Chapter 6
Darcy and I trip off the midnight bus, waving to the driver before crossing the street to our apartment.
We clutch each other as we stumble up the stairs to our third-story unit.
The others kept their good times rolling, heading for a nightclub to see some hot new DJ.
Darcy had been outraged at the idea of missing the last bus and having to pay taxi fare home, and I wasn’t about to leave her side.
Kicking off our shoes and shucking our coats, we make our way to our shared bedroom. The place is pitch black, and I collapse onto one of the two mattresses, Darcy next to me, head on my shoulder, arm around my waist.
It’s Darcy’s bed, I realize, as we squeeze together on the narrow frame. I briefly wonder if I should move to my own, but she hugs me tighter, and I melt into the sheets. She hums one of our old songs, the sound sweet and rough near my ear as the words dance in my head.
You know ignorance so I’ll never know bliss.
All I’ve ever waited for, wanted for
Is the feel of your kiss.
Something dizzy and bright presses through me until I feel it in the tips of my fingers. A hiccup fractures her pretty voice, and we both honk with laughter like it’s the funniest thing in the world.
“Tonight was so fun,” Darcy says, rolling to her back, hand dragging over me to rest on my stomach as she smiles up at the ceiling.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” I say through a yawn. “I don’t want it to be over.” I hate the idea that if I close my eyes, I’ll slip away from this lovely night where everything’s a mess but somehow that’s okay.
“It doesn’t have to be,” she says, giving me a mischievous smile that, for some reason, makes my mouth go dry. “Wanna watch Love Island and judge everyone as though we aren’t the same level of trash?”
“Always.” I scramble over her, my stomach draped across her lap as I fish for my laptop on the floor between our beds.
“Arch that back, baby.” Darcy whistles as she slaps my ass, and my entire body lurches, stomach clenching tight.
An odd heat surges through me, and I drop my computer back to the floorboards with a clang.
Darcy hoots with laugher, and I finally grab it, jolting up to a sitting position, posture ramrod straight as I let out an indignant sniff.
“I will be taking that up with HR,” I say primly.
“Right. I can see it now. Why did you spank Cubby?” she says, imitating Sigrún’s voice. “It’s not my fault, Sigrún! She shoved it in my face! What else am I supposed to do but give it an appreciative pat?”
“The entirety of second-wave feminists just turned in their graves. Even the living ones.”
She clucks her tongue, waving me away. “Oh please. They’d all agree that your ass is exceptionally spankable.”
I smile in spite of myself, feeling both pleased and bashful.
Gaze turned from Darcy, I open my laptop and cue up the show.
We oontz oontz to the theme music and settle against the pillows, pressed close from the lack of space.
It takes us approximately thirty-eight seconds to get hooked by the drama.
“His beard looks like it’s buffering,” Darcy says halfway through the episode, pointing at one of the contestants running around in swim trunks arguing with everyone.
“Don’t ask me to explain it, but I feel like he’d only eat the cauliflower on a veggie tray,” I say back.
“Big-headed, pale, and causes indigestion flare-ups? Like calls to like. Makes perfect sense to me.” We really start to lose it when the group has a talent show and one of the contestants whips out a recorder and gives everything she’s got to a musical performance.
The episode takes a turn for the boring, and my eyelids droop. Darcy snickers during a bland confessional, and I glance at her, ready to be ruthless over whatever she picked up on that I missed. I’m caught off guard that she’s looking at me.
“What?” I say, eyes narrowing at the dangerous tilt to her smile.
“Nothing,” she says. “Just thinking…”
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
She smooshes a pillow in my face. “Piss off. I was thinking, I can’t believe you kissed Harry.”
I make a choking sound. “I didn’t kiss Harry!”
“It certainly looked like a kiss.”
“It wasn’t! My lips fell against his lips.”
“Which is the definition of a kiss.”
“What are you, twelve?” I throw the pillow back at her, but she dodges it.
“Harry and Cubby sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g,” she croons.
“Stoppppp,” I groan, grappling for another pillow.
Darcy catches my wrists, pinning them to the bed and hovering over me. I squirm against her, and her smile grows, sparkling and teasing in a way that makes my heart squeeze. She leans so close the tip of her nose brushes mine. “First comes love,” she chants. “Then comes marriage. Then comes—”
I press up, silencing her with my mouth against hers.
The world screeches to a halt, the second splitting open, time elongating, zooming in on the softness of her lips, the warmth of her shocked exhale as it fills my lungs.
My thoughts evaporate as heat rolls through me.
Darcy’s soft, full lips slotted against mine.
Thigh notched between my legs. Hips and chest pressed against my own.
A tiny gasp tumbles out of me, and time clicks back into rhythm, my brain spinning to organize what’s happening.
My eyes flash open, and Darcy’s mirror mine in shock.
Oh my god. Oh my god. What the fuck am I doing?
We rip apart, Darcy poised over me, hands still pinning my wrists, our breaths so short and sharp our chests thump against each other with every inhale.
I try to pull my arms free, but it’s a mistake, dropping her closer to me.
She clambers away, kneeling between my legs, eyes wild and cheeks seared with red.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, each word tinged with panic. I prop myself up, my inner thighs brushing against her, and sharp heat scorches through me. My fingers press against my lips like I’m trying to make sure they’re still there. Trying to keep the warmth of Darcy’s mouth imprinted on mine.
“I … You…” she splutters, face creased with confusion. Horror.
“I’m so sorry,” I say again, voice pinching as I search for an excuse. “I was … being silly. So silly. I didn’t mean … I shouldn’t have … That was…”
Something in Darcy’s eyes shift from confused to—
Her hands fist my shirt, jerking me toward her, closing the few breaths of distance between us.
Her mouth is hungry and wild and the slightest bit hesitant as she presses it back to mine in a kiss that rushes through me like a tidal wave, drowning out all thoughts, all reason, leaving only an aching sense of want that has my toes curling, fingers scrambling for purchase along her back as I pull her just as hard against me.
Desperate, I realize in a haze as a low, greedy sound comes from one of us, both of us. Darcy’s eyes were desperate.
I lose control of my body, one hand knotting in her hair, the other at the side of her throat, holding her to me. Her tongue slips out, tracing across my lips, and I open to her on a gasp. Darcy shocks me by biting down on my lower lip like she wants to mark me. Keep me. Own me. Consume me.
The world stops spinning, this moment the center of gravity as her body wraps around me, one hand sliding to the curve of my spine as she pushes me back against the mattress, pulling my pelvis against hers, my legs falling open, her thighs pressing tightly between where they’re splayed.
My touch is soft and hesitant, hands moving frantically like a butterfly in flight as I try to figure out where to touch her, if I’m even allowed to.
I don’t know what’s happening, I really don’t. I could blame it on the drinks I finished over an hour ago or the slumber-party giddiness or just being stupid. But all I know is there’s a clawing ache of need spearing through my chest, up my throat, down my stomach.
All I know is I don’t ever want this to stop.
Any pretense of hesitancy is obliterated, my body turning inside out with hunger as I tremble and squirm and clutch her to me and do anything, anything to get closer to her, like the world is ending and this is my last chance to touch her like this.
Maybe it is.
She tastes sweet and electric, and she kisses me harder, rolling us so we’re on our sides, facing each other, legs tangled together, one of hers over my hip, heel pressing into the back of my calf. My thigh slips to the crux of hers, and she lets out a gasp at the pressure.
Her hand traces from my back to my rib cage, thumb settling below the swell of my breast, index finger resting along the side, framing me. Waiting. Hovering. Making my teeth ache with need.
“Is this okay?” Her breath in my ear.
“Yes.” A thrilled and shocked syllable in the back of my throat.
Of course it’s okay.
It’s Darcy.
Darcy.
My fingers skim from her throat to the center of her chest. I feel her heart pound against my palm, and I move my wrist, cupping her breast, plumping its softness as stars swim in my vision and she presses into my hand with a groan.
“And you?” I gasp out. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. God, yes,” she says, her hand mirroring my own, her thumb circling my nipple, teasing it into a taut peak.
Her touch. Her lips. God, the softness of her skin, my hand snaking under her shirt, hers doing the same to me. Exhale on my cheek. My chest.
My closest friend.
Hair dragging across my throat as she rolls me to my back again. Fingers skating up my leg as she licks along my collarbone.
I’m clumsy. Shaky. An absolute mess as I fumble for the buttons of her jeans, her deft fingers already pulling my zipper down.
Time is slipping away. I’ve stumbled into some alternative universe and reality will rip me back by the ankles any second now, and all I know is I need more of Darcy and her skin and her heat and her lips searching and wanting and searing against mine while I’m here.