Page 41 of Homegrown Magic

“Oh, inside.” With a light grip on her wrist, they guide her hand inside the waistline and down between their legs, her fingers stirring once, twice, until they buck against her. “There,” Yael confirms, groaning. Then they remember themself and peel her hand out from their trousers to press a kiss to her palm. “What about you?”

“The same,” Margot says, sounding out of breath while standing still, “but you should touch me here.” She wraps her strong fingers around their wrist and guides them to her breast, deliciously weighty beneath her dress.

Yael smirks. “Outside or inside?”

“Definitely inside.”

“Fantastic. If you really want to preserve this dress, then take it off before I chew through it out of sheer frustration. Do you need help with the buttons?”

She shakes her head enthusiastically, lifting an eyebrow in her familiar Margot way. “And what are you taking off?”

They slide their already unbuttoned trousers down their legs, prying off the velvet shoes while they’re at it and kicking everything to the side. Standing in the mulch in their bare feet, their underwear, and bindings while Margot’s still fully dressed, Yael should feel overly exposed.

But this is a kind of care: the willingness to be vulnerable first.

Satisfied, Margot reaches behind her neck to undo the tiny trail of buttons at the nape. It takes a moment for her to slide the formfitting bodice down her body, the vast skirt pooling at her boots. She stands naked from the waist up, with a sheet-white petticoat meant to add volume to the skirt of the dress tied around her waist, skimming her knees. She moves to untie it.

“Wait,” Yael says. They settle their hands against her naked waist, over her gorgeously round hips, and tug her in so that they’re pressed together, her full breasts resting just above their bindings, stomach-to-stomach and skin-to-skin. “Let me.”

Margot shivers in the heat.

That’s when Yael sinks slowly, kneeling against the warm earth, skimming their hands down the hills of her body to the petticoat’s hem as they go. “Shall I?” they ask, craning their neck to look up.

Margot reaches down to brush back their hair, which occasionally falls into their face now that they’re no longer determinedly fluffing it up; at some point, they stopped doing that without even noticing. She grips her fingers in the shorter strands at their neck. “You absolutely shall.”

They hook the petticoat’s hem inside their thumbs to lift it as they slide their hands up her full thighs, then duck under.

Yael takes their time caring for Margot, tasting her, hot and soft and slick. She buries both of her hands in their hair and grinds her hips against them, and it’s all Yael can do to hold her in place. When she’s finished, tugging at their hair hard enough that they wince (not that Yael gives a damn), she joins them on her knees.

“Your turn?” she asks, pressing frenzied kisses along their lips, their jawline, their throat, her chest still heaving.

“If you wish.”

They roll into the mulch together, after Yael takes a moment to spread out the skirts of Margot’s gown, wide enough to comfortably fit them both.

“I guess we’re going to ruin it, anyway,” she says, pale eyes dancing.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Yael says, laughing. “I’ll buy you a dozen.”

“With what fortune?”

“With my cut of the fashion show, of course. Didn’t I tell you? Don’t worry, I only take eighty percent.”

“Yael!”

“Just a little banking humor,” they say, and let her push them down.

When Yael arrives, it’s panting, groaning Margot’s name and please, gods yes, there. And then with only a moment’s pause, they’re rolling over atop Margot, kissing their way down her neck, murmuring, “You’ve been so good to me, Daisy. Let me be good to you.” They fumble to untie and shove away the petticoat at last, and bury themself once again between her strong thighs. Bracing themself with one elbow, they reach up to trace her breasts, her waist, to clutch her hand as Margot practically bends their fingers backward. They cradle her jaw and feel the tendons flex.

“Yael, gods, Yael…”

They are good to Margot, as good as they know how to be, for quite some time.

16

Margot

Margot’s carefully kept record of how many days she’s gone without being touched the way Yael touched her last night lies in the dust somewhere, along with her petticoats and her dirtied Rastanaya dress. Not that it matters. Last night was so very, very good. She would ruin a hundred dresses to feel that way again.