"Iris," she breathes when we break apart. "We don't have to—I mean, if you're not ready—"
"I'm ready."
"Are you sure? Because there's no pressure, we can wait as long as—"
I silence her with another kiss. "I'm sure. I've never been more sure of anything."
Cat searches my face, looking for doubt, for hesitation. She won't find it. The fear I felt before—the uncertainty, the worry about doing things wrong—it's still there, humming beneath the surface. But it's not louder than the wanting anymore.
Nothing is louder than the wanting.
"Okay," she says, and her smile is slow and warm and full of promise. "Okay. Come with me."
She takes my hand and leads me inside, down the hall, past my bedroom door to hers.
I've never been in this room. Six weeks of walking past this door and never once letting myself look. Now she pushes it open and steps back to let me through, and I take it in all at once—the bed neatly made, because she's tidier than I'd ever have guessed; photographs crowding the nightstand; books in unsteady towers on the floor; and over the headboard a small painting I know is Hélène's without being told. Lavender at dusk.
The whole room smells like her.
"Is this okay?" she asks. "Being in here. In my space."
"It's perfect."
She shuts the door. The click of the latch goes through me like a struck match.
"I should tell you," I say, "that I have no idea what I'm doing."
Cat laughs, low and soft. "I know. That's okay."
"I might do something wrong. Ask something stupid. Get an elbow somewhere—"
"Iris." She steps close and takes both my hands. "There's no wrong. There's just us, working it out. If something doesn't feel good, you tell me. And if something feels incredible—" she brings my knuckles to her mouth, presses a kiss to each one, and everything below my ribs goes molten "—you tell me that too, and I'll do it again until you forget your own name."
"That's a very confident offer."
"It's not confidence." Her thumb strokes the inside of my wrist. "It's motivation. Can I undress you?"
"Yes."
She starts with the buttons of my blouse and she takes hertime. One, then the next, her knuckles grazing my sternum, my ribs, the soft skin below. By the third button I'm breathing like I ran here. Every inch she uncovers meets the cool evening air and then the heat of her looking at me, and the contrast makes me shudder.
"You're shaking," she says.
"I'm aware."
"Want me to stop?"
"If you stop, I will genuinely die."
I feel her grin against my shoulder—and then her mouth is on my collarbone, open and unhurried, and I stop being able to hold a thought. She slides the blouse down my arms and lets it drop. I'm wearing plain cotton, nothing remotely planned, and she looks at me like I've been poured into silk.
"Beautiful," she murmurs, and then, lower, against my throat: "You have no idea what you do to me."
"Your turn," I manage. "I need—please."
My hands shake on the hem of her shirt. She lifts her arms and lets me pull it over her head, and then she's standing there in the last of the gold light and I forget how lungs work.
I've never looked at a woman's body like this. Never let myself. Never catalogued the line of a collarbone, the small silver scar under her ribs, the way her breath moves her. I reach out and lay my palm flat against her stomach just to feel it go tight under my hand.
