Page 75 of Reverence

“You’re welcome. Tell Bernard the concierge I sent you, and give him twenty dollars. He’ll tell you the room number you actually need.”

It was theactuallythat made Juliette bite her lip. Of course Francesca knew all too well whom Juliette needed to see. The fact that she basically rolled out the red carpet for her to find Katarina spoke volumes.

“I… I should go, Cesca.”

“You really should, Jett. It’s been seven years. You really should.” The sadness in Francesca’s tone only made Juliette angrier.

She nursed her anger all through the taxi ride to Madison Avenue, through the lobby and the painful search for a tiny man named Bernard who, despite being an entire foot shorter than her, still managed to look down his nose at her and the extended twenty-dollar bill.

The slow elevator, all opulence and useless flowery, enhanced the fury, and by the time she was standing in frontof the room with an ornate plaque showing 1259, Juliette was certain steam would be coming out of her ears any moment.

The fact that Katarina opened the door before Juliette could give it a good knock was like a starting gun.

“Juliette—”

“Do not Juliette me!” She pushed past Katarina, who didn’t even have the decency to be surprised by her presence. Juliette had turned predictable. And she was being foolish. Gabriel must have been nodding sagely up there on his cloud, or perhaps laughing his excellent angel ass off, since he would be more prone to the latter than the former.

“What would you want me to do to you, Juliette?”

And the question, the sheer exhaustion in it, the finality of that misery, tore at something in Juliette, and she stepped to Katarina and then into her.

Their lips crashed together, teeth clashing, Juliette tasting blood, not even caring if it was hers or Katarina’s. If anything, the coppery tang only enhanced the taste of her. The one taste she had never been able to find no matter how many women she kissed.

Katarina hissed in pain and Juliette let go immediately, only for two cold hands to grasp her shoulders and pull her back. Juliette grabbed the collar of that ridiculously attractive blouse and tore. The buttons spilled all around them, revealing a stunning lace bustier, and Katarina simply pushed the magnificent garment down before dragging Juliette’s hands over her skin to cover her breasts.

It was like lightning, one they had ridden before, and they moaned in unison, the sound obscene and entirely too perfect. Their mouths fused together, Juliette pushed Katarina into the door she had just walked through, and the satisfying rattling noise was accompanied by another moan. They were greedy, anxious, desperate.

Juliette couldn’t get enough of the bloody lips under hers, and Katarina matched her kiss for kiss, lick for lick, bite for bite. When Juliette left the impossible temptation of the swollen lips and moved to the exposed neck, Katarina sighed and plunged her hands into Juliette’s hair, fingers pulling and tugging in rhythm with the bites. And Juliette made sure to leave many, sparing not an inch of skin.

The bite to the junction of neck and shoulder, as always, caused a whimper, and Juliette smiled against the sensitive spot, the bruise blooming like tulip petals. She left another one right next to it before noticing once again how slim the shoulders had gotten. How under her hands Katarina was all bone and sinew, somehow smaller, fragile, painfully so.

Her face must’ve shown exactly where her thoughts had gone, or maybe her hands on Katarina’s rib cage, going slack, revealed the true story, because Katarina gripped her chin, and the old gesture was neither affectionate nor gentle.

“In your apartment, you told me not to pity you. Well, same goes, Juliette. Fuck me or leave me.”

Juliette knew she was given a choice, but the hand on her face was not letting go and the other in her hair still clutched as tight as a second ago, and she was only human. It had been seven years of wanting this. Of regretting this. Of loving Katarina and hating her and cursing her and missing her more than the ruined knee. More than ballet.

Juliette dove in again, their lips relinquishing none of their violence, drawing pain and drawing pleasure, and she let go. Of caution, of anger in the name of anger, of her own heart that had betrayed her all those years ago and still yearned for the one it could never quite have and settled to execute Katarina’s order.

Fuck me.

Juliette could do that. She allowed her fingers to drag the tatters of the shirt down the lanky arms and slapped Katarina’s helping hands from her skirt.

“No. You said to fuck you. So I will. Fuck you. And you’ll take it.”

A feral look crossed Katarina’s face before she threw her head back, banging the door yet again, eliciting a smug smile from Juliette as she dragged her fingers down her abdomen.

“Tell me you’ll take it, Katarina. Tell me you want it. Otherwise, why did you sleep with me for months when all you had to do was push me down the fucking stairs? Tell me!”

Juliette couldn’t recognize her own voice, or even the intention behind it. This was not what she had come here for. She lowered her face, and when she lifted it up again, Katarina’s eyes were looking at her with that knowing expression, of seeing through her, and Juliette leaned in one more time and kissed her with a tenderness that belied the moment.

“I want you now.” The words came as soon as their lips separated and Katarina’s hand rose to Juliette’s cheek yet again, mirroring the gentleness of the kiss. This time like all those other times. Exactly like those other times. Juliette gritted her teeth against the onslaught of memories and the agony of regret.

“And I wanted you then. It’s as simple as that, no matter how much I messed it all up for both of us.”

Juliette wanted to ask, to respond, to contradict, but Katarina was having none of it, and the kiss that followed seemed to go for ages, from rough to tender, from her lip being bitten and sucked on, to their tongues meeting and tangling in slow motion. Juliette’s head spun, and Katarina’s hands on her face, their mouths together, were the only points of connection she felt she had to this room, to this life.

She allowed Katarina to push away from the door.

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