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“Cait.” Water dripped from their grip as Jane raised their hands from the water and kissed her wife’s knuckles. “You’re as beautiful to me now as you were when we met.”

“Aren’t the romantics supposed to say that I’mmorebeautiful?”

“I do not wish to lie. When we met, you blew me away with your smile. It was the first thing I noticed.”

“Oh, you liar.”

“It’s true.ThenI noticed your hot body and great sense of style.”

“There it is.”

Those wet fingertips brushed Caitlyn’s cheek again. “When we parted the next day, I could not stop thinking about your smile, your laugh, the eager way you wanted to doeverythingI suggested. You had such a genuinely good time with me. It was refreshing. Most of the girls I fooled around with all over the world… they never showed me their true selves so readily. You,though? For the first time ever, I wondered what it would be like to build a life with someone.”

Caitlyn didn’t know what to say. Everything she considered was lodged in her throat.

“I liked what you said up on that stage,” Jane continued. “When you talked about creating something as a team. I get insecure too, you know. Less about my appearance and more about my overall worth as someone who is a part of this household. I have long made peace that I am not a stunner in the world of feminine beauty, and that is fine with me…”

“What are you on about? You’re one of the hottest women in this whole city, Lin. Even in Hong Kong I’m always struck by how much you stick out.”

Jane’s wan smile would have been condescending coming from anyone else, but from her, it was merely a reassurance. “That’s the Westernization I was shoved through. I stick out here because I am Asian, I stick out there because I have spent most of my life living abroad. It changes you enough that your neighbors no longer recognize you. If anything, they criticize you more for no longer belonging to the group like they want. But they are also the ones who shoved you out of the nest and told you to ‘make something of yourself.’ You cannot win. You, though? Cait, you are the pinnacle of American beauty as a concept I grew up with. Nobody confidently pulls this off the way you do.”

“Pullswhatoff?”

Jane playfully poked her wife in the stomach. “I will love you no matter what you look like, but I do love your body, Cait. It’s soft, sweet, and the kind of womanly I like in my wives.”

“And what about Becca, huh? She’s like the opposite of me!”

“And? Is there a problem?”

“You are an enigma to me sometimes. Even after all these years, I’m still not a hundred percent sure what you see in me. Orus,for that matter.”

“I see someone who not only makes me comfortable in my own skin but who is invested in creating something from nothing. That’s what we did, Cait. We took the empty air between us and turned it into a home.”

The tension in Caitlyn’s muscles gradually dissipated. Was it because of the hot, relaxing water? Finally being home and allowed to decompress? Seeing the familiar, comforting face of the woman she married?

She knows how to touch me.Were Caitlyn more hormonal, she would probably cry. How sweet was it that someone loved her enough after all these years tolearnthis about her?

“It still feels so shallow,” Caitlyn said as Jane rolled up her sleeve and drew her wrist through the water. “Caring that other people think I’m attractive. I should be content with what I have, never mind the fact that I havetwopeople who love me for who I am, no matter what. Because I think Rebecca would still love me even if I were a worm. Don’t you?”

“I’m sorry, a what? A worm?”

Caitlyn grinned. “She would love me even if I got sick and lost a hundred pounds or if I was disfigured in a car crash.”

“Oh, yes, absolutely.”

As Jane’s touch returned to Caitlyn’s thigh, she kicked her knees open, knowing exactly what her wife was up to. “Is it weird that I sometimes worry about the amount of love we have here? Is it abnormal to worry that I somehow don’t deserve it?”

“I suppose it is not abnormal, but that does not mean you should feel that way.” Jane’s touch danced between Caitlyn’s tightening thighs. “Then there is me, your old Lin Hua, who sees her wife fretting and instantly wonders what she can do to abate it.” Her knuckle pushed against Caitlyn’s mound, teasing herfolds in that languidly lazy way that she made look so effortless. “I was socialized as a woman too, Cait. Just because I am with a woman and not a man does not mean I can quash down the urge to take care of you. Especially, you know…” Water droplets splashed upward against Caitlyn’s stomach as Jane found her clit. “Sexually.”

“Youarevery good at it.”

“Ah, you know, I can think of a few ways to make you feel beautiful and self-confident even without a national pageant, love.”

Caitlyn leaned back and closed her eyes. “I’m sure you can.”

The kiss landing on her mouth was far from desperate and charged. It was soft, like the way Jane made love to her in the tub.

Because wasn’t that what Caitlyn needed right now? Softness? Tenderness?Real love?