Page 38 of The Ghost of Exes Past

Belle’s breath stops. A command. Emma has given her a command and Belle’s whole body wants to obey. Her hands go to her skirt before she’s decided to move them. She shimmies it down slowly, not breaking eye contact, half-terrified Emma will look away. She doesn’t.

She watches as Emma arches her hips, sliding her jeans off. Then her pants. Black. She is perfect. Belle could sit here forever, tracing the paleness of her skin, the soft dip of her waist. Except she was getting wetter, and Emma hadn’t even touched her yet.

Emma motions for Belle to come closer and, once within reach, pulls her by hips and guides her to her lap. Belle wants to press against her, wants to feel her chest against hers, but is scared to move, in case it shatters the moment.

Emma leans in and kisses Belle’s breasts, prickled with goosebumps, almost vibrating with anticipation. Belle’s hands reach for her own hair, shaking it free from her ponytail, and she can’t help it anymore, as she rolls her hips against Emma.

Emma turns Belle around on her lap. She stares out into the open room and is met with her own gaze in the mirror leaning against the bookshelf opposite.

Belle watches, mouth open, as Emma uses her leg to push Belle’s thighs apart. She watches as Emma kisses her neck. She watches as Emma reaches around to pinch Belle’s nipple. She watches as Emma reaches her other hand between Belle’s legs. Watches as she draws small circles on Belle’s clit, which is wet and ready.

Belle is practically shaking.

She stops thinking now and just feels. She melts into Emma’s warm chest behind her, reaching her own hands back to Emma’s thighs, desperately pulling her body closer. Emma gets the hint.

Belle grinds into her hand and Emma’s rubbing gets harder, more urgent. She can’t help the moan that escapes her mouth as Emma inserts a finger. Belle’s body judders, unable to keep still. She feels the pressure building as Emma kisses her neck, nibbles it, breath hot and rippling against her skin.

Belle can’t think of anything apart from the feel of Emma’s fingers moving inside her. She claws her nails into Emma’s thigh. Emma’s other hand now reaches around to touch herself alongside Belle.

Emma’s fingers match Belle’s breathing, speeding up when Belle’s hips stutter, slowing when she gets close. She teases. She draws it out. Her breath is ragged against Belle’s neck, both of them moving together, and Belle feels the wave building, unstoppable. Emma’s fingers curl just right and when Belle comes, Emma’s name in her mouth, she feels herself let go completely. Emma shudders behind her a moment later, breath catching, and they stay there – tangled, panting, real. No performance. No worry. Just this.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Belle

I feel my cheeks burn whenever I think back to this night. I take a deep inhale, excited to relive it. I shuffle on the wooden floorboards, wondering what Jake will think. I smirk.

The room is ever so slightly smoky, filled with the scent of incense, a musky sandalwood aroma wafting from a low bookshelf to our left. God, I loved this apartment. A woven rug, red, black and cream, lies in the centre of the room underneath a coffee table which is all glass, except for its bronzed legs made from metal piping.

Next to that, a cream velvet sofa backs on to a window overlooking a residential street of brick tenement houses. A fur throw is folded delicately on one arm. A taller bookshelf on the far wall holds a record player, something slow and warm drifting from it and the shelves are stuffed with books, trinkets, records. A mirror is leaned up against the bookshelf, making the room appear bigger and, next to it, a tall lamp casts a warm ambient glow.

The monstera in the corner was her pride. ‘Eleven years old,’ she’d told me once, touching a leaf like it was a pet. ‘Most people overwater them. You have to learn to leave some things alone.’ I remember wondering if that was advice about plants or about me.

The day we’d met, I was not expecting to meet a new love interest. My mind was all work – I had a presentation the following week but had also promised Jules a visit for her birthday, so my stress levels were at an eight out of ten on that train from London to Edinburgh.

I was tapping away on my laptop, oblivious to my surroundings, when I stretched out, looking out at the barren land through the window. My leg was tapping frustratedly against a table leg, or so I thought, because then said table leg moved.

‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry,’ I said, ducking to look under the table and confirming it was, in fact, a human leg. I peered over the tabletop and noticed a woman sitting opposite, a mischievous and amused grin playing on her lips. She had chin-length brown hair, swept haphazardly to a side part. She wore a blue check shirt buttoned to the top and was holding a book open on the table; a red leather bookmark was placed neatly in the fold. She looked like an actress I admired. The kind of woman I’d pause on while scrolling, telling myself it was just appreciation. She looked, I realised with a small internal lurch, like the women I’d always noticed but never let myself think about too hard.

‘I really am so sorry!’ I grimaced.

‘Playing footsie, are we?’ She smirked, playfully, and I felt my face go immediately, completely, red. I closed my laptop. We flirted the entire way to Edinburgh. She made me laugh and talking to her, flirting with her, felt so easy, effortless. Like I didn’t have to try or put on an act – I could just be myself. She asked for my number when we got off the train and I gave it to her without having to think about whether I wanted to.

That weekend in Scotland, I was barely there. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw hers: that steady blue, fixed on me like she’d already decided something.

I had agreed to a drink in a pub with her, before my train back home that Sunday, and the tension was palpable. She had placed her hand on my leg in the corner booth when we chatted about our lives, our jobs, our friends, and I’d felt like a giddy schoolgirl; I could hardly concentrate on anything but the warmth of her palm on my thigh. I chewed my straw as she talked; the Roman nose of her side profile as she looked out towards that bar felt like the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The distance was going to be an issue, but she’d promised me that she’d text me every day. And she had stuck to her word.

Texting for weeks became sexting, became phone calls, became Zoom dates, became plans for me to visit her flat in Edinburgh. I was addicted to how she made me feel – sexy, impulsive, hot.

I’d never done long distance, and my only sexual experiences since Jake had been my ex-boyfriend’s best friend and an Ibiza one-night stand. But I was two years off turning thirty and ready for romance. In my head, my next serious relationship would be the forever one, and so for the first time, I was honest with myself about what I actually wanted. When Emma came along, I wasn’t sure if she was going to be the one for me, or whether she was going to be the sexiest fling I’d ever had. Either way, meeting her on the train, looking at me like I was interesting, unlocked a part of me that had been quiet for a very long time.

There were no expectations with Emma: she felt as happy to explore me and my body as I was to explore her.

This particular evening, she had picked me up from the station with a book she thought I’d enjoy – Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, dog-eared and annotated in her handwriting. We went straight to her favourite wine bar, where she ordered for us both without looking at the menu. A natural, orange wine from somewhere I’d never heard of. A cheese board with names I couldn’t pronounce.

‘This one’s Neufchâtel,’ she’d said, cutting me a sliver from the heart-shaped round. ‘French farm girls used to make them for the English soldiers they’d fallen for. A little act of treason.’ She’d held my gaze as I ate it. I nodded like I had opinions about cheese. I was too nervous to taste anything properly. Too aware of her watching me chew.

I’m standing in the archway to the kitchen and watch now as we sit on opposite ends of the sofa, flirting, tension radiating from our bodies. Jake comes in behind me and stops, abruptly, noticing Emma. I watch him blinking.