Sophia, too, opened. Parting her lips, she encouraged Vic’s tongue, exploring, tracing, testing boundaries that no longer existed. Slowly their hands picked up the theme, first exploring over arms, backs, tangling hair, then clothes before slipping beneath them. Sophia’s hand on the small of Vic’s back made her gasp. This woman had never shown any respect for her personal space, and Vic had never been more thrilled by that disregard than she was in the moment when her shirt was pushed up over her head.

Exposed now in one of the ways she’d feared, she felt none of the shame so many others tried to instil in her. The shudder that coursed through her body was borne of something else, something more primal than even pleasure. She stepped back barely far enough to check the consent of the only other person who mattered. Holding Sophia’s dark, dangerous gaze as their chests rose on heavy breaths, she watched those eyes as she unclasped the button on Sophia’s jeans. Refusing to break the contact between them, she slowly drew down the zipper, its sound raw and harsh in the silent room.

Then, sliding her hands back over Sophia’s hips, she eased into the waistband and urged the trousers downward until they reached the point where gravity overcame resistance.

“That escalated quickly,” Sophia said with one of her wry smiles as she kicked off her shoes and stepped free.

“Indeed.” Vic pulled her close and kissed her soundly once more, but this time as their tongues slid against one another, her explorations were no longer aimless. Instincts, long buried, had not been eradicated. They roared back as she grabbed hold of Sophia’s waist and directed them back toward the door to her bedroom.

Sophia, for her part, was an apt dance partner, accepting her direction and exuding grace despite moving backward with her eyes closed. Along the way she added a few of her own steps for flare, shedding her shirt before burying her face in Vic’s neck. What started as a sexy nuzzle turned into a kiss, then a bite along her throat.

She would have loved to see where that particular path led, but before they had a chance to fully follow it Sophia’s back bumped against the bedroom door, and from the little gasp that escaped between their lips, it must have been chilly.

Smiling into the kiss, Vic freed one hand and opened the door. Then with her arm snug around Sophia’s waist, she orchestrated a little spin move that set them on a direct collision course with the large, four-poster canopy bed.

Tugging back the comforter with her free arm, she eased Sophia onto the crisp white sheets. She stood for a few glorious seconds imprinting that image on her mind, then crawling up next to her, dipped down to kiss Sophia once more, only deep enough for their mouths to meet, but nothing else.