Page 47

Yardley shivered. And so KC had no choice but to find the remaining pins, one by one, and free them until first one heavy braid eased to Yardley’s shoulder, then the other.

There wasn’t a sound except their breathing, a little faster than usual.

The light was rosy, penetrating the hushed gloom of the curtained bed.

KC settled her knees on either side of Yardley’s thighs, and Yardley gripped KC’s hips.

She unbraided Yardley’s hair with the entirety of her focus, threading her fingers between the weave, tugging every wave free and then stroking her hands over them until Yardley’s hair made a curtain of black around her shoulders.

KC scraped her fingertips over Yardley’s scalp, watching the twinkle of the diamonds swinging forward from her bent neck.

She tipped Yardley’s head up and kissed her jaw, breathing in the scent of her skin. “Now you’re not Max anymore,” she said.

She kissed her neck. Softly bit her earlobe. Thanked every heaven.

“That’s good, because I’m not sure I could keep up such a high level of sapphic dominance in the state I’m in.” Yardley’s voice was so low, her wit seemed sleepy. “What are you wearing underneath this crime of a dress?”

Her hand found KC’s upper thigh, and her thumb dragged an arc over flexed quadriceps toward the juncture of her thighs, slow and with enough pressure to make it clear Yardley was feeling frustrated. The good kind of frustrated. KC pulled her hand away, ignoring the throb of protest from her clit.

Yardley laughed, but it was the laugh she always laughed right before things would get very, very serious between them—breathless and in her throat. “Tell me what to do.”

“Tell me what you want.” KC raked her hands through Yardley’s hair and gently pulled.

“To feel what I do to you.”

KC slid off Yardley’s thighs. Her bare feet sank into the rug, a strangely intimate feeling for such a public space. She took in the hot flush on Yardley’s cheeks and her serious blue eyes and how the bow of her upper lip had already swollen and lost its definition.

“Take off your disguise.”

Yardley closed her eyes and let out a breath. She unbuttoned her trousers and lowered the zipper, turning her body to ease them off her ass. They slithered from the end of the bed, their satin lining sinking into them in a puddle at KC’s feet.

KC thought of morning Yardley, belted into her robe in the kitchen of their house in Reston.

Yardley in that teetering pile of a wig in the back of the comm van after the Starbucks op.

Yardley in aviator shades and tight jeans, crossing the transportation bay at Langley.

They called her the Unicorn because she was singular. There was only one Yardley Lauren Bailey Whitmer the Third, and she belonged to KC.

“Keep going,” she said.

Yardley unbuttoned the remaining two buttons of the tuxedo shirt, then the cuffs.

The sound of the stiff oxford cotton snicking off her shoulders was loud enough to make KC wet.

The shiny black strands of Yardley’s hair curved over her collarbones to frame her full breasts, tipped in pale pink.

She held her hands loose at her sides and dragged her heels over the quilt until her knees were bent.

She looked exactly like a naked woman ought to look on the Elizabethan bed, begging with her eyes, every inch of her gorgeously corrupt.

“Your panties, too.” Yardley must have heard the desperation in the command, because she started to smile, but KC shook her head at her. “No. It’s serious what you’ve done to me. It hurts. I’m fucked.” KC whispered this, giving Yardley what she wanted.

Showing her what she did to her.

Yardley dropped onto her back and lifted her hips, pulling off her tiny black panties.

She lay in the darkest shadow of the bed, so that only her legs and hips had definition.

It made KC feel like a voyeur, dirty in the best way, especially when Yardley dropped one of her knees open to show KC how wet she was.

KC crawled onto the bed at Yardley’s feet and slid her hands up the outsides of her legs, smooth and shiny, a silken sensation that never failed to pull a hard hitch of desire from deep inside her.

“Please, please don’t be nice,” Yardley panted, the dusky light catching the restless movement of her hands she was holding over her head.

“Look at me.” KC dug her fingernails into her palms, fighting for the control Yardley wanted. She rose on her knees to pull off her dress. As soon as the slithery material glided over her bare breasts and she met Yardley’s serious eyes, she lost mastery of the situation.

She wanted to press herself against her, urgent, use her thigh, lick her neck. She wanted to come, and edging her body when it demanded she sprint toward delicious destruction was perfect and terrible, closer to an emotion than a sensation.

“Do you want to touch yourself?” KC pushed her hand into her thong and showed Yardley what she meant, her fingers immediately slick as the slightest pressure put her close enough that she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from taking it too far.

“ Fuck. ” Yardley’s skin went pink everywhere, shiny in the dip between her breasts and throat. “Yes.” She leaned up on one elbow, watching KC’s finger move under her scrap of underwear.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Her smile bubbled up from her chest, effervescent and bright, throwing away whatever pretense remained that KC was in charge of what happened in the hushed space behind these velvet curtains.

Yardley smiled back, breathing hard. She hitched her knee up and touched herself.

KC’s focus narrowed to one tight, throbbing ache—the woman in this bed with her, the ragged sound of her breath.

Her heated skin on the thigh KC had reached down to hang on to was the exact temperature of KC’s arousal.

She knew it would be Yardley coming that made her come, because she could never last beyond the sound of Yardley’s broken moans, her crying out.

It had been too long without that. She hadn’t realized how diminished she’d been without it.

She pulled her wet fingers from her underwear and caged her arms around Yardley.

Their lips met at the same time she reached down and moved her fingers alongside Yardley’s, urgent to take over, then slid inside her with an answering throb that KC felt in her toes.

She savored the luxurious feel of Yardley’s pussy, swollen, hot, smooth and rough, sweeping her tongue into her mouth and gasping when, between kisses, Yardley sucked her own fingers into her mouth.

KC didn’t recognize the desperate noise her throat made.

She needed more. She kissed her way down Yardley’s body, alternating with small bites, and when she put her mouth over her, licking and sucking with no finesse, guided by the pitch of Yardley’s rhythmic moans, she held her fingers still inside of her, not quite letting her get there.

KC’s hips started moving, searching, begging to find pressure and come, but she edged herself until she tasted Yardley and heard her coming, tightening around KC’s fingers.

Then all it took was one hard press against herself with a knuckle that made her come apart at the same time, clenching so hard her ears started ringing, both of their thighs shaking.

“Come here,” KC croaked. Yardley reached her arms down to pull her clumsily up until their bodies aligned, skin touching skin from breasts to ankles.

KC curled around her, her face against Yardley’s cheek. She felt her breath slow and her skin cool, their smell mingling with the dust from the quilts.

“I love you,” Yardley whispered. “Now I have to kiss you.”

She did, until KC’s heart ached.

“I love you, I love you,” Yardley breathed, and then turned her head. KC was looking into her eyes, their noses almost touching.

“Do you think you could make one of your tiny dioramas of what just happened here?” KC asked. “Make it historically accurate? Because I would cherish it.”

Yardley let out a surprised laugh that wrinkled her nose, and made KC laugh, before they realized how loud they were and tried to shush each other while being unable to stop.

It wasn’t a reproduction.

This was original, new love.