Page 48 of A Chill in the Flame
In a world before this amalgamation of terrors, the princess had kissed boys and shared stolen kisses with girls, but she’d never fully been with a woman in the ways that clandestine diaries of so-called unsavory women enjoyed sharing. She’d locked lips in opium dens and traded flavors on tongues as wine had flowed freely. It had always been the sort of thing she could excuse to the drug or drink. Perhaps that’s what had prevented her from allowing her eyes to linger on Dwyn for too long.
“I’d like…” She tried a sentence and failed.
The siren arched her back ever so slightly. “What wouldyou like?”
“Only if you would…”
Dwyn’s voice dropped a register. “I want to hear it.”
A vindictive thought rolled around on her tongue before she spoke. Harland hated Dwyn, and Tyr seemed to want to kill her, and Ophir felt a rather headstrong delight at the idea of pissing both of them off in one fell swoop. The men who’d forced their way into her life had no say in how she lived or what she did with her time. She was no child. The things she did and the company she kept were hers and her choices to make. This was truer than ever as her world turned to ash around her.
“I’d like…to feel good. For one night.”
Ophir pressed her body into Dwyn’s with intent. Her mouth hovered just above the back of the delicate neck in front of her, savoring the goose bumps that rippled down her in response to her breath.
“So would I,” Dwyn breathed.
“Dwyn?” The name was spoken on a hope. She dragged her hand where it rested, moving in slow lines up and down the vertical cut that separated Dwyn’s middle from her breasts to her navel. Each excruciatingly slow touch summoned more intrigue, more curiosity, more longing. She tantalized the woman’s inner thighs, brushing over her stomach, nearing her most sensitive places, growing closer with each daring pass. Dwyn’s hips responded to move against the princess’s fingers, grinding slightly against her. She allowed the strokes to continue, body rocking with the slow, delicious movements as desire swelled between them.
“Yes, Firi?” she gasped in return.
The hummingbird thrum of the siren’s heart mirrored her own.
“Tell me to stop.”
“No,” Dwyn was quick to respond, still facing away as her body stretched beneath the princess’s curves. “I don’t want you to stop.”
The gentle hand swept up, circling Dwyn’s breast beforecupping it gently, moving it in a soft, massaging motion before encompassing the other in her the cool grasp of her palm. By the time the princess’s fingers moved to explore lower, Dwyn was as soaked as the water she summoned. She twisted beneath the sheets, lifting a knee and locking it over the princess’s hips. She pulled her in close. Their lips parted, mouths meeting in sweet pleas as they drank one another in.
“Just for tonight—”
“Shh,” the siren hushed, reaching behind herself and wrapping her fingers in the toffee mess of Ophir’s hair. Their eyes fluttered closed as their bodies moved, curves and flesh of two perfectly fitting spoons as Ophir continued her steady, pleasurable movements.
Dwyn gasped an honest, sharp inhalation as one finger, then another slipped within her.
Everything began with the gradual slowness of shy, new lovers, before building into the frenzied dance of fingers digging into flesh, mouths against soft, beautiful parts, the pull of hair, the taste of sunshine and honey. They were lost in the maze of tongues, teeth, flesh, throats, shoulders, fingers, breasts, navels, hips, thighs, and toes. Every inch was explored with inhalations, breaths, and the soft escape of involuntary moans. Every sensation dragged out to beautiful, sensual, gasping resolution. Each movement matched the gentle undulation of hips as pleasure flowed between them. Comfort, passion, heat, and release were one in the same as they held one another.
For a moment, Ophir nearly remembered what it meant to feel alive.
Dwyn’s back arched, her hips rocking rhythmically with each pump, each soaking, satisfying movement. Her fingers knotted in the cloud of toffee hair behind her as Ophir brought her closer and closer to the edge. It was the tide lapping against the seaside rocks, every intense wave coming in sharper and louder and higher as the ocean rose and rose and rose. Dwyn’s breathing hitched, each inhalation growing shallower and fasteras she approached the precipice. Her entire body went rigid, back curved, hips locked, toes curled as she released a high, involuntary whimper in the seconds before she shuddered, entire body flexing and collapsing with her climax.
Dwyn let out a nearly feline purr as she rolled in true delight. Rather than being exhausted, she seemed invigorated in the moments following her orgasm. Ophir scarcely had the time to slip her fingers out of the siren before Dwyn flipped the princess onto her back.
“Do you taste like sunshine, too?” The red glow of embers in the dying hearth lit the room in shades of shadow and burgundy. She purred, tracing a scorching path of sensual kisses down Ophir’s middle. The wet evidence of her kisses and licks reflected against what remained of the dim, reddish light. She dragged her fingernails on a path from her chest, down her stomach, and clamped them onto her inner thigh.
“Don’t stop” was all Ophir needed to say.
The hour hand dropped two places on the grandfather clock between their earliest touches and the end of their exhausted pulls for air against the bed, holding each other, gripping their pillows, pools of pleasure soaking the sheets.
Hair mussed, mouths soaked, bodies tired, flesh tingling, smelling of sex and joy and forbidden desire, their needs for affection had been satiated. Their hearts passed for full, even if the bandages that held them together were a patchwork for whatever greater pain, whatever larger horror haunted them. Tonight was about escape within the four walls of a bedroom. For one night, Ophir was liberated without going anywhere. She was free.
She caught Dwyn’s satisfied smile in the afterglow just before the coals winked out into blackness. Just as the beautiful woman nestled into her arms and made the contented sound of someone truly happy, Ophir’s returning smile faltered. Sleep took Dwyn beneath its waves, leaving Ophir alone in the dark as the emptiness returned.
Twenty-two
Ophir had been awake for the better part of an hour beforeDwyn poked her head up from the sheets. She rubbed her eyes, stretching as she searched the room for the princess. Ophir sat at the writing desk, leg bouncing as she stared at the same boring tome Dwyn had been reading the night prior. The princess’s jittering muscles stilled the moment Dwyn caught her eye.
“Come back to bed.” Dwyn yawned.
