Her hands skimmed the surface of her stomach, tracing the soft curves of her hips and the dip just above her pelvic bone. She had touched herself before, but it was hurried, functional, and with the lights off, breathing quiet so no one would hear.
Not like this, though.
Not as the woman who had stood beneath a starlit sky while another woman whispered her name like it was sacred.
Her palms smoothed over her thighs, up her ribs, her touch firm and slow. She memorized her own shape, this body, her body. The swell of her breasts, the hard points of her nipples rising against the air, aching not from shame but from memory.
Emma’s mouth.
Emma’s tongue.
Her own sighs echoing in the cabin as desire unfurled for the first time without guilt or apology.
She cupped one breast and closed her eyes. A soft moan spilled from her lips, not for someone else to hear. Just for her.
Her other hand drifted lower, parting water, gliding over soft folds slick with more than bath oil. Her breath caught as her fingers found that familiar ache, but she didn’t rush.
She moved like she had time, like she was worth the time.
With every stroke, memories surfaced of Emma on her knees, her voice thick with reverence, saying, “You taste like salt and sun, darlin’. Like you were born to be devoured.”
Olivia gasped, her hips lifting just enough to send a ripple across the water. She circled slow, coaxing pleasure from herself, her body responsive and alive. She didn’t imagine someone else touching her; she stayed inside herself, completely, fiercely present.
When she came, it was soft and deep, like a wave cresting beneath the surface. No gasping or theatrics. Just release. Just hers.
She lay back in the tub, thighs trembling, chest rising and falling in gentle rhythm. Her fingers floated, her body humming, her soul quiet.
Not because she was numb, but because she was home with herself.
She smiled then, tears slipping down her cheeks unnoticed, and whispered into the steam, “I’m still here.”
18
Chapter Eighteen - Emma
Emma had always found comfort in the silence. It was the very thing that had drawn her to the desert in the first place. Out here, silence wasn’t emptiness, it was space. It was grace. It was permission to let the noise inside settle, to let wounds scab and soul fragments shift into alignment.
But now, the quiet scraped at her nerves like grit beneath the skin.
She stood in the center of her cabin, arms folded across her chest, staring at the bed Olivia had slept in for nights she could no longer count. The blanket was still bunched at the foot, the pillow still hollowed from the weight of her head, her scent a lingering warmth that hadn't yet faded. Emma had stripped the sheets twice and washed them once, and still, it was there, sun-kissed skin, sage oil, and that faint thread of something floral and unknowable that Emma now associated with surrender.
The bed looked wrong without her in it. The whole room did.
She moved through it like a stranger, touching objects that felt like they should still be warm. The old lantern on the dresser.The glass she had brought her water in. The tank top, pale blue and almost transparent with wear, folded at the end of the bed like Olivia had meant to come back for it. Emma picked it up and let it slide through her fingers. The fabric was soft, still holding the shape of Olivia’s body in the way that things do when they've been worn close.
She brought it to her face and inhaled.
The scent was immediate and brutal. Olivia.
It hit her in the chest, sharp and aching, too much and not enough.
Emma stood there for several long breaths, the top pressed to her face, her other hand clenched at her side. Every muscle in her body screamed to be still, to pretend, to not feel this. But the desert had stripped her of that habit. Olivia had stripped her of it, with her soft sighs and her laughter and the way she said Emma’s name like it was a tether and a prayer.
She needed to do something.
Emma stepped outside into the morning heat, barefoot and shirtless, her hair twisted back in a rough knot. The sun was already high, brutal against the dry sky, but she barely noticed. Her hand gripped the shirt like a lifeline and carried it down to the firepit.
She struck a match and watched the flame lick at the edge of the fabric. It caught fast.
