Talia’s lips parted. Then she thought better of whatever she’d been on the verge of saying, and simply lifted my wrist back to her mouth. I could feel the warm rush of her exhale against my skin as she lingered over the kiss, and the banked heat inside me whipped up again, fanned by her breath.
Between sips of wine, she continued working her way up my arm; through the tattoos that marked my graduation, my decision to work at Enchantify instead of getting a master’s, the key to the first apartment I rented alone, a series of promotions. All the cornerstones I’d laid down for the foundations of Chicago Emmy, building over the ground that Emmeline Constance of the Thistle Grove Harlows had once occupied.
Talia sealed each confidence with a scorching kiss, my skin under her lips growing increasingly sensitive as she neared the elbow crease. I didn’t think I’d ever felt this particular mix before, this heady commingling of vulnerability and desire. I hadn’t close to felt it with Anders from a few months back, or even Chrissy before him, though she’d been promising before work got in the way.
But being around Talia felt so vivid, so radiant and jewel toned. It made everyone else I’d ever been with seem to pale, to fade into unremarkable pastels.
My breath came shorter and more ragged with each incrementally more lingering kiss, until I started to suspect we might not make it to the end of my little narrative.
“And this one?” she coaxed, rubbing her thumb over the prickly purple blossom tattooed right below my elbow. I’d lost all pretense of maintaining my distance and was halfway onto her lap, as if the space between us had been magnetized. Her face hovered invitingly close, all hypnotic eyes and citrus-stung lips. The little indent above her upper lip was chiseled into a perfect diamond shape I was dying to kiss. All I could smell was oranges and the sweetness of her perfume, like a scented beckoning.
“Come on, Harlow, a deal’s a deal. Tell me what this one means.”
“The thistle, um . . .” I closed my eyes, struggling to rein in the very insistent clamoring of my loins enough to think. “It’s recent. I got it end of August, when I decided to come home for the Gauntlet. I wasn’t going to, at first, it felt too close to backsliding. But then I thought, no—that was the wrong way to look at it. I owed it to my parents to make one last appearance, do right by them. And if I could make it back here and then back out again, then that would be proof.”
“Proof of what?” she asked, her voice so husky it was almost a rasp.
“Proof,” I tried, though my heart felt like it had ballooned against the hollow of my throat. She was right there, so fucking close. Her hand so hot, her thighs pressing up against my leg in the most maddeningly intimate way. “That this place was out of my system. Out of my blood for good.”
Her eyes latched on to mine, compelling as the Samhain night beyond the window. “And is it?”
“Oh, Talia,” I whispered, with something close to anguish. “I don’t know anymore.”
Then I leaned in to kiss her.
Her lips parted immediately under my mouth, tongue sweeping against mine, silken and sweet with oranges. She slid both hands around my waist and tugged me fully onto her lap, running her palms up my back and then burying them in my hair, tugging my head down to deepen the kiss.
I cupped her face, trailing my fingers over her cheekbones and the sharp line of her jaw, whispering them down her neck and the jut of her collarbone beneath the chain links of her halter top. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and under the slick fabric her breasts were warm and heavy in my hands, nipples standing out hard when I brushed my thumbs back and forth over them.
“Fuck, Emmy,” she murmured against my mouth in a little groan.
“Did you . . . did you just say my name?” I asked, so startled that I pulled back a little, an electric thrill singeing through me at the way those two syllables sounded. Like no one before her had ever gotten my name quite right.
“Emmy,” she said again, now with a teasing twist, smiling as she tightened her grip on my hair. I let my head fall back, gasping as she kissed the spot right under my jaw. It sent a coursing rush of tingles down my side, set a second pulse to beating between my thighs. I squirmed against her, helpless with want, as she trailed kisses all the way down my throat.
“Emmy,” she said again, against my skin. “Do you like to hear me say it?”
“I fucking love it,” I said, so strained with need I barely sounded like myself. Her fingers drifted down to my blouse’s hem, and I lifted my arms to let her pull it over my head.