Chapter 30
CECILIA
“Okay, you weirdo,” I mumble into the cat’s soft fur. “Let’s take you back to your house.”
The conversation with Rodrigo eventually shifted to more neutral territory—ice times, some of the drills we have planned for the week, and the activities that Nina put together for the rest of the month before we have to head back home to prepare for the next championship in September.
Eventually, one of the other skaters came to find him and dragged him along, an apologetic look on his face at the idea of me spending the evening alone with a cat.
Natalie Portman is still in my arms, heavier now that he’s decided I’m a perfectly acceptable mode of transportation.
His head rests against my forearm, completely unbothered by the fact that I walked in the wrong direction for at least six blocks, realizing with a lot of embarrassment that I was in front of the rink and not on the other side of town.
I could turn back. Or just drop him off at the front door and text Isabella that her cat is out. Keep things where they’ve been—contained and manageable. A safe, professional distance despite the natural pull and the kissing and whatever the fuck else is happening.
Her house, obviously, looks the same as it did the last time I was here. Clean lines. Light on in the kitchen. A quiet kind of order that feels intentional without being rigid.
I shift my weight from one foot to the other, the cat stretching slightly in my arms like he’s reminding me why I’m here in the first place.
“Okay,” I murmur, more to myself than to him, and then I knock.
It takes a few seconds.
When the door opens, Isabella looks… surprised, but not in a way that makes me regret being here.
Her eyes drop immediately to her cat.
“Well,” she says, stepping back to let us in. “This explains a lot.”
“I swear I didn’t kidnap him,” I utter, walking past into her house once she motions for me to come in. “He just showed up. At the ice cream place. I didn’t—” I stop, because the explanation feels unnecessary. “I figured you might want him back.”
“I usually do, yes.”
There’s a hint of warmth in her voice—amusement, maybe—but it’s toned down. She closes the door behind me, and for a second we just stand there, the silence pressing tightly around us.
I lower the cat carefully to the floor. He chirps, then stretches once and immediately walks past both of us in search of better things to do than watch two women try to talk to each other.
“Unbelievable,” Isabella says under her breath.
I almost smile. “What’s the story with the cat?”
She exhales, like she already knows how this sounds. “Someone left a whole litter at the rink. Nina managed to place most of them with the locals.”
“And him?”
“He didn’t go.” A small pause. “He was… annoyingly perfect. Sweet, cuddly, and followed me around with these shiny, enamored eyes.”
I glance down the hallway where he disappeared. “That cat?”
She shakes her head lightly. “I was supposed to keep him for a few days. Just until we found him something more permanent.”
“And?”
Her mouth lifts slightly. “The asshole never left.”
I let out a quiet laugh, the sound catching me a little off guard. “So he decided for you?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s bold,” I say, glancing in the direction of the hallway again. “I respect it.”
She huffs out something that’s almost a laugh.
I push off the wall, a little lighter now, like the whole thing is easier than it was a minute ago. “Honestly, good for him. I would also choose to live here. If I were a cat, of course.”
She watches me. There’s a long pause, and it feels like all the air in the room has been sucked out.
“You think you’d last?” she asks, taking a step closer to me.
I shrug, moving closer in her direction without really thinking about it. “I adapt easily.”
Isabella’s gaze drops briefly to my lips, I think, and then back up again.
“Mm,” she hums, like she doesn’t quite believe me. Or like she’s considering it.
I stop just short of her. Close enough now that I can see the shift in her expression, the ease from a second ago giving way to a quieter kind of focus. Heavier. Totally loaded.
Neither of us moves.
“Careful.” Her voice wraps around the word like a teasing warning. “That’s how he got in.”
I almost smile. “Yeah?”
“You get too comfortable around here, and suddenly you’re not leaving.”
There’s a shift in the way she says it that feels different. A calm undercurrent to her words. It’s that habit I’ve noticed people have here, saying one thing while meaning another entirely. It’s definitely not about the cat, that’s for sure.
I tilt my head slightly, studying her. “And that would be a problem?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Her hand comes up instead very slowly, fingers brushing lightly along my jaw, like she’s testing the distance, or closing it.
I don’t pull back.
“Fuck, Isabella,” I blurt out. For one intense moment, we stand there, looking at each other. Breathing the same air. A knot of nerves coils low in my stomach.
Then I lean in. Isabella meets me halfway and kisses me, hard, like she’s been holding back for weeks.
Her mouth is warm and insistent on mine.
A soft whine comes out of my mouth, and she pushes deeper until my back hits the wall with a thud.
Her hands are everywhere, and I feel the heat of her body from my head to my toes.
“Hi,” she murmurs, barely pulling back. Her hair is up in a long braid and the tip moves with her as she rests her forehead on mine.
“Hello,” I whisper back, my voice not entirely reliable. Isabella’s breath ghosts my mouth, and she smiles, one of the corners of her lips tipping upward. “You are so fucking hot.”
I chuckle and look into her eyes, and she smiles in return.
She kisses me again. Her lips are soft, but there’s something controlled underneath it, deliberate in the way she’s kissing me, like she’s cataloguing every reaction, every adjustment in my body.
Maybe she thinks I’m going to run away, skittish like a scared cat.
And if I were to think too hard about it, I would probably bolt, yes. It’s still complicated between us.
My hand comes up without thinking and settles at her waist, fingers skimming the soft skin of her midriff right above the waistband of her leggings.
“Fuck,” Isabella murmurs against my skin, tugging at my wrists and pulling me farther into the house.
She’s walking backward in the dim lighting, navigating her home perfectly as she pulls me into the living room.
She turns us suddenly and pushes me onto the couch.
The cushions dip underneath my weight, and she takes a step back, looking at me like she’s trying to decide where to start. “Ceci.”
Isabella leans forward and kisses my jaw, down my neck and the space where it meets my shoulders, slow enough to make my toes curl. My fingers are itching to move, to touch her toned body, perfect after years of intense training.
“What?” I say, but it’s not at all what I mean. I mean to say touch me, put your mouth on me or I’ll combust, wreck me forever and make me regret everything and nothing at all at the same time. “What is it, Princess?”
Her smile is small and wrecking as her hands drift down to the hem of my shirt, and she peels it gently off my body.
The cool air of the space touches my skin and makes everything tight, and all my nerves are suddenly aware of what’s happening.
She moves almost in slow motion, the tips of her fingers running up my stomach and under my bralette.
In a flash, Isabella is on her knees, tracing her hands down my torso and reaching the band of my pants. I blink a few times because I can’t believe what is happening, how reverent she is being, almost adoring.
“Please,” I hear myself say, and I’m not even embarrassed by the sound of it. There was a time I wouldn’t have asked Isabella Pierce for anything. But here we are, in the most intimate position we can be in, a whimper coming out of my mouth and a smirk on her face.
“I didn’t take you for a beggar, Ceci,” she says as she unfastens the top button of my jeans and undoes the zipper slowly.
The sound is practically obscene, loud and completely unrestrained in the quiet room.
She grabs at my pants and pulls them down, the sudden scrape of her knuckles against my outer thighs making me arch towards her. “I did know you were eager.”
She chuckles and sits on her haunches, looking at me with those icy, studious eyes.
“What do you want, Ceci?”
Isabella says the words as if this were an easy question to answer, as if I could utter the dirty string of things my brain is hoping she does to me, immediately, right now.
“Do you want my mouth here?” she mumbles, face moving to my pussy. “Or maybe my fingers?”
She kisses the inside of my thigh once, a tiny peck that feels like a third-degree burn, and pulls my pants all the way off, throwing them behind her back and landing with a thud somewhere in the room. “You’re already so wet for me, aren’t you?”
“Isabe—”
“Yes?” She stops, looking up at me from her spot between my knees. Her hands are on my thighs and her thumbs are moving in slow circles against the hot skin. I definitely feel my cheeks burn at her inquisition. “What do you want, baby?”
Everything in my body tightens, but Isabella is still looking at me, waiting for me to tell her exactly what I want her to do to me.
“Whatever you want,” I say, and in a flash, her mouth is on me.
The first press of her tongue on my clit makes my breath stutter.
My hand flies to her hair, pushing through the soft strands as I find something to hold on to, too scared I might fly away.
Isabella’s eyes flutter shut at that, but she doesn’t rush.
Isabella takes her time with her tongue first, and finally slips two fingers inside.
“Is this okay?” she asks, and the only thing that comes out of my mouth is a strangled sound that is equal parts embarrassing and ruined.
She looks up at me again, her eyes dark and enveloping, and something tight coils low in my belly.
Her free hand is inside her leggings, moving in tandem with her tongue, and I feel like I’m going to pass out. The image is so overwhelming that my legs start to shake immediately and threaten to clamp around her head in such a forceful way that I’m scared I’ll suffocate her.
“Isa, I—” I croak, and she hums, the vibration pushing me over the edge. She curls her fingers inside me, and everything in my body tightens and loosens at the same time. The world suddenly turns bright and white and breathless. “Fuck.”
She follows with a rugged groan, her hand losing its rhythm as she trembles, unsteady between my legs. For a long moment, we are both suspended in time, watching each other and clinging to whatever this means. The only sound I can hear is our breaths, fast and furious and overwhelmingly satisfied.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asks, bringing her fingers to her mouth in the most delicious way. She pushes up and gets on her knees, offering me the other hand, the one she used on herself. “Open.”
My stomach drops, heat rushing through me so fast I have to rest my head back against the cushions. I drag my tongue over her fingers and taste her, so sweet, so delicious, so Isabella that my belly swoops again. “Jesus.”
For a second, it feels like I should say something in the lingering silence. Maybe something about staying. About what this is starting to feel like when we’re like this: easy and familiar, and belonging to a life beyond stolen moments in between work and professional boundaries.
But the words don’t come, of course. And that’s safer, for now.
“I think you were bamboozled by the cat,” she says finally, rising to her full height and walking to the kitchen. She looks over her shoulder at me, a slow smirk forming on her face. “He’s an indoor-outdoor cat and knows exactly how to come back home at night.”