Chapter 24 #2
"I want to take my time with you," Erin said.
"I want to remember every part of this. I want—" Her voice broke.
The emotion was there, pressing up from beneath the desire, the two things braided together so tightly that she couldn't separate them.
"I need you to know that I'm here. That I'm not going anywhere.
That the woman who shut you out this week is not who I am. "
"I know who you are." Alexandra's hand came up to Erin's face, her palm against her cheek, her fingers brushing the line of her jaw. "You're the woman who kicked down a door to find our daughter. You're the woman who carried her through the dark. You're mine."
"Yours."
Erin kissed her jaw. The sharp edge of bone beneath soft skin, the place where Alexandra's perfume lingered even after a shower.
Her throat, where the pulse beat fast and visible, and Alexandra tipped her head back and the sound she made was a breath, not a word, just the involuntary exhale of a woman who had surrendered control.
The hollow beneath her ear, where the skin was warm and thin and sensitive, and Alexandra's fingers tightened in Erin's hair when her lips found it.
She kissed lower. The ridge of Alexandra's collarbone, the dip at its centre where a droplet of water still clung from the shower.
The swell of her breast, the soft weight of it against Erin's mouth, and she took Alexandra's nipple between her lips and sucked, her tongue working the hardened peak in slow circles.
Alexandra's back arched off the mattress and her fingers twisted in Erin's hair, pulling her closer, and the sound she made was guttural and raw.
"God, Erin—"
Erin moved to the other breast, giving it the same attention — tongue circling, teeth grazing, sucking until Alexandra was writhing beneath her, her hips seeking friction against Erin's thigh.
Erin pressed her leg between Alexandra's and felt the wet heat of her against her skin, and the evidence of Alexandra's need made Erin's own arousal spike so hard she had to close her eyes and steady herself.
She kissed as she moved down Alexandra's stomach.
The soft curve of her belly, the dip of her navel.
Each kiss an act of presence, each touch a statement: I am here.
I am not behind a wall anymore. Her bandaged hand traced the line of Alexandra's hip, the roughness of gauze against smooth skin a contrast that made Alexandra's breath catch.
The crease of her hip where the skin was silky and sensitive.
The inside of Alexandra's thigh, and her body jerked, a full-body shudder that made the bed shift, and the sound she made was Erin's name, broken into two syllables, the second one dissolving into breath.
"Spread your legs for me," Erin murmured against the sensitive skin. Her voice was low and commanding, the voice she'd learned over years that Alexandra responded to in this context — not the Queen giving orders but the Queen surrendering them.
Alexandra obeyed.
Erin settled between her thighs and looked up the length of her wife's body — the beautiful swell of her breasts, the flushed skin, her eyes staring down at her, dark and desperate — and lowered her mouth.
The first stroke of her tongue was slow.
Reverent. She licked through the slick folds, tasting the sharp, familiar tang of Alexandra's arousal, and the moan that came from above her was so deep it vibrated through Erin's jaw.
She explored with devastating patience, circling Alexandra's clit without quite giving enough pressure to push her over, building the tension in steady, maddening increments.
The map she'd drawn of this body over the years, and she still loved tracing every line of it.
"Erin—" Alexandra's voice was wrecked. Her hands were fisted in the sheets, knuckles white. "Please. I need—"
Erin gave her more. Her tongue increased its pressure, circling Alexandra's clit with tight, focused strokes, and she slid two fingers inside her.
The muscles clenched around them immediately, the tight heat of her drawing Erin deeper.
She curled her fingers, finding the place she knew would undo her wife completely, and stroked in time with her mouth.
Alexandra shattered. Her body arched off the bed, her thighs clamping around Erin's head, her muscles clenching rhythmically around Erin's fingers as the orgasm tore through her.
The sound she made was not quite a word and not quite a scream but something between the two, the raw, unfiltered expression of a woman being taken apart by someone she trusted completely.
Her nails scraped Erin's scalp, her body clenching and releasing in waves that Erin rode with her, her mouth never stopping, her fingers still stroking, extending the peak until Alexandra was gasping and shaking and the tension in her body finally broke and she went boneless beneath Erin's weight.
"God," Alexandra breathed. "Erin."
Erin kissed her inner thigh. Her hip. The soft plane of her stomach.
She crawled back up Alexandra's body, pressing her lips to every inch of skin she passed, and when she reached her mouth she kissed her deeply, letting Alexandra taste herself, and the sound Alexandra made against her lips was grateful and ruined and full of love.
"That was—"
"I know."
Alexandra opened her eyes. Blue and dark and liquid and full of something that Erin recognised because she'd seen it a thousand times: the particular tenderness that came after vulnerability, the openness that existed only in this space, in this bed, between these two people.
She pushed a strand of Erin's dark hair behind her ear with trembling fingers.
"Come here," Alexandra murmured, and pulled Erin down to kiss her.
Then she reversed their positions with a fluidity that still surprised Erin after all this time — the ease of it, the confidence, the way her body moved from beneath to above in one seamless motion that was part grace and part authority.
The Queen in her, even here. Especially here.
Her hands were on Erin's shirt, unbuttoning it with steady fingers that had stopped trembling, pushing it off her shoulders, her mouth following her hands: lips pressed to the ridge of her shoulder, the hollow of her throat.
Erin's sports bra went next, pulled over her head with particular impatience, and then Alexandra's mouth was on her breast, her tongue circling Erin's nipple, sucking with an intensity that made Erin's breath catch hard enough to hurt.
Her hands found Alexandra's damp hair and held on and the ceiling above her blurred.
Alex knew her. Knew the place below her ear that made her vision white out.
Knew the pressure of teeth against her hip bone that made her hips lift off the mattress.
She kissed down Erin's stomach, her tongue tracing the definition of muscle, teeth nipping at the hard line of her hip.
Her fingers hooked into the waistband of Erin's briefs and dragged them down and off, and the cool air against Erin's overheated skin made her shiver.
Alexandra settled between her thighs and the first touch of her mouth made Erin's entire body jolt.
Her tongue slid through the slick heat of her in one long, firm stroke, then circled her clit with a precision that was almost cruel, reading every twitch and gasp and adjusting in real time the way she'd learned over two decades.
Erin's damaged hand gripped the headboard.
Her other hand was in Alexandra's hair. Her hips rolled against Alexandra's mouth and the sounds coming from her throat were guttural and raw and carried no words at all.
The pleasure built in layers. Each stroke of Alexandra's tongue pushing her higher, the tension coiling tighter with each breath.
Alexandra slid two inside her and curled them, her mouth never faltering, and Erin felt her body go taut, every muscle straining toward the release that was building at the base of her spine, the world narrowed to the single blazing point of contact between Alexandra's mouth and her body.
"Lex—" Her voice cracked. "Don't stop. God, don't—"
She came apart with a force that surprised her.
The orgasm tore through her body, her muscles clenching around Alexandra's fingers, pleasure radiating outward from her centre until every nerve ending sang with it.
Her back arched off the bed and the sound she made was not a word or a name but something deeper: the sound of a woman breaking open, all the walls collapsing at once, the fortress that had kept her functioning for eight days finally demolished by the hands and mouth of the woman she loved.
Her hand left the headboard and found Alexandra's shoulder and she pulled her up, needing her close, needing her mouth, needing the weight of her body pressing against her own.
Alexandra came willingly, sliding up the length of Erin's body, settling against her, skin to skin, the full warm press of her from chest to hip.
Erin wrapped both arms around her and held her with a force that was closer to desperation than tenderness, and the aftershocks ran through her body in diminishing pulses while Alexandra pressed her face into the curve of Erin's neck and breathed her in and whispered words that Erin could barely hear but that sounded like I love you repeated over and over like a heartbeat.
They lay tangled together. Legs intertwined, arms wrapped around each other, the sheets twisted beneath them in a configuration that bore no resemblance to how they'd started, the duvet kicked to the foot of the bed, one pillow on the floor.
Erin's heart was hammering and her skin was damp and her body was humming with the particular satisfaction that came after good sex, not just physical release but emotional, the feeling of having been completely seen and completely held and completely loved.
The room smelled of them: of skin and heat and the cedar soap and the particular, unmistakable scent that was just them, together, the chemistry of two bodies that had been learning each other since that first night and still hadn't finished.
"Promise me something," Alexandra said. Her voice was sleepy and raw and pressed against Erin's neck.
"Anything."
"Promise me that whatever comes next, the investigation, the trial, the fallout, we don't do it alone. No shutting down. No walls. No 'I have to go' when what you mean is 'I can't let you see me breaking.'"
Erin's throat tightened. The accuracy of it, the precise identification of the thing she'd done, the defence mechanism she'd deployed, the way she'd turned operational focus into a fortress and locked Alexandra out, was painful and necessary. She tightened her arms around her wife.
"I promise. No more walls."
"And promise me we'll always come back to this. To us. In this bed. In this room. Whatever the world throws at us."
"I promise. Always."
Alexandra lifted her head. Her blue eyes found Erin's green ones in the lamplight and the look that passed between them was the same look they'd exchanged on their wedding day and on the night the children were born and on the morning Erin had been shot and every other moment when the truth of them, the deep, fundamental, unbreakable truth, had been laid bare.
Three children. A kidnapping. A constitutional crisis.
A mother who had tried to destroy them. And here they were. In their bed. In their room. Together.
"I love you," Alexandra said. "More than the crown. More than the institution. More than any of it."
"I love you too. More than I know how to say. Which is why I usually don't try."
Alexandra laughed, soft, warm, the laugh that belonged only to this room.
She laid her head back down on Erin's chest, her ear over Erin's heart, listening to the beat the way she'd listened to it for all these years.
Erin's hand moved through her damp hair, slow and rhythmic, and their breathing synchronised, in and out, in and out, and the lamp cast warm light across their bodies and the summer night pressed gently against the windows and the castle held them and the world outside was far away.
They fell asleep like that. Tangled together, skin to skin, the sheets pulled up to their waists, the lamp still on because neither of them could be bothered to reach for the switch.
Erin's last thought before sleep took her was not about the investigation or the confrontation or the days ahead.
It was about the morning. About waking up beside this woman in this bed and hearing the children's footsteps in the corridor and the dogs barking in the garden and the ordinary, beautiful, irreplaceable sounds of a family that had survived the worst thing it had ever faced and come out the other side whole.