Page 48 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls (Kissing At Work #2)

A heavy helping of trepidation pervaded Skye’s Monday.

Because who the hell was she to alter work by Lucille Florentine, winner of awards, an example to artisans globally?

Fixing on black round-framed glasses, Zander maintained his consistently neutral smile, promising he had it covered. He’d probably react the same if she’d demanded his allegiance to the Dark Lord of Adhesive. She waved him goodbye in her haste out of the collective.

With careful buffing and a few edges sanded, Skye approved. And in a puzzling uptick of a mood, her dread abated. Chromatique Flair would love these, she’d determined, in the light of Thalia’s sunny patio.

Thalia wrapped her arm around Skye’s shoulder, smooshing their cheeks together. “It’s incredible. Luce might cry.”

There was no coming back from this. Skye loved what she could make and credited her grandparents for the access to even discover this love, but she also wanted to be her own person. Not known as a protégée or granddaughter riding Florentine coattails. A modest mosaicist’s dilemma.

“Can’t thank you enough.” Skye tightened her hold on Thalia’s waist. “I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

“Yeah, you could’ve.” Smirking, Thalia stroked her necklaces in tandem jingles. “On your way to Celene’s now?”

Skye couldn’t play off her flimsy smile, lighting her phone for the time. “She’s been home for two hours.”

“Those are two hours too long without you. Go to your lady. And um...” She drummed her fingertips together, villainously suggestive. “I can open and close Luce’s on my own tomorrow. Zander’s willing to pop in midday.”

Longing lanced through Skye, mind on the last time she and Celene kissed, of insistent lips and hands holding her in place. “Have I been this way whenever you’ve had partners?”

“You’ve been very respectful of my personal life,” Thalia replied with a laugh. “Now stop stalling!”

Wonderfully, Carl’s courier truck arrived right when Skye backed out of Thalia’s driveway. Another worry to dash away before she rushed home to freshen up.

Minutes later, she stood on the Vales’ deck.

Okay. She was here .

Skye peered around the deck. Leaves dappled the otherwise tidy front yard. It could use a quick rake. Or she could yank out some weeds sprouting in the crevices of Boob Mountain.

Shit, maybe she was stalling.

“Hello, artist.”

Celene peeked from the open sliding door. And Skye’s heartbeat pealed into her ears at her slight, knowing smile.

An artist, wow.

Skye followed Celene inside, to the kitchen’s bar, with the stiffness of someone on the precipice of a discovery. Never had she involved herself with someone bearing an aura like Celene’s, whose trail of perfume tickled Skye’s senses, luring her more suggestive instincts out of hiding.

Celene wore a loose tank—deep red, partly concealing a cropped athleisure top and black leggings stretched snugly onto her hips. “Are you hungry?”

“Not really. Thalia and I split takeout when I stopped by.” Heart launching into overdrive, Skye rambled, “Did I jump the gun? Should I have waited until I met with you?”

Celene laughed, reducing that panic. “I’m not hungry, either. It’s fine.” She indicated a container on the counter with a nod. “Mom and I met for lunch yesterday, and she made us some treats. We’ll have them later.”

That piqued Skye’s curiosity, but not enough to glance away from Celene sliding a hand across the new quartz countertop, threading their fingers as one. Warming up, Skye asked, “Does your mom cook often?”

“Now and then.” Celene stared at their hands reacquainting themselves; it sent shivers up Skye’s arm. “Edna’s not much of a homemaker. I swear, you’d think as her daughter, she couldn’t catch me off guard with her random nurturing side.”

That detail into an obviously wistful woman begged to be inquired about, if only a little. “Did you like that nurturing, growing up?”

“I admire her tenacity more.”

Skye didn’t know what she’d expect encountering Celene today. Steamy and intense? Standoffish and playful? As Celene had shown before, she wasn’t predictable.

Celene segued from that discussion with, “Dragonfruit?”

They hadn’t gone over the updated terms of their reality word. Skye studied the fuchsia hanging from a ceiling hook, healthy and fuller in a glazed planter. “Dragonfruit.”

“You want a woman who takes charge,” Celene said, overtly scrutinizing Skye’s thin top and skirt with dark, appreciative eyes. “And I will. But I’m out of practice expressing myself that intimately.”

Heat washed over every part Celene took in. “How so?”

“My past relationship had a routine—long conversations, biding our time, and then, eventually, I’d pull her into a kiss and we’d go to bed. Right now, I’m holding back.”

“Oh?” They were both nervous.

Skye wouldn’t ever want someone pressured to take charge.

And even charges needed a spark sometimes.

She lifted their hands, under her mouth, and with their gazes in place, skimmed the tip of her tongue along the tendons of Celene’s bare wrist. Satisfied by the responding hitch in Celene’s breath, she whispered, “Dragonfruit?”

By the end of Celene’s breathy “Dragonfruit,” she’d maneuvered them to the couch with swift, controlled urgency. Skye landed on her back, moaning around a tongue plummeting the depths of her mouth.

Celene’s scent, the contrast of her firm abs and curves, and god, her hot skin almost confused Skye’s sensitive body. Hands shaking, Skye warred between two desires: to succumb, to be taken immediately, versus twisting upon the cushion, testing what Celene would do to keep her steady.

“Mm, you’re squirmy,” Celene husked, that slyness of hers seeping through. Then, instead of her hands that caressed Skye’s hair and waist, Celene’s hips locked Skye hard into to couch. “How’s that?”

Skye mewled, noticeably raspier, and they’d only gotten started.

At this hour, orange sun shone in from the glass door, intrusively heating the air.

On the edge of uncomfortable, warm enough to get sticky.

The likelihood of tasting Celene’s sweat dampened the space between Skye’s legs. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I haven’t even done anything yet.”

“Celene, you’re doing everything already.”

This beautiful woman on top of her, replete with contradictions and pain, stroked Skye’s cheek three times, one slower and more reverent than the last, before smothering her in a kiss of swollen lips and brazen, visceral moans.

She’d cycle them into unhurried, wet tangles of their tongues that flipped Skye’s stomach.

Then, they’d go back to the smothering kisses and repeated for what seemed like over half an hour in Skye’s mind, but years for places on her body demanding Celene’s hands.

Skye smoothed lazy tresses of hair from their faces, bowled over in this waking, living dream.

Nobody had ever given this fantastical impression.

Of romantic leads of another era. Goddesses who’d relinquish their thrones to make love amongst the stars.

Mythical escapism, away from the noise Celene loathed.

Mentally recording this, she’d flit her eyes open and shuddered at the relaxed bliss on Celene’s face. These long kisses were raw, unadulterated romance.

They were also insanely controlled.

She palmed Celene’s ass, hoping that this got her as turned on as it was making Skye. Her fingertips reached the crotch of her leggings, and Skye shivered at the heat waiting there. Celene’s moans rose with a high pitch, yet other than more undulating, she rewarded nothing.

Skye found her voice, panting, “Touch me.”

Skye winced at the anguish coating that request; she’d never begged for anyone sexually. Though she’d forgive herself for Celene’s mouth. Her fingers. More thrusts of her skilled hips.

“It depends. Do you think you’re wet enough for me?”

Too dazed in arousal to laugh, Skye said, “I’d probably slide off this couch without you pinning me down.”

“I don’t think you understand.” Celene hungrily licked Skye’s jaw to elicit a choked cry. “I love foreplay. I love to torment.”

Skye’s insides constricted entirely. “How will you know when I’m wet enough?”

“You’ll show me.”

“You’re killing me,” she answered once it sank in.

Celene wasn’t a take-charge type to simply throw her in bed and plow into her—Skye coiled, thighs rubbing fresh wetness between them—she demanded compliance.

She’d assert, then she’d retreat, making Skye lose all sense of anything but the need for release.

Skye peeled Celene’s hand off its place under the hem of her skirt and repositioned it further up, where she parted her legs.

They both hissed when two of Celene’s fingertips prodded, specifically and infuriatingly, onto her panties, right at the fabric stuck to her opening.

Skye let her hand go and slumped her arms over her head, onto the couch.

It read, “take me” as clearly as fucking possible.

Celene’s quavering, drawn-out moan made Skye tremble like the leaves outside, stroked by the wind. And Celene’s eyes fluttered shut like she’d give in, until she growled, “More. I want you starving for me, at your limit. Absolutely out of your mind.”

Skye swore she must’ve been misread as her mind had been out of commission for at least fifteen minutes. Celene sat up before she could argue her case.

Straddling Skye, she tapped her chin in a coquettish turn, aware of her effect. “Now, what would turn you on more?”

“Could I handle more?” Skye asked and surely meant it.

“We’ll see.” Proving whatever inhabited her head correct, Celene shed her tank overhead, leaving a magnificent display of skin and abdominals more defined from her deep breaths.

“What do you want from me first? My mouth, my fingers...” She bent downward, kissing lightly at the skin under Skye’s ear.

“Or my pussy? Should I rub my pussy on yours?”

Skye swore she’d died. Her body went completely stiff for a few seconds.

Celene snaked a confident hand under Skye’s blouse, pushing a bra cup down. Gently squeezing, swearing huskily. “Do you have a preference, Skye?”

The hell, Skye didn’t have a preference . All her opinions had been depleted. If Celene suggested slathering Skye in almond butter and wrapping her in a human-sized tortilla, she’d orgasm through that. Struggling against her active imagination, she could only whimper.

“Permission to touch you?” Celene asked, a full-on tease.

And at Skye’s ridiculously fervent nod, Celene grasped the hem of Skye’s skirt and pushed it inside-out above her hips.

Nothing prepared either of them for what Skye bought with her in mind.

Delicate bikinis in cherry, scant enough to leave no mystery to the skin underneath.

Regaining some traction here, Skye took Celene’s hand again to slip beneath the lace, upping the eroticism, seeing the motion through the material.

When they stopped in Skye’s wetness, she didn’t let go this time.

She guided Celene’s two longest fingers into her and gasped in a quivering near-finish.

Above Skye, Celene’s eyes rolled into a close as she held her place. A moment of connection. Of Skye removing her hand from herself to glide across Celene’s collarbone, to the slope of her neck, where she could feel a pulse drumming its approval.

The moment was a short one. Celene drew Skye into a blazing stare, expelling a moan, stark and unabashedly ravenous. Skye responded in sync, fiercely engaged and ready to be ravished. Rising for better leverage, Celene shifted into the lover Skye hadn’t realized she’d manifested until it happened.

Rafters above echoed Skye’s near howls as Celene plunged them into sex that had her grasping around Celene’s neck like a life preserver.

To buoy herself while fumbling for purchase on the couch.

The intoxicatingly tangy perfume, the tensing of Celene’s arm, the stickiness of what parts of their skin touched, the power over their speed, immersed in consuming, decadent pleasure.

Like Skye had begged for a taste, and Celene emptied the whole bowl.

Skye rolled her hips to meet every thrust, and instead of tiring, it amplified her craving.

She even shivered at the sounds, at the wet slapping that reverberated through her body.

Nothing close to embarrassment sent Skye’s face aflame; she bucked through it, knowing it pleased a woman so skilled to make her drip down her thighs.

Skye gulped from all the panting, then succumbed to a deep, branding kiss.

Blinking slowly, Celene murmured, “You’re otherworldly beautiful, Skye. God.”

The adoration, more than Skye bargained for. She loved it. “From the second you found my keys, I’ve wanted you.”

Celene shivered hard, biting her lip. Followed by the pressure of her thumb on Skye’s clit, and that shut down most faculties except anything lending to a hard, pulsating orgasm.

And the reality of tightening around Celene’s fingers sharpened her gasps to a fever pitch, then in slow, awe-stricken purrs as they sailed through the come down.

Skye laid a hand to her own chest.

Oh, fuck, she’d ascended somehow.

Celene remained embedded. Moving slothishly, like she’d come, too. And she asked the unexpected. “Again?”

Skye blinked blankly, aghast, and answered, “God, yes.”

The slyest, sexiest smile spelled out Celene’s intentions as she sat up on her knees, insinuating Skye’s hips onto her lap.

Celene took a moment to detach the panties to hang off one leg, then her fingers reanimated, hitting a different angle.

Prone and glad about it, Skye yielded all her pleasure to Celene.

Ardor high, throat raw, responsive to her girlfriend gasping, telling her to contract around her again.

So, she did.