Page 53 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls (Kissing At Work #2)
Sparing seconds to reconnect, Celene dove into a rougher kiss, one teetering on desperation. And she couldn’t bite back her gasp when she slid her hand under the towel, making contact with a trail of wetness on her thigh.
“Fuck,” Celene panted onto the closest half of Skye’s pouty lips, confirming the distinct consistency of wetness that had nothing to do with the shower or her sweat. “Is this mine?”
When Skye spoke, she sounded close to hyperventilating. “Yes. Please.”
Celene smirked. Ah, the boldness right out the window with the humidity. “Yes, please, what?”
Skye arched forward in a jerk, kissing the edge of Celene’s ear. “Please lick me.”
“God. Gladly.”
Tearing away the offending towel, Celene then dropped the blouse, in critical need to tilt Skye’s thighs up with both hands and stake her claim.
The angle her body bent to accommodate the counter’s height went secondary to getting her fill, sweeping her tongue in spirals that had Skye grapple on Celene’s forearm in an impressively tight grip.
Bottles clinked, maybe perfumes knocking over as she expended every part of her mouth in Skye’s wetness, the pliability of her labia, the taste of her entrance, the sensitivity of a clit that got Skye to beg for climax at every purposeful scrape of her teeth.
Celene could quit. She’d quit her job correcting jerks to live off her savings if it meant spending days and weeks performing oral on Skye Florentine.
Just the thought of completely devoting herself to satisfying her girlfriend made Celene’s fingers move between her own legs, pulling her panties aside first. Slickness on her face, slickness between her legs.
Overwhelming. Too overwhelming, grounds for a hoarse moan into Skye’s center.
The sound of her self-pleasure must’ve tipped off Skye. Her free leg stroked restlessly onto Celene’s shoulder as she whispered, “Please tell me you’re touching yourself.”
Knees fighting weakness, Celene moaned, “I am.”
Skye leaned further back, making soft contact with the wall and the mirror. “Let me see.”
Jesus. Celene pried her lips from her obsession with a reluctant whimper. Her spine unbowed as she stood straight, eyes boring into Skye’s as her two fingers strummed in alternating positions on herself, how she did to prolong the tension until she came.
A futile attempt, when Skye’s pointer and ring fingers took over to stimulate her clit. Skye closed her eyes, bottom lip seized under her teeth. Probably the way she touched herself at night, in the white sheets of that loft bed. In the days Celene gave her a reason to fuck herself.
Celene could handle this visual for a paltry number of minutes until she came in a dry, fiendishly pitchy cry. Skye’s hand sped up as her lips parted in a sympathetic moan, her dainty, unbelievable features open and lustful and unfathomably engrossed.
It took ten extremely shudder-y seconds to find her mind again, but when she did, it steered her between Skye’s legs again.
Skye’s hand grappled for the counters, her short nails scratching in fits to hold onto any fucking thing, toppling a soap dispenser.
Though Celene didn’t wait. Her tongue resumed in its circular caresses around Skye’s clit.
And for some reason, she said, in a lengthy exhale, “Thank you for liking me.”
Skye deflated with a strained laugh. “You’re welcome.”
Quickly, Celene slid fingers still glossy from herself into Skye and immediately twisted them in gentle repetition, a technique she’d learned in their forays hours prior. The road to Skye screaming for Celene, fluttering velvet around her fingers.
They continued in their motions, now sticky outside of a shower’s doing, until Skye’s screams softened to prayer-like whispers.
Slumped and still in recovery, Skye summoned Celene with a weak wave.
Celene took extra care removing her fingers before she leaned close, expecting a kiss.
And she got that. Along with her disheveled girlfriend rasping, “You’ve drained me. Please bring me those pastries. I’ll eat them here in the sink.”
At some point in their passion, Skye’s ass wedged into the sink bowl. Celene burst out laughing, loving the feeling. Life with Skye was so fucking fulfilling. She spun in place, reaching backwards to pull Skye’s hand. “Climb on my back. I’ll feed you breakfast in bed.”
Dating Yielding’s nature-loving darling enthralled Celene Vale.
Their morning in the slightly muggy air involved a walk around Lake Harrier, glittered with factoids on its two-year creation, the origin of its hawk-inspired name in Skye’s satiny voice.
Orating all this was an occupational compulsion, Skye had joked, downplaying this knowledge born of fielding tourists’ questions at Luce’s shop.
Celene wondered where that self-consciousness came from—perhaps from girlfriends too embedded in the Yielder culture to find this interesting.
Well, history tours were a must in Celene’s solo travels. Stepping through untamed grass, Celene tightened her arm around Skye’s waist, telling her to leave nothing out. Knowledge was attractive.
Plus, these local lessons were the ideal companion to holding her girlfriend close, silently stricken by how Celene’s cardigan felt softer, more supple on Skye’s body.
During the second and third laps around the lake, a doe and her fawn casually followed them, taking breaks to graze, and Celene chose not to tease Skye about it, but rather let it happen as casually as anything else.
Their walks turned into hikes to two other ponds fashioned around their neighborhood, rounding out at Skye’s house once hunger called.
There, Celene got her wish fulfilled in hanging out with her two favorite Florentines.
This chat, however, differed from the ones she had in her one-on-ones with Luce.
Luce seemed to have fallen into a dreary mood she couldn’t rise from, recounting stories of her late husband in the present tense, as if he’d been out on a long trip and not six feet under.
Celene could tell it heightened Skye’s discomfort.
Especially when Luce went into a long spiel about the three-slab relief she’d dedicated to Walter for Chromatique Flair .
As much as Celene enjoyed the food and stories from decades before she’d been born, she complied immediately when Skye made an excuse to clean up, ending the discussion.
Initially, Celene thought it’d been a cue to leave altogether, yet Skye had other plans.
“My mom and I built the shelving,” Skye explained from inside her clandestine studio, gripping one of the painted ledges to show how it didn’t budge, fastened securely onto the wooden wall.
“She stumbled upon this space when I was home from college, but it was inconvenient to bring a ladder into the bedroom. Dad helped us clear up the cobwebs and feed in outlets for lamps, but it mostly stayed unused until June built the loft bed, and I could reach it. Whole time, Luce had no clue.”
The area behind the trap door was narrow, its ceiling sloping at an angle favoring the roof’s structure.
It accommodated the space for a desk, several shelves and cabinets, and folding windows for ventilation.
Everything smelled vaguely of the wood that surrounded them and light whiffs of glue.
A secluded, undercover artist’s hideaway.
And the art . Though Skye locked up the Forever Fuchsia in its unfinished state, Celene committed long moments to examining the handiwork of everything else up close.
Incomplete or not, Celene was awestruck by the detail, how the hand-sized sugar maple leaf’s pieces cascaded uniformly and divergently alike.
Growing up with the Florentines must’ve been the ultimate learning experience.
What affected Celene more strongly was Skye nearby, watching Celene observe everything with the intensity of a student. Just as she had for the last four pieces, Celene spoke what made her heart hammer loudest. Handling the leaf with delicate fingers, it gleamed beneath the small LED desk lamp.
“Skye, I’m amazed,” Celene intoned, questioning how Skye called her larger than life while harboring all this.
“I have to lecture and berate people who, by way of their status, are called the greatest minds because of titles they’re one case of tax fraud away from losing.
They’re all average people, really. Then, I met you and. ..”
There was only one chair, and Celene was sitting in it. Skye had perched herself on a short cabinet, feet planted on a rug she’d added to help insulate her footsteps. With a soft smile, her head had tilted, her stare penetrating.
Dragonfruit .
Did Celene need to speak their word?
Because she absolutely, doubtlessly loved Skye.
“And...” Skye said as she blinked from a headspace Celene could only assume to be bountiful and radiant. “You now want to lecture and berate mosaicists?”
Celene placed the leaf safely onto the table so she could laugh. It came out shallowly, stunted by her realization. She grasped at Skye’s hand, replying, “Not at all. I find you extraordinary.”
Skye’s eyebrows shot up, hiding under her bangs. “Oh. Wow. Thank you.”
Needing to see them, Celene glided a thumb across Skye’s forehead, gathering hair aside. “Do you have a plan for telling Luce about the accident?”
“Kinda, yeah.” Skye sighed, lips pinched unpleasantly at the topic.
“The magazine’s been corresponding pretty slowly, and I’m in control of all the emails, so it’ll give me plenty of time to update my parents when they come next week.
I’ll tell them what I did, how I use this space to make art.
Trust me; they’ve wanted me to get into this stuff forever, and they’ll be on my side in case Luce takes it badly.
” The unpleasant pinch migrated to the rest of her face.
“Is that wrong? Needing my parents? It’s essentially everybody’s bus?—”
Celene intercepted with another caress. “I think it’s admirable. This is a family matter, so you’ll deal with it together.”
“Luce forgets I mourn Granddad, too.”
“That can’t be easy. I…I don’t remember him much, sorry.” Those old summers, Celene avoided adults as much as she could. “But I know he’d love what you added.”
“I think he would, too.”
The wooden cabinet beneath Skye creaked when she leaned forward, meeting Celene in the middle for a kiss.
Celene’s hand slid to the underside of Skye’s jaw, careful not to pinch her neck.
For they were still learning each other’s bodies; she needed to signal this with an embrace purely of emotion, the dedicated connection of a partner.
Celene grazed Skye’s lips, resistant to ending the night this way. Skye would return to work in the morning, but responsibility didn’t mean misery. She apportioned a lengthy moment to watch Skye engrossed in the kiss, haloed by the warm overhead lamp.
“I don’t want to leave you here.” Celene clarified, their pendants detaching in a soft jingle. Skye blinked back, a little delayed post-kiss. “We have the rest of the afternoon, the evening. You don’t have a fucking curfew.” They laughed quietly. “I want more time with you.”
“Or I could spend the night again.”
“Yes, please. Do that.”
Skye wound her pinky into her necklace, going silent only for a minute.
“When I returned to Yielding after living in Philly, I didn’t move straight home.
I figured I had the funds to stay at a hotel first, then get an apartment.
” She fiddled with the hem of the cardigan, the memory obviously not a kind one.
“Nothing felt right at the hotel. Too sterile, even the cozier ones. Luce offered my parents’ old suite, and I made it my own; it became home again. Like you did for the summer house.”
This information grazed chills over Celene’s shoulders. Did that once-shabby old house become a second home?
“When we used to play at the Vale house, I always felt out of place.”
Celene nodded. “Same for me.”
“Yeah, but I don’t feel that anymore. Not even when Elise and Ajay were there.” Skye seemed to be searching for something in Celene’s eyes, and Celene could only hope she found it. “ You did that.”
“Skye, god, thank you,” was all Celene would reply out of reflex. An overlooked subject came to mind, and she groaned. “Ugh. I hadn’t given you your presents yet.”
“You’re not required to bring me stuff after every trip into the city.” Skye’s smile brightened regardless. “Let’s go now.”
As Celene assisted in putting everything back in its place, she wondered if a day would pass that she didn’t want to give Skye any and everything. She wanted to give it all.