“I am going through the archives and finding every single one of those women. I am writing to those who still live and asking them if they’ve kept experimenting, still observing, still collecting specimens in their field. I am going to make suresomeoneremembers these women and their work, even if it is only myself.” She broke off, chest heaving on something that was almost a sob. Her voice dropped to a whisper, as if she were confessing her greatest, most agonizing secret: “Because I am sick to death of feeling alone.”
“You never have to feel alone.”
Lucy’s eyes snapped wide at Catherine’s whispered response. She caught her breath and turned toward the countess with questions written plain on her face.
There were rare moments, Catherine knew, where even the steadiest compass could shift. Bring a magnet too close to one and it would twist around to point to the magnet instead of true north; sailors told strange stories of high and icy latitudes where compasses would spin and wobble like the legs of drunken men. For some months now Catherine had felt her own internal compass spinning helplessly as the terrain beneath her shape-shifted.
But the needle had stopped spinning now: stone-steady, iron-true, and fixed irrevocably on Lucy Muchelney. “I remember what you wrote,” Catherine said. “Nothing in the universe stands alone. Everything is connected—in real, mathematical,provableways—across the span of the entire cosmos. As long as we live, we influence one another. You and these women you’ve rediscovered... but also you and me. I was wrong to ask you to leave. To say there could be nothing permanent between us. We’re already forever.” Catherine reached out a hand and slid her lamp over to blaze beside Lucy’s, tapping the metal base with a deliberate finger. “We thought we were separate satellites, but we aren’t. We’re stars, and though we might burn separately, we’ll always be in one another’s orbit.”
The book Lucy was holding slipped from her hands and thunked softly to the floor. “I was only leaving because I thought it’s what you wanted,” she said. A single silver tear spilled over and slipped sparkling down her cheek.
“I want you,” Catherine whispered, and opened her arms.
Lucy dove at her, her tall, slim body slamming into Catherine’s sturdier form, while her mouth opened desperately against the countess’s lips. It was a hard, harsh kiss, born of fear and flame, and it seared into ash everything that had come between them.
Catherine gave over to it entirely as she buried her fingers in Lucy’s hair and kissed her and kissed her and kissed her until she could no longer taste the salt of Lucy’s tears.
It was only when Lucy’s nails scraped Catherine’s collarbone and she gasped aloud that she realized Lucy had been swiftly, determinedly untying and unbuttoning and shoving aside as much as she could of Catherine’s clothing. The countess freed her hands to shrug hurriedly out of the dressing gown as Lucy’s fingers dove further into the opened neck of her nightdress, pinching her nipples and pushing the fabric down to bare one shoulder. Lucy nipped newly revealed skin while Catherine moaned and let her head fall back; the dressing gown clutched in Lucy’s other hand made a useful lever for her to pull Catherine down to the thick library rug.
Everything was limbs and quickening breath and the tangle of fabric, too much to strip easily in their haste. Lucy pulled away to lean over Catherine, her bodice gaping and her hair a tangle, lamplight from the table above giving her a martyr’s halo as her panting breath swirled hot against Catherine’s skin. “Tell me what you need,” she demanded. “Anything. All of me. It’s yours for the asking.”
“I want...” Catherine began, but couldn’t even wait long enough to finish the sentence. Instead she wrapped an arm around Lucy’s shoulders and pulled her down for another kiss. Catherine’s other hand yanked up yards of expensive, fashionable skirts with expert embroidery that the countess felt snag and pull beneath her hasty fingers. She swore to repair it with her own needle tomorrow morning.
But tomorrow morning was an age away.
Tonight there was only the woman above and the woman below, setting one another aflame.
It had been less than a day since Lucy had kissed her farewell so solemnly. Less than three since they’d last shared a bed. But it felt as though Catherine had lived a whole, empty, lonely life in that short stretch of time. Decades waiting to press Lucy’s slim hip in her palm again, unseen but solid beneath the tumble of petticoats and skirts. Centuries until she could lick the sweet spot at the base of Lucy’s throat, her bodice and stays spread wide as a rose in summer and her breasts rising and falling beneath her chemise as she begged for more. And a star’s lifespan until Catherine could move lower and tongue the wet, hot folds between Lucy’s legs, her senses dizzied by the scents of sweat and linen and musk, until Lucy cried out and shivered with the force of her need. Catherine used everything she’d learned about curling her fingers justso, and pressing up firmly with the angled heel of her hand, all while she licked and sucked and tongued relentlessly until Lucy broke and came with a soft sound almost like a sob.
Catherine kept going, fingers sliding through the sweet slickness and heat, until Lucy pulled back.
Strong fingers curled around Catherine’s wrist, and silver eyes afire with resolve blazed against the darkness. “Bedroom. Now,” she growled, and Catherine thrilled at the urgency, her pulse beating a hot and hasty tattoo.
Never had Catherine been so grateful her bedroom was close to the library. They extinguished one of the lamps and took the other with them down the hallway, mussed and heated and panting. Lucy’s grip on Catherine’s wrist never slackened until the door was shut behind them, and then she began stripping herself and Catherine of clothing so methodically that it made Catherine tremble. There was a fervency she hadn’t seen before, a desperation that reminded her of some of the darker moments of her past.
She sucked in a breath on a shiver as her nightdress fluttered to the floor like a ghostly maiden, dead of a broken heart.
Lucy turned to face her and tilted her head, eyes glinting in the dimness. Her voice was harsh, though she spoke low. “Afraid, my love?”
Catherine swallowed. “A little. But I like it.”
Lucy hummed satisfaction in the back of her throat. Gripping Catherine’s shoulders, she walked her back until the older woman came up hard against the bedpost. Strong hands slid up Catherine’s arms, pulling her hands high above her head. Lucy clasped her hands in place, twining them around carven oak. “Don’t move unless I say,” she said, and bit Catherine’s earlobe.
Catherine let out a soft wordless cry, then nodded.
Lucy murmured approval, nudged Catherine’s feet slightly apart, and proceeded to drive Catherine nearly out of her skin with pleasure. Lucy’s hands were everywhere, sliding and teasing, every caress a prelude to the heat and slickness of that generous, tormenting mouth. Catherine gripped the wood of the bedpost until she feared it might crack, eagerly following Lucy’s every whispered command:this way, a little more, hold still, don’t you dare come yet.Moonlight silvered the long line of Lucy’s back as she sank to her knees—not submissively, as one conquered, but as a queen kneels at a coronation.
Catherine was wound so tight with it all that she nearly tumbled over the edge into climax when she felt Lucy’s sigh blow hot over the aching flesh between her legs. She let out a warning noise, barely more than a throaty squeak, and heard Lucy’s knowing laugh unroll like velvet in the darkness. “Just a little more, love.”
She trailed one hand languidly up Catherine’s plump thigh, nudged her open a little wider, and slid a single finger inside her.
Catherine’s head dropped back as Lucy thrust—one finger, then two. Then, while her tongue slid hot and hard against the nub buried in softly curling hair, a third. Catherine gasped as shestretched—more than she’d ever taken, a fit so tight it was almost like pain—but a good pain, one that sharpened every one of her senses and slid through her bright and cold as starlight as she teetered on the brink, panting as though she perched wavering on a high peak, about to step off solid rock and into the vast, welcoming nothingness beyond.
“Now,” Lucy murmured, half demand and half promise. She gripped Catherine’s hip to hold her in place, gave one more wicked flick of her tongue, and thrust hard with all three fingers.
Catherine exploded into orgasm with a wild, half-desperate keening. Every muscle seized and throbbed as brilliance tore through her, a flood of light and scintillation and sweet, sparkling relief. She clenched so tight around Lucy’s hand that Lucy had to stop moving—a pleased murmur vibrated from Lucy’s mouth into Catherine’s flesh and sent her tumbling into another endless climax.
At length, as the waves faded and the world came slipping back, Lucy eased herself free and Catherine collapsed into her arms, knees weak and thighs aching with exertion. They stayed that way as Catherine’s frantic breathing slowed, Lucy’s tall form a bulwark against the inward storm.
