They fumbled, kissing, breathing against each other’s lips until Yardley found the tab and pulled the zipper down, shoving the jacket off KC’s shoulders right before KC got a grip on her sweater and yanked it up so that Yardley was forced to lift her hands over her head so she could be stripped to her bra. They came together, KC’s mouth on her breasts, Yardley’s hands taking apart the fasteners of KC’s flight suit, pushing it out of the way so that as much of their skin as possible could touch.
The furrow between the muscles of KC’s back, knobbed with her spine, felt explicit in the dark. With her hands flattened against it, Yardley could almost predict how KC might touch her next by the way her muscles moved. KC’s attention was committed to finding every hollow of Yardley’s body with her tongue, making Yardley shiver and forget to breathe.
Their mouths met again. Yardley could feel each sure stroke of KC’s tongue in the hot, urgent heartbeat between her legs. Her head filled with everything she wanted to say at once.I love you. I missed this. Don’t ever stop.But the silken blackness swallowed her words, and there was only touching this miracle of a woman with all the feelings she had ever felt for her and the hope that KC would hear.
She’d guided Yardley back to something firm, something she could lean against, and rested her forehead against Yardley’s. They were both panting. KC’s hands hovered over the button of Yardley’s jeans. “Do you want to?”
“I want to, god.” Yardley reached down, accidentally tangling her fingers with KC’s. She pulled at the button, hitching up her hips. Yardley couldn’t see, she only felt when her waistband went slack and the burr of her zipper came down with a hard enough press of sensation to bring her right to the edge, more wet than she could ever remember being.
“Do you want to come?” KC’s voice was hashed, her skin hot against Yardley’s.
“Do you want me?” Yardley wanted to hear how much KC wanted her and for that to be what made her come too soon, as soon as KC touched her, so KC could see what she did to her andYardley could get to her knees faster and shatter KC’s composure with her tongue.
“I always want you.” KC’s fingertip pressed and worked Yardley’s clit in one soft stroke, focusing every speck of Yardley’s attention on her inevitable orgasm, poised to send her into luxurious free fall.
“God, god.” Yardley hitched up her leg and rested her foot on KC’s hip. She knew it hadn’t been longer than a moment but she was one hot throb, close to coming, seeing colors in the void.
KC’s fingers slid inside her, slow enough Yardley could protest if she wanted, but she loved the deep fullness, the heavy thrust, and even more she loved how it was going to send her, slippery and senseless all over KC’s palm.
“That’s my girl.” KC bit her neck, working her, still holding that wrist with the watch on it.
“I’m so close.” Yardley pushed her hips up, the blackout sliding over her hot skin, KC’s teeth and tongue in every place that made her shiver, she wasright there. “So close, so close, so close.”
Then KC was quiet, focused on fucking Yardley with her fingers, putting just-right pressure on her clit the way she liked between each stroke, and Yardley didn’t know how long they went on like that but she was panting, reaching for something she couldn’t catch, and then she was crying.
KC kissed her neck. “Sweetheart.” Slowly, she slid her hand away, and the loss was like a missed heartbeat, unsettling and frustrating. KC kissed her forehead.
“But it’s what Iwant.” Yardley pulled her knees to her chest, her tailbone throbbing, everything else achy and unspent. “It’s what I want. I want it.”
It was the truth. But it felt like one more lie.
KC’s arms came around her, and Yardley grabbed on. She held KC tight. For the first time in weeks—for the first time when it was real—she wept.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”
KC’s lips were tender on the crown of her head. The tenderness made another sob hitch in Yardley’s chest.
“You can’t,” KC said. “I think if you knew it was the last time you’d ever be with me, you could. And I think if you knew I was with you forever, you could.”
“But I don’t know one way or the other, so it’s not… so I can’t.” Yardley wiped the mess off her face with her palms, grief-stricken with the loss of KC’s body, KC’s skin, KC’s everything.
She heard her shrug into her flight suit and fasten it. Yardley did up her jeans. “KC?”
She wasn’t sure what to ask for. She needed something, something she’d never known how to request, from this woman she’d never been able to be completely, totally sure of. Even as she’d loved having KC’s arms around her, as certain as the clasp of her mother’s gold watch. “Promise me something,” she said. “Whatever you can.”
“I promise we’ll figure it out,” KC said, as though she’d had those words at the ready, a gift to hand Yardley. “I promise we’ll know.”
It was enough for now.
Yardley was about to speak, trying to formulate a promise of her own, when she heard a hesitant knock at the door. Soft enough to pretend it was nothing, nothing.
“I’m so sorry.” The voice drifted through the hardwood. “It’s Amanda.”
The ambassador. The blood in Yardley’s body cooled a degree,and she reached out until she felt KC’s hand and grabbed it. KC squeezed back. That squeeze returned the breath to her body, smooth and even.
Yardley thought, as KC moved away for good and turned the lock to open the door, she ought to have been able to sayI love you. It was in her throat. In her heart, she felt it.
She’d said it to this woman thousands of times, idly and passionately and tearfully and laughing, but in this split-second pause between the return of wild hope and the cold place they’d been living in, she couldn’t. She actually put her hand against her throat to accuse it of failing.
