Page 56 of Running Home to You
“Shhhhhh.” Abby put a finger to her lips.
Kate smiled against it. “No, you shhhhh.”
“Hutch, shut up!” Mick yelled from outside.
“You shut up!” Kate shouted back.
“Hey, hey, stop.” Abby covered her mouth with her hand, her lower gut waking at the brief contact, Kate’s amusement, and their proximity.
“Okay, okay.” Kate laughed softly. “Oh, you’re mad.”
Abby smirked. She hovered over Kate, inches away in the flashlight beam. “I’m not. Just keep it down.”
“You’re so mad at me,” Kate whispered.
“Stop.” Abby chuckled, pulsing in the worst places. Her throat, her stomach, her groin.
Kate’s mouth dropped. “Oh my gosh, are you high? You’re so high.”
Abby laughed, unable to control herself. Kate giggled too, her breath warm on her neck, her body brushing into Abby’s. It took astounding willpower to not press back into her.
The tent shook as a softball hit it. “Shut up!” Mick shouted.
They reined in their hysterics, simmered down to a hiss, and then finally panted for air. Abby struggled to breathe against the throbbing, her elbow propping her above Kate on the pillow next to hers.
“I feel funny,” Kate said.
Abby stared at her lips. “You’ll be okay.”
“Do you ever?” Kate cupped her cheek, traced her thumb at the corner of her mouth. “Feel funny?”
“Yeah.” Abby squeezed her eyes shut.
“Do you still love me?”
Abby sighed, a sob unexpectedly bubbling in her throat. She muffled it, turned her face beneath Kate’s hand, and deposited a kiss on her palm.
Kate grasped Abby’s other cheek so that she held her face. “I love you too,” she whispered.
A kiss waited on the end of the confession, pleading like so many times before. Abby swallowed it with the rest of what she wouldn’t allow herself, determined to protect Kate, to not take what wasn’t hers, especially in a haze of drugs and dizzying closeness. “We should sleep.”
Kate’s chin crumpled but she nodded.
Abby unzipped their sleeping bags and draped them over their bodies. She clicked off the flashlight, inconsolably aroused. “Good night.”
Kate grasped her hand and Abby froze. She eased into her until they were spooning, and Abby couldn’t help but move like they’d always done it. She wrapped her arms around Kate’s chest and nestled her nose into her neck. Her heart quickened, the curve of Kate’s backside between her hips, pushing her to the edge of giving in. She trembled as she inhaled the spot behind Kate’s ear, before placing a careful kiss there. Kate exhaled into the dark.
“Is this okay?” Abby whispered.
“Don’t go.” Kate clutched her hand and shivered. “I feel like I’m going to float away.”
Abby held her tighter. “I got you. You’re just high.”
“No.” Kate brushed her lips to Abby’s fingers. A slight second of contact that her breath hitched at. “It’s just you.”
Abby didn’t dare break their enmeshed bodies. She already dreaded the morning, aware that this might be the closest they’d ever get. A blessing and a curse. A miserable pleasure that she sank into as she closed her eyes.
Kate woke to a throb so powerful that a moan gushed out of her like steam from a boiling kettle. And she was boiling, her skin burning with fever. She assumed she must be dreaming, eyes still shut, as thetingle between her legs overpowered everything else. Its demand for release had her instinctually thrusting. When friction met the itch with a pleasant wave of calm, she sighed, only to realize that she wasn’t dreaming. She flashed open her eyes, full consciousness hitting like a fire hose, as she discovered the warmth wasn’t a fever, but Abby wrapped around her, and the euphoric friction came from Abby’s thigh between her legs.
