Chapter 19 #2
Bryn laughed and leaned back, just far enough to catch Amelia’s eyes. “I’m not sure we should pitch this one to the governors quite yet. Magical sex ed?”
“Bite your tongue.”
“I’d rather bite other things.”
Amelia snorted. “This is really going to screw me up if we ever have to do magic in public. I’m just going to be watching your hands and thinking of all the other things you’re so good at with those fingers.”
A complication Bryn hadn’t thought about before; would she ever be able to sense Amelia’s energy without on some level finding it arousing?
“I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said.
“Though this is really shifting the nature of some of the books I’d planned to write.
We can’t be the only people who’ve ever experienced this? ”
“No. But …” Amelia looked gold-dusted in the candlelight. “I’ve never heard of it anyway, not like this.”
“No.” It was hard to focus on anything but sex at that moment. Bryn forced herself to look at Amelia’s eyes, not just her lips. “What do you have in mind for us first? Refreshments?”
Amelia assumed a mock-stern expression. “We can’t eat before swimming. We’ll get a cramp.”
“Oh, will we? I suppose that means we’ll have to swim first and then rest long enough after eating to swim again later.
” Bryn tucked her wand back into her jeans, wishing that she had worn something a bit more appropriate.
No matter. She slid her hands inside Amelia’s robe, settling them on her bare hips.
“So, what do you have planned for us next? Cannonballs?”
“In the grotto?” Amelia laughed. “Absolutely not. I don’t trust the floating candles to stay upright.”
“Clearly, I need to design a non-tipping spell,” Bryn said. This time she did look down, biting her lip at the sight of the skin now exposed between the sides of the gown: Amelia’s breasts and belly beneath the flickering light, only shadows below.
“What did you say before?” Amelia murmured, licking her lips. “About undressing me?”
“Yeah, that.” Bryn pulled her closer, not shedding the robe quite yet, pressing her clothed body against Amelia’s naked one. “Ask me for it.”
Amelia’s eyelids fluttered. “Will you undress me, Bryn? I want to be naked for you.”
No sexier words had ever been spoken in the history of speech, Bryn felt absolutely certain. Still, she played the moment out, kissed Amelia again softly, hands running up her sides beneath the robe. “You want to be vulnerable for me? Exposed and open and mine?”
Amelia blew out a breath, and on that exhalation was the slightest hint of Yes.
Still, Bryn did not hurry her moves. She was careful, gentle, slow, drawing out the moment as long as she could, pausing to drag a fingernail along the underside of one breast, to brush a thumb in the hollow of Amelia’s clavicle, to duck her head and trail kisses up Amelia’s throat to her lips again.
Only then did she push the robe off Amelia’s shoulders, allowing it to drop at their feet.
“You are so beautiful,” she said, drawing Amelia in against her again.
They kissed for a while, standing like that, Amelia’s arms wrapped around Bryn’s body, and Bryn’s hands never stopping their exploration of Amelia’s bare skin.
It was intoxicating to have access to Amelia like this, to soothe away the gooseflesh on her arms, to drag fingernails down her spine.
“Can you get addicted to someone else’s skin?
” she asked finally, moving her head slightly away so they could look at each other.
“We’ll find out,” Amelia replied shakily.
Bryn, having considered this with some detached part of her brain, sighed. “There’s really no sexy way for me to get naked right now, so I’m just gonna take all my clothes off and we’re just gonna pretend it’s totally not awkward.”
Amelia smiled. “You’re never awkward.”
“Correction, I am always awkward. You’re just so used to it, it doesn’t strike you as awkward.”
After a moment, Amelia nodded. “That seems fair.” She never looked away as Bryn undressed, leaving her clothes folded neatly and then folding Amelia’s robe on top of them.
Amelia led her to the gradual entrance of the pool, where the water was just slightly warmer than body temperature.
Amelia kissed her and said, “There’s actually a cold-water pool just over there, which I didn’t know existed the first time I came here. It’s freezing, though.”
“We’ll have to do that later,” Bryn told her, and drew her forward until they were both submerged in water to their chins, staring at each other, light reflecting everywhere around them.
The water felt exceptionally buoyant, so much so that Bryn even tasted it just to see if it was somehow salt instead of fresh water. But it wasn’t. It was just something about the grotto, something about a room infused with magic, sex, and love.
“I feel like I have twice as many nerve endings as usual,” she confessed. The water allowed them to be at eye level. She could look directly across at Amelia and see an answering recognition.
“That’s how I feel as well. I might orgasm the second you touch me, FYI … It feels so good to be here with you.”
Bryn leaned in, kissed Amelia’s cheek, then the other, then her forehead.
Only then did she kiss her lips, and the crackle of sensation seemed to burst through her body, unlike anything she’d ever felt from a kiss.
They held each other as if in a steadying movement, surrounded by warm, welcoming water.
It was almost too much, as if the volume and intensity of emotion was more than Bryn could handle.
But then she felt Amelia’s hands on her back beneath the level of the water.
She put her own arms over Amelia’s shoulders, and they embraced.
Of course, she’d meant them to be having sex by now, but this felt vital, even necessary.
They could have sex—well, not any time, but plenty of times.
Whatever this was, whatever they had somehow stumbled into building on this particular night, it felt precious and rare.
And she knew, without any evidence, that she would never feel like this with anyone else, anywhere else.
She wanted to put words to it, wanted to find some way to communicate to Amelia how meaningful this moment was to her, not just because it was Amelia, but because there was something between them.
“I feel as though this is the most complete version of myself that I have ever been.” She searched Amelia’s eyes, hoping so much that she would not be confused by this statement, that she wouldn’t doubt it or analyze it.
It was such a silly thing to feel, but Bryn couldn’t deny it, and she wanted very much to know that Amelia felt it as well.
Amelia shifted forward, pressing her lips to Bryn’s lips, her forehead to Bryn’s forehead, allowing only enough space between them to whisper, “I feel like we are magic right now, magic in the form of two people in love.”
And if she’d needed confirmation that they had stumbled into something very, very real, that was it.
“Exactly,” Bryn murmured and kissed Amelia again.