Chapter 20 #3
“Because I like feeling like yours,” she groaned.
“I love —” She paused, and Aster’s heart nearly jumped out of her.
Sylvia course corrected, “I get turned on by the — the possession of it all. It makes me feel—” Aster expected her to say alive, turned on, hot, anything that would make sense, anything that wouldn’t ruin her, but instead, she said – “Safe. It makes me feel safe.”
And Aster’s heart broke again.
And she knew, in that moment, what she had to say.
“No one can hurt you as long as you’re mine. Okay?” she whispered into Sylvia’s ear as she swiped along her center. “And you are. Mine. Forever. Mine.”
Sylvia whimpered. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyebrows knitted. Her eyes shut tight. She was on the verge of something, and it didn’t feel merely physical—Aster couldn’t help but press feverish kisses to the side of her face, to her chin, to her forehead.
“Come for me, baby,” she whispered, pressing another delicate kiss to her lips. Then another, and another, until she tasted salty tears. She didn’t know who they belonged to—her, or Sylvia. Both of them, at once. She inhaled sharply, pressing another. “Come for me, my love.”
Sylvia’s eyes snapped open, and Aster could see the glassiness underneath her eyelashes. The pure terror on her face.
“Oh god, Aster—”
And then Sylvia flipped them over, Aster underneath her as she came apart on Aster’s fingers.
And if Aster had been a mortal, it probably would have broken her wrist in two—but she wasn’t, so she just moaned into the pain as Sylvia’s hips careened into her over her again and again, Sylvia’s fangs biting down into her neck, Sylvia’s tears creasing her shoulder.
They continued like that for several minutes until Sylvia finally let out a breath, and slipped out of Aster’s grip, falling backwards onto the mattress. A pillow’s distance away.
And it was only when they lay next to each other, unspeaking, that Aster realized their bodies had been connected for hours, skin to skin, and that absence now — that minute separation — felt like pressing ice to unclothed flesh.
She’d never felt closer to another person than she had being inside of Sylvia.
Fucking Sylvia. Making love to her.
This is what sex is, Aster realized, a thousand years belatedly. I get the ruckus now.
She turned over, looking at the other woman, who was still breathing slowly, catching her breath, eyes closed, mouth frowning. Aster felt the urgent need to touch her, to pull her in. She felt like a magnet being held tantalizingly close to its other end.
Oh god.
She felt her breath begin to come quickly, her pulse quicken.
Is it over now?
Had the scene ended?
Would Sylvia even want her to touch her anymore?
Aster felt the ring itch. Take it off. Take it off before she does. It’ll hurt less then.
But before she could slide it off, Sylvia’s eyes opened, and, with a slight grunt, she turned on her side. Deep green irises bore into her. Her expression, for a moment, was entirely blank. Like Aster had actually fucked the ability to form thoughts out of her.
Then, in true Sylvia fashion, she made it all seem simple again.
“You rip all my clothes to shreds, then don't even have the decency to keep me warm afterwards?” She clicked her tongue. “You lived through the regency era, Aster. I wrongfully assumed you knew a thing or two about chivalry.”
Aster stuttered. “You want—” She gestured between the two of them. “You want me to — I know you said — about kissing outside of sex, so I wasn’t sure if this was—”
Sylvia groaned loudly, and grabbed Aster by the elbow, practically dragging her into her side.
She positioned Aster like a mannequin, slinging Aster’s hand around her middle, nudging Aster’s chin into her shoulder.
Then she brought the comforter up to their midsections, so they were bundled into each other.
Completely wound together like two spools of thread.
“You need to listen to me less,” Sylvia said.
Aster laughed disbelievingly into her shoulder.
“I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“Well, miracles happen everyday.” Sylvia went silent for a moment. “And sometimes I’m wrong. Sometimes you should just kiss me.”
Aster’s fingers dug into Sylvia’s side. Her heart skipped in her chest.
“Like.” She paused, terrified. But if Sylvia was going to bring it up— “Outside of sex?”
Sylvia was eerily quiet.
“I don’t know. Yeah.” Despite her cool tone, Aster could hear Sylvia’s heartbeat striking a drum in her neck. “Whenever you want to.”
“That’s not…” She tried to recall Sylvia’s words. “Going to make things confusing?”
She felt Sylvia shrug underneath her. And for a while, she said nothing. Nothing until:
“I’m not confused,” she said. “Are you?”
The response gave Aster such whiplash that she couldn’t even form her lips into an answer.
An answer that would obviously be Yes, Sylvia, I’m confused.
You just asked me to fuck you with a wedding ring on.
I just fucked you and made you promise you’d never fuck anyone else, and you said yes.
You said yes so many times you nearly went delirious.
I just called you my love and you came all over my fingers. You looked at me like I was everything.
But obviously, Aster spent too many seconds in disbelief, that Sylvia took her silence for a no, I’m fine.
So Sylvia sighed out, “God, I’m tired.” Aster thought that might mean that Sylvia would leave, would go to her room, would cast Aster aside — but instead, she folded Aster to the side, and slung an arm around her, so she spooned Aster from behind. “Big day tomorrow.”
Feeling like a log sloshing along in a river, unable to cling onto anything, to say or move a muscle, just fated to be taken by the tide, Aster looked outward into the empty room, and breathed.
“Yes,” she said. “Big day.”
Humming, Sylvia pressed a kiss to her back. Her mouth lingered there far too long. Aster could tell how tired she was from the way her arm began to sag around Aster’s middle. And when she spoke, her voice was basically dreaming already, so light and exhausted.
“Goodnight, baby,” she mumbled.
And Aster’s heart clenched in a way that would have killed a mortal.
“Goodnight,” Aster said, and swallowed thickly. Everything felt so big. So big. So big. Her throat felt tight. She had to get it out. Had to say something, to make it real. So as soon as Sylvia’s breathing had gone quiet, little snores coming out of her nose, Aster whispered, “I love you.”