Page 35 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls (Kissing At Work #2)

A city woman branding herself with such a specific flower. Did she even remember its origin in their shared life?

Celene spoke through the lull. “I’m giving them to you.”

“Oh, c’mon. No, I couldn’t.” Skye flung her hands as if she’d have to keep what she touched. “These are too beautiful. And...and I’m supposed to be completing a commission for you, not receiving anything.”

“You certainly are keeping them.” Celene’s eyebrows arched into a soft frown. “I made them with you in mind. I won’t accept anything else.”

Thalia’s advice about transferring energy echoed in Skye’s mind, deading her argument. “Are you sure? We could split them, two and two.”

“They come as a set. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Skye lined the four shallow bowls in seasonal order.

They’d catch nice sunlight out in the spacious living room; however, she grew more attached by the second.

She could find a nice see-through display or construct a ledge above her desk.

Then, she’d admire them whenever she liked.

“You made these for me,” she repeated herself, laced with wonder she couldn’t contain. “Celene, you made these for me.”

Celene shuttered any vulnerability with her smirk, hitching an unconvincing shoulder. “Is that a thank you?”

“No.” Skye’s hand shook as she reached out, fitting onto the underside of Celene’s jaw.

Enveloped in midnight hair, it rested like it belonged there.

When Celene stared without reproach, Skye leaned in.

Barely a breath away from the woman who occupied her mind hundreds of times a day, she whispered, “This is.”

And she replicated the kiss from last week.

Swift, more ghostlike. Unlike before, they didn’t have a coworker friend feet away, nor Luce’s reggae playlist as a backdrop.

Relative silence protected them, and it compounded the softness, the tackiness of Celene’s lips.

She withdrew right after, a plea for more tingling upon her lips.

Adrenaline fueled their first fake girlfriend kiss. In private, Skye leaned onto the table for support. Her knees could give out from how that small sample was a tactile paradise, especially with Celene eyeing Skye from head to toe.

“Don’t do that again,” Celene intoned, casting doubt despite her hoarseness. “Or else I’ll kiss you back.”

Skye never played with fire—too conscious of destroying the woods.

So she fed into what she’d missed out on when she slipped her hand onto Celene’s shoulder this time.

Digging her fingers into silk material, she towed Celene into a similar kiss that lingered a tic longer. She made space again, grinning.

Celene’s lips twitched like they wanted to snarl. “I mean it. Do that again and I’ll kiss you back.”

“That’s a warning?”

“Yes.”

That couldn’t scare Skye off as she tipped her head into a firmer kiss. Hands to herself this time, since that small experience of Celene’s body overstimulated her. It almost stung. When she moved away, she couldn’t stop trembling.

Of the women she’d dated, she hadn’t recalled such sensations blitzing through her from some ostensibly tame kisses. Heavens, Celene’s warmth clung to her like her ginger perfume.

Celene exhaled slowly, evenly. Reminiscent of a breathing exercise. Her fingers threaded through her hair, and she shook it out. “I’ll give you one last warning?—”

Skye struck that match again, paying no mind to self-control.

She pressed on a series of short kisses, each a hair longer than the last. Except this time, when she attempted to escape, Celene slithered an arm around Skye, the warmest vice.

Tips of their noses brushing, Skye asked all her questions with her eyes.

For Celene to hiss out, “Dragonfruit.”

“Dragonfruit,” Skye practically moaned.

In seconds, Skye careened backwards, being flattened against the wall in a muted thump.

Celene asserted herself into Skye’s mouth in hungry, fervent kisses.

Celene’s head tilted one way, then the other, where Skye couldn’t follow the pattern, and she indulged in the ride.

Skye whipped her arms up and around, at home on silken shoulders.

Needing more of this flame, she chanced a soft moan into Celene’s mouth.

It’d been for sexy effect, to entice, though she hadn’t expected it to turn too real when Celene’s tongue twisted around hers.

Disastrously sensuous, Skye surmised, thrusting her tongue uselessly.

It wasn’t her finest technique, but her brain could only picture how this could escalate if they were home alone.

She’d never been rocked in a kiss like this before, where her body climbed higher and higher upon the wall, trapped deliciously by a woman not too much taller than her.

Skye wilted into the privilege, the opportunity to grasp around Celene, finding the quiet strength in her tense, slight muscles.

In collusion with her unpredictable tongue, Celene roved hands over Skye’s thighs, onto the skin of her abdomen, to her sides, shy of her breasts.

“I take it you like the present,” Celene murmured before shoving her tongue in deeper, sautéing what remained of Skye’s brain.

Her instincts, though, weren’t too cooked to read beyond a sarcastic comment. Skye clasped hands into Celene’s hair, on both sides of her head. “They’re mind-blowing, heart-blowing.”

Celene grinned. “You’re worth it.”

“The couch. Let’s go to the couch.”

Damningly proactive, Celene wrapped Skye’s legs around her hips, carrying her to the under-loft couch. Skye’s weight sank into it as Celene hovered, softly panting, bereft of sound.

They wouldn’t have sex. Not with her mourning grandmother rooms away, watching TV.

However, Skye couldn’t believe she’d done one hundred percent of their moans.

One day, she’d hear Celene’s. Skye stroked at the lips above her, the point of Celene’s chin, angling to her cheekbone.

“The sugilite pendant, these beautiful bowls. I’m not used to being spoiled. You must really miss me.”

As she’d wanted, Celene laughed. She dropped her head for a second, then eyed her. “Am I doing too much?”

Skye lipped ‘No,’ tugging Celene to drape on top of her.

Their kiss went slower, not any less exceptional.

She mewled as Celene ran her hands over her hair.

Over and over, tenderly, like she’d been holding back forever.

Skye squirmed through a deep pass of a tongue she now adored. “Will you stay long?”

“I won’t.” Celene licked her own lips, and Skye’s stomach fluttered, despite the disappointment. “Work obligations will take up my morning. I’m driving home after this.”

Skye pushed herself to her elbows. A warmer rush startled her, as she didn’t recognize this one. “You won’t stay at the house with your brother’s family?”

“They don’t know I’m here. Nobody knows.”

Nobody but her. But Skye.

She made room for Celene to lie on her side, too. “You drove three hours at night, aware of your early schedule in the city, just to hand deliver a gift to me?”

For the first time Skye could recall, Celene hid her face. Behind a single hand that Skye pulled down between them. Staring like she’d succumbed to an inescapable force, Celene said, “I parked in an empty lot a few houses away and walked here. I only wanted to see you.”

Celene missed her. Badly.

And she was so, so romantic.

Skye smiled gently, intent not to embarrass Celene further. Asking a second time, “What are we doing?”

“Hell if I know,” Celene muttered under her breath.

“I have cold brew in the fridge. I’ll grab you some for your trip home.”

“Thank you.”

And the effects of her thank you reverberated through Celene’s kiss that followed, in swells of tongue and teeth and the pressure of curves against her own.

One could debate if anything with that much heat and body-pinning could be filed under romantic, yet Celene made it so. Skye let her lead them into something that threatened to revive that fire to a point of no return. Once Skye staggered to the kitchen, her legs were no longer her own.

Well after Skye handed her a thermos of iced coffee and got rewarded with a shiver-inducing kiss that’d traveled to her neck, her phone buzzed. Skye hadn’t stopped replaying it all, wondering what it meant for them as friends. As faux partners.

Celene – 11:57 pm

I want more of you.

Skye placed a hand over her chest, failing to regulate her breath. The things she’d do with Celene. What she’d let Celene do to her.

Skye – 12:01 am

I do, too.

Less talking. Eyes on the road, okay?

Celene – 12:06 am

Yes, fine.

Will you think about me tonight?

Skye swallowed, ignoring her frustration. They’d figure this out.

Skye – 12:07 am

I’ve never stopped.