Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
In the bedroom with a panoramic view of Biscayne Bay and the full moon shimmering over the dark, still water, Elena reclined on her back with Zuri and Marisol curled on either side of her. At the center of the king-sized bed, she thought so long about what the hell to ask Marisol about herself that their sweat-covered bodies had dried and Zuri was half asleep when she came up with something.
“What’s your favorite food? I haven’t eaten in a while, obviously, but I remember liking grapes.” Elena spoke into the room lit only by the moon and her reflections on the surrounding glassy buildings.
She couldn’t exactly recall what they tasted like, but she remembered the tart red grapes her father brought home on occasion. Recalled how they were warm from the sun. It was a ridiculous thing to miss, but everyone had something that took them home, to fond memories.
She wanted to know what that moment was for Marisol. To know what her first thirty-one years had been like. There was no need to do something as dramatic as admit it, but she hadn’t intended to make Marisol feel like she didn’t care.
“What?” Marisol asked with a little chuckle in her throat.
Zuri looked up from where she was resting her head on Elena’s ribcage. With her dark makeup smudged, her eyes only looked more beautiful. “Oh, look. She took you yelling at her to heart,” she said with a lopsided smile.
“I didn’t yell?—”
“You definitely yelled,” Zuri disagreed.
“Are you going to tell me what you like to eat or what?” Elena interrupted. “I know that for some inexplicable reason you don’t eat meat,” she added, like Marisol might be scoring her efforts. “Why is that?” A better question she wished she’d asked sooner.
Shifting to her side, elbow bent with her cheek resting on her hand, Marisol’s blonde hair fell under her chin before she tossed it back over her shoulder. “Do you really want to know?”
Elena furrowed her brow. “Why else would I ask?”
Watching her for a moment, Marisol seemed to understand that Elena was not in the habit of having any conversations she wasn’t interested in. Of asking questions for the sake of hearing herself speak.
“My grandma was a vegetarian,” she replied after a beat, voice soft and smile softer. “She always said it was because factory farming was unnecessarily cruel, but I think she hated the idea of anything dying for her. Not when there were plenty of alternatives, you know?”
“And you?” Zuri asked, chin resting on Elena’s chest.
“There weren’t really any other vegetarians when I was growing up, and I wanted to fit in?—”
“So you forswore your morals and ate Babe: Pig in the City ?” Zuri laughed. Elena didn’t bother asking about the reference. She got the idea.
“Well, I tried,” she replied with a pink flush on her freckled cheeks. “There I was, sitting with a basket of chicken fingers in the chaos of the cafeteria?—”
“What the hell part of the chicken is the finger?” Elena asked without concealing her horror.
“It’s just what they call a narrow filet of fried chicken,” she explained like Elena was an adorable ox trying to wear pants.
“Odd.”
Marisol smiled wider. “Yeah, kind of,” she agreed. “Anyway, I drowned it in honey mustard and took a bite and immediately wanted to be sick. After learning that meat tastes absolutely disgusting, it was easy to stay a vegetarian.”
Instead of dropping back down to the bed, Marisol’s attention lingered on Elena’s face. She was looking for something, and Elena didn’t want to guess what.
“Do you want to ask me my views on chicken and their appendages?” Elena joked.
“Why did you get jealous earlier? When Lois was talking to me,” she clarified as if Elena might have already forgotten. Attention darting to Zuri and back at Elena, she paused before adding, “I thought this was just sex and you two had slept with a ton of other partners together.”
“We’re not together,” Zuri corrected. Even without the barb of conviction in her tone, the words still stung.
“Oh, you’re not going to get pedantic about labels are you?” Elena rolled her eyes, wanting the conversation to veer in a different direction. If Marisol was looking to define things, she was going to scare Zuri away, and Elena wasn’t ready to let her go yet. Either of them.
“Well, it’s kind of important to know what we’re doing?—”
Zuri didn’t let Marisol finish. “I’m absolutely not in a relationship?—”
“You’re mine. Both of you. That’s all there is to know.” Elena launched into the caveman routine that Zuri could hide behind. Gave her the plausible deniability she needed to stay… even when they both knew full well that their hearts had never stopped beating for each other. That they could never be just sex .
“Your delusion is so reliable that it’s actually comforting,” Zuri said with a laugh, fingertips tracing meaningless shapes over Elena’s sternum. “I’m no one’s?—”
“What if you’re wrong?” Marisol’s hazel eyes were bright and brimming with mischief.
“Wrong?” Elena tipped her head to the side. “About what?”
Marisol moistened her lips, the ones Elena had only just had her way with. Attention on Zuri while she straddled Elena’s bare hips, Marisol grinned. Reflexively, Elena slid her palms over Marisol’s legs, her strong quads a harmonious complement to Zuri’s thick thighs.
Instead of responding, Marisol leaned down to capture a craning Zuri’s mouth in a kiss. Slow and deep, their kiss was a rush of new desire awakening Elena’s barely slumbering body. Digging her fingers into Marisol’s hips, she urged her to grind against her.
Marisol complied, but not without pulling Zuri up to her while maintaining their kiss. On her knees at Marisol’s side, Zuri ran her hands through Marisol’s mussed hair and held her close.
Of all the ways they’d touched each other so far, the easy tenderness Zuri showed Marisol was her favorite. Despite her bravado, Elena felt Zuri’s growing affection for her in her own body. Knew that Zuri had no way to guard herself against Marisol’s earnestness. Her apparently limitless wholeheartedness. Although, frankly, she wasn’t sure how anyone resisted it.
After lifetimes of seeing humanity at its worst, of violence and betrayal and manipulation and the kind of selfishness that led to atrocity, Marisol was the embodiment of kindness and compassion and bleeding empathy. Elena didn’t need to know she was allergic to fucking peanuts to know who she was at her core. To know that she was a person to fiercely protect. To love.
When Marisol eased out of Zuri’s kiss and looked at Elena again, eyelids heavy and lips swollen, she held her breath.
“Figure it out yet?” Marisol teased, voice husky and dripping with new lust. “What you’re oh so very wrong about?”
Elena raised both brows and waited for Marisol to reveal her game.
“What if…” She bent over her, mouth hovering inches from Elena’s lips. “We’re not yours,” she whispered, bottom lip grazing hers before pulling away. “What if it’s you who belongs to us?”
With a grin, Elena’s attention darted between Marisol and Zuri and then dropped to the place where Zuri’s arm was wrapped around Marisol’s waist. Where her fingers hung carelessly over her hip bone.
Would she give these women her power? Elena’s chest tightened of its own accord. The better question might be… What did she have the power to deny?