Chapter 23 #3
“Do you mean …?” Thomasin sounded unsure, which she never did. Edith reached for the cord that held Thomasin’s curtain in place, but her fingers were shaking too hard to undo the knot.
Thomasin’s hand closed around Edith’s trembling fingers.
She smoothed the crease between her knitted brows with the other hand.
Where Thomasin had been desperate and frenzied moments before, she was now soft and patient, as if she could see right into the storm of anxiety and lust warring in Edith’s heart.
“I love you,” Thomasin said, her voice straightening the tangle of thoughts in Edith’s mind. “Do you want this?” It seemed so simple when she said it like that, so easy.
“Yes,” Edith whispered.
Thomasin’s eyes darkened, and she raked a possessive hand down Edith’s body, from her throat all the way to the lower hem of the curtain.
Her fingers ghosted across Edith’s outer thigh, tracing patterns into her skin.
She leaned in to kiss Edith once more, her lips soft.
Against Edith’s mouth, she said, “We’re both wearing curtains. ”
Edith burst into laughter, and Thomasin’s own laugh mingled with hers in the scant space between their lips.
“If I do anything you don’t like, you’ll tell me,” Thomasin ordered, suddenly serious.
Edith swallowed, those nerves still churning. Her voice shook slightly. “I will.”
Thomasin’s hand tightened against her thigh, fingers almost bruising. “Good girl,” she murmured.
Those words heated Edith inside and out. Her cheeks, already red, blushed even deeper, and her core went molten. “You do know that I have no idea what I’m doing, right?”
The left side of Thomasin’s mouth tilted up, and her fingers stroked the skin just beneath the hem of the curtain. “I know, Edith.”
“And you still want me?”
Thomasin sat up straighter, took Edith’s face in her hands. The callouses were rough against her skin, sending shivers down her spine. “There is nothing you could do that would make me not want you.”
Edith let her forehead fall against Thomasin’s. Her hands traveled up and down Thomasin’s tattooed arms. “I want you so much,” she whispered, thinking how fitting it was that they were right outside a confessional booth.
“I know the feeling,” Thomasin said, and then she kissed her.
Deeply. Her teeth nipped at Edith’s lower lip, and when she gasped, Thomasin slipped her tongue into Edith’s mouth, licking across the roof of her mouth.
Edith was breathless when Thomasin pulled away and pinned her with a hard stare.
“For a lot of this quest, you’ve been teaching me. But now it’s my turn to teach you.”
Edith wanted to conjure a witty, just as seductive response, but all that came out of her mouth was “Okay.”
Thomasin chuckled darkly. “Okay,” she mimicked. And then she was kissing a path down Edith’s throat and along her collarbone, sucking little bruises into her skin. Edith’s breaths grew shallower the farther down Thomasin traveled.
Her hand found Edith’s breast over the curtain, and Edith instinctively grabbed Thomasin’s wrist, stilling her. No one had ever touched her like this. She had known want, desire, but it had always been in solitude.
Now here was Thomasin, guiding her through it.
Feeling it with her. Edith had never felt so exposed, so vulnerable, and she had always thought that these things would be terrifying, and they were a little, but they were also unspeakably wonderful, because along with this vulnerability came love.
The kind that can only be experienced when another sees you for all that you are.
There was an understanding yet searching look in Thomasin’s eyes. Edith let out a shaky breath, stroked her thumb over Thomasin’s wrist, then let go. “Go slow,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Thomasin said softly, “I’ll be gentle with you.”
And she was. When she unlaced the cord and let her own curtain fall first, baring herself to Edith’s gaze, as desperately beautiful as Edith knew she’d be.
When she unlaced Edith’s own curtain, lowering it slowly, worshipping each little bit of skin as it was revealed.
Letting Edith know that the parts of her that had never been seen, never been desired, were wholly and entirely loved.
When she kissed the spot just beneath Edith’s navel, and every muscle in her stomach clenched with the ache of it.
When Edith blindly reached out to touch whatever part of Thomasin she could, and Thomasin found Edith’s hand, interlaced their fingers, as if the other woman could sense that Edith needed a steadying force.
Even when Thomasin’s grip turned rough, hands clutching Edith’s hips, teeth scraping the soft skin of her belly between kisses, there was still gentleness in the way she made sure that the curtain still covered Edith’s lower half, that her skilled fingers did not yet venture beneath.
Until Thomasin looked up at her through those long lashes, eyes dark and questioning.
Edith could hardly think. Thomasin was everywhere, taking up Edith’s entire being.
Her chest rose and fell heavily and sweat beaded on the nape of her neck.
Every trembling inch of her burned. She wanted to learn everything Thomasin had to teach her.
She wanted nothing between them. She just wanted Thomasin.
Edith nodded.
Finally, Thomasin’s hand trailed lower, slipping beneath the curtain, between her thighs.
For the first time in her life, Edith stopped thinking.