Page 46 of Igniting Her

The first gentle kiss frightened Cassie more than Ellie’s anger had.

Ellie kissed her slowly. The anger did not disappear, but her mouth took the sharpness out of it. She traveled down Cassie’s throat, across her breast, over the small softness of her stomach. Cassie’s muscles tightened beneath every unhurried touch. She kept waiting for herself to correct the angle, request more pressure, put Ellie exactly where receiving would remain manageable.

She did none of it.

Ellie settled between her thighs and parted her with two fingers. She kissed the sensitive skin just above Cassie’s center, then drew one flat stroke of her tongue over it. Cassie’s hips lifted from the mattress. Ellie followed the response rather than an instruction. She sealed her mouth around Cassie’s clit, sucking gently before circling it with her tongue. She found the rhythm Cassie’s body gave her and stayed with it, slow enough that every sensation arrived separately. One of Cassie’s hands closed in the sheet. The other hovered above Ellie’s hair.

The last time, Cassie had used that hair as a rein. Now her hand came down without force. Her fingers moved once through the loosened strands and rested there, not guiding, not controlling, only needing somewhere to hold.

Ellie’s mouth became firmer. She slid two fingers inside Cassie and worked them in slow strokes while her tongue stayed on her. Cassie’s head turned against the pillow. Her breath broke. She did not say higher, slower, harder, or stop. She gave Ellie no map and discovered that Ellie had been reading her all along.

Cassie’s body tried to assemble itself around the pleasure: jaw locked, stomach rigid, toes curled against the sheet. Ellie laid her free hand across Cassie’s lower belly, not holding her down, only staying with her. One by one, Cassie’s fingers released the sheet. Her thighs opened farther. The back of her head sank into the pillow. Nothing in the room was under her direction, and she remained.

Cassie’s thighs began to shake.

Ellie did not look up for approval. She stayed with the shaking. Cassie pressed the heel of one hand over her eyes as pleasure gathered beyond what she could organize. Her other hand tightened in Ellie’s hair and then opened at once, terrified of turning touch into command.

Ellie covered it with her own and kept going.

Cassie came with Ellie’s tongue on her clit and two fingers moving inside her. Her hips lifted; her inner muscles clenched hard around Ellie’s hand. A raw sound left her throat. For several seconds, she could not catch a full breath. When air returned, it came unevenly, her ribs shaking beneath skin gone damp.

Ellie climbed up her body and stopped above her.

Cassie’s face was exposed. Her hair had come loose across the pillow. Her hand still covered her eyes. She lowered it because hiding now would have made a performance out of everything she had just allowed.

Ellie looked at her without triumph.

That nearly undid her again.

Ellie moved off the bed.

Alarm tightened Cassie’s body before thought caught up. She had given no instruction, and now Ellie was leaving the place Cassie had no language for. The reaction was irrational and immediate. Her hand lifted from the sheet.

Ellie paused at the bathroom door. “Warm cloth.”

Cassie let her hand fall.

Water ran. Ellie returned with the warm cloth and a glass. The last time, Cassie had performed this care because directing its order was easy. Tonight, Ellie offered the glass first. Cassie drank; Ellie caught the drop at the corner of her mouth with a sober thumb.

She cleaned Cassie with the same unhurried attention she had brought to everything else, wiping sweat from her throat and the damp skin beneath her breasts, then tending to the rest of her without embarrassment or ceremony. Cassie’s first impulse was to take the cloth. Her second was to tell Ellie exactly how to use it. She obeyed neither. There was no task in receiving care, no standard by which Cassie could make herself useful. Ellie asked for nothing. She did not return to the office or the question Cassie had refused, nor ask about the scar her mouth had crossed or the twelve years Cassie’s body had just betrayed.

The restraint was not distance. It was Ellie keeping the boundary even after Cassie had allowed every other one to move.

When the cloth had cooled, Ellie set it aside and drew the sheet over them. Cassie let her do that too.

Cassie caught the back of Ellie’s neck and pulled her down. The kiss was softer than anything they had done and more difficult to survive. Ellie fit against her side when it ended, head resting over Cassie’s heart. Cassie’s arm closed around her by instinct.

Neither spoke.

Ellie’s breathing slowed first. Cassie felt each exhale across her breast. Beneath Ellie’s cheek, her heartbeat refused to become private again. It struck fast and undeniable, evidence against every term Cassie had laid down over coffee.

Cassie stared at the ceiling. The ground had shifted beneath them. She could feel the new angle of the room, the way every rule now leaned toward the body she was holding.

At 11:40, Ellie stirred. “I should go.”

Cassie’s arm tightened before she decided to move it. Ellie went still.

“Not yet,” Cassie said.