Page 61 of The CEO’s Assistant

"I haven't slept in here since she died," Cordelia said. "I've been coming up all summer and I could never get that door open. I finally managed to open it this afternoon at five o'clock. I made the bed, and I put two pillows on it."

Wren set the bag down on the floor. "You didn't have to tell me all that."

"I know I didn't."

Wren stood there deciding what to do with it, and Cordelia waited and didn't help her. "The sketch," Wren said.

"Eleanor when she was four." Cordelia looked at it on the wall by the window and left it where it was. "It stays up. If this is too much, you're allowed to walk back down those stairs."

"I'm staying." Wren crossed the room to her. The floorboards gave a single low creak under Wren's bare feet, and then the only sound was the fog shouldering through the open window and the distant churn of water against the rocks below the bluff.

Wren stopped close enough that Cordelia could feel the warmth of her, the heat that radiated off her even now, even thin as she'd gotten. Her hazel eyes were steady and unblinking and entirely too pleased with themselves. The cold air moved between them. Cordelia could smell salt and faint cedar and, underneath both, Wren’s warm skin.

Wren lifted her hand and touched the top button of Cordelia's blouse. A shell button, small and white, precisely aligned with the one below it and the one below that. She rested her fingertips on it for a beat, then undid the button, slowly. Then the next one, and the next, working her way down with a slowness that was deliberate and unhurried and absolutely sure of itself. Her fingers were steady and she didn’t fumble. She spread the fabric open a half-inch at a time, and when she got to the last button she stopped and looked up.

Cordelia looked back at her, meeting her gaze. She was still in her body and felt every graze of Wren's knuckles against the bare skin of her sternum. And what was more, she didn’t have to fight to stay present with Wren. She felt the cold air on the exposed skin between the open halves of her blouse, the heat of Wren's body close to hers, and the specific weight of Wren's gaze on her collarbones. She was here for all of it.

"Take this off," Wren said and pulled the tails of the blouse from Cordelia's waistband.

Cordelia reached for the buttons of Wren's oxford shirt, already half-undone from the way Wren wore shirts. Her fingers found the second button and the third. The fabric was soft from washing, and underneath it, Wren was lean. Cordelia spread the shirt open and put her palm flat against Wren's sternum and splayed her fingers against her visible ribs. Wren's heartbeat knocked against her hand, quick and hard.

"Your hands are cold," Wren said, smiling.

"I’m sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I like it." Wren pushed the blouse off Cordelia's shoulders. It caught briefly on her elbows, and Wren pulled it free and dropped it on the chair behind her without looking. Her fingers went to the clasp of Cordelia's bra and unhooked it with one hand.

"Show-off," Cordelia said.

"I have talents."

The bra came off and the cold air hit Cordelia's bare skin. Wren looked at her, all of her, with that open, greedy, unembarrassed look that was the thing Cordelia had noticed about Wren when they were together.

Wren shrugged out of her own shirt, and she pulled it off with both shoulders at once in a motion that was somehow the most Wren thing Cordelia had ever seen her do. She reached for the leather strap on her wrist and stopped. She turned to the dresser and slid the watch off and set it down with care.

Wren turned back, and her hands went to Cordelia's waistband. Cordelia's hands went to Wren's, and they undid each other's pants at the same time, standing at the foot of the bed in the cold July air, both of them undressing each other, neither waiting to be led.

Cordelia sat down on the edge of the bed. Wren stepped out of her pants and knelt to pull off Cordelia's, hands on her calves, sliding the fabric down, and her palms were warm against Cordelia's shins. Her thumbs pressed into the muscle just above Cordelia's ankles, and Cordelia let out a breath she had not known she was holding.

"Lie back," Wren said.

Cordelia lay back. The sheets and pillow were cold. Wren climbed onto the bed beside her, on her side, one elbow propped, looking down. Her dark hair fell forward and brushed Cordelia's shoulder.

"Hi," Wren said, softer now.

"Hi."

"I want to put my mouth on you."

Cordelia almost laughed—not at Wren or the words, but at the plainness of them, the total absence of coyness. "Yes," she said. "Please."

Wren kissed her collarbone first, then the hollow of her throat. Then lower, her mouth warm and open against the skin between Cordelia's breasts, her tongue a slow, flat press that made Cordelia's stomach tighten. She kissed her way down, unhurried, her hands sliding along Cordelia's ribs, and Cordelia watched her as she moved down her body, watched Wren's mouth find the soft skin below her navel and stay there, breathing against her. She was present for every second of it, every nerve, every graze of teeth that was barely teeth, every warm exhale.

Wren's mouth moved lower. Her hands parted Cordelia's thighs, firm and easy, and she pressed her lips to the inside of one and then the other. Cordelia's hips shifted on the sheets without her permission. Wren looked up. Her mouth was wet, and her eyes were very dark.

She put her mouth on Cordelia’s pussy, and a low groan escaped her. Wren's tongue was flat and slow and deliberate, a long stroke that started low and ended at the nub of her clit. Cordelia gripped the sheets as Wren did it again. And again. She found a rhythm that wasn’t fast but was relentless, and she kept her hands on Cordelia's hips. Cordelia felt it building from somewhere deep and low, a tightness that climbed and climbed until it broke, and she came against Wren's mouth with her hips up and her hands in Wren's hair. Her mouth was open, but she made no sound at all because the sensation stole the sound out of her. Wren didn’t pull away immediately. She stayed, her mouth gentle now, her tongue barely moving, and Cordelia could feel herself still shaking through the aftershocks, the small contractions that went on and on, and Wren rode them out with her, slowing with her, until Cordelia's hips settled and her breathing came down and her hands released Wren's hair.

"Come here," Cordelia said.