An ache could be powerful enough to swallow an entire sea. Madeleine hadn’t known that before. She hadn’t known anything before this moment, when Hæra touched her where she’d yearned to be touched by another woman for so long.

“You’re wet,” Hæra said hoarsely. “So am I.”

Madeleine’s hips rocked against her hand. Hæra didn’t have to say it so boldly…it shouldn’t feel so good to hear something so…

“I do this to myself,” Hæra said. “Almost every night. I think of you and do this to myself.”

“Ah!” The cry escaped Madeleine before she could stop it. Hæra touched herself? She stroked these long, strong fingers over her own wetness—maybe she went inside, maybe she throbbed like Madeleine was doing now, so hard she lost her mind⁠—

“I did it the first night you came back.” Hæra’s breath was quick, unsteady like she was about to lose hold of it. “I never did before, but then...after I saw you again…”

“Hæra,” Madeleine sobbed, rubbing her hips frantically into that maddening touch. It wasn’t enough. There should be more, but what more could there be?

Hæra showed her.

She yanked Madeleine’s jeans down to her knees. It prevented Madeleine from spreading her legs wider, and Madeleine wanted to spread her legs as wide as they could go, wanted to make more room for Hæra to do whatever she wanted. To claim Madeleine before being claimed in her turn.

“Have you ever done that?” Hæra rasped. “Thinking about me?”

No, only about my college professor twenty years ago. Madeleine couldn’t say that. Or should she? Would it bring that possessive fire back into Hæra’s eyes, make her claim Madeleine at once⁠—?

“I dreamed about you,” she blurted. “That same night.”

Oh Lord, she hadn’t meant to say that. She’d never meant to confess that. Nobody was supposed to know about that dream, much less the person who’d starred in it. But when Hæra’s eyes widened, Madeleine couldn’t find the shame she ought to. She could only groan again.

“About me doing this to you?” Hæra rubbed her knuckle against the throbbing, hot little nub that had driven Madeleine out of her mind so long ago. The one she’d avoided touching ever since. “Was it about this, me touching you this way?”

“No, it—it—” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t.

“Tell me. Tell me⁠—”

“Your mouth!”

The words burst out of her, unstoppable as a storm and just as impossible to calm. They made Hæra stare down at her, her mouth going slack, while Madeleine stared right back. She’d really just said that.

“My mouth between your legs,” Hæra said. “You want me there too.”