Chapter 1 #2
Fresh tears sprang, and Neve gulped, closing her eyes, surrendering to the sound of her wife’s voice.
Her city…
The fingers finally let go and caressed her lips, barely touching, before a cool palm cupped her cheek, the thumb brushing away the few tears that escaped.
“I know you lined up more donors, more companies, more helpers than anyone on this coast. You browbeat the Governor, the mayor, and the city council people. You’ve been going nonstop for days since the fires were contained.
And I can only assume it’s because you’re trying to atone.
Except, none of this is your fault. The world has gone mad and vicious, but you’re just one woman.
My woman, Neve Blackthorne, but still, just one woman. ”
Neve smiled, and Audrey’s thumb dipped lower, following the curve of her lips, stopping when Neve began to speak.
“I don’t know how much injustice I can take.
And I am perfectly aware of the privileged position I am speaking from.
My house stands. My child is safe. My wife—my wife, whom I married and said marriage nobody will ever take away from me—is here.
But my heart is broken. How many times can we pick up the pieces?
How many more calamities, wreckages, and shocks to our system can we all withstand? ”
Audrey’s green eyes turned somber, the shadows in them crowding Neve’s ability to see clearly. When she spoke, her voice was quiet.
“Just one more, Neve. And then one more. And one more. Hence the fairy lights.”
Neve tilted her head to the side, the rhyme and reason behind her wife’s words escaping her.
“If I’m not mistaken, your string of fairy lights has only one bulb, my love.”
Audrey smirked.
“Oh ye of little faith. There will be awful, horrid days. Like today. There will be terrible, wretched weeks. But they won’t last. What we are all feeling is grief.
For our world. For our city. For our community.
For our siblings who are about to be wrecked by an uncertain future.
For the families and marriages and tomorrows.
Things that we have been promised and things we have lost or were never given.
The collective grief of losing a better future that may never arrive. ”
The hands on Neve’s face grew cold, and she reached for one, kissing each fingertip, breathing gently on them, trying to keep them warm. Audrey’s smile was sad.
“A communal grief for the unjustness of the universe, if you will. But it will pass. Grief passes. It lingers in the pockets of our hearts, but its sharper edges blunt with time and with light. Light, Neve, light always comes through darkness. It’s just science, no matter how many people try to ignore it or dismiss it.
Light will always break through the dark. It’s unstoppable.”
Audrey gave her a forehead kiss before continuing.
“Hence the fairy lights. We had a crowded Christmas. And so I am making this very first light bulb on the string about you and me, having our own little holiday. Today. A memory.”
Audrey reached into her pocket and pulled out a permanent marker.
“You can write on the bulb, call it anything you want. But we are making our first memory, and it will shine. Amidst the chaos and the devilry. I want to love you. And I want you to love me. Our own small, tiny act of defiance that feels neither small nor tiny. It feels magical. Here. Today. And later, soon, we will hang another bulb on the string, and then another and by the year’s end, the fairy lights will shine bright all over the porch, and all our joyful, bittersweet, happy memories will be there. Full of light.”
Neve smiled, leaned in, and kissed lips that were still moving with words, feeling the pulse in the wrist quicken under her fingertips.
“I love you, Audrey Avens-Blackthorne. I insisted on you keeping Avens first because I wanted you to make your name in the world and not think that I want you covered, smothered, if you will, in mine. I was right too. I knew you’d misguidedly imagine that taking my name would mean the world to me.
And maybe it would have. However, knowing that Audrey Avens is world-famous, in her own right, is so much sweeter.
I’d have never allowed you to give that up. ”
Audrey laughed. Happy and open, throwing her arms around Neve.
“Only you would pick a fight on your wedding day, Neve. Only you would do such a thing, and only you would do it for a reason that has everything to do with you being the absolute prize, the perfect knight in violet armor.”
It was Audrey who leaned in this time, her fingers combing through Neve’s hair, pulling slightly, giving the kiss a touch of edge.
“I want you to kiss me, Neve Blackthorne-Avens. And I want you to do it here and now. Under this one fairy light. Let’s make our first memory.”
Neve smirked against the willing, trembling mouth.
She never refused such an invitation. Such a request. After their time together, she knew how Audrey liked to be touched.
Rough and fast would have perhaps done the job here, and yet she wanted to draw things out.
To make the moment last. And she wanted to take.
It often went against their usual, if she could even use that word, since there was nothing ‘usual’ between them. But she surrendered more. And today, for that one bulb, Neve would lead.
She placed her lips on Audrey’s collarbone, kissed reverently, allowing her tongue to leave a trace, before her teeth bit down gently, yet insistently, making her wife squirm and tremble. Yes, Audrey knew she would be the one ravaged tonight.
Still wrapped in Audrey’s legs and arms, Neve considered her options and even as she sucked a particularly beautiful bruise on the tender skin, her hands moved of their own volition.
First, lifting the oversized sweatshirt and slowly, exposing inch by inch the muscled stomach, allowing herself to touch, to caress, to get her fill of those muscles that trembled under her fingertips.
Then she tugged it up and off, and those breasts she dreamt of at night were hers.
Perfectly tipped with rose nipples, already tightly furled. Waiting. Wanting.
Audrey murmured something, grasping Neve’s hair, urging her on. But Neve was in no hurry. Not tonight. Not like this. Not when she wanted to do so much.
She had plans.
Plans that began with leaving petal-like bruises on a clavicle and dragging her nails up and down the toned abdomen. Plans that involved dipping oh-so-slowly into the oversized sweat pants to discover…
“Oh, you are such a brazen girl, Audrey Avens-Blackthorne… Such a naughty one. Were you, per chance, waiting for me to come, and… make you come?”
Audrey moaned as Neve’s fingers played in her wetness, willing, ready. One swift thrust and Neve would be inside. She fingered the clit, once, twice, then caught Audrey’s lips in a bruising kiss.
“I want you, Neve.” Audrey moaned, and Neve gave that plump bottom lip a nip. “I want you to do something for me. To me. Will you, Neve?”
Audrey closed her eyes, and Neve could see she was struggling with words. She let her fingers caress the warm skin under them and waited. The ocean waves played their game of chase just a few feet away from them, suspending them in a moment of perfect intimacy.
Finally, Audrey opened her eyes, and they held Neve’s entire world.
“We tried to do it once and… It didn’t quite work.
” She sucked on the inside of her cheek and Neve almost caught fire.
She knew exactly what her wife was talking about.
It was… The thought excited her and scared her and filled her with something feral.
She wanted to rub her thighs together just contemplating it.
Audrey leaned closer, her lips caressing Neve’s ear, making her shiver. From lust, from things she dared not put into words.
“Today was awful, Neve. And I want you to possess me entirely. Totally. Completely. All of me, taking all of you. You stopped the last time we tried, but I need you not to stop now.”
Neve tightened her hold on the trembling body in her lap.
“I want to do so many things to you, Audrey. I want to lick you, to finger you so slowly, so thoroughly that you forget your name. And yes, then I want to see how many of my fingers you can actually take… It was four the last time we tried. And you were so greedy, so needy, you almost took my entire fist, my love.”
Audrey exhaled loudly and grabbed Neve’s face, returning the kiss with some force, considering she had been a mewling mess just a few seconds ago.
“You won’t stop?”
“It’s hard when you ask me so nicely. And you’re so wet.” Neve circled the entrance as she licked a puckered nipple. “So very wet. Shall we see exactly how wet, wife?”
Audrey moaned louder, her hands fisting in Neve’s hair, urging her on.
“I need you, Neve, please. I want everything. I want it.”
“Shhh, my love. What’s the rush? What if you’re not ready for me yet?”
Neve bit her lip to hide her grin and then bit the nipple simply because it was there.
Audrey clearly did not care about being quiet.
Or not hurrying. Well, her wife was rather spoiled.
It was nobody’s fault but Neve’s. And damn, if she wasn’t proud of herself.
Just for that, she thrust one finger hard and fast, and Audrey keened in her lap.
“Yes, very wet indeed.”
Neve added a second finger and pumped in and out, the heel of her palm hitting Audrey’s clit at exactly the right angle.
As Audrey clawed at her shoulders, Neve thrust the third finger and waited. A breath. Another. As sexy as these things tended to go in books and those godawful movies, anatomy was something that could not be ignored. And neither was lube.
Neve removed her hand begrudgingly and sat back in the chair, placing small kisses on Audrey’s heaving chest. After a few seconds, a forceful tug on her hair made her smirk.
Audrey’s face was a picture of pure disgruntlement.
“What do you think you’re doing, Neve?”