Night Tide

by Anna Burke

  She longed to leave more.

  Ivy straddled her slowly. Her thighs, still clothed, held her body over Lillian’s lap. “Take your shirt off.”

  “No.” She looked up at Ivy and settled back on her elbows. Ivy followed. Her hair fell around their faces, smelling of wood smoke and snow as well as her shampoo. She breathed it in. “God, you smell good.”

  Ivy laughed low in her throat, then closed her lips over Lillian’s ear and ran her tongue around its curves. Desire licked her like flame. She was dimly aware she was on her back now, Ivy pinning her to the floor as she kept up her relentless campaign, occasionally pausing to nip at Lillian’s earlobe before returning to undoing her one stroke of her tongue at a time. Her hips pressed up into Ivy, and she struggled to free her hands so she could pull Ivy closer. Ivy raised herself out of reach. Her breaths were coming in shuddering gasps now, and when she moaned, Ivy moaned too. The vibrations of Ivy’s desire against her ear sent every nerve in her body into high alert. Every place Ivy touched sang with it, and she turned her head to capture Ivy’s mouth with her own. Ivy’s kiss was hot and deep, her tongue teasing as she stroked her the same way she’d stroked Lillian’s clit only a few hours before.

  And then Ivy pulled away.

  Lillian didn’t even have breath to beg. She stared up at Ivy, pleading with her body.

  “Take off your shirt.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  Ivy sank onto Lillian’s hips and reached behind her to undo her own bra. Lillian struggled to sit up, lured by the shadows flickering over Ivy’s skin and the weight of Ivy against her.

  Ivy buried a hand in the hair at the back of Lillian’s head and lowered her back down. Bracing herself on one arm, Ivy leaned over her again. Ivy’s breasts brushed hers, taut nipples hard against her own, and she thought of how much better they would feel without a barrier. Ivy rocked back and forth, slowly, her breasts swaying with her.

  Fuck it.

  Lillian yanked the shirt off her head as best she could with Ivy’s hand still in her hair, then fumbled at her bra. She swore, and Ivy’s hair caressed her bare skin until her bra came unsnapped at last. She shimmied it off one shoulder, aware Ivy had no intention of releasing her, and let it fall to the other side.

  The warm skin of Ivy’s nipples brushed her own as Ivy rocked a little faster. Breath rasped in her throat. The prickle of pain at the base of her neck from her straining hair follicles eased into pleasure as Ivy’s breasts met hers, again and again, their soft weight a promise and a taunt.

  “I told you you’d take it off eventually.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Will you take off your pants if I ask nicely?”

  “I want you to do it,” she said, arching her back.

  Ivy lowered herself fully and the metal of her belt buckle pressed into the cloth of Lillian’s leggings.

  She lost herself to Ivy’s lips. Now that Ivy had freed her hands, she stroked the skin of her back and the curve of her ribs, feeling the raised flesh where her nails had marked her earlier. She did not claw at her now—not yet, at least. Ivy shivered when she touched her lightly. She experimented with tracing the dip along her spine with her fingertips. Ivy bit Lillian’s lip in response and moaned.

  Sensing an opportunity, she tumbled Ivy onto her back. Ivy didn’t fight her, and lay with her golden hair spilling around her, waiting. She undid Ivy’s belt and the top button of her jeans, sliding the zipper down one centimeter at a time. Ivy raised her hips for her to pull the pants off.

  “Do you want me to leave your socks on?” Lillian asked. “It is cold.”

  “Don’t be an ass.”

  She parted Ivy’s legs after she had removed the rest of her clothing and kissed the skin of her inner thigh. Ivy’s hand found her hair again. She ignored Ivy’s insistent tugs and worked down instead of up, tasting the skin behind her knee and along her calf. Ivy’s other leg wrapped around her shoulders. She turned and kissed that one, too, sucking hard enough to leave more bruises as Ivy’s breathing intensified.

  She gave Ivy’s clit one long stroke before she settled across her stomach. Ivy’s moan of frustration nearly made her rethink her trajectory, but not quite. Instead, she took Ivy’s breasts in her hands, pressing the skin between them down with her thumbs so that she could take both of Ivy’s nipples in her mouth at the same time.

  “Lil,” Ivy gasped as her whole body bucked.

  Lillian raked her tongue across Ivy, teasing and pulling with lips and teeth while Ivy writhed beneath her. She moved her hips in time, loving the feel of Ivy’s nails digging into her arms and shoulders and scoring new lines over the old.

  “Why. The hell. Do you still. Have pants on.” Ivy managed in between gasps.

  “Because,” she said, letting the breath from her words pass over Ivy’s nipples. “You haven’t taken them off.”

  Ivy’s laugh, while still throaty, was so genuine she lifted her head to look at her.

  “What?” Ivy asked.

  I’ve never heard you laugh like that.

  Instead, she said, “Are you going to do something about it?”

  “Depends on if you let me breathe.”

  “So you want me to stop?”

  “God no,” said Ivy with a groan. “But you really need to lose the leggings.”

  “Sounds like a you problem.”

  Ivy scoffed and snapped the waistband of Lillian’s pants. “I can make it both of our problems.”

  “Or you could just take them off.” She rolled off Ivy and lay beside her, watching the fire play across Ivy’s skin.

  Ivy turned on her side, head propped on her hand.

  “I could put my shirt back on,” Lillian threatened.

  “Don’t you dare.” Ivy sat up so quickly she nearly burned herself on the woodstove. Lillian grabbed her elbow and tugged her out of harm’s way.

  “Easy, Holden.”

  “I’ll show you easy.”

  Lillian’s leggings, underwear and socks were peeled off her in a smooth motion that, though she would never admit it aloud, impressed her. Heat from the stove radiated across her bare skin.

  “Was that so hard?”

  “Surrender is always hard.”

  “You’re surrendering?” she asked Ivy as she entwined their fingers and pulled her back down beside her.

  “Temporarily.”

  She opened her mouth to make another comeback, but Ivy stopped her with her lips. A vicious gust of wind rattled the windowpanes. It was easy to pretend, as Ivy had suggested, that the world ceased to exist beyond the wind and the walls. The ocean might extend for thousands of miles in every direction, leaving them marooned here without fear of rescue.

  “I want you,” she said as Ivy slid inside her. “I want you so damn much.”

  Chapter Eight

  She woke from a dream of winter to add wood to the stove and found Lillian’s arms around her beneath a mountain of quilts. Lillian’s measured, sleeping breaths stirred her hair, and when Ivy moved, Lillian tightened her hold in her sleep.

  A reflex, she told herself. Still, she hesitated before making another attempt to rise. She could feel Lillian’s heartbeat against her back, and their legs were tangled together, her feet resting in the curve of her lover’s, thighs warm alongside her own. The room, however, was cooling rapidly. If she didn’t disentangle herself soon, the fire would go out completely. She eased Lillian’s arm away from her chest, careful not to let a draft of cold air under the blankets, and reached for a log. Lillian murmured something as she tucked the blankets around her but didn’t wake. She opened the door to the woodstove and blew on the coals until they glowed again, refusing to think about what could have happened had she not awakened. Then again, the looks on the faces of everyone who knew them when it was discovered they’d died in each other’s arms would be priceless. She pictured Morgan’s stunned expression and smiled to herself.

  The fire took a while to cat
ch. Unwilling to risk it going out, she sat up to wait, shivering in the cold. Lillian’s cast-off sweater lay nearby. She pulled it over her head and inhaled the smell of Lillian’s skin. Behind her, Lillian burrowed closer in the instinctive way of sleep, her hair black as blood across the quilt. She smoothed a strand behind her ear, careful not to wake her. Lillian’s lips were slightly parted. She remembered those lips on her skin and remembered how her name sounded leaving them.

  Don’t think about it. Not yet.

  As well forget it was winter. Whatever happened next, she could not fool herself into thinking things would go back to the way they’d been.

  “What is this?” she asked Lillian, so quietly the words barely stirred the air. “What are we doing?”

  Lillian couldn’t possibly have heard her, but she stirred, a line creasing the smooth skin of her forehead. “Ivy?”

  “I’m here.”

  Lillian’s eyes opened. The dim light caught them, and Ivy stilled, arrested by the simple pressure of that gaze.

  “Come back.”

  Lillian lifted the quilt. Ivy slipped beneath it and let Lillian pull her close again, aware, as she had not been earlier, of how her nerve pain had quieted as if granting her a brief respite—as if even her tortured immune system had calmed in Lillian’s arms. Not that calm was the right word. What she felt was deeper, and she did not have a word to describe how right it felt to lie there with Lillian’s lips pressed to her hair and her hand tucked against Ivy’s chest, their bodies acknowledging in sleep how intertwined their fates had grown.

  None of this made sense.

  On the other hand, perhaps it did make perfect sense, she reflected the next morning as they huddled on the ferry for warmth, roused by the last one percent of battery on her phone and the alarm she’d set the night before. Both had just gotten out of relationships. Both knew the other’s limit. Why not do whatever it was they were doing and spare innocent people the fallout? It wasn’t like they could hurt each other any more than they already had.

  Beside her, Lillian watched the black waves rise and fall behind the fogged glass.

  “Crazy storm last night,” said the ferry’s captain.

  “It was.”

  “Must have been real crazy on the island.”

  “Yeah.”

  She pressed her hands between her legs to keep from touching Lillian. Darwin curled up on the seat beside her, content with his lot. Nothing out of the ordinary had just happened for him, save for getting fed bread for dinner. The captain shot sideways looks at her periodically, but he did not ask what had compelled her to weather a small blizzard off the coast. She hoped he wouldn’t mention it to the island manager.

  The ferry brought them into the harbor at 7:40, leaving them barely enough time to get to the clinic, let alone home. Lillian drummed her fingers on the seat in front of them as the ferry pulled into the wharf.

  “Do you have an eight o’clock?” Ivy asked.

  Lillian nodded. She’d thrown her hair into a messy braid, but it was clear she’d wakened in a hurry.

  “My first appointment isn’t until eight thirty. I can pick you up a coffee.”

  “Thanks. I need to run home. I can’t see appointments dressed like this.”

  “Make sure you grab some cover-up.”

  “Right. This—” Lillian didn’t finish whatever she was thinking, for the ferry shuddered to a halt and she took off with an, “I’ll see you at the clinic.”

  Ivy tipped the captain as she followed.

  The fastest shower of her life and a drive at uncomfortable speeds down the snowy roads brought her to Stormy’s. She waited in the short line with an odd lightness in her chest.

  “Did you survive the potluck?” Stormy asked.

  “Potluck?” Right. Impossible to believe that had been only a few days ago. “Oh. Yeah. It was good. Two dark roasts and one medium.”

  “Medium, hmm? It went that well?”

  She couldn’t help the smile tugging at her lips under Stormy’s good-natured teasing.

  “Maybe I’m making up for bad behavior.”

  “Oh, I hope it was bad.” Stormy poured the three coffees into to-go cups and set them on the counter. “Come tell me about it later?”

  The overture of friendship, tossed so lightly, hit her like a javelin. She was desperate, she realized as she took the coffee, for someone to talk to about Lillian, and she couldn’t very well call up her friends from Colorado. They wouldn’t understand, and they still hadn’t forgiven her for leaving on such short notice with only a vague explanation.

  “I will,” she promised Stormy, and left the café with a grin spread across her face and the tray of coffees for her, Lillian, and Shawna clutched to her chest.

  • • •

  Lillian relented after the twentieth text message and agreed to meet Angie for lunch at Stormy’s café. Despite the panicked rush that had started her day—she hated running late—things had gone smoothly. Ivy had delivered her a coffee with cool professionalism broken only by her lingering eye contact, and none of her appointments had complained about the cost of treatment. Most of her rechecks had even complied with her instructions, which was a small miracle.

  Now she faced the gauntlet.

  “Well?” Angie asked as soon as she joined her in line.

  “Can I order food first?”

  Angie huffed and turned to the menu. “Let me guess. Seasonal salad?”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It is when there’s grilled cheese on the menu.”

  “You,” Stormy said when the older woman in front of them stepped aside to wait for her beverage, “and I need to talk.”

  “Oooh,” Angie said, waggling her eyebrows at Lillian. “You’re in trouble.”

  “Can I get lunch instead of the Spanish inquisition?”

  “Sí. But only if you tell me why Ivy Holden bought you coffee this morning.”

  “Probably as an apology for holding her hostage on Rabbit last night,” said Angie.

  Stormy’s jaw dropped. “You were on Rabbit last night? Wasn’t there, like, a blizzard?”

  “Yes. That’s why we got stuck.”

  “Back up.” Stormy glanced between Lillian and Angie. “Why were you there in the first place?”

  Lillian looked over her shoulder, hoping to use the line as an excuse to evade the question, but there was nobody behind them.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Then give me the condensed version.” Stormy put her hands on her hips and waited.

  “You cannot tell Morgan. Or Stevie. Or my moms.”

  “My group chat with the Momma Lees is where I dump all my gossip though,” said Angie with a pout.

  “I’m serious. I don’t . . .I’m not sure what’s going on.”

  Waking up with Ivy in her arms, golden hair and golden skin warm against hers beneath the quilts, her body sore from sleeping on the floor and from the activities that had led them there, and every ache a gift. The smell of Ivy’s hair. The curve of her cheek. Her breasts, soft and heavy in her hands as she rolled her over to kiss her in the white light of dawn.

  Her friends sobered at her tone of voice.

  “Okay. We promise. Let me get you lunch, and I’ll have Jill cover for me. What do you want?”

  They placed their orders and found a table. Angie put her chin in her hands and stared at Lillian, looking pensive.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes you surprise me, Tiger Lily.”

  “You and me both.”

  “Why can’t we say anything to Morgan or Stevie?”

  “Because Stevie will tell Morgan, and Morgan—She won’t understand. And I’m not ready to deal with that yet, because I don’t understand.”

  “Fair.”

  “Your food will be up in a minute,” Stormy said as she joined them. “Are you okay, Lil?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “After you hooked up with her in Portland, I—” />
  “Wait, you hooked up with Ivy in Portland?” Angie asked.

  Lillian dropped her head into her hands while Stormy filled Angie in.

  “Damn, girl, I can’t believe you set them up.”

  “I’m still mad at her for that,” she said from between her fingers.

  “Okay. So. You kissed at the club because Stormy is an evil genius, but you hate her, and now you spent the night with her on Rabbit. Did anything happen?”

  Ivy, straddling her. Ivy, teasing her. Ivy, eyes wide and green as she came in Lillian’s arms.

  “Um.”

  “Hey.” Stormy peeled her hands away from her face and took one in her own. Angie took the other, squeezing her fingers.

  “What am I doing?” she asked her friends.

  “We don’t know,” said Angie. “But if you tell us, we can talk it out.”

  “I don’t process,” she remembered Morgan telling her that summer when Lillian confronted her about her feelings for Emilia. She’d scoffed at Morgan at the time, but now she understood. She’d never had a problem talking to her friends about Brian. Something about Ivy, though, made her want to clam up and sink deep into the cold mud of the sea floor.

  Could it be the fact that you’ve been talking about how much you hate her for years?

  “I . . .” she swallowed and tried again. “I slept with her.”

  “Holy shit,” said Angie.

  “And?” said Stormy. “How was it?”

  “It was . . .”

  Angie leaned forward. “Good? Awful? Mind blowing? I’m going to need to change the whole comic, you know.”

  “It was . . . good,” she said, settling for an adjective that was so far from satisfactory she wanted to laugh.

  “Scale of one to ten, one being Brian.”

  “Brian was good in bed, Ange.”

  “Whatever. He dumped you, so I hate him.”

  Stormy reached out and took her chin in her other hand and tilted it toward the light. “Is that a hickey?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “It absolutely is.”