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She squeezed her eyes shut as she soaked in the warm, solid weight of Lydia’s body against hers and the heavenly crash of her breath against her lips. It was too much. She felt like she was drowning. And yet, at the same time, it wasn’t nearly enough.

She needed more.

She needed everything.

“Lydia, I…”

The hands in her hair slid to cradle her jaw as Lydia pressed onto her toes to kiss her again. “I need you,” Lydia whispered, her voice choked with emotion. “Please, Zann, take me to bed.”

Lydia had wanted before, but never like this. God, nothing in her life had ever prepared her for this. For Zann. For all the things she made her feel. Her hand trembled as she pulled the cottage key from her purse, and she willed it to steady as she tapped it to the lock.

The entryway and main room were cast in warm, welcoming greens and blues and ivories from the Tiffany table lamps they’d left on in anticipation of their late return. The desire that had crackled between them with a tender warmth from the moment she begged Zann to take her to bed flared into something stronger, deeper as she set her things on the console table in the entryway. It wasn’t a blaze, but rather the controlled burn of a gentler want acknowledged and shared, and her heart fluttered at the sound of the door closing quietly behind them, sealing them away from the world.

A sigh spilled from her lips as a tug on her hand urged her into Zann’s arms. Zann’s lips were gentle, so impossibly, beautifully tender against hers as she kissed her long and slow and deep. Her throat tightened at the feeling of Zann’s free hand sliding up her arm to trace the line of her throat before drifting higher still to caress her cheek as one kiss turned into two, three, four.

She clung to Zann and struggled to catch her breath in the moments Zann’s lips left hers to kiss the corners of her mouth, her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids, before returning to her mouth where she kissed her again with so much affection that Lydia wondered if she might ever draw a proper breath ever again.

And then Zann moaned into her mouth, a hushed, wanting exhale of such unmistakable longing that Lydia decided she would gladly spend the rest of her life completely breathless if it meant that she’d never have to lose this.

Lose her.

She felt like she was floating as Zann slowly guided her through the main room to the bedroom, and the feeling intensified when long fingers curled into her hair, holding her with such tender strength as they stopped beside the bed. The world tipped beneath her as Zann’s tongue swirled slowly, heavily around hers, and she pressed her fingers into Zann’s side to steady herself as she surrendered to the heat, the want, the affection that swelled inside her.

She choked on a whimper when Zann’s lips left hers, and her knees turned to water at the unabashed longing that quaked in Zann’s voice when she entreated, “What do you want?”

“I want you,” Lydia confessed, just as passionately as she splayed her hands over the small of Zann’s back.

“You have me,” Zann murmured, her voice shadowed and warm like a summer night.

Lydia’s heart pressed against her breastbone as if trying to hand itself over to this enchanting woman as Zann’s lips melted against hers in a reverent, divinely ruinous kiss. Her stomach flipped deliciously in anticipation as Zann began gently untucking her shirt, and a broken mewl hitched in her throat at the first scalding brush of Zann’s fingertips against her stomach.

She poured herself into the kiss as Zann’s fingers spread wide and pressed higher, higher, letting her shirt bunch on her wrists as she touched every inch of newly revealed skin that she could until she was finally able to work it off over her head.

Lydia stared, hypnotized by the twitch of Zann’s brow and the wonder that shone in her dark, dark eyes as she let her arms fall back to her sides and Zann drank her in.

“You are so beautiful,” Zann whispered, her voice couched with hushed tones of devotion as Lydia’s shirt fell from her fingers to puddle on the floor by their feet.

“Zann…”

Zann’s hands were hot on her sides as she tipped her forehead to rest it against hers. “I can’t believe you’re real.”

Lydia swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I can’t believe you’re real,” she echoed as Zann’s right hand slid higher to stroke the underside of her breast. She caressed Zann’s sides and then tugged lightly at her half-tucked shirt. “Can I take this off?”

Zann’s eyes fluttered prettily as her chin dipped in a short nod. “Please.” She drew a shallow, shaky breath. “I need you.”

“I want to feel you,” Lydia exhaled as she tugged Zann’s shirt from her waistband and then began slowly, methodically unbuttoning it. She caressed Zann’s stomach with the back of her fingers as she worked higher, and held her gaze as the final button came free and she was able to push it ever so gently from her shoulders. Her heart squeezed as her gaze dipped to appreciate the full, perfect shape of Zann’s breasts in her black demi-cup bra and the dip and curve of her waist and hips, and she licked her lips as she dragged her eyes back to Zann’s. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Lydia…”

Throat nearly too tight to speak, Lydia caressed the curve of Zann’s breast. “Can I take this off?”

The satiny black bra was on the ground before the reverberations of Zann’s tremulous, “God, yes,” had faded, and Lydia sighed when Zann wasted no time divesting her of her bra, as well.

She looped her arms around Zann’s neck as they came together once more, their shared moans of delight crashing together in the heated space between their lips as their breasts pressed together. Time lost all meaning as they hovered there at the side of the bed, trading one deep, achingly tender kiss after another, neither inclined to rush to the inevitable, both more than content to enjoy the heady perfection of this unexpected connection. Lydia would have gladly spent the rest of her life right here, half-naked and cradled in the arms of the most incredible, understanding, soulful woman she’d ever met, but that didn’t stop her from moaning in encouragement when the hold on her hips loosened, and Zann’s hands slid inward.

Zann arched a brow as she slipped a single finger beneath the waistband of her slacks and panties to paint a slow arc across her belly. “May I?”

“Always,” Lydia promised smokily, having never meant anything more. It was insane how quickly she’d gotten to this point. She couldn’t explain it—hell, she wouldn’t even know where to begin to even try—but she was beyond trying to convince herself that she wasn’t.