Page 302 of Every Almost

Charlie was making sure Reyna was still with her, that they were still here together, moving at the same pace.

“Always,” Reyna answered.

Charlie’s expression broke open.

She shoved the coat from Reyna’s shoulders. It fell somewhere behind her.

Reyna didn’t hear it land.

Charlie’s hands returned immediately, as though the brief loss of contact had cost her everything. They ran up Reyna’s sides, over the shape of her waist, stopping just beneath the rose burning through her tank.

Her gaze followed.

Reyna watched Charlie take her in, the pale fabric stretched across her body, the rose beneath it. It was the look on Charlie's face, the realization of what Charlie would see when the next layer was gone. It was enough to make Charlie whimper softly.

Reyna felt that look everywhere Charlie hadn’t touched.

So she reached for Charlie’s shirt, Charlie's arms lifting before Reyna said a word. The ease hit harder than hesitation would have. Charlie simply gave herself to the moment. Arms raised, eyes on Reyna, breath already uneven. No joke to make it smaller. No attempt to turn away from the enormity of what they were finally able to do.

Reyna gathered the shirt and began to lift it.

Her fingers passed over Charlie’s waist.

Warm skin, that was all, but it was also everything.

Charlie’s stomach tightened beneath Reyna’s touch. Her breath left her in a small rush, and Reyna slowed without meaning to, caught by the discovery that she could do that. That the lightest pass of her hands could pull an answer from Charlie’s body.

She moved the shirt higher.

Reyna followed the fabric over Charlie’s ribs. Charlie’s arms stretched fully above her head, and Reyna watched her emerge beneath her hands, soft and strong in ways no stolen glimpse had prepared her for.

The shirt caught on Charlie’s chin, then her nose, and stayed there.

“Oh, for—” came from somewhere inside it.

Reyna laughed heartily, something she wasn’t anticipating, but quickly worked the fabric free of Charlie’s face. Charlie came out of it with one eye squinting shut.

“Very smooth,” Charlie said.

“It was.”

She let the shirt fall. Charlie lowered her arms and Reyna looked at her.

For one stunned second, she understood why people knelt.

Charlie stood in front of her flushed from the kissing, her hair disordered around her face, her chest rising quickly.

Reyna had seen parts of Charlie before. Bare arms, a strip of her waist when she reached above her head, even the line of her body beneath clothing when she leaned over a console.

Charlie was softer than Reyna had expected in some places but stronger in others. She was real in a way that made every version Reyna had envisioned suddenly feel unworthy.

Charlie was standing there letting Reyna look.

“You’re staring,” Charlie said.

“I know.”

Charlie’s mouth curved.