Chapter 15 Isla
ISLA
Isla's hands wouldn't stop shaking.
She had been steady in the operating room. Three hours of fighting to save a life, and her hands had been rock solid. But now, standing outside Marianne's apartment building, she couldn't make the trembling stop.
Robert Hendricks was dead. Her career was in ruins. The woman she loved had presented evidence against her to the board.
And all she wanted was to be held.
The hours since the surgery had been a blur of interviews and paperwork.
Hospital administrators asking the same questions over and over.
Legal representatives taking statements.
HR informing her that her surgical privileges were suspended pending investigation.
Each conversation had chipped away at her composure until there was nothing left but raw, exposed nerve.
She had called in sick to her regularly scheduled shift. Had spent the day in her apartment, staring at the walls and waiting for Marianne to respond to her texts. The silence had been deafening.
Now it was evening, and she was standing outside Marianne's building because she didn't know where else to go. Couldn't face another night alone with her thoughts. Needed the comfort of the only person who understood what she was going through.
Even if that person might be the reason she was going through it.
Marianne opened the door before Isla could knock, as if she had been watching for her. For a moment, they just looked at each other. Two women who had built walls around themselves, now standing in the wreckage of everything they had tried to protect.
"Come in." Marianne's voice was rough.
Isla stepped inside and immediately fell into her arms.
The tears came fast and hard, months of contained emotion breaking through the careful barriers she had maintained.
She cried for Robert Hendricks, the man she hadn't been able to save.
She cried for her career, which might be ending even as she stood here.
She cried for the love she had found and might be about to lose.
Marianne held her through all of it, not speaking, just being present. Her arms were strong around Isla's back. Her heartbeat was steady against Isla's chest. She was the only solid thing in a world that was falling apart.
"I tried," Isla gasped between sobs. "I tried so hard. He was bleeding out and I did everything I could think of and it wasn't enough."
"I know."
"They're going to destroy me. Shaw has been waiting for this. He's going to use your audit to end my career."
"I know." Marianne's voice was heavy with guilt. "Isla, I'm so sorry. I never meant for the documentation to be used like this."
"I know you didn't." Isla pulled back just enough to look at her. Marianne's face was pale, her eyes red-rimmed. She had been crying too. "I don't blame you. You were doing your job."
"I was supposed to protect you." The words came out broken. "I was supposed to find a way to make this work."
"You tried. We both tried." Isla cupped Marianne's face in her hands. "Right now, I don't want to talk about the audit or the board or any of it. I just want to forget. For a little while. Can you help me forget?"
The kiss was desperate from the start.
Isla pressed Marianne against the wall of the entryway, her mouth hungry and demanding. She needed to feel something other than fear. Needed to lose herself in sensation, in pleasure, in the woman who had become her anchor in this chaos.
Marianne responded with equal desperation, her hands pulling at Isla's clothes with none of the careful patience they usually showed. This wasn't about tenderness. This was about survival. About two people clinging to each other in the face of catastrophe.
They made it to the bedroom in a tangle of half-removed clothing and urgent kisses. Isla pushed Marianne onto the bed and climbed on top of her, needing to feel the weight of her own body pressing down, needing the physical contact like she needed air.
"Touch me," she demanded. "Make me feel something other than terrified."
Marianne's hands found her hips, pulling her closer. "I've got you."
The sex was rough and frantic, born of desperation rather than desire.
Isla needed to feel something other than the cold dread that had taken up residence in her chest. She needed Marianne's hands on her, Marianne's body beneath her, some proof that this connection was still real even as everything else fell apart.
"Harder." She gasped the word against Marianne's throat. "I need to feel you."
Marianne's fingers pressed deeper, curling them so deeply it made Isla's back arch, and pushed away thought and fear and replaced them with pure sensation.
Two fingers became three, the stretch and fullness exactly what Isla needed.
Her own hand mirrored the movements, working Marianne with the same intensity.
They moved together in a rhythm that was more battle than dance. Sweat-slicked skin sliding against skin. Muscles tensing and releasing. The sounds of their breathing harsh in the quiet room.
"Look at me." Marianne's voice was strained. "I need to see you."
Isla opened her eyes and found Marianne's gaze locked on her face. There was something desperate in those blue eyes, something that looked like fear and love and hopelessness all mixed together. The same emotions Isla was feeling.
They climbed together, bodies pressed tight, breath mingling in gasps and moans. Isla felt the orgasm building from somewhere deep inside her, felt it coiling tighter with each thrust of Marianne's fingers, each brush of her thumb against the sensitive bundle of nerves.
"I'm close," she gasped.
"Me too. Together."
Marianne shifted her angle, pressed harder, and Isla felt herself going over the edge. She cried out as the orgasm crashed through her, her inner walls clenching around Marianne's fingers, her whole body shaking with the force of the release.
She felt Marianne follow seconds later, heard her voice joining in a chorus of pleasure and pain. Their bodies trembled together, aftershocks rippling through them both.
Isla collapsed forward, pressing her forehead against Marianne's shoulder, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
Marianne's fingers were still inside her, and she could feel the flutter of Marianne's pulse where their bodies were joined.
For a long moment they stayed like that, tangled and trembling, neither willing to break the connection.
Then Marianne withdrew her hand, and the loss felt like something more than physical.
"Again," Isla whispered against her throat. "I need more."
Marianne responded by rolling them over, pressing Isla into the mattress with the weight of her body.
Her mouth found Isla's breast, teeth grazing the sensitive peak while her hand slid back between Isla's thighs.
She wasn't gentle this time. Her fingers pushed inside with an urgency that bordered on rough, and Isla arched into it, welcoming the stretch, needing the intensity.
"Is this what you want?" Marianne's voice was rough, her breath hot against Isla's skin. "To feel something other than afraid?"
"Yes." The word came out broken. "Make me feel something. Anything."
Marianne obliged. She fucked her with a relentlessness that left no room for thought, her fingers curling against the spot that made Isla see white.
Her mouth moved from breast to collarbone to throat, leaving marks that Isla would have to hide tomorrow.
Her free hand pinned Isla's wrist to the pillow, holding her in place while her body writhed beneath the onslaught.
The second orgasm built faster than the first, sharper and more desperate.
Isla felt it cresting and fought against it, not wanting it to end, not wanting to face what came after.
But Marianne knew her body too well. She pressed her thumb against Isla's clit in exactly the right way, crooked her fingers at exactly the right angle, and Isla came apart.
She screamed this time, the sound muffled against Marianne's shoulder. Her body jerked and spasmed, pleasure and pain tangling together until she couldn't tell them apart. Marianne held her through it, her own body trembling with the intensity of Isla's release.
For those few seconds of climax, everything else disappeared. The investigation, the board, the lawsuit, the impossible situation they were trapped in. There was only sensation, only connection, only the desperate joy of being alive and together.
Then reality came flooding back.
Isla collapsed onto Marianne's chest, breathing hard, her body still trembling with aftershocks. But even as she lay there, she could feel something was different. There was a tension in Marianne's body that hadn't been there before. A distance that the physical intimacy hadn't bridged.
"What are you thinking about?" Isla asked quietly.
Marianne was silent. When she spoke, her voice was distracted. "The investigation. The external reviewers. What we're going to tell them."
"We. You said we."
"Of course we. I'm not going to let you face this alone."
But Isla could feel the hesitation underneath the words. Could feel Marianne's mind working through scenarios and strategies, calculating risks and outcomes. Even now, in the aftermath of the most intimate connection they could share, part of Marianne was somewhere else.
"You're not here." Isla sat up, pulling away. "Your body is here, but you're not."
"I'm sorry." Marianne reached for her, but the gesture felt halfhearted. "I'm just trying to figure out how to fix this."
"Some things can't be fixed." Isla heard the bitterness in her own voice. "Some things are already broken."
The silence that followed was heavy with things neither of them wanted to say.
They lay side by side on the bed, not touching. The few inches of space between their bodies felt like miles. The intimacy of minutes ago had evaporated, leaving behind a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.