Page 70 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls
Skye couldn’t imagine what they’d be. Her hands trembled as she peeled tissue paper off a clear handcrafted bowl, almost as shallow as a dish. Its elegance suggested an expert hand, but she’d ask about that later because embedded in the shiny material itself were dried Virginia bluebells, lilacs, and cherry blossom petals, swept into some powdered pigment. The edgeshad been painted gold, and Skye examined it as gingerly as she could, needing to view it at all angles.
“It’s part of a theme. One per season,” Celene explained, her voice soft. “I attended a floral resin art workshop with Nadine and Dante. The instructors helped with the molds, but I arranged my flower choices and everything decorative. With a small bit of painting when they fully cured.”
Eager, Skye ripped into the other three bowls. Goldenrod blossoms and small orange leaves exemplified fall. Winterberry and mountain laurel contrasted nicely for winter. And in the bright summer bowl, Skye identified pressed depford pink, hydrangea petals, and?—
“Smooth aster,” Skye breathed. She allowed herself to gape, then asked, “The flower tattoo on your arm. Is that aster, too?”
On cue, Celene had already been skimming fingertips on the back of her upper arm. “It is. How could you tell?”
A city woman branding herself with such a specific flower. Did she even remember its origin in their shared life?
Celene spoke through the lull. “I’m giving them to you.”
“Oh, c’mon. No, I couldn’t.” Skye flung her hands as if she’d have to keep what she touched. “These are too beautiful. And...and I’m supposed to be completing a commission for you, not receiving anything.”
“You certainly are keeping them.” Celene’s eyebrows arched into a soft frown. “I made them with you in mind. I won’t accept anything else.”
Thalia’s advice about transferring energy echoed in Skye’s mind, deading her argument. “Are you sure? We could split them, two and two.”
“They come as a set. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Skye lined the four shallow bowls in seasonal order. They’d catch nice sunlight out in the spacious living room; however, she grew more attached by the second. She could find a nicesee-through display or construct a ledge above her desk. Then, she’d admire them whenever she liked. “You made these for me,” she repeated herself, laced with wonder she couldn’t contain. “Celene, youmadethese for me.”
Celene shuttered any vulnerability with her smirk, hitching an unconvincing shoulder. “Is that a thank you?”
“No.” Skye’s hand shook as she reached out, fitting onto the underside of Celene’s jaw. Enveloped in midnight hair, it rested like it belonged there. When Celene stared without reproach, Skye leaned in. Barely a breath away from the woman who occupied her mind hundreds of times a day, she whispered, “This is.”
And she replicated the kiss from last week. Swift, more ghostlike. Unlike before, they didn’t have a coworker friend feet away, nor Luce’s reggae playlist as a backdrop. Relative silence protected them, and it compounded the softness, the tackiness of Celene’s lips. She withdrew right after, a plea for more tingling upon her lips.
Adrenaline fueled their first fake girlfriend kiss. In private, Skye leaned onto the table for support. Her knees could give out from how that small sample was a tactile paradise, especially with Celene eyeing Skye from head to toe.
“Don’t do that again,” Celene intoned, casting doubt despite her hoarseness. “Or else I’ll kiss you back.”
Skye never played with fire—too conscious of destroying the woods. So she fed into what she’d missed out on when she slipped her hand onto Celene’s shoulder this time. Digging her fingers into silk material, she towed Celene into a similar kiss that lingered a tic longer. She made space again, grinning.
Celene’s lips twitched like they wanted to snarl. “I mean it. Do that again and I’ll kiss you back.”
“That’s a warning?”
“Yes.”
That couldn’t scare Skye off as she tipped her head into a firmer kiss. Hands to herself this time, since that small experience of Celene’s body overstimulated her. It almost stung. When she moved away, she couldn’t stop trembling.
Of the women she’d dated, she hadn’t recalled such sensations blitzing through her from some ostensibly tame kisses. Heavens, Celene’s warmth clung to her like her ginger perfume.
Celene exhaled slowly, evenly. Reminiscent of a breathing exercise. Her fingers threaded through her hair, and she shook it out. “I’ll give you one last warning?—”
Skye struck that match again, paying no mind to self-control. She pressed on a series of short kisses, each a hair longer than the last. Except this time, when she attempted to escape, Celene slithered an arm around Skye, the warmest vice. Tips of their noses brushing, Skye asked all her questions with her eyes.
For Celene to hiss out, “Dragonfruit.”
“Dragonfruit,” Skye practically moaned.
In seconds, Skye careened backwards, being flattened against the wall in a muted thump. Celene asserted herself into Skye’s mouth in hungry, fervent kisses. Celene’s head tilted one way, then the other, where Skye couldn’t follow the pattern, and she indulged in the ride. Skye whipped her arms up and around, at home on silken shoulders. Needing more of this flame, she chanced a soft moan into Celene’s mouth.
It’d been for sexy effect, to entice, though she hadn’t expected it to turn too real when Celene’s tongue twisted around hers. Disastrously sensuous, Skye surmised, thrusting her tongue uselessly. It wasn’t her finest technique, but her brain could only picture how this could escalate if they were home alone.
She’d never been rocked in a kiss like this before, where her body climbed higher and higher upon the wall, trapped deliciously by a woman not too much taller than her. Skyewilted into the privilege, the opportunity to grasp around Celene, finding the quiet strength in her tense, slight muscles. In collusion with her unpredictable tongue, Celene roved hands over Skye’s thighs, onto the skin of her abdomen, to her sides, shy of her breasts.
