Glenn groaned but obediently stretched out on the bed.

“First, I want to touch you everywhere.” Mari knelt beside her. So much to discover. Going slow was going to be a lot harder than she’d imagined, especially with the pressure between her thighs making her head swim.

“You can have whatever you want.” Glenn curled her fingers into the sheets as Mari made a little humming noise and leaned over her.

Mari’s breasts swayed gently, her hair a dark silky cloud around Glenn’s face. Mari kissed her, soft and slow and like she owned her. Glenn liked the feeling. Her thighs tightened and a pulse beat hard between her legs.

Mari eased back and stroked a fiery line down the center of Glenn’s body, tracing the curve of her breasts with her fingertips, teasing the muscles in her abdomen until they tightened with need. When Mari stroked the hollow at the base of Glenn’s belly, she fought not to whimper.

“You have an amazing body,” Mari murmured, brushing her lips over Glenn’s nipple.

Glenn hissed. Mari’s mouth was hot, her breasts just brushing the surface of Glenn’s skin. She wanted to hold them, caress them, taste them. “How much longer?”

“Oh,” Mari mused, fascinated by the way Glenn’s body jerked and trembled when she caressed her, “a while yet. I know you can be patient.”

Once upon a time she could’ve waited motionless, lying for hours in the scorching heat with the threat of death ready to rain down on her, but now her control was rapidly shredding. Her head was light, her belly heavy, the need for release volcanic. She twisted the cotton harder between her fists, her fingers cramping. Whatever Mari wanted, she would give.

“Turn over,” Mari whispered, “I haven’t seen all of you yet.”

Silently, Glenn obeyed, turning her face against the pillow.

Mari wanted to memorize every inch of her, so starkly beautiful, her face etched in passion, but the more she touched her, the closer she came to losing control. Mari caressed Glenn’s back to the hollow at the base of her spine and over the rise of her muscular ass. Glenn’s legs parted as her buttocks lifted, and Mari teased the buttery soft skin high up between her legs.

“Be careful,” Glenn warned hoarsely. “If you go any higher, if you touch me, I’m likely to explode.”

The blood pounded in Mari’s head. She had done this. She had excited this magnificent woman. Need vibrated in the air between them, a living hungering beast. God, she never wanted to stop touching her, but she couldn’t think any longer.

“I need you now,” Mari gasped, caught by the swift surge of desire rushing to her center.

Glenn flipped over and surged upward, pulling Mari down beside her. Her leg was suddenly between Mari’s thighs, pressing tightly into her sex. Her hand cradled Mari’s breast, her mouth on the opposite nipple. Teeth scraped against her, and Mari cried out, driving her hands into Glenn’s hair.

“Oh my God,” Mari cried. “Stop, stop, you’re going to make me come.”

Glenn pushed her hand between them, cupping Mari in her palm and taking her mouth in a dark, possessive kiss. Mari pushed against Glenn’s hand, and when Glenn stroked her once, twice, her world incinerated.

Mari heard a strangled cry, hers or Glenn’s, she couldn’t tell. Her mind blanked, her body quaked. And then her face was buried against Glenn’s chest and she was crying. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know why—”

“It’s all right, you’re perfect. Perfect.” Glenn stroked her, rocked her, let her come back to herself. “Okay now?”

Mari laughed unsteadily. “Okay? Oh yeah, okay is an understatement.”

“Good,” Glenn whispered, guiding Mari down on the bed and covering her again, needing all of her again. Gently, slowly, she entered her and watched Mari’s eyes go blank with need. This time the build was slower, deeper, and when Mari crested, her eyes flew open and she searched for Glenn’s face, locking onto her as she came apart.

Glenn couldn’t breathe, didn’t need to breathe, didn’t need anything except the look of wonder on Mari’s face. Suddenly weak, she rested her forehead gently between Mari’s breasts, went still inside her, and waited for Mari’s passion to ebb.

“How did you do that?” Mari whispered. “I thought I was going to be in control.”

Glenn laughed and settled down beside her. “Oh, you were. Believe me.”

Mari gazed at her, her eyes still dazed and sated. She traced a fingertip around Glenn’s nipple, then down her belly. “I got sidetracked.”

“Uh, I noticed.”

Mari laughed. “I haven’t finished touching you everywhere yet.”

“Why don’t you rest for a little while.”

“Because I’m not tired. And I’m not done.” Mari pushed Glenn onto her back and knelt between Glenn’s thighs. “I want to see all of you, I want to watch you come.” As she spoke, she traced the outer edges of Glenn’s sex with her fingertips.

Glenn arched off the bed, her jaws clenched. When she managed to suck in a breath, she said, “It won’t take much.”

“That’s all right. We can always do it again, right?”

At that moment, Glenn could only agree. At that moment, there was only now. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. I’m about to come.”

“Good,” Mari whispered softly, stroking, teasing, finding the spots that she liked, discovering the places that made Glenn’s body bow. And when she found the one that made Glenn groan and tighten all over, she didn’t stop until Glenn cried out.

Chapter Twenty-five

The room had grown warmer throughout the morning, and sweat lightly misted Mari’s skin. She should’ve felt self-conscious—she’d never been so close to another human being in her life, never been so exposed, never been so vulnerable. She should’ve been thinking about how to leave, what to say, how to grasp the tattered tethers of control and wind the clock back to a saner time. She wasn’t doing any of those things. For as long as the dream lasted, she wanted to stay in this Spartan room where the merest tease of a breeze danced through the half-open window and the air shimmered with heat as heavy as winter wool. Somehow this room had become the safest place she’d ever been.

“Hungry?” Glenn asked drowsily.

“Mmm. Not sure.” Lazily stroking Glenn’s hair, Mari lay naked with the sheets tangled around her legs, and Glenn’s head pillowed between her breasts. Glenn was the quiet in the center of her being, the peace she’d lost somewhere in the last year, the shelter she’d taken for granted before everything had changed. If she could capture this moment and hold it forever, she thought she would know the meaning of happiness.

“I think your stomach just said otherwise.” Glenn rubbed a hand over Mari’s midsection.

“I’ll take your word for it. I’m having trouble actually feeling my body—I think that last orgasm might have totally short-circuited my nervous system.” Mari brushed damp hair away from Glenn’s temple and kissed her. “Was I asleep the last few minutes or just comatose?”

“I’m not sure people snore while in a coma.”

“I didn’t!” Mari groaned. She didn’t snore. Did she?

Glenn chuckled, a deep rumble that resonated in Mari’s deepest reaches, somewhere beyond the physical, to a place where her soul resided. In an instant, panic roared through her. Safety came with a price, and the price was heartbreak. She knew that, how could she let herself forget? Selfish, foolish, all for a dream she no longer dreamed.

Glenn lifted up on her elbow, gave Mari a long look. “Whatever you just thought, stop thinking it.”

“How did you know?” Mari asked softly.

“You shivered, and your pulse jumped.” Glenn kissed her, a tender kiss that grew firmer, claiming her even as it soothed. “And we agreed not to do that today.”

Mari didn’t have to ask what Glenn meant. Glenn always seemed to know what she needed, or at least what she said she needed. The now. That’s what she’d asked for. She couldn’t offer more, even though she couldn’t live in the now. She never had. She’d always counted on the future, planned for it, and once faced with the reality that a future might never exist, she’d reluctantly accepted that life held no promises. And that she could make none. “Can you do that? The now?”

Glenn traced soft circles on Mari’s skin, trails of fire and tears. “When you wake up every day knowing the sunrise might be the last you’ll ever see, you learn to stop thinking beyond the moment. After a while you forget things were ever any different.”

“I know something about that.” Mari covered Glenn’s hand, ran her fingertip the length of her oh-so-sensitive fingers. She didn’t have to explain. Glenn understood what she’d faced during those long months of treatment, the uncertainty and, finally, the resignation. Only a fool would trust to fate. “So you know what I mean, about not plan—”

“Right now,” Glenn said gently, brushing another kiss over her lips, stealing her apology, sealing the guilt away, “I’m going to find you something to eat. Can’t have you losing strength just yet.”

Mari laughed, surprising herself. Maybe Glenn really could hold her in the now. She certainly had made her incredibly happy for the last few hours. “Are you really hungry?”

“You have no idea.” Glenn’s voice was husky, her gaze the stormy gray of a coming gale.

“I am too.” Mari wrapped her legs around Glenn’s and pulled her completely on top of her, fitting their bodies together, breast and belly and thighs. She arched under her, inviting, wanting, wanton. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Never.” Glenn’s lids fluttered half closed and she groaned. Bracing herself on her arms, she rocked between Mari’s thighs, firmly, rhythmically, steadily building, unbearably taunting, ceaseless demanding. “I can’t get close enough to you.”