Page 303 of Every Almost

“Should I stop?” Reyna asked.

“No.” The answer came so quickly that Reyna nearly laughed.

Instead, she put both hands against Charlie’s bare waist.

Charlie inhaled.

Her body leaned into Reyna’s touch. Reyna’s hands moved slowly across her skin. Charlie watched Reyna’s face while shedid it, as though Reyna’s reaction to her mattered as much as the touch itself.

“Rey,” Charlie said.

Reyna kissed her.

Charlie’s arms came around her neck. Reyna pulled her close, and the thin layer of her tank against Charlie’s bare skin became the only thing in the universe she hated.

Charlie seemed to agree.

Her fingers found the hem.

She tugged once, impatiently, and Reyna smiled against her mouth.

“Arms.”

Reyna lifted them.

Charlie pulled the tank upward, her hands traveled with it, fingers grazing Reyna's skin. The rose followed, color pouring across Reyna’s skin beneath Charlie’s fingertips, rising over her ribs, spreading across her chest and shoulders as the fabric climbed.

Charlie stopped halfway, watching the light move beneath her hands.

“God,” she whispered.

Reyna could hardly breathe.

Charlie finished pulling the tank over her head, the fabric clearing Reyna’s face.

Her arms came down, and Charlie forgot to let the shirt go.

It hung from one hand while she stared at Reyna. Openly.

Her eyes moved over the shifting rose first, following the color across Reyna’s skin. Then they roamed across her shoulders, down her chest, along her waist, and back up again.

The shirt slipped from Charlie’s fingers.

Reyna had been looked at before. Admired, desired, evaluated. She knew the difference between someone seeing her and someone seeing what she represented to them.

Charlie wasn’t looking at a captain, or at a Kaelari bloom or a biological impossibility.

She was looking at Reyna, simply, irrevocably, completely ruined by everything she saw.

Charlie’s eyes had gone bright. Her throat moved as she swallowed. When she tried to speak, nothing came.

“Charlie?”

Charlie shook her head once.

“I—” She stopped, breathed, tried again. “I can see all of you."

Reyna almost smiled. “You did just take off my shirt.”