Page 45 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls
Celene shifted to sit up. Skye loved the plain skepticism on her face. “You’re not joking. It’s a festival honoring toast?”
“It’s a celebration referencing the founder of Yielding?—”
“Yielding was their last name?”
“Yep. 1932. Antoinette Yielding, woman founder and a renowned local baker. She didn’t have kids to pass on the Yielding name, but her bakery’s still open.” Skye detected how homespun and small-town this came off, but this had been drilled into their heads in school. Leaning a shoulder on the birch holding the hammock, she went on, “She came from a long line of pastry chefs. In our city hall, they’ll print you a copy of her most famous interview—the journalist asks Antoinette her favorite meal, and full snark, she replies, ‘Toast.’”
Celene, to her surprise, had listened with almost distracting interest. “Mmm, Depression Era humor.”
Skye laughed. “That’s right. Our town council thought to insert her more into Yielding’s culture. Thus, the Toast Festival was born.”
“Am I invited to this...event?”
“By then, we’ll work out the details of our relationship, and we can make our debut.” She rapped the paperback onto her thigh, to a cheerful rhythm. “Luce knows you’re back. She’ll want to grill you on your family.”
“That’s a tiresome topic. I’ll drop by to see her anyway.” Allowing no more of that, Celene slid her legs to hang off the side of the hammock. “When we were like, ten, we shared a hammock like this one.”
Amazing. Celene tapped into something Skye had long forgotten. “Whoa, memory unlocked. We did. You read thick fantasy series while I’d weave flowers together.”
“Into a loom of crisscrossed sticks and string, yes. You were artsy even then.” And in an unpredictably tender twist, Celene patted the space she vacated. “Let’s sit like that again.”
This wasn’t a large hammock. Unframed, barely any structure. Just when Skye relaxed, she was confronted again by intimacy. That up-to-no-good, provocative streak of Celene seemed to be a feature, not a rare glitch.
She reflected on her type again: dependable, gracious, upfront, nonexistent arrogance, intentions without subterfuge.
Daring to live as abundantly as Celene or even that bluebird, Skye met her challenge. She threw a leg over the hammock and lowered herself to face this enigma and her broadening smile. The striped woven cotton tightened around them like a cocoon, and she stabilized herself by keeping her feet anchored to the ground.
Unspeaking and obviously pleased, Celene reclined again and bent her legs to Skye’s side as if she did this regularly. Copying the movement meant sliding herself against the toned legs she’d been appreciating, but Skye managed. Two shimmies later and they’d settled into formation.
Sharing space did not feel likethisthose years ago. Now, Skye reckoned with a grown woman’s overwhelming, fragrant proximity. Beneath those thin layers were the firm contours of Skye trapping herself in a web of sheer magnetism.
Celene had begun reading again. Skye flipped her borrowed book to check the synopsis on the back cover, discovering a new friend instead. A cucumber beetle. Cute tiny thing, kind of like a yellow-green ladybug. It followed the paperback’s spine, eventually taking a hike across her hand. She’d been knee-deep into a mini documentary in her head about his survey on the grooves of her skin when Celene’s voice shut down the production.
“Is the story boring you already?”
“Right. Thanks.” Skye reached backwards so the beetle could make his way up the rope.
She should get lost in some fiction. Maybe the story would interest her more than Celene’s placid reading face and that lip tip that curled up a little higher than the other.
Ready, Skye skimmed the first page. Then, the second to third and fourth and fifth, and each one incrementally deepened her frown. A ‘bit of sex,’ Zinnia put it? This was explicit, full-on girl-on-girl banging from page one and—she flipped to earlier pages—in the prologue she’d ignored, too.
Well-written, she’d give it that. Though should she immerse herself in skillfully expressed tongue thrusting at 12:30 p.m., pressed into a woman flaunting abs, shaded by Boob Mountain while her beetle friend watched?
Skye clutched her cabochon and leafed to the second chapter. Nope, full of spanking. Chapter three? Nope, the Mistress was itemizing everything she’d do to her ingénue research assistant. Chapter four included more spanking. Maybe chapter five?—
Sheets flapping, the book was snatched from her damp palms. ByCelene.
“Why are you skipping around?” Celene asked, her pointer holding place of whatever the hell Chapter Five entailed. Maybe the two lovers would take a reprieve to do their day jobs. “The Mistress of Norwood’s Scientific Method,” she read aloud before parting the novel to her saved page.
Skye pushed her sleeves up to her elbows, in a sudden state of heat exhaustion. “Well, it’s?—”
Celene’s jaded eyes doubled in size, dark lashes fluttering. “Jesus. Four-finger penetration after two sentences of foreplay? Doesn’t sound pleasurable.”
Had the word ‘penetration’ ever sounded that tempting? Skye wouldn’t cope. “Yeah. Foreplay is...foreplay is important. June’s fiancée lent it to me.”
“I’m reading a ghost thriller about a woman whose dead ex whispers her secrets to everyone she dates to make them hate her.” Celene handed the book back, her unaffectedness returning. “Tell me how your smutty story ends. Maybe the Mistress gets more patient.”
“Okay,” Skye agreed. Now she had to stick with this freaking book. “I’m also taking notes for you as a partner. Foreplay, good. Impatience, bad.”
