Chapter 23 #3
She breaks and explodes and falls to pieces, and even then, Saskia doesn’t stop, pushing her over the edge again—a third time—until Mallory is gasping for air, tears prickling her lashes.
Finally relenting, Saskia sits back on her heels, mouth glistening and cheeks flushed.
“You’re so fucking pretty like this,” she says. “Come here.” Saskia tugs Mallory up toward the bed, tossing a blue teddy bear to the floor before climbing in beside her. For a moment, they lie there in the quiet, catching their breath, fingers skimming bare skin.
“Do you know when I started falling for you?” Saskia asks.
Mallory looks at her and guesses, “The prop loft?”
Saskia’s hair grazes Mallory’s throat as she shakes her head.
“When we went to Providence?”
She smiles. “Nope.”
Mallory traces the arrows tattooed on her arm. “At the hospital today?”
“No.” Saskia’s thumb sweeps her cheek. “The day we saw Lily.”
Something shifts inside her at that.
“It was the first time in my life,” Saskia continues, “I didn’t feel alone.”
Mallory stares for a moment before dragging Saskia in for another kiss, softer this time, every swirl of her tongue intentional and slow. She gently bites Saskia’s lower lip, ghosts her fingers over her jaw, but doesn’t voice her next thought. I’ve been falling this whole time, too.
Saskia’s fist closes in Mallory’s hair anyway, as if she can hear the unspoken words. Mallory reaches between them, and Saskia groans at the brush of her fingers.
“Here,” Saskia offers, working her underwear down her thighs. She guides Mallory’s hand again, but Mallory coaxes Saskia onto her back instead, leaning over her.
“Are you sure?” Saskia asks. “You don’t have to, if—”
“Shh. Fair is fair, right?”
Saskia lies against the pillows with a small smile, and Mallory surveys the whole of her in the dim light.
Endless creamy skin, a silky smattering of curls between her thighs.
Mallory presses another kiss to Saskia’s mouth before traversing lower, lips moving over her throat, her blood-streaked sternum, the rosy tips of her full breasts.
She kisses Saskia’s stomach, dragging her teeth over her hip bone, before dropping to the inside of her thigh.
Mallory pays attention to nearly every inch of her except the one spot she craves, until Saskia’s breath is staggered, and her heels are digging at the sheets.
Mallory studies Saskia’s expression as she slides her thumb over her glistening opening. “Do you need to be kissed right here, Sas?”
She just nods with a whimper, threading her fingers in Mallory’s hair.
Looking up through her lashes, Mallory sweeps her tongue right along Saskia’s pink center, and unrolls a sigh at the floral, sweet taste of her. She does it again, carefully licking her way inside, and Saskia practically purrs.
“You’re good at this,” Saskia grinds out. “Fuck. Don’t stop.”
Her words put a slick heat low in Mallory’s stomach, and she slowly starts working her swollen clit.
She calculates the rapid change of Saskia’s breath when she adds her fingers, memorizing every rise and dip of her chest, silently learning exactly how she likes it.
Slow. Painfully teasing. Then faster, harder.
Punctuated with the steady roll of Saskia’s hips as she chases her release.
Saskia shatters unapologetically, clutching at Mallory’s hair, perfect high-pitched sounds spilling from her mouth. It makes Mallory want to coax her into another release immediately afterward, just so she can hear it again.
But as she leans back in, Saskia pulls her up instead.
“Come with me this time,” she says, breathless, nudging Mallory back onto the mattress until one of her legs slides directly between hers.
“Like this?”
Saskia arches, fingers pressing grooves into Mallory’s hip bone as she guides her. “Here.”
Mallory gasps as Saskia’s thigh connects with her center, her own leg resting where Saskia is still needy and wet for her.
“Perfect,” Saskia whispers, brushing a kiss to her nose. “You’re a fast learner.”
They find a rhythm together, a rotation of hips and hands and bare skin.
Overlapping moans gather between their mouths, fingers sinking into their softest places, and Mallory starts to lose track of where she ends and Saskia begins.
She thinks of flowers, of switchgrass, of the palest morning fog.
She thinks of hidden doorways, of parallel wounds, of finding something you didn’t know you lost.
And then she thinks of nothing, just copper fairy lights and Saskia’s warmth.
Nothing, just Saskia, glittering and smooth in her arms. Saskia, warm and wet around her fingers.
Saskia, a beautiful word she can’t stop saying.
They sail toward the breaking point together and unravel in tandem, grasping hair, shoulders, waists, anything to tether them to the earth.
Their lips brush as they fight for breath. Saskia’s forehead presses, hot and damp, to hers.
And then Mallory finally, finally drags her gaze up in admission.
“Sas,” she whispers, “I’m yours, too.”