“You get too comfortable around here, and suddenly you’re not leaving.”
There’s a shift in the way she says it that feels different. A calm undercurrent to her words. It’s that habit I’ve noticed people have here, saying one thing while meaning another entirely. It’s definitely not about the cat, that’s for sure.
I tilt my head slightly, studying her. “And that would be a problem?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Her hand comes up instead very slowly, fingers brushing lightly along my jaw, like she’s testing the distance, or closing it.
I don’t pull back.
“Fuck, Isabella,” I blurt out. For one intense moment, we stand there, looking at each other. Breathing the same air. A knot of nerves coils low in my stomach.
Then I lean in. Isabella meets me halfway and kisses me, hard, like she’s been holding back for weeks. Her mouth is warm and insistent on mine. A soft whine comes out of my mouth, and she pushes deeper until my back hits the wall with a thud. Her hands are everywhere, and I feel the heat of her body from my head to my toes.
“Hi,” she murmurs, barely pulling back. Her hair is up in a long braid and the tip moves with her as she rests her forehead on mine.
“Hello,” I whisper back, my voice not entirely reliable. Isabella’s breath ghosts my mouth, and she smiles, one of the corners of her lips tipping upward. “You are so fucking hot.”
I chuckle and look into her eyes, and she smiles in return. She kisses me again. Her lips are soft, but there’s something controlled underneath it, deliberate in the way she’s kissing me, like she’s cataloguing every reaction, every adjustment in my body. Maybe she thinks I’m going to run away, skittish like a scared cat. And if I were to think too hard about it, I would probably bolt, yes. It’s still complicated between us.
My hand comes up without thinking and settles at her waist, fingers skimming the soft skin of her midriff right above the waistband of her leggings.
“Fuck,” Isabella murmurs against my skin, tugging at my wrists and pulling me farther into the house. She’s walking backward in the dim lighting, navigating her home perfectly as she pulls me into the living room. She turns us suddenly and pushes me onto the couch. The cushions dip underneath my weight, and she takes a step back, looking at me like she’s trying to decide where to start. “Ceci.”
Isabella leans forward and kisses my jaw, down my neckand the space where it meets my shoulders, slow enough to make my toes curl. My fingers are itching to move, to touch her toned body, perfect after years of intense training.
“What?” I say, but it’s not at all what I mean. I mean to saytouch me, put your mouth on me or I’ll combust, wreck me forever and make me regret everything and nothing at all at the same time.“What is it, Princess?”
Her smile is small and wrecking as her hands drift down to the hem of my shirt, and she peels it gently off my body. The cool air of the space touches my skin and makes everything tight, and all my nerves are suddenly aware of what’s happening. She moves almost in slow motion, the tips of her fingers running up my stomach and under my bralette.
In a flash, Isabella is on her knees, tracing her hands down my torso and reaching the band of my pants. I blink a few times because I can’t believe what is happening, how reverent she is being, almost adoring.
“Please,” I hear myself say, and I’m not even embarrassed by the sound of it. There was a time I wouldn’t have asked Isabella Pierce foranything. But here we are, in the most intimate position we can be in, a whimper coming out of my mouth and a smirk on her face.
“I didn’t take you for a beggar, Ceci,” she says as she unfastens the top button of my jeans and undoes the zipper slowly. The sound is practically obscene, loud and completely unrestrained in the quiet room. She grabs at my pants and pulls them down, the sudden scrape of her knuckles against my outer thighs making me arch towards her. “I did know you were eager.”
She chuckles and sits on her haunches, looking at me with those icy, studious eyes.
“What do you want, Ceci?”
Isabella says the words as if this were an easy question to answer, as if I could utter the dirty string of things my brain is hoping she does to me, immediately, right now.
“Do you want my mouth here?” she mumbles, face moving to my pussy. “Or maybe my fingers?”
She kisses the inside of my thigh once, a tiny peck that feels like a third-degree burn, and pulls my pants all the way off, throwing them behind her back and landing with a thud somewhere in the room. “You’re already so wet for me, aren’t you?”
“Isabe—”
“Yes?” She stops, looking up at me from her spot between my knees. Her hands are on my thighs and her thumbs are moving in slow circles against the hot skin. I definitely feel my cheeks burn at her inquisition. “What do you want, baby?”
Everything in my body tightens, but Isabella is still looking at me, waiting for me to tell her exactly what I want her to do to me.
“Whatever you want,” I say, and in a flash, her mouth is on me. The first press of her tongue on my clit makes my breath stutter. My hand flies to her hair, pushing through the soft strands as I find something to hold on to, too scared I might fly away. Isabella’s eyes flutter shut at that, but she doesn’t rush.
Isabella takes her time with her tongue first, and finally slips two fingers inside. “Is this okay?” she asks, and theonly thing that comes out of my mouth is a strangled sound that is equal parts embarrassing and ruined. She looks up at me again, her eyes dark and enveloping, and something tight coils low in my belly.
Her free hand is inside her leggings, moving in tandem with her tongue, and I feel like I’m going to pass out. The image is so overwhelming that my legs start to shake immediately and threaten to clamp around her head in such a forceful way that I’m scared I’ll suffocate her.
“Isa, I—” I croak, and she hums, the vibration pushing me over the edge. She curls her fingers inside me, and everything in my body tightens and loosens at the same time. The world suddenly turns bright and white and breathless. “Fuck.”
