Chapter 25 #2
The kiss was searing. Open, needy, and so fucking real.
There was no desperation…just honesty with every swipe of their tongues.
Jo moaned softly, her hands landing on Amelia’s waist as her fingers pressed through the material of the hoodie she’d borrowed. Amelia didn’t hesitate as she pushed Jo gently back towards her bedroom door, their mouths still tangled as they stumbled their way through the small space.
In that moment, it was all Amelia. Not a fantasy, not an act, just Amelia…shedding the last of the weight she’d carried for so long.
Jo’s hands slid under the hem of Amelia’s hoodie, her fingertips brushing her bare skin.
Amelia let out a broken whimper, her breath catching as she pressed closer and backed Jo up against her bedroom door.
She wanted to lose herself. She wanted to give herself.
God, she needed to feel what it was like to be wanted.
Not as a body in a dark room, but as a woman finally learning what it was to be held in the light.
“I want you to ruin me,” she whispered against Jo’s lips. “Not behind a curtain. Not in the dark. Right here…where I can see you.”
Jo’s body shuddered under her hands. “Amelia…”
“I mean it.” She pulled back and met Jo’s eyes. “This is the most important night of my life. I want to remember this. Every second of it. With you.”
Jo’s lips parted in a soft gasp, her eyes dark and shining with something Amelia hadn’t seen before. Reverence. As though Amelia was something rare and precious. For the first time since she’d closed herself off to love, Amelia felt like she was exactly that.
Jo reached behind her and opened the door without breaking eye contact, guiding Amelia into the bedroom. The room was dimly lit, just the soft glow from the lamp beside the bed illuminating the space, and Amelia could feel her heartbeat in every inch of her skin.
Jo closed the door with a quiet click and leaned back against it, watching her.
No words.
Just silence.
That charged energy Amelia had missed.
Amelia stepped closer, her hoodie riding high on her thighs with every movement.
She reached for Jo again, cupping her face and running her thumbs beneath her eyes, across her cheeks, down to the corners of her mouth.
She wanted to remember every line of her face and every flicker of emotion in those eyes.
“Touch me like you mean it,” Amelia whispered against Jo’s lips. “Not because you feel sorry for me. Not because of everything I told you. Just…because you want to.”
Jo let out the softest breath, and then she surged forward and kissed her again, her hands skimming down Amelia’s arms, over her hips, one eventually settling around the back of her neck while the other was placed over Amelia’s heart.
“I’ve never wanted anything more.” Jo’s lips brushed over Amelia’s jaw.
“I want you. Not the version you think I need, not the woman you had to become to survive…just you.”
Amelia’s whole body gave in at that.
Jo pushed her hoodie up and over her head, revealing the skin she’d kept hidden for so long.
Not just from others, but from herself. Being at Satin didn’t count, none of the people there mattered, but here…
under Jo’s touch, she let herself be seen fully.
The scars she had come to hate. The curves that had once made her feel ashamed.
The softness she had tried to turn into armour.
But Jo didn’t flinch.
She stepped back, drinking her in with a look that made Amelia’s knees tremble.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.”
Amelia pressed her hand to Jo’s chest, steadying herself. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“I see all of you.” Jo gently pressed her lips to her collarbone, then slowly moved lower. “Let me take care of you.”
Jo lowered her onto the bed, covering her body with kisses so full of meaning that Amelia felt tears slip from the corners of her eyes. But this time, they weren’t tears of shame or fear or pain. They were tears of release.
Her body—this body—wasn’t being used.
It was being worshipped.
Jo kissed every inch of skin she could reach, whispering things Amelia wasn’t even sure she could comprehend in the moment. Affirmations. Adorations. Promises…Perhaps, or maybe just truths that had been buried under years of silence.
“I want to ruin you,” Jo whispered as she hovered over Amelia. “But not in the way you think. I want to ruin all the doubt and all the fear. I want to show you what it feels like to be wanted, not because you’re perfect, but because you’re you.”
Amelia reached up and pulled Jo down to her, kissing her deeper than before and giving her everything. Her breath, her body, her scars. Her story.
When her fingers pressed between her soaked lips, Amelia arched her back as a sob caught in her throat.
This wasn’t anonymous. It wasn’t secret. It wasn’t survival.
This was freedom.
“F-fuck.” Amelia rocked against Jo’s fingers, aching to drag this night out until the end of time. “Oh, God.”
Her body was electric, sensitive in ways Amelia hadn’t remembered. Jo’s mouth found her collarbone, her sternum, her nipple, and as her tongue teased, Amelia felt alive.
Jo’s mouth travelled down her stomach, between the dips and curves that had always made Amelia feel less than, but tonight…every touch undid that lie.
“Fuck, I’ve dreamed of this moment for so long.” Jo spread Amelia’s lips and moaned. “You’re shaking.”
“I… It’s been a long time,” Amelia admitted, her breath ragged.
Jo paused and looked up. “Do you want me to stop?”
“N-no,” Amelia whispered, one hand now firmly in Jo’s hair. “God, no. Please, don’t stop.”
Jo kissed her inner thigh, that hot breath teasing Amelia towards the edge. “Then let me show you what it feels like to be loved.”
When Jo lowered her mouth and eased her fingers back inside, it took everything within Amelia to hold on for a second longer. She tightened her grip in Jo’s hair, thrust her hips upward, and enjoyed every single second of it.
Amelia arched with a gasp when Jo slid a third finger inside, her body responding before she could catch her breath.
It wasn’t rough, and it wasn’t wild. It was slow and unrelenting as Jo’s tongue learned every reaction, every whimper, every tilt of her hips.
Her hand palmed Amelia’s thigh like it was something delicate as she wrapped her lips around Amelia’s clit, and then Amelia broke.
She didn’t cry because of shame this time.
She cried because her body was allowed to feel good.
She cried because Jo didn’t flinch or recoil or ask her to be something she wasn’t.
“So warm and beautiful.” Jo moaned as she drew back and locked eyes with Amelia. “And all mine.”
“F-fuck, yes.” Amelia met every thrust of Jo’s fingers, her surroundings disappearing as she gave herself over entirely to the woman planted firmly between her legs…and in her heart. “H-harder.”
Jo moved back up Amelia’s body, braced one hand to the side of her head, and hit deeper with each sink of her fingers. “I’ve always wondered what it would feel like hearing you come for me.”
“J-Jo.” Amelia’s breath grew ragged as her orgasm roared towards its peak.
“It’s…I…oh, fuck, I—” Her hips lifted, and a sob escaped as Amelia came around Jo’s fingers, but Jo was right there with her, anchoring her to the moment.
“S-shit. Oh, God.” Amelia collapsed back onto the bed, her chest rising and falling with broken gasps.
Jo brushed Amelia’s hair from her face with a featherlight touch and smiled down at her. “I’ve got you,” she whispered. “I’ve always got you.”
Amelia turned to her, half-laughing, half-crying. “Nobody has ever touched me like that before.”
“I’m not nobody, and I’ll make sure you know that every single day that we’re together.”
Their lips met again as Amelia shifted and straddled Jo, pushing her back against the pillows, her body slick with sweat.
She wanted to give something back, something honest. When Jo’s hands gripped her hips and guided her movements, Amelia sank down, rolling her hips gently and grinding against Jo until their breaths mingled and their moans matched the rhythm of their bodies.
It was slow, and it was real as they moved together with aching precision, two souls finding one another in a way that wasn’t about release, but about reclaiming.
And when Jo came, soft and stuttering against Amelia’s shoulder, she whispered her name like it meant everything. “Amelia.”
Not Lia. Not anyone else. Just her…here, the light.
Amelia stayed on top of her, buried in the warmth of Jo’s arms, her face tucked into the curve of her neck as the faint thump of Jo’s heart beat steadily against her cheek.
She’d never felt more seen or more wanted.
Fuck, she’d never felt more real.