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“I took off my jacket.”

“Take off more!”

“So many orders… I give you an inch, and you take a mile.”

“Is that an American proverb?”

“If it’s not, it should be.”

When Elle stood back up, Arianna took the opportunity to roll over, taking up as much space on the bed as she could. It was a ritual she loved to do whenever she came to these hotels, but this was the first time she ever had someone else with her – let alone someone who beheld her naked and declared her the perfect woman to bring to bed.

More clothes came off in the dark. Arianna caught a bra in her hand before seeing what it had covered. Before she had the chance to make a quip about Elle’s cup size, Arianna’s legs were propped open while silky dark hair brushed against her inner thigh.

“Walao…” Something she had forbidden herself from fantasizing about was coming true right between her legs. Because of course Elle was as deft with her tongue down there as she was kissing Arianna’s mouth. “Oh, my God.”

She didn’t usually say that in English. For all she knew, she hadn’t, so consumed by the powerful sensations now hitting her slit barely covered by her underwear. Oh… there they go. Arianna didn’t need to close her legs for her lingerie to get out of the way. If anything, feeling those fingers pry them to the side was hotter than having them ripped from her body.

Arianna closed her eyes, her mouth hanging open as she forgot how to make a single sound besides the beating of her heart and the flush of heat radiating in her body.

A dozen phrases were echoing in her head, each one a bigger tease than the last. “Is this what you’ve imagined doing to me since we met?” “Is it everything you dreamed of?” “I knew you wanted dessert, Elle, but my goodness.” She was so clever in her head that Arianna knew she could never, ever say them out loud. Not that she could even if she wanted. Her voice was stolen from her, the only recourse for telling Elle how much she enjoyed this was conveyed in the way her hips shifted on the bed and how wet she was in only a few seconds.

When she dared to open her eyes and glance down, expecting to see the top of Elle’s head, she instead got a healthy glimpse of her partner’s heady bedroom eyes watching every one of Arianna’s reactions.

“You okay?” Elle stopped to ask when she was spotted.

“Mmhmm.”

“You want me to keep going?”

“Mmhmm!”

“Just my tongue? Or more?”

Arianna almost slammed her thighs on Elle’s face. “Just your tongue. For now.”

“Saving the rest for later, huh?”

“I can’t be too easy.”

“Do you want to be easy?”

Arianna flung back her head and slapped her hands on her scalp. “You have no idea.”

She lay exactly like that when Elle resumed exploring her, tentatively tasting Arianna’s tender opening and discovering she was welcome to shove her tongue as deep as she desired.

Arianna may not have been the most experienced at love and relationships, but this was far from her first hookup. Nor was she a stranger to having someone’s head between her legs – although it was one of the rare times she remembered someone’s name. Elle… Coincidentally, this was not the first Elizabeth she had fooled around with. There were more Elizabeths in Singapore than in Los Angeles, after all, and Arianna was willing to put money on that. But she had never been with a woman who went by Elle. Liz. Lisa. Beth. Eliza. Betty… So many Bettys that Westerners thought the 1950s had returned, and it resided in the Lion City.

Did any of those Bettys know their way around Arianna’s body like this one, though?

Someone came up for air to explicitly say, “You can make noise, you know!”

That only made Arianna clamp her hands harder on her face. “I’m trying…”

“What? Are you shy? Now?”

Although she heard the amusement in Elle’s voice, there was no salvaging how it made Arianna feel to be so called out. “I’m delicate, okay?”

“I do like delicate.” Elle kissed Arianna’s left thigh. “And feminine.” She kissed the other one. “And very womanly.”