Chapter 16 Elise #2
The sunrise was slow and spectacular. The gold spread and deepened and the first true light hit the cove and painted everything warm.
Elise unpacked the bag. The thermos, the cups, the pastries, the strawberries.
She poured coffee for both of them and handed Sienna the lemon danish and watched Sienna's face when she bit into it, the small noise of pleasure, the crumbs on her lower lip that she brushed away with the back of her hand.
"This is perfect," Sienna said.
Elise set her coffee in the sand and turned toward her. "You're perfect."
Sienna looked at her. Colour crept up from her collar again. But she didn't argue. She didn't deflect. She held Elise's gaze and said, "Thank you." Quieter this time. As if the words were becoming easier.
Sienna brushed a crumb from her lip. "Tell me what you're thinking."
Elise stared out at the water, where the sunrise was painting long gold streaks across the surface. "I'm thinking Thursday scares me."
Sienna looked at her. The professional concern was there, the quick physician's assessment, but it was layered now with personal worry. "Your shoulder is ready. I wouldn't have cleared you if it wasn't."
"It's not the shoulder. It's everything else.
Seven weeks off. Lex has been incredible.
What if I come back and I'm not the same player?
What if the team doesn't need me like they did before?
" She paused. "You don't get it. You already know who you are.
You've had a whole career. Degrees, a specialisation, years of knowing you're good at what you do.
I'm thirty. Hockey is the only thing I've ever done. If it ends, I don't know what's left."
Sienna was quiet. The ocean filled the pause. "When I was thirty, I was two years into my sports medicine fellowship and terrified I'd made the wrong choice leaving tennis behind. I didn't feel settled. I felt like I was starting over."
Elise looked at her. "You did?"
"I was thirty and I couldn't have told you who I was without the word 'doctor' in the sentence. So yes. I understand more than you think."
Sienna's thumb traced a circle on Elise's knee. "The team needs you."
Elise picked up a strawberry and bit into it, the juice sharp and cold on her tongue. "You have to say that. You're sleeping with me."
"I'm saying it because I've been watching this team for eighteen months and I know what they look like with you and without you.
They've been good without you. They'll be better with you.
Different skills. Different energy." Sienna's hand rested on Elise's knee.
"You're not competing with Lex. You're complementing her. "
Elise covered Sienna's hand with her own. The worry was still there, but it was quieter with Sienna's fingers warm under hers.
They ate in the warming light. The strawberries were sweet and cold and Sienna ate them one at a time, biting them in half, her lips stained red.
The coffee was strong and hot and the steam rose from their cups in curling threads that dissolved in the still air.
A pelican glided past the mouth of the cove, low over the water, its shadow skimming the surface.
"I want to give you something," Elise said. She set her coffee cup in the sand and shifted so she was behind Sienna. "Take your jacket off."
Sienna turned her head. "What are you doing?"
"My shoulder's better. I can use both hands now. And you spend all your time taking care of everyone else's bodies." She tugged the collar of Sienna's jacket. "Let me take care of yours."
Sienna hesitated. Then she shrugged the jacket off her shoulders, revealing the thin running top beneath. Elise moved closer, her thighs bracketing Sienna's hips, and placed her hands on Sienna's shoulders.
The muscles were tight. The trapezius on both sides, the muscles along the spine, the fascia between the shoulder blades.
Sienna carried her tension high, in her neck and shoulders, and Elise could feel the knots beneath her thumbs as she pressed into the tissue.
She worked slowly, using the heel of her palm, her thumbs, her knuckles.
She'd learned this from years of locker-room massage swaps and from Kylie's sports massage workshops that she'd attended during rehab.
"That's..." Sienna dropped her head forward. "God, that's good."
Elise smiled against the back of Sienna's neck.
She pressed her thumbs into the muscles on either side of Sienna's spine and felt the tension release in increments, the knots loosening under sustained pressure.
Sienna's breathing slowed. Her shoulders dropped.
A small sound escaped her, low and grateful, and Elise's body responded to it with a flush of heat.
She pushed Sienna's running top up, her fingers sliding beneath the hem and up the bare skin of her back.
Sienna's stomach contracted at the touch.
The skin beneath Elise's hands was warm from the morning sun and smooth and the fine muscles shifted beneath her palms as Sienna breathed.
She worked her thumbs along the spine, pressing into the tight spots, and her fingers fanned out across Sienna's ribs.
The touch was still a massage. Technically.
Then her mouth found the back of Sienna's neck.
The kiss was soft, just a press of lips against the warm skin where Sienna's hair parted.
Sienna's breathing stuttered. Elise kissed lower, along the ridge of her shoulder, and her hands moved around Sienna's waist, palms flat against her stomach, drawing her back against Elise's chest. Sienna's head fell back against Elise's shoulder and her eyes were closed and her lips were parted and her body was soft and trusting in Elise's arms.
"This doesn't feel like a massage anymore," Sienna murmured.
"It's a full-service treatment."
Sienna's laugh was breathless and it vibrated through her body and into Elise's.
Elise's hands moved upward, beneath the running top, over Sienna's ribs, her thumbs tracing the undersides of her breasts.
Sienna arched into the touch, pressing back against Elise's chest, and the urgency was building now, the slow burn of the massage accelerating into focused, intent need.
Elise pulled Sienna's top over her head.
No bra beneath it. The morning light hit Sienna's bare chest and her nipples were hard from the cool air and Elise cupped both breasts in her hands and Sienna's head tipped back against her shoulder and a sound came from her throat that made Elise's pulse hammer.
"Here?" Sienna breathed. "What if someone sees us?"
"No one can see. The cove's hidden. It's barely six o'clock. No one comes this far."
She kissed the side of Sienna's neck, open-mouthed, tasting salt and sun cream and the warm, clean scent of her skin.
Her fingers rolled Sienna's nipples, gentle at first, then firmer when Sienna's breathing went ragged and her hips shifted against the blanket.
One hand stayed on Sienna's breast while the other moved down, over her stomach, over the waistband of her leggings.
She paused there. Fingertips at the elastic.
"Yes," Sienna said before Elise could ask. The word was certain and rough and it went through Elise's body like a lit match.
Elise slid her hand inside Sienna's leggings, beneath the fabric of her underwear.
Sienna was wet, slick and warm against Elise's fingers.
The sensation made Elise's breath catch.
She pressed her face into the curve of Sienna's neck and moved her fingers through the wetness, slow and exploring, and Sienna's hips rolled forward into her hand.
She circled Sienna's clit with two fingers, finding the rhythm she'd learned over the past two weeks, the particular pressure and speed that made Sienna's body tighten and her breathing change.
Sienna's arousal was in every point of contact between them.
The tension in Sienna's thighs against hers.
The grip of Sienna's hand on Elise's forearm.
The quickening of her breath, the small gasps that came closer together.
The sunrise was full now, golden light flooding the cove, and Sienna's skin glowed in it, flushed and warm.
Elise held her close, her mouth against the side of Sienna's neck, and worked her fingers with steady, increasing pressure.
Sienna's hips were moving in rhythm now, pushing against Elise's hand, and her sounds were getting louder, carried away by the ocean's white noise.
"I'm close," Sienna whispered. Her voice broke on the second word. Her hand gripped Elise's forearm, nails pressing crescents into the skin, and her body was trembling against Elise's chest.
"I've got you."
Elise pressed two fingers inside her, curling upward, and her thumb maintained the circling pressure on her clit. The angle was different from this position, deeper, and Sienna's whole body arched at the penetration, her back bowing, her mouth falling open on a gasp that echoed off the cove walls.
"Oh god. Oh god, Elise."
Elise kept the rhythm steady. Her fingers moved inside Sienna with firm, curling strokes while her thumb circled and her mouth kissed and sucked the sensitive skin below Sienna's ear.
The pressure built. Sienna's body tightened, her hips urgent, her breathing dissolving from gasps into a continuous, climbing moan.
Sienna came with a cry that was raw and unrestrained.
Her body seized against Elise's, every muscle locking, and her internal muscles clenched around Elise's fingers in powerful, rhythmic pulses.
Her hand flew to her own mouth, a reflex, and then she dropped it, and the sound she made was loud and free and echoed off the rock walls and out over the water.
Her hips bucked against Elise's hand and her back arched and the orgasm went on, cresting and holding, and Elise held her through all of it, her arm around Sienna's waist, her fingers gentle now, easing her down.
The waves receded. Sienna went limp in Elise's arms, her body loose and heavy and warm against Elise's chest. Her breathing was ragged. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted and her cheeks were flushed and the morning light caught the sheen of sweat on her collarbones.
Elise withdrew her hand slowly and wrapped both arms around Sienna, pulling her close. She kissed the top of her head, the silver threads in her dark hair catching the light.
"I can't believe you brought a picnic just to seduce me on a beach," Sienna said. Her voice was wrecked. A smile was audible in it.
"The pastries were genuine. The seduction was a bonus."
Sienna turned in her arms. Her brown eyes were soft and bright and the look in them was one Elise had seen more and more over the last two weeks, the look of someone who was beginning to believe that good things could stay.
She cupped Elise's face in her hands and kissed her, slow and thorough, and Elise tasted coffee and strawberries and the faint salt of exertion.
"Thank you," Sienna said against her lips.
"You keep saying that."
"I keep meaning it."
They sat together on the blanket, the thermos between them, the ocean steady before them.
Sienna leaned against Elise's shoulder and Elise rested her chin on the top of Sienna's head and the cove held them in warm, salt-scented stillness.
A cormorant sat on a rock at the water's edge, wings spread to dry, and the pelican returned, gliding low, its reflection sliding across the flat water.
Two days until the ice. Two days until she proved to Mara and the team and herself that she still belonged out there.
The nervousness was real, sitting low in her stomach, but it was manageable.
Because Sienna was here. Because the shoulder was strong.
Because she'd spent seven weeks in the dark and come out the other side with Sienna.
She kissed the top of Sienna's head and held her. The morning was salt-scented and theirs.