Elise opened the door, walked in first, and then pulled Harper inside. She’d barely closed it before her mouth went to Harper’s neck. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she murmured, pressing lips to skin.
“But you want it to happen, right?” Harper asked, pressing Elise up against the wall right beneath a painting of the Amalfi Coast with sailboats bobbing on choppy waters. “You’re not going to ask me to leave again, are you?”
“No,” Elise said, smiling. Her lips were swollen and bright red. “I’m not.”
Harper wanted to ask if she was sure, but didn’t. Just in case Elise changed her mind. There was no reason to risk something like that when it wasn’t worth risking. Besides, Harper was beginning to sound needy, and she wasn’t needy. Not usually. Not with anyone else. So, she kissed Elise’s shoulder instead and said, “You’re so beautiful,” before moving her lips to Elise’s neck and her hands to her waist. “Do you know that?”
Elise giggled. Harper had never heard her giggle. “You know I don’t like compliments.”
“I don’t care.” She picked Elise up and carried her over to the small navy blue sofa pressed up against the wall, but then did a quick one-eighty toward the bedroom. There was no way the sofa was wide enough for what Harper wanted to do. When they reached the bedroom, Harper had barely set Elise down before they grabbed at each other. Hands tangled in hair. Harper slipped her fingers under Elise’s top and pulled it over her head. Harper took off her own top and bra as Elise was undoing her own bra. Then Elise fumbled with the waistband of Harper’s jeans until she managed to yank the zipper free. By the time Harper stepped out of her pants, Elise’s pants were already slipping down her knees.
“Wow, you’re so beautiful,” Harper said again. And damn, she really was. Her skin was smooth and buttery. Her breasts were perky and full. And Harper’s breath nearly hitched at the elegant strip of pubic hair that led down to folds so perfect she could barely get her thoughts in order. Not that she had to.Because Elise pulled Harper flush against her, skin to skin, and her mind went entirely blank.
All she could focus on was what was right in front of her. After a decade, Elise Mercier’s lips were on Harper’s neck and her fingers were skimming down Harper’s waist.
Harper had to do everything she could not to let the buzz between her thighs take over the rest of her body. She wanted to take her time, to savor every second.
Harper cupped Elise’s breast and swiped her thumb over her perky right nipple. She then swapped the swiping for pinching and Elise moaned so loud it triggered a memory from ten years ago: Elise’s nipple in Harper’s mouth, Elise arching into the bite, the inky black sky that seemed to fold inward and collapse into a single point where Harper’s lips touched her skin.
Harper hadn’t thought it was possible to miss something she’d only had once. And yet here she was, ten years later, feeling like her whole life had been one long wait to touch Elise again.
Before Harper could drown in that memory, she decided to make a new one, and she pushed Elise onto the bed. The mattress was so bouncy that Elise rebounded an inch, causing her legs to fall open in a way that left Harper entirely breathless. She crawled over her, lowering herself until her right knee slotted between Elise’s legs and her thigh pressed right up against Elise’s heat.
Elise was already wet.
“OMG,” Elise muttered, her head lolling back onto the mattress. She cupped Harper’s ass and, in the same heartbeat, started circling her hips up and down, around and around. Harper was surprised she knew exactly what she wanted, but then again, maybe that was the point. Ten years of pretending, ten years of wanting, ten years of trying to be someone else—it all seemed to pour into the way Elise moved against her now.
“This feels so fucking good,” Elise breathed.
Harper couldn’t agree more. The feeling of her skin on Elise’s skin was like a fire that had once burned itself out and then exploded back to life. She’d forgotten how good this could feel, how good it was supposed to feel. She’d forgotten about the butterflies in her stomach, the way her body should feel like it was dizzily floating. Or maybe she’d never actually experienced it before. Maybe she’d just been pretending. Because nothing and no one had knocked her sideways like this in ten years.
She bent down and kissed Elise like she’d wanted to every day since the first time their lips had met. Elise made a sound that punched straight through Harper’s chest. It was a tiny, desperate noise, like she’d been holding it in for a decade. Her hands slid up Harper’s back, fingers pressing into her shoulder blades as if to anchor her there.
“I thought I made you up,” Elise whispered against her mouth. “Sometimes at night I’d think about that night and convince myself I’d exaggerated it. Or that I’d imagined how much I wanted you.”
Harper pulled back just enough to look at her. Elise’s eyes were glossy, lashes damp, the curve of her mouth kiss-swollen and soft. “You didn’t imagine it,” Harper said. Her voice came out rougher than she had intended. “I’ve been trying not to think about that night for ten years, and I failed. Miserably.”
Elise gave a tight, broken laugh. “Me too.”
Harper kissed the corner of her mouth, and then the place beneath her ear that had made her shiver ten years ago and still made her shiver now. The familiarity of it wrecked her. The way Elise tilted her head to give her more access, like her body remembered exactly what to do, wrecked her even more.
“I’m sorry,” Harper said softly, brushing her lips along Elise’s throat. “For leaving. For not being brave.”
Elise’s hand slid into her hair and held her there. “I’m not exactly innocence personified here,” she murmured. “I marriedsomeone else too, remember? I chose ‘safe’ over this.” Her fingers tightened, just a little.
Harper kissed her way down Elise’s neckline to the valley between her breasts. Every inch felt like rediscovery and proof, and apology all at once. Harper could feel Elise trembling beneath her. Her muscles coiled with impatience, and her breaths came in short, choppy bursts.
“Harper,” Elise said. There was a plea in the word that made Harper’s stomach flip.
Harper answered without words. She kissed her way down Elise’s body, over her chest, her stomach, then settled between her thighs like she’d been meant to live there. She paused just long enough to feel Elise trembling under her hands, then she leaned in and dragged her tongue slowly through the slick heat waiting for her.
Elise’s gasp punched the air, sharp and helpless. Her fingers knotted in the sheets, then slid into Harper’s hair, holding her there. Harper did it again, slower this time, letting the taste of Elise settle on her tongue. She focused on the tiny movements—how Elise’s hips jerked when she flattened her tongue, how her breath broke when Harper circled that small, needy point at the top.
“Harper,” Elise breathed again. This time the call of her name was half warning, half plea.
Harper slid one finger inside her, then another, easing them in until Elise’s body clenched around them. She set a steady rhythm, her hand working in time with her mouth, tongue tracing tight, unhurried circles. Every sound Elise made went straight through Harper.
Elise’s thighs began to shake, and her muscles tightened under Harper’s palms. “Don’t stop,” she managed, voice wrecked.
