Page 81 of Breadwinner
“Harder,” she begged.
Sarah obliged, the movements of her fingers picking up, and—oh my God. Sarah curled her fingers in a way that hit her G-spot perfectly, sending waves through her. “So close, yes, I’m so close, please. Don’t stop?—”
“Touch yourself,” Sarah growled.
Nell, never one to sidestep directions, did just that, rubbing small, frantic circles over herself, stretching her own pleasure to the max. Her hips bucked wildly, outside of her control, like everything else had been lately, as she met Sarah’s fingers thrust for thrust until her legs were shaking, her body clenching around fingers that continued to work their magic, a soft scream ghosting her lips.
“Sarah,” she whined, before giving herself over entirely to her pleasure.
The storm continued to rage on into the early hours of the morning, the sound of howling winds lingering outside. A sliver of gold came through the crack beneath the door, a hall light they must have forgotten to turn off in their haste to move from the blanket in front of the fire to the bedroom.
Nell lay on her side in bed, nestled beneath layers of warm down and buttery sheets, her body still flushed from the marathon of pleasure that had finally tired them out.
Sarah was beside her, breath warm and steady against the back of her neck. One of Sarah’s toned arms had snaked its way around her, heavy and possessive across her waist, fingers resting against her stomach.
The hold should have felt comforting to her, but it didn’t. It felt like a trap, the only way out being extreme hurt for them both.
She stared at the far wall, eyes wide open, unable to sleep as her mind raced. Every nerve in her body was still buzzing from how Sarah had touched her, how she hadtakenher, how Nell hadlether. Willingly and eagerly, she had given up control—not just of her body, but of whatever this was with Sarah that she didn’t have the language for yet.
Slowly, gently, she peeled Sarah’s arm away, careful not to wake her. Sarah shifted slightly, murmuring something in her sleep Nell couldn’t quite make out. Quietly, she moved across the room, grabbed the silk robe off the back of the door, and disappeared into the bathroom, before closing the door behind her and turning the lock.
She blinked, adjusting to the brightness as she studied herself in the mirror. Her usually perfect hair was now messy from the way Sarah had dragged her fingers through it repeatedly, her lips still red and bruised from their kissing. She leaned closer and pulled back the collar of her robe, examining Sarah’s lingering signature on her skin in the form of faint bite marks along her collarbone.
The reflection staring back at her looked... different? Or maybe just changed in a way she was unprepared for.
Her fingers curled around the cool edge of the marble countertop as she braced herself, trying to breathe.
What had she done?
FIFTEEN
SARAH
RULE #11: NOTHING IS PERMANENT. PLAN ACCORDINGLY.
It had been five weeks since their “perfect” weekend getaway to Whistler.
Sarah could still feel the ghost of Nell’s body pressed up against her, the feeling of Nell’s lips on her skin as they’d devoured each other well into the early hours of the morning. But something had changed between when they had fallen asleep, wrapped up in each other’s arms, and the following morning, when she had woken up alone in the large bed. Nell was already awake, acting so differently than she ever had with her, almost like they were strangers.
She replayed the weekend in her mind a hundred different ways, trying to find where she had misstepped, or a warning she might have missed. But if she could go back and do the weekend over again, she wouldn’t do anything differently. All she had done was what Nell had asked of her.
That shift was magnified even more when an entire week had gone by and she hadn’t once heard from Nell. The silence quietly gutted her.
In the months leading up to Whistler, Nell had become a constant presence in her daily life, from morning texts to little notes about her day and voice messages so funny Sarah laughedout loud in her car listening to them. Now, the absence of those messages was a distorted kind of phantom limb, one she kept reaching for even though it wasn’t there.
So, after an entire week of hearing absolutely nothing from Nell, she had sent a text.Just wanted to check in. Are you okay?
Hours had passed before Nell’s response arrived.Busy week. Catch up later —N
Later never came. Sarah had stopped counting the days after they hit double digits because, at that point, it was just sad. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t still waiting for Nell to have the decency to follow up with her. She deserved that much.
So, yeah, so much for theirperfectweekend. She sighed as she squatted in front of the dryer, opening it and pulling still-warm clothes from the machine. The wooden stairs creaked beneath her feet as she climbed up to the main level of the house, basket in hand, before dumping the laundry onto the couch.
“You’ve been on leave from work for, what, two weeks, and all you’ve done is clean and do laundry,” Kelly said, entering the room from the hall, sitting next to the pile of laundry Sarah had just started folding. A few stray socks tumbled to the ground as the couch cushion gave under Kelly’s weight. “I thought you were supposed to be figuring out what’s next?”
“I was behind, and now I’m caught up,” Sarah said dryly.
She didn’t tell Kelly much about her weekend away. Just that it had been a fun time, and which parts of it had been, but she left out the part about how everything had shifted between her and Nell and how silence had taken the place of their daily conversations.