Seeming to understand exactly what Juniper needed, Rowan pressed her hips against her own hand and laid her body on top of Juniper’s. She balanced her weight on her forearm and looked into Juniper’s eyes.
“Yes?” She asked as she dipped two fingers back into Juniper and circled her entrance.
“Yes,” Juniper whispered.
Rowan held her gaze as she pushed into her. Juniper’s thigh muscles clenched around Rowan’s hips at how delicious it felt to feel Rowan spread her open and take her.
“I wanted this, Rowan. I wanted this.” Juniper’s confession was a rushed, whispered mess; careless about how those simple words gave away everything she’d held inside.
“I know.”
Rowan feathered kisses over Juniper’s temple, her cheeks, the corner of her lips, then the fullness of them. She pushed her tongue into Juniper’s mouth as she continued to move her fingers in and out, curling them upward the more Juniper relaxed beneath her. Then she leaned her forehead against Juniper’s shoulder and threaded the fingers of her free hand into Juniper’s and drew their joined hands up beside Juniper’s face. Juniper slid her other hand around the back of Rowan’s head and wove her fingers through Rowan’s hair.
“Please don’t stop,please don’t stop.” Juniper’s words and sounds blended together into barely intelligible expressions.
Rowan squeezed Juniper’s hand and looked up at her again. “I won’t. I’m right here.”
Juniper heard:You’re safe. You’re with me now. I have you.
And like Rowan was reading her mind, she whispered, “Let yourself feel it, Juniper. I love you.”
Juniper came, gasping, clutching, breathing erratically as the force of everything that the last fifteen years had held and hadn’t held released itself like a torrent. Juniper felt the saltwater well at the edge of her eyes. She pressed them closed and let it spill. She let it all go. And now it all felt so good. It spilled in unbroken lines down her temples, mixing in with her hair, the sand, the cool water lapping against the edges of her body. She was one with the land and with the water. And with Rowan.
Juniper clung to her neck, and they collapsed into each other, breathless. Rowan rolled onto her back and pulled Juniper into her arms. Juniper immediately intertwined her top leg between Rowan’s. Being touched by Rowan had been more than she could have ever imagined, and now she couldn’t imagine ever letting go.
As they lay there for what could have been minutes or hours for all Juniper cared, she let the warmth of the sun envelop her face as she lost herself in the sun’s glow through her eyelids. The shadows of the trees overhead contrasted vibrantly against the fiery reds and warm golds of her eyelids. She had never felt more content.
The sun’s glow seeped in through the cracks in her lashes, and she smiled as she opened her eyes fully to see Rowan leaning back over her. She giggled at how close she was to her face. Rowan leaned over Juniper’s face and charted the freckles on her nose and cheeks with tiny kisses.
“I love it, don’t stop, but what are you doing?”
“Kissing your freckles.”
Juniper full on belly laughed and Rowan joined in.
“You’re laughing, but I know you secretly like it.”
Juniper smirked. “You can worship me any time, any place, Birdsong.”
Juniper began running her hands possessively over the rippled muscles in Rowan’s back, down the curved indent overher spine. She hooked her ankles around the backs of Rowan’s thighs and pulled her in even closer.
“I think I get it, Junie,” she chuckled, slid her forearms under Juniper’s shoulders, and settled her weight more directly over Juniper’s body.
“Don’t stop telling me nice things.”
“Hmm,” Rowan hummed contemplatively then nodded. “Okay. Do you want to know the first time I thought you were beautiful?”
“You’ve always thought I was beautiful.”
“Junie,” Rowan chided through a teasing sigh, smiling widely at the playful glimmer in Juniper’s eyes, “the first time I thought you were so beautiful I suspected I might have a crush on you.”
“Oh, yes, mhm.”
“When Wren was doing your hair for prom. This probably sounds crazy because she’s your cousin, but I was so jealous she got to, I don’t know, touch you. I wanted to be the one running my hands through your hair.”
“You wanted to do my hair?” Juniper asked incredulously.
“That would have been absolutely tragic. No, I wanted to make you feel beautiful. That was supposed to be my job, to show you how beautiful I thought you were. And I wanted to be your date.”
