38. Every Almost Leads to You #6
Charlie felt the pulse beneath Reyna’s hand, then inside her own chest, strong enough to draw a sharp breath from her.
Reyna felt that too.
Charlie saw the moment it reached her. The sudden wonder in her face, the way her gaze dropped to her palm.
“Charlie…”
“I know.”
Charlie kissed her, and the rose flared beneath Reyna’s palm. But this time, the sensation didn’t move from Reyna into Charlie. It rose beneath Reyna’s hand as though Charlie’s body had answered first.
Reyna went still against her mouth and Charlie felt the exact moment she understood.
Reyna’s palm pressed more firmly over Charlie’s heart.
The rose raced across Reyna's own skin in response, climbing her arm and spilling over her shoulder in a rush of light.
Charlie felt the path it took inside herself. Not want or heat or even magic.
Just Reyna.
Reyna’s eyes had gone wide.
“Rey?”
“I don’t know.”
Charlie had never heard her say those words like that.
Awed.
Charlie touched the rose above Reyna’s heart.
Both of them shuddered.
Reyna’s hand slid from Charlie’s chest to her waist, fingers spreading across bare skin. Charlie felt the touch twice. Once where Reyna’s hand moved over her, and again through the rose, a second sensation threaded beneath the first.
She made a sound into Reyna’s mouth, Reyna answering with one of her own.
The light no longer gathered only beneath Charlie’s hands. It gathered beneath Reyna’s too, pressing against Charlie's skin wherever Reyna touched her, as though the rose no longer cared which body it belonged to.
“That’s new,” Charlie said, breathless.
Reyna let out a shaking laugh. “Very.”
“Good new?”
Reyna looked at her as though the question itself was ridiculous.
“Charlie.”
“Right. Stupid question.”
Reyna kissed along the line of her jaw. “Extremely.”
Charlie smiled.
Then Reyna’s fingers moved along her side, and the smile disappeared into a broken breath.
The rose answered before Charlie could. It surged beneath Reyna’s skin and Charlie felt the sensation of Reyna touching her echo through her own hand where it rested against Reyna’s waist.
"Still?" Charlie asked.
"Always."
Charlie moved one hand lower, and she heard Reyna’s breathing stop. Charlie stopped with her.
“Rey?”
Reyna’s forehead came down against hers.
“Yes, Charlie?”
There were a thousand things Charlie could’ve said, but only one thing mattered.
“Tell me everything you want.”
Reyna’s lips parted before she looked down between them and then back at Charlie.
“You,” she said.
Charlie’s chest tightened. “You have me.”
“All of you?”
Charlie pulled Reyna's hand and pressed her palm against Charlie's heart.
“All of me.”
The rose surged, Reyna’s hand finding Charlie’s wrist, bringing it up to her lips and kissing Charlie's fingertips.
"Charlie," Reyna whispered.
Charlie looked into Reyna's eyes, her own moving back and forth between hers.
"I need you to touch me," Reyna pleaded.
And for the second time that night, Reyna took Charlie's hand and placed it against her breast.
Charlie’s breath left her.
Reyna was warm beneath her hand. Soft, yes, but that wasn’t what stopped Charlie. It was the weight of her against Charlie’s palm. The rise of her next breath. The rose gathering beneath Charlie’s fingers as though even this part of Reyna knew exactly who was touching her.
"Charlie, it feels..."
"Different," Charlie said softly.
Reyna laughed softly. "Again, not the word I would use."
Charlie’s thumb moved across Reyna's nipple.
Reyna shuddered, then Charlie did a moment later.
And Charlie nearly lost whatever remained of her mind.
"It feels fucking extraordinary, Rey."
Reyna moaned, pulling Charlie against her and kissing her desperately. Charlie returned the kiss as whatever the rose was doing between them pulsed through Charlie, Reyna's want soaring through her.
Charlie made a low sound against Reyna's lips as she began to massage Reyna's breast in her palm, the nipple pebbling against Charlie's skin.
She used her thumb and forefinger to roll the nipple between her fingers, eliciting a moan from Reyna that overtook Charlie's body in a way she couldn't understand.
Charlie pulled away from the kiss.
"No," Reyna pleaded.
"Wait, Rey," Charlie said, looking down at her hand against Reyna's skin. Her chest was heaving, but her eyes were so amazed she almost didn't notice. "Do you see what I'm seeing?"
Reyna looked down to where Charlie's hand was against her skin, and her eyes went wide.
"It's in my skin," Charlie whispered.
Reyna's rose had so fully collected against Reyna's breast under Charlie's hand that it would have been impossible to see, had it not been spreading into Charlie's fingers and hand, climbing up her wrist now.
Charlie's eyes fluttered closed as her hand grew warm, and everywhere her skin was against Reyna's felt like a million different nerve endings come alive.
"I don't know what's happening, Charlie," Reyna said.
Charlie opened her eyes and looked at Reyna. She saw a trace of worry there, and that would just not do.
"Hey," she said, bringing her hand away from Reyna's skin and cupping her cheek. Reyna covered Charlie's hand with her own, leaning into her. "Hey, Rey, look at me."
Reyna looked at her. Charlie saw the rose begin collecting against Reyna's cheek and begin moving into Charlie's palm.
Reyna looked to the side, then pulled Charlie's hand away to look at the rose there before it spilled out of Charlie's fingers.
Reyna turned over Charlie's hand, as if to examine it in full.
"Look at me, please," Charlie repeated.
Reyna raised her eyes to Charlie's.
Charlie smiled. "I'm not scared."
Reyna's expression shifted to adoration. "You're not?"
"No," she replied. "How could I be? I'm with you. All this is happening with you."
Reyna let out a sound close to a laugh.
"I feel so safe," Charlie finished. She lowered to Reyna and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. "But, if it makes you feel better, we can have a conversation with Kess about it."
This time, Reyna did laugh, prompting Charlie to smile wide.
"Okay," Reyna agreed as she looked up at Charlie, the laugh melting away.
"Later," Charlie said. Then she brought her hand up to Reyna's breast again, hearing the sound Reyna made echo through her whole mind. "Much, much later."
"Yes," Reyna whispered as she arched her back into Charlie's touch.
Charlie dropped her lips to Reyna's skin, kissing across her jaw. Reyna moved a hand into Charlie's hair as Charlie trailed down to Reyna's neck, nipping the skin there, hearing Reyna's breath hitch as she moved.
"Charlie," Reyna breathed.
"I know."
Everywhere their skin touched felt suddenly sacred, because it was.
The rose changed everything. It took what should’ve belonged to one body and carried it into the other.
Every breath, every tremor, every place one of them came apart arrived in both of them at once.
The intimacy was almost too much to survive.
They weren’t only touching anymore. They were meeting somewhere neither of them had known existed.
Charlie kissed lower, down the line of Reyna's throat, across the delicate ridge of her collarbone, following the light that gathered ahead of her mouth as though the rose knew where she was going before she did.
Reyna's fingers tightened in her hair, and Charlie felt the tug and, beneath it, threaded through the bond, Reyna's sensation folding back into her.
She reached the soft swell of Reyna's breast, but didn't rush.
Charlie pressed her lips to the skin just above the nipple, kissing a circle around the hardened peak without touching it directly.
"Charlie," Reyna pleaded.
Charlie gave in almost instantly and closed her mouth around Reyna's nipple.
Reyna arched off the bed with a sound Charlie felt in her own chest.
"Jesus—" The word broke apart in Reyna's mouth. "Charlie."
Charlie moaned around her. She couldn't help it. But it wasn't only the taste of Reyna's skin, or the way the nipple pebbled against her tongue, it was that sensation racing back through the rose, the phantom of pleasure doubling to be a part of her, making her dizzy.
She flicked her tongue and heard Reyna's breath catch. Charlie felt it too. The two of them were caught in the same current.
She drew back just enough to whisper against the wet skin of Reyna's nipple. "I can feel what I'm doing to you."
"I know," Reyna breathed. Her whole body was trembling. "God, I know, I feel—both—"
"Both," Charlie agreed, and took her into her mouth again.
She let the nipple go with a pop before moving kissing across the valley between Reyna's breasts to give the other the same devotion. She closed her lips around the second nipple and rolled it gently with her tongue.
Reyna's hips lifted, and the rose spilled bright beneath Charlie's mouth, racing up her own throat in answer. Charlie groaned against Reyna, undone by the strangeness and the beauty of this phenomenon, by how it felt to be inside Reyna's pleasure as a willing participant.
Then Reyna's hands found her breasts, her palms sliding up beneath Charlie's arms to cup them, hold them, and feel.
Charlie gasped at the sensation, the feeling of Reyna's hands finally touching her.
There was something almost desperate in how Reyna reached for her, the way her fingers spread wide across Charlie's breast.
"I have to touch you," Reyna whispered against her skin, hands trembling as they mapped the curve of Charlie's ribs. "If I only feel this and never give it to you, I'll lose my mind. I need to feel you."
"God, yes." Charlie pressed into her hands. "Please touch me."
Reyna did. Her thumbs found Charlie's nipples and stroked, and the sensation slammed through Charlie with her own body's answer, and the rose giving her the sensation of Reyna's wonder at giving it, all arriving in the same breath. Charlie gasped against Reyna's skin.
Then Reyna shifted beneath her, and her thigh slid up between Charlie's legs.
Charlie went still.