Chapter 15 Yael
15
Yael
“Shall we go to the cottage?” Yael murmurs into Margot’s hair what feels like hours later, their lips brushing the soft skin behind her ear.
She drops her head back with a quiet groan, protesting, “There will be socialites roaming the grounds for hours yet. I wouldn’t put it past them to come bursting into the cottage, assuming it’s an outhouse. Rich people are like that.”
Yael doesn’t take offense, as technically, they are no longer rich. Besides, she isn’t wrong. “My room at the tavern, then?” They slide even closer on the bench to trail kisses up the exposed arc of her throat.
“Everyone in Bloomfield will be piled into Clementine’s after today’s tourist windfall.”
Her voice barely wavers…but it’s enough that Yael grins against the slope of her jaw. “Then name a place. Because, Daisy?”
She shivers. “Yes?”
“I’m about to peel this exquisite dress right off you and have you in the flowers and the dirt. Truly, I will ruin your gown without regret, and I don’t care who sees us.”
“The greenhouses,” Margot gasps out. “There’s…there’s a bottle of Granny Fern’s home-brewed mead beneath the shop counter. I’ve been saving it for something to celebrate. We could, um, have a toast. To the show. To us.”
“To us,” they echo, kissing down the long line of her neck.
Margot gently pushes them away, but her eyes glow like lanterns in the twilight. She takes their hand and tugs them along after her, and Yael finds themself nearly sprinting out of the garden to keep up. The two of them head for the cottage just long enough to gather Sweet Wind at the garden gate. Yael hops astride the steed, holding a hand down for Margot. She clasps their forearm and swings up behind them, threading her arms around their waist. Now it’s her turn to lean in and say, “Ride.”
They gallop into Bloomfield. Down the main road, locals hail them as they pass. Maybe they’re going too fast and night has fallen too far for folk to notice Margot’s hand as it works its way beneath the lapels of Yael’s suit jacket, her callused fingertips gliding below their bindings, across their lower ribs. Or maybe they’re perfectly visible. Yael could not give one single fuck either way. Thank the gods that the main road is fairly straight, for all the attention they’re not paying to the path ahead.
When they reach Greenwillow Greenhouses, it’s Margot who hops off first, practically pulling Yael down after. Her larkspur hair has come partially out of its elaborate braids, windblown tendrils clinging to her flushed cheekbones.
“You’re so beautiful,” Yael says. “I’ve no artistic talents whatsoever, I swear, but I’d learn how to paint so I could paint you.”
She blinks back at them. “I bet you’ve said that to half of Harrow.”
They frown. “Margot, how many people do you think I’ve slept with?”
“I…I don’t know. A lot more than me, though that’s not much of a feat.”
“Well, maybe.” Yael reaches up to frame her face between their palms. “But how many people do you think I’ve washed windows for, filled pots for, and pruned trees for? How many people have I trod through mud for and worn boots for?”
She bites her soft bottom lip (they wish it was them doing the biting, are tempted to tug her lip out from between her teeth with their own, but this feels important). “That was work, Yael. You didn’t have a choice.”
“Margot Greenwillow, I have been choosing you every day for four months now. And if I haven’t made that obvious—if you haven’t felt chosen—then clearly I’ve work to do yet. Come inside, and I’ll show you.” They drop their hands to hold one palm out for her and keep very still while she considers them, looking just as vulnerable as she did fleetingly in the Care Cottage.
“Yael, if this isn’t real, you don’t have to—”
“Can I kiss you again?” Yael interrupts.
“I—Yes…”
They move closer and let their mouth part around hers, meeting her tongue with their own. She still tastes of champagne, and she smells like jasmine in bloom. Pulling back after a moment to hover inches away, they ask, “Can I touch you?”
“Gods, yes.”
On the dark path in front of the greenhouses, they trace their fingertips down the low, low neckline of Margot’s gown until they’ve gone as far as they can, where the fabric gathers at a point just above her navel. They hook their fingers inside so she can’t back away without meaning to. “And can I take care of you, Margot, just this once?”
She swallows roughly, throat bobbing. “I suppose…”
“Only if you want it.” Yael tugs her close again so they’re flush together. Slowly, they glide their other hand up her neck to cup her jaw, and tilt her head just so, and whisper against the shell of her ear, “You have to tell me that you want it.”
“Fine, then.” Margot reaches around them to fist a hand in the fabric of their suit jacket, pressing them impossibly closer still. “I want it.”
Inside the shop, Margot checks that the sign reads Closed though business hours have long since ended, then latches the door behind them. She draws the curtains across the door and glances around for a likely place to…well…but Yael doesn’t linger in the shop. They lead Margot by the hand through the strawberry greenhouse and into the cherry orchard. After their last harvest, the trees are flowering again, surrounding them with baby-pink blossoms and the delicate smell of growing things. It’s warmer even than the newly summer evening outside, with the heat still trapped from the day. Yael has been in Bloomfield for over a season now. The old itch under their skin flares up, a lingering doubt, that piece of them that still isn’t certain they can do this, that they can be good at this…
But they push it away as they spin Margot around to face them. Yael truly cannot paint Margot, or start a fire for Margot (well, not on purpose), or cast spells to save Margot from a muddy forest path, but Yael can do this. And they want to, with her and for her. This, they know. The bedroom—or anyway, the metaphorical bedroom—is the one place where they’re never selfish. “Tell me what you like, Margot.”
Her eyes dart among the potted trees before settling on Yael’s. She’s nervous, they think, though not of Yael.
Well, they can help with that.
Yael undoes the single button holding their beautiful suit jacket in place and shrugs it off so that they’re topless except for the hand-width strip of black linen. “Tell me what you like,” they say again, “and where you want to be touched.” They drop their jacket into the petal-sprinkled mulch.
Margot licks her lips as her eyes skim across them. “Where do you like to be touched?”
Grinning, Yael reaches for her hand, and she places it in theirs. “Here,” they say, gliding across their collarbone, pressing her hand to the dip between, so the wonderfully rough pads of her fingers rest against their throat. “And here.” They lift her hand to skip over the tightly tied bindings, then slowly trail her fingertips down the flat of their stomach, until their hands rest at the waistline of Yael’s trousers. “I like that.”
Her fingers flex within their own. “Where else?”
Yael unbuttons their trousers with their free hand and guides her between the tight-fitting fabric and their underpants.
Margot seems in danger of biting through her bottom lip. “Outside or…or inside?” she asks.
“Oh, inside.” With a light grip on her wrist, they guide her hand inside the waistline and down between their legs, her fingers stirring once, twice, until they buck against her. “There,” Yael confirms, groaning. Then they remember themself and peel her hand out from their trousers to press a kiss to her palm. “What about you?”
“The same,” Margot says, sounding out of breath while standing still, “but you should touch me here.” She wraps her strong fingers around their wrist and guides them to her breast, deliciously weighty beneath her dress.
Yael smirks. “Outside or inside?”
“Definitely inside.”
“Fantastic. If you really want to preserve this dress, then take it off before I chew through it out of sheer frustration. Do you need help with the buttons?”
She shakes her head enthusiastically, lifting an eyebrow in her familiar Margot way. “And what are you taking off?”
They slide their already unbuttoned trousers down their legs, prying off the velvet shoes while they’re at it and kicking everything to the side. Standing in the mulch in their bare feet, their underwear, and bindings while Margot’s still fully dressed, Yael should feel overly exposed.
But this is a kind of care: the willingness to be vulnerable first.
Satisfied, Margot reaches behind her neck to undo the tiny trail of buttons at the nape. It takes a moment for her to slide the formfitting bodice down her body, the vast skirt pooling at her boots. She stands naked from the waist up, with a sheet-white petticoat meant to add volume to the skirt of the dress tied around her waist, skimming her knees. She moves to untie it.
“Wait,” Yael says. They settle their hands against her naked waist, over her gorgeously round hips, and tug her in so that they’re pressed together, her full breasts resting just above their bindings, stomach-to-stomach and skin-to-skin. “Let me.”
Margot shivers in the heat.
That’s when Yael sinks slowly, kneeling against the warm earth, skimming their hands down the hills of her body to the petticoat’s hem as they go. “Shall I?” they ask, craning their neck to look up.
Margot reaches down to brush back their hair, which occasionally falls into their face now that they’re no longer determinedly fluffing it up; at some point, they stopped doing that without even noticing. She grips her fingers in the shorter strands at their neck. “You absolutely shall.”
They hook the petticoat’s hem inside their thumbs to lift it as they slide their hands up her full thighs, then duck under.
Yael takes their time caring for Margot, tasting her, hot and soft and slick. She buries both of her hands in their hair and grinds her hips against them, and it’s all Yael can do to hold her in place. When she’s finished, tugging at their hair hard enough that they wince (not that Yael gives a damn), she joins them on her knees.
“Your turn?” she asks, pressing frenzied kisses along their lips, their jawline, their throat, her chest still heaving.
“If you wish.”
They roll into the mulch together, after Yael takes a moment to spread out the skirts of Margot’s gown, wide enough to comfortably fit them both.
“I guess we’re going to ruin it, anyway,” she says, pale eyes dancing.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Yael says, laughing. “I’ll buy you a dozen.”
“With what fortune?”
“With my cut of the fashion show, of course. Didn’t I tell you? Don’t worry, I only take eighty percent.”
“Yael!”
“Just a little banking humor,” they say, and let her push them down.
When Yael arrives, it’s panting, groaning Margot’s name and please, gods yes, there. And then with only a moment’s pause, they’re rolling over atop Margot, kissing their way down her neck, murmuring, “You’ve been so good to me, Daisy. Let me be good to you.” They fumble to untie and shove away the petticoat at last, and bury themself once again between her strong thighs. Bracing themself with one elbow, they reach up to trace her breasts, her waist, to clutch her hand as Margot practically bends their fingers backward. They cradle her jaw and feel the tendons flex.
“Yael, gods, Yael…”
They are good to Margot, as good as they know how to be, for quite some time.