Chapter Nine
The lift is glass. Of course it is. Of course this hotel, which I chose for its clean lines, adult-only policy and general atmosphere of composed luxury, has a glass lift in its gleaming white lobby, fully visible from the reception desk and the concierge and anyone who happens to be passing through on a Tuesday night.
I make a mental note to complain about this in my review and then immediately forget it.
Emma looks at me. I look at the lobby through the glass.
“If you think I'm not going to kiss you in this lift...” Emma murmurs, moving into me.
“There is a woman at the reception desk.”
“There is,” Emma agrees, and kisses me anyway.
I let her. More than let her. Her mouth is urgent against mine, her hands finding my waist and pressing me back against the cold glass of the lift wall, then her body follows, the full length of her pressing in, and the cold at my back becomes irrelevant, cancelled out by the heat that moves through me from where she is.
Her arms are either side of me and I feel held and I feel wanted and I feel the ache that has been building all evening finally having something to press itself against. My hands go to her jaw, her neck, pulling her in, and my hips press forward against hers.
“I want —” I say against her mouth.
“I know,” she breathes. “I'm going to.”
My knees weaken slightly, but Emma keeps me in place. The lobby slides slowly away beneath us. Neither of us notices until the doors open.
I am fairly certain the woman at the reception desk has seen everything. I decide with the clarity of someone who has run out of things to be cautious about, that I don't care in the slightest.
Inside, my room is exactly as I left it this afternoon — the bed made tight from the cleaner's visit, the ceiling fan turning slowly overhead, the curtains open on the dark sea and stars above.
When I last stood here, pulling on my skirt and checking my sandals, the sky was still bright, the water blue, and I was thinking about nothing more significant than whether the excursion would be worth it.
Emma sets her bag on the chair by the door. I set mine beside it.
“Still alright?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say. And mean it.
I want this. I want it in a way that has moved well past the theoretical and is now standing in a hotel room in Tenerife with no remaining excuse not to act on it.
And yet I feel, standing here, faintly ridiculous, like someone who has read extensively about swimming and is now at the edge of the pool realising that the reading and the water are two utterly different things.
I am fifty years old. I should, by any reasonable measure, be the one who knows what to do.
I do not know what to do.
Emma looks at me. Just looks — the way she has looked at things all evening, with the full attention of someone who has decided that whatever is in front of her is worth it. It is one of her more devastating qualities.
“Come here.”
Not a question. Not a command either. It leaves the decision mine while making it very clear what she would like it to be.
I move into her.
She kisses me slowly at first, her thumbs tracing the line of my jaw, and I stop performing composure and simply feel it.
Then her mouth travels to my neck, finding the curve of it, her tongue lightly lathing my pulse point, and something stirs in me that I was not prepared for.
With anyone else’s lips on my neck, it was always slightly awkward, or ticklish, or simply too close.
This is none of those things. This is heat, spreading outward from where her mouth is, and I am aware, with some clarity, that I am wet, and that I have been for some time, and that the awareness of it now is almost unbearable.
I grip her arms. My fingers press in. “Please —” I breathe. I am not entirely sure what I am asking for.
Emma's hands find the backs of my thighs.
She lifts me.
An involuntary squeal leaves my mouth — undignified and entirely beyond my control — and then my back is against the wall, my legs are around her, and there is no distance left between us; I cannot seem to stop my hips from moving, pressing my centre against the solid warmth of her torso, seeking friction, seeking pressure, seeking anything.
Her mouth is still at my neck and I tangle my hands into her bun and pull — and a low groan leaves her against my skin.
I instantly become wetter and grip her harder.
Emma begins to grind into me, her body meeting mine against the wall, and the sounds I am making are not sounds I recognise from any previous version of myself.
The heat of her, the weight of her, the extraordinary pressure of her against me.
I am close. I am already so close, a building pressure working its way up, and my hands tighten in her hair and —
“Not yet, Cathleen.” Emma’s voice, low and direct, leaving no room for negotiation as her hips lift off mine.
I make a sound that is mostly frustration and she laughs against my neck, teasing and warm, walking us across the room and lowering me until I am sitting on the edge of the bed.
She reaches down and pulls the hoodie over her head, and as it rises, I catch the line of bare skin at her stomach — a pale strip of it, the dip at her waist — and I want, with a desperation that surprises me, to put my mouth there. The want sits in me like a held note.
But I stay where I am sitting. I do not particularly trust my legs.
Emma begins to unbutton her shirt slowly, one button at a time, watching me watch her.
It falls open and she shrugs it off, standing in just her white tank top, the fabric fitted close, the line of her collarbone visible, the definition of her arms, the shape of her chest through the thin material. She sees me looking and smiles.
Then, she kneels before me.
I have never seen anything as naturally, effortlessly sexual as Emma looking up at me from the floor.
“Anything you like?” she asks gently, as her eyes roam over me then come back to mine. “Anything you don't?”
“What exactly do you have in mind?” I ask. “I may require the introductory version.”
The corner of her mouth moves. “You like to be touched?”
“Yes.”
“By hand?”
I nod.
She holds my gaze. “I'd like words.”
“Yes,” I reply. “By your hands.”
Her hands come to my ankles. She removes my sandals with a care that feels almost ceremonial, sets them aside — and something about the attention of it, loosens something in my chest before she has even begun.
Then her palms travel up my calves, the inside of my knees, paying attention the way she pays attention to everything.
“Everywhere?” she asks.
I swallow. “Yes. Everywhere.” I stop. “Actually — not quite everywhere.” I raise my eyebrows and tilt my chin downward, which communicates what I am struggling to say out loud.
Emma's hands move up the inside of my thighs, certain and steady, and press lightly at the centre of my underwear. The damp fabric presses into me. “Just here?”
I bite my lip. “Yes. For now.”
“Got it.”
Her hands move to my linen top and she unbuttons it carefully, leaving it hanging open at my sides. I breathe out slowly as her fingers travel lightly against my skin, the cool air of the room reaching me inch by inch.
“And my mouth?” She pauses, her face level with my chest, and looks up at me.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Please.”
Her mouth descends, kissing across my chest, a light bite, and then her tongue. “Everywhere?” she murmurs, and her teeth ghost across my nipple through the sheer fabric of my bra.
“God, yes.”
She moves the cup of my bra aside and her mouth closes over my nipple, warm and wet, her tongue circling, followed by the lightest nip of her teeth. My hands are in her hair, my back is arching and my hips have resumed their rolling.
Her mouth moves from my chest to my neck. I tip my head back. The ceiling fan turns overhead and I am aware of nothing except where her mouth is and where I want it to go.
“And you're alright with toys? Penetration?”
I consider this. “Yes. Although —” I pause, thinking. “I may have somewhat over-exerted myself with a certain toy this morning.”
Emma laughs softly against my neck. She pulls back slightly to look at me. “What did you think about this morning, when you were touching yourself?”
Heat moves into my face. “A character from my book.”
“Tell me.” Emma holds my gaze as her hands slide up my thighs and squeeze.
“The plumber,” I breathe. “Going down on the main character. The way it's written in the book. Slowly. Making her beg for it.” I stop.
A quiet “Fuck” escapes her before she speaks. “I want to taste you so badly, Cathleen.”
I look down at her. The low light. Her dark eyes. The tip of her tongue running along her lower lip, and then her teeth following, pulling it in.
“Please.”
She pushes my skirt up slowly, her palms warm against my thighs, and presses her lips to the inside of my knee.
Then higher.
Her fingers dip into the waistband of my underwear, drawing them down and off. She looks up at me — those eyes, deep and dark in the low light, a clear question in them.
“Please.”
She turns her attention to where I need her.
I stop thinking in words.
There is the warmth of her breath first, then the slide of her tongue — from the very base of me, all the way to the top — and a groan leaves me that cuts off my own breath, something between sound and surrender, nothing like anything I have made before.
She does it again. And again. Learning. “Do you like that?”
I answer with the only word I can find. “Yes.” Over and over, until it stops being a word.
Emma moans into me — the vibration travelling through me — and lifts her mouth a little. “You taste incredible.”
Being told that, in that voice, in that moment, unravels me entirely. One hand slides back on the mattress to brace myself. The other tangles in her hair.
Her hands press my thighs wider. “Open more for me.” Her voice is low and direct from between my legs.