Neera clenched her hands gently, applying the smallest amount of pressure, and her expression changed, to one of profound peace that reassured Scarlet even though she knew that Neera was probably using her nurse face on her, which she had perfected to assure patients that they were going to be fine. She still felt the knots inside of her belly start to unravel. She wanted to do something she hadn’t done a lot of, at least not when it came to romantic partners— trust. She wanted to trust Neera.
God, it’s been a long time since I took a chance on anything. Since I was honest with myself. Since I was honest with everyone in my life. It’s been a long time since I made an investment in myself. Since I gave even a fraction of my heart.
Maybe that’s why it was easier to stay with Bryan than it was to ask for a divorce even though she should have, even though she knew his secretary wasn’t his first affair. It was easy because it was easier to be with someone she didn’t love than take a chance on someone she did.
If you love a person, everything is harder. If you care, everything is harder. If you have a spark, everything is harder. You could get hurt. But being afraid isn’t a legitimate reason to not do something. That’s being a coward. Cowards suck more.
“Everything feels different for me,” Scarlet confessed. “I feel like a traitor, like a backstabber, like a horrible person. My anxiety is getting out of control. But I also— I just— I can’t say no. I can’t tell you no. It’s the one thing I know that I have to do, but I can’t do it. If that’s not stupid, I don’t know what—”
She didn’t get to finish. Neera clasped her hands a little tighter, and drew her against herself, until Scarlet was tumbling forward. Neera caught her easily, and her arms closed around her comfortingly. She hugged Scarlet tightly, and when she pulled back, a new set of twin flames glowed in her eyes. She tilted Scarlet’s face with one hand and came to her, slanting her mouth over hers in a kiss that started out gentle and reassuring but quickly turned to fire.
“You’ve always been it for me,” Neera panted against Scarlet’s lips. “Since the beginning of fucking time.”
“Oh God,” Scarlet moaned.
“I mean, well, since uh— okay I get it. I get why that sounded wrong and not romantic. But stop thinking about it. From now on, there isn’t Scarlet and Neera of the past. This is us now. Fresh. A fresh start. You and me. As we are now. Here. The two of us. If it’s right, then it’s right now. Don’t fraction off or splinter me into parts. I’m Neera, and yes that Neera existed before, but the Neera right now? The one who is an adult, a nurse, a woman through and through? That’s the Neera telling you are for me. You. Are. It.”
Scarlet knew the truth of it. She felt it in the very essence of her being. The fact that she couldn’t deny. The reason she couldn’t say no. The truth turned her inside out, burning her, damning her.
Because she was starting to understand that Neera might not always have been it for her, but as she said, here in the present, and maybe in the future, she was profoundly right in a way that Scarlet had been waiting her whole life for. Profoundly it.
Chapter 11
Neera
Neera knew that things could go wrong, and that Scarlet staying was a risk, but she didn’t want her to lea
ve. She didn’t want to let her go. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if she could let her walk out that door. She knew the risks, but she also knew that true magic needed faith, and if kissing Scarlet wasn’t magic, then she didn’t know what was. That was the magic she believed in. The kind of fairy tale that could come true for both of them.
This was going to happen. It was going to happen with them. finally. Neera had been waiting her whole life and she wasn’t going to slam on the brakes and control herself now. Not now, when Scarlet was finally kissing her back. Not a hesitant kind of kiss where she held parts of herself locked behind a glass veneer, but fully, with all the pain and fury of longing coming undone like pulling the bow off a gift and watching that ribbon unravel.
Neera broke the kiss, but only to wrap her arms around Scarlet’s waist and set her face at the crook of her neck by her ear so she could inhale the sweet scent of her. It brought her to life, that delicate perfume, the scent of Scarlet’s skin.
“God,” Scarlet moaned, and Neera couldn’t stop herself from claiming her mouth again.
She stamped her lips like a brand, bruised that sweet, petal soft mouth until it was marked as hers. She kissed Scarlet until she angled her face back as a signal to deepen it, until their tongues were warring, hot and wild, until Scarlet was groaning into Neera’s mouth because she wanted more, more, more.
“Let me take you to my room,” Neera panted. It was taking a risk and she knew it, but she didn’t want to stay in the kitchen. She felt Scarlet tense and instead of letting her go, she kissed her more desperately, with more yearning, with all the longing she had inside of her. She felt her own lips getting sore and swollen from the force of it.
Instead of answering, Scarlet buried her fingers in Neera’s hair and licked at her bottom lip, breathing raggedly. Neera steered them both down the hall, bumping against the wall several times until she cleared the door of her room. She didn’t flick on the light. She managed to get the door closed and locked behind her, then she guided them over to her bed.
Scarlet’s last bit of resistance gave way on a sharp whimper when Neera plundered her lips again. Her fingers tightened almost painfully in Neera’s hair, and they tumbled onto the bed together. Scarlet bit down on Neera’s bottom lip and Neera hissed at the painful sting. Neera’s hands were moving under the hem of Scarlet’s sweater, tearing it off as Scarlet’s hands tore at her own clothes. They were furious, shucking clothing, tearing buttons, wrenching open zippers. They stopped after they were almost naked except for bras and panties, and Neera decided she wanted to slow things down.
She rolled away and switched on the lamp on the nightstand, bathing them both in light that was too gold and too bright at first. They were both left blinking until their eyes adjusted.
“I want to see you,” Neera said, her breath hard and her voice husky. “I want to watch you as I make you come.”
Scarlet’s chest heaved up and down. “Oh, my God.”
Neera couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop. “I want to taste you. Every inch of your creamy skin. I want my tongue on you. Inside of you. I want every bit of you melting under every bit of me.”
Scarlet seemed frozen for an instant, but then she closed her eyes and nodded. Neera shifted, looming over her on the bed. Scarlet didn’t do things halfway when it came to clothing, and she was wearing an expensive, dainty looking pink lace bra and panties with little flowers and butterflies woven right into the lace and appliqued on top. Her underclothes were a work of art and Neera was glad that she hadn’t torn them off in her haste, and that she’d turned on the lamp. Scarlet was a goddess in her bed, far more beautiful than anything she ever could have imagined or dreamed up, no matter how many times she’d thought about this night.
She set her knee between Scarlet’s legs and gently forced them apart a few inches so that she could crawl up. She bent her head and ran her tongue along the length of Scarlet’s elegant throat. She arched her back in response, her swollen and bruised lips parting on a long exhale of pleasure. Neera kept going, licking, biting a little, suckling, tasting. Scarlet’s skin was the headiest thing she’d ever tasted. She was sweet and salty, not like a nut mix. More like flowers in spring and early morning dew. More like chocolate fudge with caramel sea salt drizzled on top.
Neera pressed open mouth kisses to Scarlet’s chest, right above the cups of her bra before she carefully peeled one down, exposing one hard, raspberry hued nipple. She blew softly before she set her mouth there, kissing and rolling that hard bud until Scarlet was arching right off the bed, shivering and whimpering.
Neera took her time, pulling away to look at her handiwork before she did the same to the other nipple. She left the bra cups turned down, left Scarlet exposed to the air and her scalding gaze as she drank in the lovely sight of her, stripped down, flushed, and wanton in her bed.