way are her own. Sometimes when she masturbates, she’ll stroke her breasts, circle her nipples and imagine a faceless person sucking them.She’s never imagined Chris when she masturbates—not ever. Self-pleasure is for fantasy.
Her fingers creep up, and she curves her hand around Kim’s breast. Hesitates.
