Page 56 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)

“I’ve got a big heart,” she said softly, her eyes dropping to Eileen’s mouth.

Eileen had forgone her slash of russet lipstick that day.

Was it intentional, this flicker of vulnerability?

This removal of her warpaint that, like a stoplight, forbade any but the most determined pilgrim from approaching the shrine of her lips?

“I’ve got a greedy heart,” Eileen said, sliding her arm around Nicola’s shoulder over the back of the couch. “I’m afraid I’m not a very nice person.”

“Nice is different than good. And I think you’re good, deep down.”

“It would take a saint to see the good in me,” Eileen said, one thumb brushing idly against Nicola’s shoulder. The sensation sent a shudder down Nicola’s spine. “Are you the maiden brave of spirit and pure of heart who’s come to tame the dragon?”

Now Nicola felt drunk, not from wine, but from Eileen. Eileen was so close, and so warm, and she smelled like girlish pressed powder and the masculin-sap of the trees outside.

“Do you want to play a game with me, dove?” Eileen murmured, her sweet breath tickling Nicola’s lips.

“Not a game,” Nicola said quickly.

Eileen drew back immediately and opened her mouth in a panic, trying to course correct. Nicola caught her before she could fully retreat, cupping her face in her hand. Eileen’s cheek was strangely cool, like she was clammy from the comedown of a fever.

“I don’t want any games between us,” Nicola said, swallowing hard and gathering her courage. “But I would like to kiss you.”

Bewilderment flashed behind Eileen’s eyes, as though she couldn’t fathom that someone would want her without being tricked into the wanting. As though without the half-pretend fantasy world of a game, no one would ever put up with her.

Then, Eileen surged forward and kissed Nicola on the mouth.

Nicola made a soft sound of pleasure, opening her mouth further as Eileen cradled her jaw and stroked her hot tongue across Nicola’s lower lip. Nicola let her hands roam, coming up to grasp Eileen’s waist.

“Such a pretty girl,” Eileen said breathlessly, leaning back down to kiss Nicola again and again. There was an awkward urgency to her kiss, heady though it was, a trembling in her hands as she gripped Nicola’s hips. “Such a courageous maiden.”

“You aren’t the dragon,” Nicola said between kisses. “You aren’t a monster.”

Eileen let out a strangled sound, like she had attempted to speak and found herself incapable of it, and then she laid Nicola down on her back on the couch. Eileen leaned over her, bracing herself with one hand on the arm of the couch, and kissed Nicola until she was breathless.

Eileen’s kiss was firm and exacting, like there was strategy behind it, like she was trying to kiss Nicola exactly right.

Like all that mattered was figuring out how Nicola liked to be kissed.

But Nicola liked a little bit of everything, most days, and she liked a lot of everything when it came to people she had been wistfully lusting after, so everything Eileen did felt good, even when her teeth bumped against Nicola’s.

As Nicola became more and more pliant, warming under Eileen’s hands like clay in the fingers of a sculptor, Eileen kissed her with less self-consciousness.

And when Eileen bit down on Nicola’s earlobe and Nicola made a mewling sound, like a kitten crying for more attention, Eileen took a ragged breath and said,

“Can I touch you? Under that skirt I got you.”

Nicola was nodding before her brain had even fully processed the request. She tugged her tweed skirt – tight enough to show off her ass, and now she knew Eileen had kept that in mind while picking it out – up over her hips, revealing her black cotton panties.

Eileen brushed her fingers over their decorative pink satin bow reverently, then slipped her hand underneath the fabric.

Nicola gasped as Eileen slid her fingers through the short blonde curls and down to where Nicola was wet and throbbing and needy.

A wave of pleasure rolled through Nicola’s belly as Eileen stroked her pussy, slow and experimental, like this was the first time she had touched another woman.

Nicola remembered, with another wave of pulsing pleasure, that by Eileen’s own admission, it was.

“Harder,” Nicola whined. She tried to catch her breath, suppressing the urge to be bossy despite how badly she wanted more. “I like it harder. If you want to, you can—”

Eileen pressed the heel of her palm down against Nicola’s clit, snatching the last of her words away.

Not that Nicola could have managed to say anything anyway, because Eileen was kissing her again.

Nicola tugged at the collar of Eileen’s shirt, unfastening buttons and popping one off in the process, then slid her hand over Eileen’s firm, high breasts.

She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath the silk, and Eileen shuddered as Nicola swiped her thumbs over Eileen’s peaked nipples.

“I’ve got to get inside you, starling,” Eileen said. “Please let me. Please, can I—”

Nicola pressed Eileen’s hand down further with her own, canting her hips up to give Eileen’s fingers even easier access. When Eileen slipped two cool fingers inside her, Nicola felt so full and so relieved that she could have cried.

“You’re going to have to show me how you like it,” Eileen said, dark hair tumbling over her collarbones as she shrugged her shirt off her shoulders. “Show me how you touch yourself when you’re alone.”

Nicola kept her hand on top of Eileen’s as Eileen pumped her fingers in and out of Nicola, slowly at first and then faster as Nicola guided her touch.

She was so swept up in the moment, in Eileen’s fingers inside her and Eileen’s perfectly bitable collarbones and petal-pink nipples right where Nicola could reach them with her mouth, that she didn’t even hear the drums. Not right away.

At first, she thought it was simply her heartbeat hammering away in her ears, or some auditory trick brought on by distant thunder. But then that droning, unmistakable rhythm grew louder and louder, filtering into the house as though from far away.

“What is that?” Nicola asked, breaking the kiss. She couldn’t say exactly why she was scared, but a deep ancestral memory stirred inside her, of fighting or freezing or fleeing.

Eileen withdrew her fingers and gripped Nicola’s thigh, almost hard enough to bruise. She held her tight and she listened, more intent and more serious than Nicola even thought Eileen was capable of being.

There were definitely drums. And they were getting closer.

“Eileen?” Nicola whispered.

“Shut the windows and draw the curtains,” she said quickly, climbing off Nicola. There was an absolutely stricken expression on her face. In that moment, she looked like the most miserable girl in the world. “And stay as quiet as you can.”