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Zann’s breath caught when she finally, finally let her touch dip between Lydia’s legs, and she rubbed her clit through the absolutely sodden material of her panties as she pulled away from their kiss to whisper, “Fuck, you’re so wet.”

Lydia’s lips curved into a smile against hers. “I know,” she murmured, the smoke in her voice tinged with amusement. She rolled her hips against Zann’s hand. “Are you going to do something about that?”

Zann groaned and nodded. There wasn’t anything she wanted more. “How do you want it?”

“Slow,” Lydia purred, lifting her hips to help Zann remove her panties.

Zann dropped Lydia’s panties off the end of the bed and drank in the way Lydia’s legs fell open invitingly for her as she quickly shimmied out of her own. Though she’d felt it, her mouth watered at the sight of just how ready Lydia was for her.

“Baby,” Zann whispered, awed, as she lowered herself to her belly between Lydia’s thighs.

She cradled Lydia’s hips in her hands as she dipped her head, a decadent moan spilling from her as she sank her tongue into the sweetness that waited for her. Her eyes rolled back in her head at the pitched, “Fuck, Zee, yes, so good,” that rained upon her as Lydia’s hips rocked against her mouth, and her clit pulsed needfully when long fingers scratched encouragingly through her hair.

Zann looked up at Lydia’s face as she swirled her tongue around her clit, and her heart skipped a beat when dark, dark eyes opened to look back at her. She held Lydia’s gaze as she made love to her with her tongue, her lips, her breath, savoring the sublimity of the moment, letting it build and build and build until Lydia’s eyes fluttered and she came against her mouth with a choked cry of relief.

Zann caressed Lydia’s hips and sides as she lapped at the heady ambrosia of her release, easing her through it with licks and sucks and whispered words of affection. When the last wave of pleasure faded, she abandoned her haven between the world’s most perfect thighs to paint a line of wet, sticky kisses up Lydia’s body before capturing her lips in a slow, wonderfully indulgent kiss, letting Lydia taste herself on her tongue.

Lydia hummed into the kiss and lifted a hand to frame Zann’s face, holding her close as she whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you,” Zann swore, and then dipped her head to capture Lydia’s lips in another slow, thorough kiss, determined to use every minute left to them here to prove to Lydia just how much she meant it.

Lydia wasn’t exactly surprised when her alarm blared to life Sunday morning—she’d been awake for close to an hour already, enjoying the feeling of Zann’s body on top of hers as she watched the rising dawn begin to chase the shadows from the bedroom ceiling—but that didn’t stop her from swearing under her breath when the ringing chimes echoed through the room.

She had known their time was running out, but a part of her had hoped that, somehow, if she stayed still enough and didn’t do anything to draw attention to herself, that time would slip past them and they’d avoid the inevitable.

Still, she couldn’t help but smile when Zann whined adorably, “Ugh. No. Make it stop.”

God, I’m going to miss this. “I would, darling,” she murmured, combing her fingers through Zann’s hair and then down along the curve of her shoulder, “but you have me pretty well pinned so I can’t move.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Zann mumbled, a hint of a smile creeping into her voice as she snuggled closer. “You like it, though.”

“I do.” Lydia ducked her chin to kiss Zann’s forehead. “Let me up for a sec, darling, and I’ll turn it off.”

“M’kay,” Zann grumbled as she pushed herself up onto her forearms to allow Lydia just enough room to move.

Lydia flopped back onto the bed as soon as she’d turned off the alarm, and her throat tightened at the way Zann immediately fell back on top of her with a resigned sigh. She rubbed Zann’s back as they lay there, the silence hanging over them heavy with the inescapable truth neither of them wanted to admit.

“We still have a couple of hours, right?” Zann asked softly.

Lydia nodded and squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that stung the backs of her eyes as she kissed her hair. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Zann echoed sadly. She nuzzled Lydia’s throat. “Would you like to go for one last walk on the beach before…?”

“I’d like that,” Lydia whispered. Because, sure, they could stay here wrapped in each other like they’d begun almost every day this week, but when the missing became too much, it wouldn’t be the memory of Zann’s body or they way she touched her that would haunt her.

It would be the ghostly echo of her laughter.

The ethereal curve of her smile.

The expressive lilt of her voice.

The affection that shone in her eyes.

And it would be Zann’s intelligence and humor and the way she held her like she was something precious that she’d long for in the too-quiet moments when her obligations could no longer distract her from the ache that was already settling in her chest.

“I would actually really, really love that,” she reiterated as she turned her head to capture Zann’s lips in a slow, extraordinarily gentle kiss. Her heart squeezed at the feeling of Zann smiling against her lips, and she swallowed around the lump that formed in her throat when Zann pulled away to look at her with soft, sad eyes. “Darling…”

“Come on,” Zann whispered. She sniffed and kissed Lydia’s nose. “Let’s get out of here.”