Chapter Eight

People bustled, albeit slowly, in the rural town of Sequim during the Lavender Festival. Rolling hills of purple and green flooded the skyline as we walked past the many farms or open spaces. Vendors lined the streets, including dozens of food trucks, and a parade marched its way through town. Despite the busy nature of the day, the warm, clean summer washed over my skin like a refreshing dip in a hot spring. Dirt coated my Vans and the hems of my pants, and the ruggedness of the environment intrigued me. I”d never been to a place like Sequim before, and it reminded me how unseasoned I was as a human being with little experience beyond the city I”d called home for all of my life.

Clementine walked beside me, our hands bumping together on occasion. Some of the layers of her hair fluttered behind her when the breeze kicked up. She wore a relaxed fit pair of jeans and off-white Chuck Taylors that triggered the memory of my playful argument with Sali. Earth soiled the canvas just like mine, but neither of us seemed to care. The white T-shirt she wore gave her a less uber-feminine look like I”d grown used to, but her casual attire intrigued me just the same. Over time, I noticed myself spending several moments just looking at her, and I had no idea why I enjoyed doing it so much.

”How do you feel about affection?” she asked suddenly as the parade ended its journey past us.

”In general?” I motioned toward the food trucks, and she nodded before we headed off in that direction.

”Let”s start with that, yes.”

”In general, makes me uncomfortable. If people touch me, I don”t understand why they”re doing it half the time and it either confuses me or makes me annoyed,” I answered honestly.

To my surprise, she nodded and glanced at me. ”How about more specifically?”

”In what sense?”

”With me,” she asked, her voice soft.

”I would be okay with that.” I held my hand to her, but knew that it might be too much. ”How about you?”

”Very okay.” She smiled right away and accepted the gesture, with her cool fingers wrapping my palm. ”People here seem to eat a lot of Dungeness crab.” Her random observation caught me off guard.

”Yeah. I noticed that. Not a fan of crab. You?”

”Nah.” She scrunched up her nose. ”Those legs.”

I shuddered and rolled my shoulders. ”Giant ocean spiders.”

”Yes.” She snickered and gave my hand a squeeze. ”Are you hungry?”

”Very. How about you?”

”Yes. Do you like street food?”

”I legit live off street food.”

”There are so many vegan food trucks now.” She pointed ahead of us. ”There”s three in this tiny town.”

”I noticed. I”m a stickler for the traditional stuff, too.”

”Me too. On occasion anyway. What are you feeling today?”

”Hungry.” I chuckled when I said it. ”Totally open.”

”I could go for falafel and hummus.” She nodded toward the bright green truck to our right with pictures of Mediterranean dishes all over its side. ”How about that?”

”Here for it.”

We ordered on the same ticket. I chose the falafel on a pita with lots of sauces, and Clem chose hers in a hummus bowl with lots of veggies. We helped ourselves to a picnic table off the beaten path and a little away from the crowds, and settled under the shade of the tree beside us.

”The Western Hemlocks here are very tall.”

”Huh? What”s that?”

”This type of tree.” She nodded to our right and I followed the height of it toward the sky.

”It”s incredible. I legit know nothing about country life or trees. I”ve honestly rarely left Seattle unless it was the outskirts. This is very new to me.”

”Do you like it?” she asked after a bite of food.

I nodded, allowing myself to focus on the sounds of the rustling leaves and singing cicadas. The scent of lavender carried on nearly every breeze. ”Very much. It”s comforting here. Though I”m not sure it”s the atmosphere or the company.”

Clem smiled and offered me a fork full of her lunch. ”Try.”

I accepted without fuss and smiled at the rich flavors of the falafel and cucumber mixed with hummus. ”Very good. Want a messy bite?” I held up the pita to her and she nodded. As she”d done to me, I held it to her, and she tore a dainty bite from the wrap.

”Wow, that”s really good. I like the sauce.”

”Me too. Want to trade halfway through?” I grinned and motioned between our plates.

”Absolutely.” Clem shimmied in her chair in a muted excitement that I didn”t expect. It made me wonder how much of herself she kept a lid on, mainly because I felt like I was keeping myself tethered just the same.

”Thank you for bringing me here. It”s been great so far.”

”You said you”ve been camping before but never left the city?” she asked suddenly, catching me off guard.

”Well, yes and no.” I swallowed the gulp of my food while thinking about my response. ”I”ve been camping in a wooded area, but not in the woods.”

Her brow furrowed with confusion, and I noted the tension in her expression that followed. ”What do you mean?”

”Sorry. I”m being evasive by accident.” I drew in a slow breath. ”When I was younger, I was homeless for a while and lived in an encampment in the city. When they gentrified the area, they made us move so we took up residence in one of the state parks right on the edge of Seattle. I wasn”t there long.”

”Oh.” She set down her fork and leaned forward on her elbows. ”I”m sorry to hear that happened to you.”

”It”s okay. I”m good now.” I nodded and now found it a little more difficult to eat.

”What happened for you to end up homeless?”

”Um…” Anxiety flooded me, turning my fingers and toes cold as the tingles of it itched my shoulders. If I told her, would I freak her out and send her running? Probably, but she”d find out anyway eventually. Might as well do it before I get too attached. ”Remember how I told you that my parents were in the Army and were deployed a few times overseas?

She nodded and so I continued.

”Well, they met when they were in the same unit and had me. They never left the same unit. Not sure how that was allowed, but it was. They got deployed together and died in the war. My grandma mostly raised me.”

”Were you close with your grandma?” Clem didn”t offer weird condolences or say anything strange. The empathy in her expression felt like more than enough.

”Very. She taught me a lot of creative things. Painting, drawing, knitting, crochet. We went to church every Sunday.” I scrunched my nose at the thought of it. ”It was fine then because it was before I knew anything. We baked and cooked together all the time. She was the best.”

Clem”s smile mirrored mine when I shared the fond memories. ”Can you cook?”

”If I tried.” I chuckled and nibbled on a cucumber while talking. ”She died when I was twelve and I ended up in foster care. That”s when things got crazy. It was fine for a little while, but then I got with a family that treated me like shit, so I ran away when I was fourteen. The streets were forgiving. Welcoming at times. Eventually, they put me in a group home. I didn”t mind that as much because no one really cared what I did. I would come and go at night.”

”Is that when you started making street art?”

”Yeah…” I paused my story there, however, and let Clem have her reactions.

”What was your first piece?”

”My first?” I smirked while the memories flooded back. ”The stone wall beside the foster home that treated me bad. I tagged, bat crap crazy, on the side of their porch in black and blue lettering. I did not sign my name to it.”

”Bat crap crazy?” Clem laughed softly. ”Why that?”

”In the group home, we only got to watch old shows on DVDs. The X-Files collection was one of them. Scully called Mulder bat crap crazy once, and at the time, it was my phrase of choice,” I said, smirking as I pushed my plate toward her. ”Your turn.”

”Yay.” She slid the second half of her bowl to me. ”What was the first piece you signed?”

”The first one that I was proud of. There were a bunch of protestors that kept lining up outside this abortion clinic downtown. They spewed out their religious nonsense and attacked patients as they walked inside. They always stood on the west side of the building by this big stone wall because they weren”t allowed elsewhere. So, one day I decided that wall was the gamechanger. I spent all night making a giant mural of The Virgin Mary holding a sign that said My Body My Choice. It was my first full wall-size piece. And from then on, every time those protesters appeared in photos, they always had that image in the background.” I grinned at the memory then used my finger in the air to pretend to draw my tag. ”Jagz appeared first then. That mural is still there. Aged and peeling, but they never removed it.”

Clem”s eyes twinkled with excitement while she listened to my story. ”Oh my goodness. I”ve seen that work! It”s amazing.”

”Thanks.” I chuckled and shrugged. ”My fifteen-year-old self had some good ideas.”

”How did you know you could paint like that?”

”I started small. Tagging little things, then larger over time. I could always draw. It was my one sanity at times, and so I expanded it. But I was a runaway, a thief, and a property destroyer. Even if people liked it.”

”So many labels…” Her brow furrowed while she nibbled the pita.

”Yeah…those labels got me in trouble.”

”How so?”

I smirked, shrugging as I decided on the spot to spill it all. ”I got arrested a few times back then for vandalism. Most of the time the charges were dropped because of the content of the art. The property owners didn”t hate it, I suppose.”

”I mean…street art is beautiful. Seattle has celebratory displays of it.”

”Yeah, but like twenty-years ago it wasn”t so celebrated. After like six arrests, with the cops constantly chasing me, I wanted to do something big to piss them all off. So…during Pride month, overnight, I tagged the Aurora Bridge in rainbow colors with buckets of paint. I planned it for days. Hid the paint, got the quick applicating rollers. Went wild. I used cones I stole to redirect traffic and everything. But I didn”t account for paint drying time. Morning traffic made a huge mess of the rainbow. It was a literal disaster.” I smirked at the memory, despite the tangle of satisfaction and guilt that accompanied the memory. ”Cars drove over the paint and covered the bridge in a rainbow tie-dye mess by seven.”

”I remember that. It was in the news.” Her eyes widened. ”People went crazy celebrating that, too. It”s in the Pride history books, so to speak.”

”Maybe, yeah. But the city didn”t think it was so great. That time, I got picked up and taken to juvenile detention. For a while.” I let it rain, releasing all the information no potential-girlfriend ever wanted or needed. ”If it wasn”t for Detective Miller, I would”ve stayed there.”

”How”s that?” Clem tilted her head, concern still dominating her expression.

”She somehow persuaded the judge to put me in a diversion program. I ended up volunteering at the Seattle P.D. She must”ve arrested me half a dozen times over the years and instead of just criminalizing me, she gave me a chance.”

”I”m glad she did. Is that how you became a cop?” Clem piled her empty plate on top of mine, and her lack of disturbance over the situation unnerved me slightly.

”Yeah. First it was helping out with the youth programs like the anti-drug campaign, the gang violence unit, and then at community events like the gun take back things or the medication return days. Things like that.”

”Did you like it?”

”Not at first. I felt forced into it.” I smirked and shrugged. ”It didn”t stop me from tagging either. I just got smarter about it.”

”I mean, up until the bridge stunt, you seemed pretty smart about it.”

”Yeah. I let my ego and anger take over for that one. I got smarter because I started asking private business owners if I could mark their walls for free as long as I could tag it. Almost everyone said yes. Tatiana helped me make a portfolio by taking high res digital photos of all my work and printing them up,” I explained. ”It worked out in the end.”

”It did.” She held her hand out to me. ”You”re fidgeting really bad. Are you okay?”

”Huh?” Only then did I notice how badly I picked at my nails and tugged at the hair tie around my wrist. ”I”m fine.” I accepted her gesture and she squeezed my hand. ”Doesn”t it freak you out that I”ve been in jail?”

She shrugged, her expression casually calm, which worried me just the same. ”Should it? It was like almost two decades ago. And you”re a cop now. If you were released from prison a week ago, I might be worried, but not things you did as a kid, and as a result, turned your life for the better. How could that freak me out?”

”I”m not sure, but it”s realistic.”

”It is, but I know you as you are now. That”s who I like. The only thing that freaks me out is that Frankie is your sister. She”s overwhelming.”

I laughed a little and nodded. ”She is. I promise to protect you when she”s acting like a nightmare.”

”She acts out a lot…”

”She does, and it”s just that, an act. When she calms down, there”s more to her that no one gets to see. She doesn”t let them.”

”Does she let you?”

”Sometimes. She usually distracts me with free tattoos.” I turned my arm over to show her my colorful forearm. ”Worth it.”

Clem snickered then ran her finger over the arrow at my wrist. ”I know I asked but I can”t remember. Do they all have meaning?”

”Not all.” A smile made it to my lips. For some reason, I adored when she asked me questions. It made the whole conversation easier. ”Do you have any tattoos?”

She shook her head. ”Not one. Did Frankie do all of yours?”

”Most.” I nodded my response as well. ”Two of them were done by my friends. Nikita did the portrait of my family that”s on my right shoulder and Thiago did the blackwork on my sleeve. Everything else was Frankie.”

”Well…she”s very talented. But that”s no secret.”

”She is, yeah. Our one shared sisterly trait is our artistic abilities. I guess. If you can call mine artistic.”

”I can agree with that.” She rested her chin on her hand while a small smile played on her full lips. ”Thank you for sharing all of that with me.”

I nodded as the nervousness churned in my belly. ”Didn”t scare you off?”

”Not yet.” She chuckled when she said it. ”Would you like to take a walk through the lavender fields with me?”

”Yeah.” I nodded my response right away when the rejection never found its way to her lips. ”I would.”

We stood together and walked our way through the festival again. Neither of us stopped at any of the vendors that sold practical items like food or clothes, but we both geared toward the tables with homemade artwork or crafts. Clem browsed a pottery table for a moment before she followed me over to a vendor selling framed photographs. Our smiles matched as did our energy, but neither of us purchased anything. It felt nice to know that our tastes in some areas seemed similar.

Clem led me away from the busier areas filled with people toward the outskirts of town. It wasn”t but a ten-minute walk before everything felt extremely rural and buildings seemed to vanish from the horizon, trading themselves in for silos or wind turbines. The silence caught me the most. No traffic, no murmured voices. Only the sound of birds, bees, cicadas, and whatever other natural sounds accompanied them that I couldn”t identify.

By the time our feet met the earth at the beginning of endless acreage belonging to lavender blooms, I found myself stopping to stare up at the crystal blue sky. Not a cloud floated by. No airplanes or drones, or puffs of smoke. Absolutely nothing except the unexpected rawness belonging to Earth. She allowed me my time, never interrupting or judging. I felt like a kid stepping into a museum for the first time and seeing a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton dozens of feet above my head. The awe caught me, and the stillness around me seemed to settle within.

Eventually, I lowered my eyes to look at Clem, and she smiled.

”City girl meets country,” she said, her voice soft.

I nodded and let out a slow breath. ”It feels so strange.”

”Do you like it?”

”Yeah.” I gulped when the sound of my own voice seemed weird. ”I do.”

She held her hand to me, and I took it without hesitation as we entered the fields. For once I allowed someone else to lead me forward. Holding hands wasn”t something I ever did unless it was with Reagan or if Tatiana was dragging me about. It wasn”t like this at all. This kind of handholding felt different, and I found myself squeezing her fingers. The fragrance wrapped around us and set an immediate calm to my core despite the pounding of my heart. The flowers tickled our thighs if we walked too close, and I couldn”t help allowing my fingers to run through it.

”In Tasmania, there”s an estate that has the biggest lavender farm in the world. Two-hundred and sixty acres, if I recall. That”s where I first saw fields like this,” Clem commented, her voice slightly dreamy.

”You”ve really travelled everywhere, haven”t you?”

She nodded and laced her fingers with mine. ”I have. The last few years I”ve stayed still a little longer. After my mom got sick.” She started suddenly and followed with, ”She”s fine now. Sorry, that sounded cryptic.”

”I”m glad she”s okay. Does she live close?”

”Oh yes. She lives here.” A broad smile spread across her face, and she motioned around us. ”With her husband. They own a bed and breakfast on the edge of town in addition to her teaching gig.”

”Really? Do you visit often?”

”I do. Usually on Sundays I drive out to have dinner with them. They”re the cutest newlyweds.” She chuckled softly. ”Mom was single my whole life. I never even knew my father, but then when she was sixty, she met a man in Cambodia who was working as a Doctor Without Borders. They kept in touch—I had to teach her to use social media—and when he retired, the first place he came to was Seattle where she was teaching. And the rest is history.”

”That”s the cutest story. They were both in their sixties when they met?”

”Yup. Isn”t it sweet? He really is the kindest man.” A hint of some kind of accent flooded her voice at the moment. ”He”s from London originally but hasn”t been there in decades.”

”That”s exciting for them.” I smiled at the thought of two people falling in love during their retirement. ”It”s very cute.”

”It is. Seeing her happy in this way is wonderful.” Clem”s fingers tightened on mine as we made it heavily into the field. The land seemed to curve upward a bit, giving us some height that brought the skyline into view.

”It”s great that you can be happy for them.”

”Steven treats me very well.” She turned to me then, not giving me much of a warning before she caught me in a kiss. Her fingers stroked my cheeks as I fumbled through it initially, until my hands wrapped around her forearms.

Tingles rushed my body at first. This type of engagement was very new to me, and I couldn”t quite wrap my head around it. But as soon as she stroked my hair, tucking one side behind my ear while toying with the short stubbles on the other, those tingles turned to chills that radiated to the space behind my navel. She smiled through the kiss, as if she could feel me finally meeting her there. My lips fumbled a little, and sometimes I didn”t quite know what to do with my tongue. Instead of panicking over it, I let her lead for the most part as I”d done before.

When we parted, she cupped my face, and stroked her thumb over my lips. ”Is this new for you?”

”Somewhat? Slow is new. Kissing…and liking it,” I admitted.

”What was it like for you before?”

”I”m used to somewhat casual encounters,” another delicate admission left me. ”Nothing too serious.”

”I understand,” she said, her voice soft. ”I”ve only had two longer-term relationships, so I understand the worry and newness.”

”How long?” This time, I took her hand and urged her to walk with me through the fields. In public, my confidence wasn”t the best when it came to affection, and I didn”t want to come across as cold.

”Both about a year, the second a little more than the first.” She moved easily with me. ”And some more casual encounters in between. It”s been a few years though. It takes a lot for me to be interested in someone.”

”Me too. At least…interested in getting to know them.”

”Are you interested in getting to know me?” She pressed her chin to my shoulder when she asked, and that cute smile remained on her pinkish lips.

”I am.” I chuckled and nuzzled her forehead with my chin. ”Is it not obvious?”

”It is, but I”m just checking. Because you already know I”m interested in you.”

”We”re interested in each other.”

For the rest of the day, we meandered through the fields, pet a few cows, and ate bucket loads of food truck delicacies. My stomach and my heart filled with fullness, and I found myself leaning into the joy that Clementine brought to my life in such a short time. A flicker of time, per se, but an important one.

We returned back to our campsite after sharing dinner on the grass while watching the music portion of the festival, to find our gear still intact. We toted some leftovers with us, and I continued to nibble on the homemade potato chips and onion rings we picked up on the way. She sipped a luscious lemonade and we shared both. I enjoyed this portion of getting to know her. Sharing seemed meaningful in its own way.

”It”s nearly midnight. We were out all day,” she said as we came to land by the fire. ”It”s getting cold though.”

”Let”s get this started up again,” I said, and began immediately rebuilding the fire. ”Do we have enough water for the night?”

”Yep. Two gallons in the car.” She crouched beside me and began piling on some twigs with my logs. ”Think you can fit a little dessert in your belly?”

”There”s always room for dessert, in my humble opinion.” I chuckled and put my arm out in front of her to urge her back when the fire suddenly took hold of the brush. ”Careful.”

She flinched under the heat and stroked my arm. ”Thanks.”

””Course.” I settled on the blanket we returned to its position beside the fire while Clem grabbed a few things from her car.

She came back a moment later with the ingredients to make s”mores. ”Like?”

”I do.” I chuckled and accepted the smoothed stick she offered me.

”Me too.” A tiny giggle escaped her when she sat and shoved two marshmallows on the ends of our sticks. ”They”re vegan so they melt a little differently, meaning, they don”t actually melt all that much, but they taste about the same.”

I laughed and nodded, accepting the graham cracker and chocolate chunk she handed me. We both set them on our laps, not caring one iota about the messiness of the situation.

She was right about the marshmallows, they warmed, but didn”t melt the same as originals, but they smushed and melted just how I liked against the chocolate. She held hers to me in salute, and we touched marshmallows. The stickiness made a mess and we both laughed when we got stuck together for a moment.

”Amazing.” I grinned and leaned forward to take a bite anyway.

She mirrored me and we cracked up through it. Crumbs from the cookie tumbled into our laps, and the chocolate melted down my fingers.

”Oh my goodness,” she declared, snickering heavily. ”What a mess.”

The way she looked at me, how the fire danced in her playful eyes, pulled me in and I found myself initiating a kiss, capturing her in a sweep that left her smile landing on my lips. It seemed to ignite her passion and she rose against me, rolling to her knees to cup my face. For the first time in a while, I found myself rising in the same fashion. We knelt facing each other, our chocolatey sweet kiss colliding in eager grabs.

Clem”s hands gripped the belt around my shorts, and my fingers encircled her wrists. I noticed right away that she didn”t continue her pursuit, and for me, that triggered mine. I looped my finger around the button of her jeans and gave them a firm tug. I felt her lips part with the breath that escaped her, and the faintest nod moved her forehead against mine. I popped the button, released the zipper, then wrapped my arms around her middle to pull her closer to me. She melted in my arms, as if my body burned like a heated coil that snaked around a cone of ice. Her hands fell to my chest as she let out a soft breath against my mouth. No hesitation followed. I might”ve sucked at reading intricate social cues, but this didn”t take any coding. I knew what she wanted, and I could handle that.

She gripped my shirt, tugging my bra under it as I palmed her firm rear. Her teeth raked her lip and again, she nodded as I caressed her in an eager foray across her curves hidden by the night and highlighted by the fire. My trek made it around her hips until I tugged down the zipper of her jeans and thrust my hand behind the fabric keeping her from me. A tiny whimper escaped her, and I paused. When I made to speak, she stopped me with a kiss as her hand wrapped my wrist. She pushed me downward, and it was all the affirmation I needed. Behind the thick band of her panties, my fingers collided with her soaked, smooth pussy. Her forehead landed on my shoulder as she raked her nails over my bicep, urging me onward. Clem”s eagerness, lack of restraint, and full-bodied desire washed through me, and I ached to give her what she wanted.

I wasted not a second longer before my fingers stroked her folds in undulating pulsations. She held tighter to me, her hips rolling forward the moment I touched the very center of her. Her body pleaded with mine, it seemed, and I rose to the opportunity. I thrust myself inside her, two fingers to start, and she moaned against my neck. She clawed at me, her hips bucking hungrily even in the unusual kneeling position we remained in. I gripped her ass, squeezing her as I fought against the bindings of her clothes to give in to her needs. She didn”t want gentle, her actions told me that, and when her teeth clamped my shoulder, I knew I was on the right path.

A tiny cry left her lips and her nails dug into my arm as she raked them down my flesh. Shivers flooded me as I broke out into a round of the best kind of goosebumps. Clem”s body squeezed my fingers and the cry that left her tore me to bits. Wetness rushed my palm, and she quaked in front of me, her legs trembling as much as the rest of her. I lowered her to the blanket, my fingers still buried in her, and continued my heated pursuit of her pleasure. She used her thumbs to thrust her pants and panties down her thighs, then dropped her arm over her face as I leaned over her. She kissed me when I nipped her chin, then began working her hard and fast the way she seemed to demand. With one knee bent, she lifted her hips to me, nodding when I kicked up the pace. My heart raced, body throbbed, and I took in the sight of her pleasure-wracked body as I took her how she wanted. She cried out again, this time less restrained than before, when she came and I could hardly hold on to myself in sheer delight. I liked seeing the pleasure melt over her body, feeling her shuddering and shaking under me, and being squeezed by the heat of her. It mattered; it woke me up. She woke me up, and that mattered.

One, two, three more shouts and she covered her face with her hands as she gasped for breath. To my surprise, however, she didn”t seem to tire. Instead, when I withdrew from her, she wriggled the rest of the way out of her pants, then turned on her belly. The hazy, dreamy-eyed gaze she tossed at me over her shoulder brought an immediate grin to my lips as I leaned over her, pressing my lips to her shoulder.

”Well, hi,” I crooned as I gripped her ass firmly, and used my index finger to stroke her soaked pussy.

”Hi,” she whispered, her cheeks bright red at this point.

I noticed she gulped, as if a bout of shyness suddenly stole her or if she feared that I would stop. I couldn”t tell which, and so, I pressed my fingers into her again, this time from behind, while I dragged my teeth over her shoulder. Clem moaned and clawed at the blanket under us. The way she moved, demanded, and rushed toward release brought a new level of want and desire to me, too. I gave her what she wanted, how I wanted to, and she accepted my every affection.

We went on like this for ages, all night it seemed, until dusk warmed the horizon and peeked through the trees. By then, she”d shed all of her clothes, and I”d lost my shirt to the wilds. Sweat coated our bodies, despite the cooler air, while I devoured her. She bent backward over the bedroll we”d brought with us, leaving her hips upthrust and all of her exposed to me. Her toes curled in the air, and her legs trembled so hard that I thought she might lose her balance. This time when she cried out, her voice sounded ragged and spent, raspy with overuse. To me, she tasted as sweet as a summer fruit.

In our night together, my mind quieted, my heart settled, and no thoughts beyond our connection made it to my brain. I never realized I wanted something so much until I had it like this. Just like this.

She panted heavily, gasping for breath as she tapped her hand on the blanket a few times. I let up on her, and she covered her face as she seemed to collapse finally. Every bit of her trembled with loss of control, and I cautiously helped her lie flat on the blanket. I crawled over her, my hand running up the length of her body, before I cupped her pussy in my palm. Immediately she turned into me, her face buried against my chest as she heaved for breath. In all of this, I couldn”t wipe the smile from my face, and despite her closed eyes, she appeared the same. I hugged her, wrapping her up in my arms as I kissed her cheek. She snaked her hands around me as they continued to shake, and her return embrace warmed me further.

Our bodies tangled in the gloam of morning as it broke for us, casting an orange ray across our torsos. We watched together, as the sun lifted itself above the trees, warming the dew from the grass around us. The fire smoldered to embers, and in the cadence of daybreak, we tumbled into the afters of sleep, and the holding of each other that accompanied it.