“Your mind doesn’t quiet,” Lizanne said. Not a question.
“It gets louder when I try to slow it down.”
“Because you’re trying to empty it. That’s not what you’re doing.” Lizanne looked at the valley. “You’re sitting by a road watching the cars go past. You’re not stopping them. You’re just not getting in.”
“That sounds manageable in theory.”
“Try it.”
Rose sat with her back straight and looked at the valley and tried to watch the cars go past. The first car was the kitchen. The second was Lizanne’s hands on her hips. The third was the sound Lizanne had made with her face against Rose’s neck, low and unguarded and nothing like her public voice. By the fourth car Rose had left the road entirely and was doing ninety with no intention of stopping.
“It’s not working,” she said.
“What are you thinking about?”
Rose looked at her.
Lizanne wetted her lips. “Ah,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’ve been having the same problem.” She said it the way she said most things—directly, no apology attached. “Since I woke up.”
“Has sitting here helped?”
“Not significantly.”
The mist in the valley shifted. A bird outside made a noise and stopped.
“There’s only one way to get it out of our heads,” Lizanne said.
Rose turned to look at her.
Lizanne reached over and pushed the hair back from Rose’s face and kissed her — slow, deliberate, fully awake. Rose’s hand went to her jaw. She kissed her back. The sheet pooled on the floor.
Lizanne kissed her with one hand at her jaw and Rose pulled her closer by the waist. The kiss deepened. Lizanne’s hands moved to her shoulders, her arms, her back. Rose pulled the hem of Lizanne’s t-shirt free and found the warm skin beneath and Lizanne’s breath shifted against her mouth.
“Bed,” Rose said.
“Floor is fine,” Lizanne said, against her jaw.
Lizanne pressed her back onto the floor and the morning light came through the glass walls from every direction and Rose stopped caring about that almost immediately.
Lizanne took her time with her breasts. Her tongue moved in slow circles around one nipple while her hand cupped the other, her thumb brushing back and forth, and Rose’s back arched up toward her. The heat built from her chest downward. Lizanne switched sides and stayed there too, her mouth warm and deliberate, and Rose’s fingers tightened in her hair and her hips shifted against the floor and she could already feel how wet she was getting. By the time Lizanne kissed down her body Rose’s breathing had changed entirely.
Lizanne pressed her lips to the inside of her thigh. Stayed there. Rose’s hips shifted before she could stop them. Lizanne looked up at her from between her thighs and then Lizanne lowered her head.
Rose’s hips lifted off the floor.
Lizanne moved through her folds without urgency, slow and thorough. Long strokes first, the flat of her tongue moving through her wetness, and Rose pressed her hand over her mouth. Lizanne made a low sound against her that moved through Rose’s entire body. Rose’s hand came away from her mouth because she needed it, one in Lizanne’s hair, one gripping the leg of the nearby chair, just to have something to hold.
Lizanne circled her clit slowly. Pressed flat and held it. Rose’s hips rocked against her face and Lizanne let them, stayed with the pressure, kept her mouth exactly where it was while Rose’s grip in her hair tightened and the sounds she was making got less controlled. Then she shifted and Rose made a sound of frustration that she would have been embarrassed about if she’d had the capacity for embarrassment.
Lizanne did this twice more. Starting her up and pulling back.
The heat built and built without breaking and Rose had stopped thinking about anything except Lizanne’s mouth and the light through the glass and the ache that kept climbing and not cresting.
Then Lizanne slid two fingers into her.
