Breathing became a secondary concern as the pressure in her chest dwarfed the pressure coiling at her core. She sank her hands into the dark swirls of Sophia’s silken locks as they spilled across her trembling thighs. She clung to her for so many reasons now: stability, need, fear of falling in ways that transcended the physical. But the rush didn’t overwhelm her or sweep her away. It built from her toes, from the tips of her fingers and the top of her scalp. It gathered, spreading, crawling from one nerve ending to the next with a steady certainty, a realisation sweeping forward on the waves of her impending release.

Sophia continued to open her, to push her, to seep into her as Vic’s awareness grew, like a thousand pinpricks in a dark sky opening rapidly, each one showing her a little more. The vast vulnerability of it all might have caused her to cave in on herself if not for the woman holding her upright and urging her forward.

Undone.

That’s what Sophia had asked for. To take the weight off, not to drop it, or let it drop in a fallen moment, but to knowingly, willingly, deliberately lay it down before her. Sophia could bear it. She was strong enough and sure enough to catch them both. Vic knew those things with the same certainty she knew the other thing, the bigger thing burning through her now. The two certainties were inseparable.

She gasped as her heart gave a little jump that radiated through her core and out along her limbs.

Sophia remained relentless in her attention. Her mouth, her hands, they beckoned Vic forward, higher, closer to the place she hadn’t intended to go but no longer tried to run from.

Then with one more push, one more sweep of Sophia’s tongue, one more knowing caress, Vic surrendered and splintered. All the pieces of her resistance crumbled in one sharp, sobbing cry. She hung suspended in that moment without any successive waves or diminishing returns. She existed purely as pleasure, purely vulnerable, purely safe, and purely sated.

There was nothing left but the absolute. Maybe that’s why this time felt so different, without the wind down or even the gentle easing back to earth.

She wasn’t falling anymore because she had already fallen, thoroughly and completely, for Sophia.

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

The shrill ring of a phone jolted Sophia awake. She sat up in a strange bed, which wasn’t at all unusual given her work and travel schedule, but she usually needed a few minutes to orient herself. This morning, however, the warm body next to her provided an anchor, both physically and mentally. She took a second to stare at the stunning, sleeping form, classically beautiful and heart-achingly unguarded.