Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Finally, after five hours and a few breaks for water and a little kissing, it was done. Daphne stood to look at it in the full-length mirror, gasping at what she saw. The colors, the shading, the design—it was everything she never knew she wanted on her skin.
April took a few pictures of it, then pressed a rectangle of clear Saniderm over the entire piece to protect it for several days. When she was finally done cleaning up, Daphne grabbed her by the hips and pulled her close.
“Oh, hey,” April said, laughing, but Daphne didn’t waste any time before kissing her.
She kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her.
“Thank you,” she said when they finally came up for air, her forehead pressed to April’s. “This was the best birthday I’ve ever had.”
April’s smile was soft, a little vulnerable. “Really?”
“Really.”
“That’s all I wanted for you,” April said.
Daphne took a deep breath, that urge to say some very big, very important words rising up in her again.
And they scared her, those words.
Because it was too soon.
Too much.
Too close to the last time Daphne had completely lost herself in someone else.
So she swallowed the emotion down, focused on the feel of April’s skin, the way she smelled, the way she hummed a little when Daphne kissed her again.
And Daphne’s heart slowed, or maybe it sped up, she wasn’t sure, but either way, she felt more settled, like there was nowhere else she belonged in this moment.
“I’ve got one more present for you,” April whispered, and her fingers flipped the button free on Daphne’s paint-stained jeans.
Daphne laughed. “Here?”
“Here,” April said, walking Daphne backward toward the client chair, unzipping her pants and pulling them down as they went. Daphne’s bare thighs hit the pleather, and she sat as April worked her jeans off, tossing them onto her rolling stool.
“Birthday surprise number three,” April said as she slipped off Daphne’s underwear.
Daphne leaned back and laughed again, a reaction that quickly fell away as April spread Daphne’s thighs and settled between them, lying on the end of the chair on her stomach, her own legs bent at the knees and dangling in the air, her boots still on.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” April said, teeth grazing the inside of Daphne’s thigh.
Daphne gasped, her hand sinking into April’s hair. “Do what?” she managed to ask.
“This,” April said, licking a slow stripe up Daphne’s center.
“Oh my god.”
“Right here on this pink chair,” April went on, her tongue swirling lightly around Daphne’s clit.
“Fuck.”
“In my own shop.” April used her fingers to spread Daphne’s pussy, tongue sliding inside her for a second before she closed her mouth around her and sucked.
“April, fuck,” Daphne said, her hips lifting off the chair.
“God, you taste good,” April said, then hummed against Daphne’s cunt.
“You…you’ve never done this here before?” Daphne asked, her words ragged, her breath labored.
“Never,” April said, hooking her hands around Daphne’s thighs and pulling her closer. “Just you.”
Those words nearly sent Daphne over the edge. She could only make incoherent noises then. She spread her legs wider, scraped her nails through April’s hair.
Just you.
Daphne rolled her hips, desperate for more. More of this feeling, more of April, more of anything she’d give her. April responded in kind, slipping two fingers inside Daphne, pumping them slow and deep, her tongue flicking and circling.
Just you.
Daphne cried out—April’s name, yes, please, anything she could get out as April fucked her. Her legs started to tremble, her orgasm building from her toes upward.
Just you.
April’s fingers did something devilish then.
Daphne couldn’t even tell what—curling or twisting, she didn’t know, didn’t care.
She only knew that she came harder than she ever had in her life, her knees closing around April’s ears, her nails digging into her scalp.
It felt like it lasted forever, April’s tongue continuing to work at her clit, and Daphne lost all sense of anything but April Evans between her legs.
Just you.
After she came down, she lay there for a second, eyes closed, trying to catch her breath. April kissed her softly on her thighs and hips, and Daphne giggled, jolting in the chair.
April laughed, then folded her hands on Daphne’s lower belly, her chin resting on her knuckles. She looked up at Daphne with those eyes, all dark and mysterious. Daphne slid her fingers from April’s hair to her face.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Daphne said.
April’s expression shifted and she sighed, blinking slowly as though drugged. “I’m thinking you’re the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.”
Daphne’s already short breath vanished, and she swiped her thumb over April’s soft cheek. April leaned into her, her eyes fluttering closed.
“What are we going to do?” Daphne asked quietly.
She hadn’t really meant for the question to slip out. Six little words, but they held infinite weights of emotion, countless more questions about the future.
April’s brows lowered and her mouth opened, but suddenly Daphne didn’t want the answer. She didn’t want to hear I don’t know either, because that just made her feel as though there was something hard and heavy that they couldn’t see, couldn’t figure out, and she didn’t want any of that right now.
She just wanted this.
Just you.
“I know what I want,” Daphne said, sitting up a little and grinning.
April closed her mouth, blinking at Daphne’s change in tone. “Oh yeah?”
Daphne nodded. “Two things. I want to get you back to the cabin and into a bed.”
Their own world, just the two of them, reality and everything Daphne didn’t know hours and hours away.
April smiled. “I think I can handle that.”
Daphne took a deep breath. “But first, I want to see your Devon pieces.”
April’s expression slipped a little, her brows twitching low.
“Not because you’re my competition,” Daphne said.
“Aren’t I?” April asked.
Daphne slid her hand through April’s hair. “You are, I know. And in two days, we’re going to show these pieces to Nicola as just that—competition for something life-changing. But that’s not why I want to see them tonight.”
“Why, then?”
“Because I want to see you.”
If art reflected life, if April’s pieces revealed her heart and soul even a fraction of the way Daphne felt her own paintings did, she didn’t want to go another second without seeing what April had created, to see who April really was underneath all her starshine, her deflecting, her doubts that anyone could love her as she was.
“Okay,” April said softly, then kissed the bare skin of Daphne’s belly. “I’ll show you anything you want.”