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“God, if I’d known you were naked under this with just the one brass closure…”

Vi’s laughter was strangled, a mix of want and tears.

“You’d have done what?”

Chiara licked her lips, then realized she had nothing to hide here and trailed her tongue from Vi’s sternum to the collarbones, where she sucked on the skin, eliciting a moan, then sucked all the harder, because the sound opened a floodgate within her, and her desire to mark was not to be denied.

And so she left another mark where the shoulder curved into the neck, where the neck sloped into the jaw, biting and soothing the aches with her tongue, her lips, swearing she might die if she stopped, if Vi asked her to stop.

But Vi didn’t. Her hands clung to Chiara’s back, surely ruining the priceless Armani, bunching it up to the point where Chiara could hear it tearing under the onslaught of long fingers. She didn’t care. Giorgio would simply have to send her a new one.

They stumbled into the bedroom, almost losing themselves halfway there, when Chiara pushed Vi into the closest wall and proceeded to unzip her trousers and followed the tight velvet down those endless legs with her lips, licking and biting at every new inch of exposed skin, all pale and shivering.

By the time she rose from her knees, Vi’s breath was coming out in whimpers and short incoherent words that Chiara simply kissed off her mouth. There was no need for any of them.

They stood face to face, lips a hairbreadth away from each other, and watching those tortured eyes open and gaze into hers, Chiara wished the years away, wished they’d been together all this time, her own pain be damned. At least she would have spared Vi all the anguish of atonement.

But she couldn’t do a thing about it, and so her hands were feather soft as they rose to Vi’s face yet again, unable to keep away from those angular planes, surely sharpened by Vi’s torment of herself.

“Let me, Vi… Let me do what I always did…”

Help you. Take care of you. Save you.

Vi’s quiet sigh and the way her lips reached for hers were all the permission Chiara needed.

When she laid Vi on the unmade bed, naked while she was still in her torn dress, it was Chiara who felt vulnerable and split open by the onslaught of emotion, by the last few stitches around her heart tearing, leaving the jagged edges of the threads split and loose. And when she bent her head to taste, to savor and love, it was Chiara who felt pleasured, who felt touched and taken.

As she knelt in front of the bed, her lover opened her eyes, and there was still so much pain in them, so much incredulous awe, it broke Chiara all over again. That look of being lost in her own hell…, Chiara had done this, had caused this. It was her time to atone, her time to serve, to worship and please.

When her hands spread Vi’s legs further apart, giving herself more access, when her fingers caressed the silky skin of the inner thighs, and finally, when her mouth descended on trembling flesh, Vi cried out, the loudest sound she had made during the entire night. A cry of longing and want, a cry of desperation and torment. And when minutes later, Chiara lifted her head, leaving Vi wrecked by a climax, the eyes did not close, even as the tears spilled again.

* * *

Lyingin Vi’s embrace hours later, Chiara noticed the bed dip slightly and Binoche pad towards them. The cat sniffed, sneezed, turned a few times on the blanket, then started making biscuits before finally settling down after a long stretch.

Chiara could certainly understand the inclination to do pretty much all of the above. She also wanted to stretch happily. She wanted to run her hands up and down the lanky body cushioning hers, to curl up in these arms and sleep the weekend away. Chiara was warm and cozy, she was loved, even if they hadn’t spoken at all since she’d begged Vi to let her love her.

And Vi did let her. Many times over.

Chiara felt invincible and sexy and desired after ravishing Vi within an inch of her life, then doing it again because she could. Well, if the limp arm barely capable of lifting to pull her closer was any indication, despite being worse for wear, Vi didn’t mind all that much.

“I always wondered if you’d kept the cat.”

The lazy drawl proved Chiara’s earlier point.

“Why on earth…” Chiara cut herself off before thinking better of what she’d been about to say. Some things she did need to tread around carefully, still. There were so many things they had to talk about more than the damn cat, even if that's what Vi chose to focus on in her blissed-out state.

“She’s my cat. I wasn’t going to leave her behind. It’s as simple as that.”

“Maybe, but I gave you Binoche.”

It seemed like she’d have to say at least some things out loud now, blissed out or not.

“I never hated you, Vi. I was hurt, and I was broken. But I never hated you. And again, it’s as simple as that.”

There was silence then, until Vi sighed, the chest under Chiara’s cheek moving up and down quicker.

“You make it sound simple. It’s not though, Chiara. Not by a long shot, and if you only knew…” Another sigh and more silence. “If you knew the truth—”