She was kissing the bow of Cosima’s lip when she felt her fingertips brush over her nipple, inciting her to bite. “Sorry.”
“Fucking bite me again,” Cosima breathed, thumbing Edie’s nipple as firmly as Edie assumed she wanted her teeth.
Well, shit. It was going to be like that—white-hot sparks from Cosima’s slow pinches and incautious kisses feeding into an unending upward spiral of lust that held Edie in a torturedgrip of not-quite-enough, winding toward some completely new kind of coming that would definitely kill her.
Both of Cosima’s hands slid around Edie’s ribs and tugged her shirt.
“What do you want?” Edie asked.
Cosima stood, pulling Edie with her. “To keep kissing you, but with warm toes.”
Edie laughed and let herself be towed back inside, where the hush of the dim room amplified the sounds Cosima made in her throat when she kissed her, backing her up against the bed, and then they were sprawled across the wrinkled duvet, Edie half out of her shirt, Cosima so unbelievably hot in a criminal, tiny bra and panties that Edie couldn’t look hard enough.
The pillowy, lavender-scented mattress took her down.
Cosima’s hair brushed against her cheek when she kissed Edie’s jawline, behind her ear, down her neck.
Her firm grip trapped Edie’s wrist above her head as she moved above her, as if Edie would get away, as if Cosima knew second thoughts were the threat.
It was the determined furrow to her eyebrows, the way she kissed Edie like she wanted to acquire this—to learn and master and memorize the slide of her tongue against Edie’s and the way it sped up the rolling movement of her hips—that made Edie’s boundaries dissolve like sparkling dust, blowing away the last of her sensible thoughts and every inhibition.
She slid down the bed, letting Cosima keep hold of her trapped wrist but adjusting and readjusting until the palm of her free hand laid across the top of Cosima’s ass, her fingertips pushing past elastic to splay over firm flesh. Their kiss got slower and deeper, the thrust of Edie’s tongue keeping time with her hand guiding Cosima’s hips to ride Edie’s thigh.
Cosima’s arms came down, and she framed Edie’s face with her forearms, breathing broken, her cheeks red, and when Edie dragged her heel over the bed to flatten her foot against it and push her thigh harder, Cosima smashed her cheek against Edie’s, the movement of her hips tighter, unambiguous.
“Is this okay?” It wasn’t a whisper, but it wasn’t Cosima’s crystalline, precise voice, either. It was needy. Edie’s free hand snuck down to play along the soft skin of her own inner thigh, helpless not to tease herself.
“Is this how you want it, princess?” Edie’s fingertips had found the wet gusset of her own panties, and just that small bit of contact had made her eyes roll.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Cosima’s cheek pressed harder, her skin burning hot.
Edie moved the hand on Cosima’s hips lower, dipping past the band of her panties. Finding her soft and wet and pushing up against Edie’s sliding fingers wasted her, ruined her with a fast, hard pulse between her legs, and then Cosima’s rough shout was forced against Edie’s temple. For the first time, she came while hardly touching herself, came only from how turned on she was, how hard Cosima came and the sounds she was making, and it was good—so good.
But as she started to breathe again she could feel her aching heart, like crushed velvet, and knew this wasn’t only sex.
It wouldn’t have happened if it was only sex. Cosima had already told her that.
Edie brought her arms around Cosima, who was trembling.
God.
She thought of the line from a poem her sister-in-law had painted on a barn board and hung over her mantle.Don’t be a merchant who won’t risk the ocean.It had made her wonder if her twenty-one-year-old sister-in-law ran a little deeper thanEdie ever guessed, and remembering the words now, she felt equally terrified and exhilarated.Risk the ocean.
Cosima sank away from Edie’s body onto the space beside her on the narrow mattress, and they both moved to their sides to look at each other. Edie’s heart picked up again, amazed when Cosima’s eyes met hers and neither of them looked away. Her experience with heedless lust involved a lot of hurry and chagrin in the aftermath. Cosima’s steady, soft eye contact and relaxed smile were different.
This was different.
Cosima’s hand wiggled up between them, and then her index finger traced along Edie’s forehead. “Cassiopeia,” she said.
“Who is that?” Edie closed her eyes as Cosima traced over her face.
“Queen of Ethiopia. Her daughter was saved from a sea monster, but in this case, the constellation. Your freckles make it, here.” She touched Edie’s forehead again, then her temple. “Orion’s Belt.” Her fingers brushed under her eye. “Ursa Major.”
“Not frog polka dots,” Edie said.
Cosima kissed her nose. Had any woman kissed her nose? Even her mother? “Certainly not.”
Edie lifted a coiled strand off Cosima’s flushed neck. “Your hair’s lighter, curlier, and your eyes are bigger.” Edie touched her fingertips to Cosima’s lips. “And this is not at all the same. Or this.” She cupped Cosima’s square jaw. “You’re entirely you. I think you always have been.”
