Chapter 26 #2
After she’d set Aster’s old clothes aside and tossed them into the laundry hamper, Sylvia peeled the comforter up. Aster’s heavy body had it pinned down. “Knees up,” she said, softly, with an amount of quiet adoration that threatened to completely wipe away Aster’s mother tongue.
Aster complied, lifting the lower half of her body and allowing Sylvia to tug the comforter around her. Aster watched Sylvia’s slightly-trembling fingers, and wondered why Sylvia had tucked her into her own bed—and not Aster’s.
She wondered what that meant.
She wondered if it had something to do with the word mine.
She wondered, not for the first time that day, how Sylvia really felt about her.
Because the visions had been simultaneously both damning and confusing.
Because yes Sylvia wanted to kiss her, and fuck her, tenderly even.
She wanted all of that over the course of several lifetimes, and had it been taken from her time and time again, producing a skeptical madness that Aster could easily understand.
But did Sylvia want to hold her? Even if the magic had played no part—did Sylvia want to press against her even when Aster was weak, and tired, and had nothing left to offer?
Did Sylvia want to be in love with her? Or was her mind protecting her from exactly that?
“I’m going to try and get in contact with Yasmine while you’re sleeping,” Sylvia said, matter-of-fact, once she was satisfied with Aster’s bed situation.
And even though Aster’s uncharitable mind said She’s making an excuse not to lie here with you, Sylvia was still wearing the wedding ring.
In fact she was fidgeting with it, even now. And that made Aster foolishly braver.
She reached for Sylvia’s hand, holding onto it even when Sylvia jolted in surprise, and she looked up at the other woman imploringly.
Sylvia frowned down at her in bewilderment.
“What is it?” she said softly, scared. Like Aster was going to punish her for something.
Oh. A pit turned in Aster’s stomach. She’s still scared I’m going to hate her.
“Nothing wrong. Want,” Aster said, then blinked several times as she struggled with the rest of the words. They felt like puddy on her tongue. She made a pathetic little gesture to the space in the bed next to her and resorted to a soft, “Please.”
“Oh.”
Sylvia’s eyes drifted to the mattress, then back to Aster. Aster steeled herself for a no. She wouldn’t take it personally, not really—Sylvia said she had to call Yasmine.
Yasmine, who was Sylvia’s friend, apparently, despite previous very earnest plans to murder her. That was somehow the least confusing part of all this, even if it was still dizzyingly bizarre.
After a moment, Sylvia shrugged, in apparent defeat. “Okay.”
Aster’s heart leapt in her chest when Sylvia crested around the bed, gingerly pulled up the sheets, and slunk in next to her. The other woman had already changed into more comfortable clothes, a navy blue hoodie—one Aster had bought her—and star-patterned sleep bottoms—that Aster had bought her.
She laid on her side, several inches away, unmoving.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Sylvia whispered, still not facing her. “Water, food, whatever. We can try working on the last memory in the morning. There’s only… one left.”
One left. Aster could read into the implicit confession. That last memory was Bucharest.
A stronger version of herself would have pried.
But right now she was only a soft and needy animal.
“Sylvia,” Aster said throatily, saying her name correctly for the first time that day. Her entire body was thrumming, having her this close, but not holding her. “Closer. Please.”
The memories had left her with a need to comfort the other woman that was so deep it felt like a chasm inside of Aster’s chest.
Aster saw a shiver travel down Sylvia’s back at her instructions. The other woman didn’t respond for a moment, laying eerily still, before she slowly turned her head, then her whole body, so she was facing Aster.
Her breaths were slightly labored, her eyes glassy.
She was crying.
Aster’s heart wrenched in her chest. Looking at Sylvia now, her mask crumbled, her face soft and damp and hiding nothing, she saw the girl in the attic.
Only this time she could touch her. She reached out, and tugged Sylvia into her chest firmly.
She ignored the ache in her muscles when Sylvia gripped onto her like an anchor, burying her head into Aster’s neck.
She could feel the warmth of Sylvia’s tears press into her skin.
“I thought you were going to die,” Sylvia whispered.
“Never,” Aster managed. Because love had a way of bringing back language.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Sylvia’s foot brushed against her shin, and before Aster could understand what the other woman was doing, she was slotting her leg in between Aster’s and slinging her hand around Aster’s stomach, crumpling so completely into her that there wasn’t a breath of air between them.
Aster ignored the heavy press of Sylvia’s thigh on her center, and breathed out shakily.
“You might not forgive me when you see the last memory.”
The confession was whispered so quietly to Aster’s chest she barely heard it. The only evidence was the heat of Sylvia’s breath on her sternum.
Aster’s hands threaded around Sylvia’s back and pulled her in impossibly closer. Her mind felt finally clear when she said, “I think I could forgive you for anything.”
Now that I understand why, I’m ready for whatever’s coming.
Sylvia raised her head slowly at that, and looked at Aster with an expression that Aster could only describe as quietly desperate. Her eyes flitted to Aster’s lips, then her eyes.
Aster felt her stomach turn with heat.
“That’s something people say before the other shoe drops.”
“The other shoe has already dropped and fallen down several flights of stairs.”
“Oh, look who’s mouth is working again,” Sylvia mumbled, but Aster could hear just how delighted she was by that fact in the way her lips curved around it. After a moment, Sylvia sighed, and looked toward Aster’s lips once again, her eyes melting into them with a singular focus.
“I want something selfish,” Sylvia said, finally.
Aster saw where Sylvia’s eyes were looking and understood. In fact, she felt as if she had begun to understand everything, “You need to stop thinking of it as selfish.”
Sylvia gave her a subtly startled look. To puncture her point, Aster leaned forward, ignoring the way her body was weighing her down like a metal blanket, and pressed her lips to Sylvia’s.
The other woman whimpered in a way that said So you can read minds, huh?
and Aster’s body betrayed her—grinding up against Sylvia’s thigh as she pulled the other woman down, deepening it.
Sylvia separated them much too quickly. She looked breathless, and still startled—but there was also a hint of something else there. Something familiar, and smug.
“Aster,” she said, pressing her hand to Aster’s thumping chest. “Listen to me. If you still want this—” She trailed her hand down dangerously close to the lip of Aster’s pants.
“—After tomorrow, I’m all yours.” Aster’s breath lodged in her throat at that.
“But right now you need to sleep, or I’m going to be sleeping with a corpse.
And despite rumors—I’m not into necrophilia. ”
Aster whined, “Fine. But you’re not allowed to leave while I’m napping.”
She made it a joke so she wouldn’t have to deal with how much she meant it.
“I’m not going anywhere, you needy thing,” Sylvia joked, then nuzzled herself back into Aster’s neck, and pressed a soft, dangerous kiss to the bite mark that had just scarred over. “Unless you make me lay here for weeks, in which case Tony and Andrew might kick us out for good.”
Aster ignored the way her entire body buzzed in reaction to Sylvia’s affection.
“It’s fine. We’ll just enthrall a billionaire. That always seems to go well.”
Sylvia muttered into her shoulder, “That plan isn’t over, you know.”
“I know,” Aster laughed, feeling herself fading. “With you, nothing ever is.”