Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
GRACE
Time changed shape and meaning when Alix ran her fingers through Grace’s hair.
It expanded while they peeled off half their clothes without slowing their kiss.
It moved in reverse, rolling back Grace’s memories, writing over them, until every former partner was erased.
Until there was only Alix. Had only ever been Alix.
It stopped when she had Alix on the bed in nothing but jeans and a sports bra.
Savoring every moment because she didn’t know how long the memory of Alix’s body would have to sustain her, Grace knelt onto the foot of the bed and crawled over her.
“You’re so hot,” Alix muttered, eyes dark and wide while she watched Grace inch toward her.
Grace grinned when she reached Alix’s long, elegant neck.
She dropped her hips, pushing Alix’s legs apart.
Groaning approvingly, Alix opened for her as far as her jeans allowed.
But it was the way she clawed at Grace’s bare back, pulling her closer, that made Grace gasp.
No one had ever made her feel so wanted with nothing but a touch.
“You’re absolutely beautiful,” Grace whispered when she was hovering over Alix’s lips. She’d never stop thinking about the way they looked parted. Of how sinfully good they felt trapped between her teeth.
“Grace,” Alix sighed, but she didn’t say anything else. Like she knew that she didn’t have to because Grace understood the shape of her plea. Understood that she needed more of everything in the same desperate way Grace did.
She’d intended to kiss Alix slowly. For her tongue to match the deliberate rhythm of her rolling hips, but then Alix’s hands were ghosting the small of her back and floating lower.
When Alix grabbed her ass possessively with both hands, Grace happily accepted that slow would have to wait for a later round.
“Was that too much?” Alix panted, worried eyes snapping open and grip loosening.
Grace grinned. “Oh, baby,” she said in a dramatically condescending tone. “If you think that’s too much…” She grazed Alix’s lips before skimming her jaw. “Then you might not survive me.” She bit into Alix’s neck, earning a surprised but throaty moan.
“Don’t stop,” Alix begged, fist in Grace’s hair.
“Then pull harder,” Grace replied.
Without hesitating, Alix tightened her grip on the back of Grace’s head and yanked.
It was a current burning hot and fast from her scalp down her spine and adding to the thrumming ache at her core.
She indulged in the sensation, mouth open in a silent moan while she straddled Alix’s thigh.
Even with the denim muting the friction, she couldn’t help grinding against Alix even if she knew she’d never find relief like that.
The torment of delayed gratification was worth it to hear Alix’s breathless curses followed by a slightly panicked “Jesus.”
Grace forced her eyes open enough to find Alix watching her.
Brow furrowed and expression pained, Alix was stunning.
Grace couldn’t stop chasing that reaction.
She had the overwhelming and unstoppable need to ruin Alix’s expectations for sex.
Just for a little while. Just so she wouldn’t forget her.
Alix was gorgeous and charming and regularly frequented gay bars.
Grace wasn’t naive, and she couldn’t expect exclusivity when they lived on opposite sides of the country.
But the thought of anyone else touching Alix like this was an inferno breaking containment. It burned through Grace’s body and drove her back to Alix’s neck. “Can I leave a mark?”
Alix’s grip in Grace’s hair tightened to a fraction below unbearable because she learned exhilaratingly fast. “Fuck, yes.”
The breathy permission was a match to gasoline. Grace growled with a raw, territorial need to claim. She returned to the curve of Alix’s neck, but when Alix held her breath, anticipating a bite, Grace kissed her softly instead.
As soon as Alix relaxed, Grace sank her teeth into the base of her throat.
Cursing, Alix’s hips flew off the bed and her entire body tensed and writhed, but Grace didn’t lose focus.
She wasn’t aiming for a pretty bruise. She needed to brand her with a warning.
A disclaimer that announced: MINE. Mine… even if only right now.
It was only when the taste in Grace’s mouth turned metallic that she pulled back. That she held herself over a flushed, panting Alix to examine her work. The mark was already darkening from red to purple, and Grace hoped it would last at least a week.
Catching her breath, Alix looked up at her and smirked. “Leave another one.”
Grinning, Grace kissed her again before obliging. She was sure that even if they kissed a thousand times, she’d never stop feeling it in her entire body. Never stop needing the sensual swipes of Alix’s tongue against hers.
Grace kissed the thin spray of black and gray flowers tattooed from Alix’s shoulder, over her collarbone, and to the edge of her neck.
She ran her tongue over the freshly bruised skin, teasing Alix with anticipation before she kissed a line down the center of her chest. She kissed the outline of a snake slithering its way sensually up Alix’s sternum, between her cleavage, and flicking its tongue approvingly toward the dark mark Grace had left on her throat.
“Have I told you how much I love your tattoos?” Grace ran her tongue along the snake, following the path it carved into Alix’s skin.
“Wait ’til you see how many more I have,” Alix teased.
Grace wished she had the patience to go slower, but she wanted to see every part of Alix’s body all at once.
Needed to know every curve and bend and smooth expanse.
Wanted to taste and feel every inch of her until she could recite her like her favorite song.
Until she sang her in the shower and hummed her in the car and belted her out when she was alone in bed.
When all Grace had were her own insufficient hands on her body and she ached to return to Alix’s skin. To this moment. To her.
Ghosting her mouth over Alix’s thin cotton bra, Grace found the stiff peak of her nipple through the material.
She’d meant to tease her first, but her self-restraint had never been tested so acutely.
When Alix arched her back and made the most desperate whining sound, Grace lost the fingertip-grip she had on self-control.
She shoved Alix’s bra up her body, wishing she could tear the elastic band in half. “Take this off,” she demanded, earning another curse from Alix, but this time it was coupled with immediate obedience.
Half-sitting up, Alix tore off her bra like she was also offended it existed. Grace shoved her back down on the bed, not giving her the chance to find the clasps straining over Grace’s back. She’d get naked later. She didn’t have another second to waste.
“Fuck,” Alix groaned, rough and desperate, when Grace found her nipple with her tongue. “You’re killing me.”
Grace replied with a moan of satisfaction before taking most of Alix’s breast in her mouth.
Before taking the other one in her hand and squeezing it just shy of too hard.
Before leaving searing, open-mouth kisses all over her chest until she ventured lower and left another agonizing bruise over her ribs.
The purple blotch added color to the tattoo of an orca ramming a superyacht.
Alix’s belly trembled while Grace continued her descent.
Grabbing fistfuls of sheets, Alix dug her hips into the bed when Grace kissed her navel.
Whispered a curse when Grace dragged the tip of her tongue from her navel down to the edge of her jeans.
Bit her bottom lip when Grace unfastened the button with one hand.
Every reaction Alix gave her was so hot.
Every muttered moan and sigh so intoxicating.
With more time, Grace would drive her to the edge over and over until she was begging to drop over the side.
Everything about Alix said that she’d love the torment of being edged to the brink of insanity, but all Grace could think about was tasting her.
Of knowing what Alix sounded like when she came on her tongue with her name burned on the roof of her mouth.
She pulled down Alix’s zipper, greeting each new inch of exposed skin with her lips and tongue and the teasing scrape of her teeth.
Alix’s skin responded with goose bumps, and she couldn’t stop vacillating between tipping her hips up for more and grinding them into the bed, as if either of those would ease her pain.
Pain that belonged to Grace. That was hers to satisfy.
Sitting up on her knees, Grace grabbed Alix’s waistband and pulled hard. It only took two decisive yanks to tear the jeans off. To leave Alix in nothing but black tomboyx boy shorts. Grace didn’t pause to look at Alix as much as she froze when the sight knocked the air from her lungs.
She wanted so badly to take a picture of Alix like this. To sear the image of her into something more reliable than her memory. Alix, hair messy and skin flushed, was singular perfection.
Grace leaned over and kissed the wolf tattoo on her muscular outer thigh. It looked like it had been drawn in a single, elegant line and matched the stylized dragon on her other thigh. Grace guessed at the significance. Wolf for her namesake and a dragon for her zodiac.
Promising herself that she’d revisit every symbol engraved on Alix’s skin after she quenched her intense need to know what she sounded like when she unraveled, Grace insinuated herself between Alix’s parted thighs.
The inside of Alix’s thigh was warm and soft.
She kissed a hurried, sloppy line up to the edge of her underwear and kept going.
And then she made the mistake of kissing her through the fabric.
She hadn’t expected the material to be soaked.
For Alix to be so turned on so fast. For that knowledge to wreck her.