Billie kissed her deeper, not to seduce but to calm the panic clawing at her ribs. The taste of Debra, the way her lips parted eagerly…Billie let herself drown in it, just enough to silence the noise.
Debra broke the kiss with a soft hum, their noses brushing. “You don’t have to hide from me.”
“I’m not hiding,” she said, her heart clenching as that lie branded itself in her memory.
Debra smiled and held her gaze with a warmth that made Billie feel dangerously breakable. “Okay.”
Their mouths met again, slower this time. Billie’s hand slid up Debra’s back, drawing her close enough that she could almost feel her heartbeat. Debra’s lips grazed her skin, sending heat spiralling low in Billie’s stomach. The couch creaked, the world blurred, and Billie let herself fall into the moment.
But a part of her whispered the warnings in her mind.
This is too fast.
You’re losing control.
You don’t get to have things like this.
And all the while, Debra kept kissing her like the world was burning around them.
Billie exhaled, shaking and undone once again.
She wasn’t ready for this, but she wanted it anyway.
Debra shifted in her lap and sighed. “You feel so far away all of a sudden.”
Billie closed her eyes and swallowed inconspicuously. “I’m here.”
“For now…”
That landed far too close to the truth.
“Don’t think, Debra. Not tonight.”
Debra brought Billie’s hand up between them and pressed her lips to the back of it. That was enough to keep Billie in the room, in the moment, and in the presence of someone who didn’t ask more of her than the present.
For now…
Billie woke slowly,drifting gently in and out of consciousness. Before her eyes had even opened, she became aware of the warmth pressed along her back, the softness of a duvet that didn’t belong to her, and the hint of Debra’s perfume that clung to the pillow beneath her cheek. For a second or two, she allowed herself to simply feel it. Then that awareness fully caught up with her. This wasn’t her bed, and it wasn’t her flat. This wasn’t the safety of distance.
Debra was lying behind her, one arm draped loosely around Billie’s waist, her breath tickling Billie’s shoulder in a peaceful rhythm that spoke of trust, safety, and the kind of comfort Billie had pushed away for so many years.
Then her heart gave a startled jolt. She had slept in Debra’s bed…for the entire night.
That realisation struck with a strange sense of dread. She hadn’t closed her eyes in another woman’s bed since her ex. She hadn’t allowed anyone that proximity, that access, or the intimacy of waking before dawn and feeling another person moulded to her body.
She inhaled carefully, hoping the breath would steady her, but it didn’t. It only offered her Debra’s scent and her clean sheets. But in the back of her mind, the faint remnants of last night lingered like a whisper on Billie’s skin.
Emotion welled in her throat. This was too much. It was too close and far too fast.
She opened her eyes and took in the bedroom for the first time. That calm morning light spilled through pale curtains; a book faced down and open beneath a pillow on the chair in the window. Then she caught the hoodie draped over the back of the chair and a glass from last night beside the bed. Everything felt lived in here, a refuge wrapped in colour and character and everything Debra was. Nothing like the immaculate, untouched spaces Billie surrounded herself with. Nothing like the stark, carefully curated environment she retreated to every night because it let her feel alone in a way that felt manageable.
Debra murmured behind her as she shifted, tightening the arm around Billie’s waist. The movement was simple and instinctive—a sleeping woman subconsciously reaching for comfort—and yet it rattled Billie straight to her core.
She couldn’t stay here, not like this. Not in a moment that meant far more than she had prepared herself for. Because this normality was precisely the thing she’d guarded herself against. The thing that had destroyed her once, and the thing she had sworn never to let near her heart again.
Billie slid her fingers gently beneath Debra’s, easing her hand away with painstaking care. Debra’s breath shifted, but she didn’t wake. She just settled into the pillow with a sigh. Billiesat up slowly, the muscles in her shoulders stiff from the sudden tension gripping her entire body.
Her clothes were scattered near the foot of the bed, and her boots were half beneath the chair. Everything about this scene made her pulse accelerate with something very close to panic.
