Page 314 of Every Almost

Then Reyna's hand shot down and caught Charlie's wrist.

"Rey?" Charlie asked, a sense of worry coming through her voice.

Charlie's fingers stayed exactly where they were, pressed against Reyna. But Reyna held them still, her chest heaving, her eyes flying open to find Charlie's.

"Wait," Reyna breathed. "Wait... not like this."

Charlie searched her face, heart pounding. "What... what do you mean?"

"Let me touch you too." The words tumbled out of Reyna, half-plea, half-prayer, her thumb stroking desperately over the inside of Charlie's wrist. "At the same time."

"Rey..."

"I don't want to come without you, Charlie. I want—I want us to feel it together. Both of us. Please. Let me touch you."

Something in Charlie's chest cracked wide open.

"Yes," she said, fervent and immediate, the word almost out before Reyna had finished asking. "Yes... God. Together." She pressed her mouth to Reyna's. "I want to come with you."

Reyna made a sound against her lips that was almost a sob.

And then her hand slid down Charlie's body.

Charlie felt her breath leave entirely.

Reyna's fingers found her, and the moment they did, the rose bloomed across Charlie's skin the way it had bloomed across Reyna's. It gathered to meet Reyna's touch, leading her exactly where Charlie needed her. Charlie's forehead dropped onto Reyna's shoulder. She'd felt the echo of it before, the ghost of Reyna's sensation, but this was everything. This was Reyna touching her, real and direct. The two things braided together until Charlie couldn't breathe.

"Oh my god," Charlie whispered. "Rey."

Reyna breathed against her ear, gentle and reverent.

They moved together.

Charlie's fingers on Reyna, Reyna's on Charlie, and the rose flowing between them in a single unbroken current. Every stroke Charlie gave came back to her through Reyna's hand, every touch of Reyna's arrived doubled by the bond. The two of them became a loop with no beginning, pleasure crossing and recrossing until neither of them could tell where one body ended. Charlie had never felt so connected to anyone in her life. It was more than touch or magic or sex. It was Reyna, wholly,within her and around her and beneath her hands all at once, the two of them meeting in that place neither had known existed.

"Rey..." Charlie couldn't finish. She was shaking.

"I've got you," Reyna whispered, leaning up to kiss Charlie gently, soft and patient as their bodies raged together.

The tenderness brought Charlie to a peak she didn't know was there. A love so profound it needed another plane of existence. She opened her eyes, only to find Reyna looking back at her.

"It's always been you," Charlie whispered.

"I know," Reyna breathed.

Charlie kissed her this time, returning the same soft, patient kiss.

They continued to move together, the current building between them into something enormous, something that lit the rose across both their bodies in a rush of racing light. Charlie felt her own release gathering and Reyna's gathering alongside it. Their breath tangled together, their hands moved against one another, and their hips rocked into each other in a rhythm that belonged to them both.

"Charlie..." Reyna's whole body drew tight beneath her. "Charlie, I'm going to..."

"I'm here." Charlie leaned forward, kissing her. Reyna pressed her lips to Charlie. "I'm with you. I'll always be with you."

And they broke. Together. In the same breath, at the same instant, pleasure crashing through them both and pouring across the bond while their orgasms entwined, moving through the two of them. The rose flared blinding-bright across their joined skin.

Then slowly, softly, the light dimmed between them.

The rose settled back into a soft glow beneath their skin before moving back fully into Reyna's markings. Charlie's breathcame in ragged pieces against Reyna's neck, and beneath her, Reyna trembled through the last of it, her arms wound so tightly around Charlie that there was no space left between them at all.