Codename lotus, p.29
Codename Lotus, page 29
Relief softened my chest. “This feels surreal.”
“What does?”
“This. Us.”
She threaded her fingers through my hair and tucked a strand behind my ear—careful, almost reverent. “Confession? I have no idea what I’m doing, but I can’t seem to keep my hands to myself.”
Her touch traveled down the length of my sleeve, fingertips sneaking under the cuff, slow and exploratory. She rubbed the inside of my wrist, then settled at my hip.
I tugged at the hem of my sleep shirt.
Her thumb stroked my cheek. “What is it?”
I hesitated, my fingers tighter around the fabric. “I feel enormous. Not exactly how I pictured our first moments of…intimacy.”
Her pupils darkened.
Before I could say more, she slid her thumb along my eyebrow. “Oh, Saanya. Do you know how many nights I imagined kissing you, all while terrified for your safety? Having him between us—” Her palm warmed the curve of my belly. “It’s a relief.”
The words settled, and she nudged a pillow under my hip.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked, folding an arm and resting her cheek on it.
I swallowed. “Have you thought about sex?” My face burned. “With me?”
“Oh, thought about it I have.” Naomi’s hand fondled my jaw, the touch almost too innocent and platonic, so I brought her fingers to my lips.
“Vaah!” I said, and she chuckled.
“‘Wow’ in Hindi? The shock must have been visceral.”
As her fingers traced my mouth, I murmured, “Do you feel weird about being with a woman?”
“With another woman who isn’t you, yes. Perhaps…unappealing, but not weird. Though I admit I am terrified. I also think this is the oldest trick in the book, isn’t it? Chemistry. Birds and bees.”
My lips turned up against Naomi’s fingertips. “So only me, huh?”
Naomi hummed. “Well…there was a woman in Zurich.”
I drew my head back. “Really? The night of…”
“Yes. She was beautiful, but then again, she reminded me of you. Who knows, perhaps I am bisexual and never realized it.”
I tilted my head, watching her. “How could you not know?”
“Thinking about relationships and sex isn’t something I tend to dwell on.” Naomi’s voice was steady. “I think it’s why I agreed to marry Ethan—so that I wouldn’t have to work out the logistics of dating and keeping a partner. I have never been very good at it.” Her thumb traced circles over my skin. “It wouldn’t surprise me if something like this flew over my head. Though right now, a label is the last thing on my mind. But to answer your original question better…” She brought my fingers to her lips this time, a smoldering light in her gaze as she kissed them. “You are quite disarming, Saanya Hazra.”
I barely had time to react before she guided my hand to her chest, over the old Arsenal shirt. The polyester I’d slept in so many nights was now skimming against her skin—for all her sharp edges, here she was soft, rounded, and real, her heart thudding a rhythm into my palm.
I looked into Naomi’s eyes and saw her pupils swallow the light until there was nothing left but a dark hunger. Her breath started to race, fighting her for control.
“Deep down, we all want the same things, don’t we?” she murmured.
Her nipple tightened under my fingers. My lips parted as I watched her.
I gasped. “Can I kiss you?”
She leaned in, breath warm. “Please…”
Finally, I closed the last inch.
When her tongue slipped against mine, heat spread low in my belly and kept going until my toes curled.
I moaned into her mouth.
Naomi kissed like a precision instrument—sure, unhurried.
Almost shaking, I felt her pull back, gasping for air. She shifted, bracing herself on her forearm so my belly had space.
There was an ache in her eyes.
Our lips were smeared, damp, swollen. “What have you done to me?” she whispered.
Oh.
“I never—I never thought…” she hesitated.
I didn’t let her finish. I kissed her deeper. My fingers sank into the supple give of her waist, leaving pale indents against her skin that flushed red the second I let go.
It was my proof that she was real.
When her palm cupped my breast through the silk, I nodded, unable to speak.
“You’re so soft,” she said, mouth at my throat, thumb circling my nipple. “I love the way you feel. So yielding…so smooth.”
Naomi had only the opposite to compare me to. I knew well the roughness of a man. And God, if only I could go back in time and have only this.
Because this? This was heaven.
“Naomi…” I shivered, drunk on the sight of her staring at the movement of her own hand as she pushed beneath my sleep shirt, dragging the fabric up, agonizingly slow until she uncovered my breasts.
The tremble came from inside me. “Oh…” Goosebumps broke out over my skin, and Naomi’s eyes followed each one.
“Your body is so responsive…” She bit her lip and stared at me boldly. “Can I?”
I should have known that even if she had never been with another woman before, she would be anything but shy about it. That innate confidence I adored.
I had never felt this wanted. Or perhaps it was that I had never wanted anyone else to want me except her.
My chest rose. “Y-yes.”
Her mouth closed over my nipple, and I finally crumbled.
“Oh, yes…” I arched into her mouth, my fingers gripping the sheets.
If she was this good at kissing—God help me.
It lasted but a second before I yanked at her shirt, urging her back up, hissing. “Come here. I want to kiss you again.”
I cupped her face in both hands, pulling her into me.
I wanted to kiss her harder.
To dissolve into her completely.
Because I loved her.
I lifted myself and shifted my body to half-hover above. I had the perfect view of her.
“I feel ridiculous in this shirt,” Naomi muttered.
“Then take it off.”
She went still.
“Only if you want to, of course. We don’t have to,” I said.
She sat up and stripped it off without breaking eye contact.
God…
“Lie down,” I murmured.
She did.
I mapped her with my hands, smoothing down her ribcage, the curves I’d imagined so many times.
This was Naomi half-naked before my eyes.
A perfectly cuppable handful of warm skin molded to my palm, her dusky nipple tightening beneath my touch.
Lying on my side, as best I could, I kissed my way down her abdomen, feeling the supple give of her stomach against my lips, then lower until I pressed my cheek against the soft pilled fabric of the waistband on her leggings—my teeth grazing over it as I looked up at her. Her eyes were closed, her body arching off the bed.
I nudged the cloth down, just enough to expose the stark, nude shelf of her hip. Then I saw it… her smooth skin reacting like braille to the gentle swipes of my tongue. A mechanical failure of her composure that sent a jolt straight to my marrow—seeing that involuntary shiver on someone so controlled…
There was no oxygen here, no expensive perfume—just the raw, unvarnished scent of her. Honest and sharp, a musky warmth, mixed with the flat, rubbery smell of the lycra and clean skin.
I ran my fingertips through the prickly texture of trimmed hair against her pubis. It was this visceral architecture that was so much more erotic than any fantasy.
She shivered. “Saanya…”
Naomi’s voice broke in a low, ruined sound that vibrated through my very bones. Seeing her like that—with her head thrown back, unguarded—made everything suddenly real.
I pulled back.
“What is it?” she asked, sitting up instantly, her cheeks reddening. “Something the matter?”
“No,” I said quickly, and squeezed her thigh. “You’re perfect. I just…” I glanced down at myself, then back at her. “I don’t want our first time to be like this. I feel like a seal.”
Naomi bit back a laugh, then tenderly said, “Oh, sweetheart.”
That little word alone, the term of endearment, almost eased my insecurities completely. Almost.
She reached out, her fingers catching my wrists with a firm grip. She squeezed once, pulling me back into her orbit, her gaze luminous and heavy with truth.
“Saanya, you are the first thing that has ever felt this real. This soft. This mine, do you understand?”
I nodded.
She leaned in, and the world narrowed down to the heat of her mouth. She pressed a kiss to the hollow of my collarbone, her lips damp and warm, then lower to my belly and looked up at me.
“You are beautiful.” She shifted, hovering over me. “I understand that this must be a difficult time for any woman. Heaven knows I could never do it—carry life. But you must remember…”
She traced my thigh.
“I fell for you while you were pregnant.”
Fell for me.
Heat pulsed through me. Her hand trailing up my leg.
“I want you, Saanya,” she said, her fingers warm and sure.
“Oh, I want you too,” I breathed.
When her touch slipped between my thighs, I clasped my fingers around her wrist. “Naomi—”
She stilled.
“Let’s stop,” she said. Not disappointed, just careful. Uncharacteristically soft. The woman only I got to see.
Heat crept up my neck, my face. “I don’t want you to stop,” I said, my voice cracking. “I just…haven’t—”
“What? Touched yourself?”
I laughed, my cheekbones tightening. “No,” I admitted. “…Actually, that, I have.”
“Incorrigible,” she purred. “I didn’t know this side of you.”
She was teasing, but my entire body flushed even deeper.
“Naomi Deepika Smith-Chopra, stop!”
“Middle-naming me now?” She laughed, then the mischief softened. She nuzzled my neck. “You smell divine,” she whispered.
I was losing myself to this. To her.
And then, softly, she said it. “I touched myself too. All while thinking of you.”
She licked my ear, letting her caress drift lower.
Testing. Teasing.
“Oh,” I panted.
Naomi’s cheeks flushed pink. “Lace…” she murmured. Then a smile I felt rather than saw. “And you’re wet.”
The heat throbbing between my thighs grew unbearable.
I was burning.
And Naomi hadn’t even slipped beneath my underwear yet.
I swallowed. “Naomi, I haven’t—”
“You haven’t what, hmm?” She tugged my earlobe between her teeth, then soothed the spot with her tongue.
I exhaled shakily. “I can’t see myself anymore. I haven’t—waxed.”
She stilled.
Then, a soft laugh escaped her against my skin. A knowing smirk.
She nipped at my jaw, brushed her lips over mine. “I won’t look if you don’t want me to. Or let me be the judge of that, yes?” Her breath ghosted my mouth. “Please.”
Naomi was begging to go past my underwear and make me hers.
I lost it. “Oh God.”
“Should I take that as a yes?”
Our lips touched. “Yes…”
She slid my underwear aside and touched me—slow, then sure—until my body remembered how to speak. I grabbed at her shirt.
Then, Naomi did the most unpredictable thing: she lodged a knee between my thighs and pressed.
I opened for her like I’d been waiting for years. “Oh.”
Somewhere in the tangle, my hand found its way into her leggings. We made a sweet, breathy mess of it—quiet sounds, a private glide of our fingers, and mouths that felt supple and fever warm.
“God, you’re soaking,” I whispered, bolder than I’d ever been.
She yanked her leggings down her thighs. I didn’t know who entered whom first—it didn’t matter. Our arms crisscrossed, each with a hand buried deep between the other’s thighs.
Our rhythm turned eager as we drove in and out of each other. Slick…hot. My fingers curled inside her, and her gaze held mine, hair damp at her temple.
“Fuck,” she moaned, the word shocking and perfect in her mouth. “Faster,” she breathed.
I gave her what she wanted. “Take it, love,” I panted.
“I’m so aroused,” she gasped. “God, you’re so beautiful, Saanya—so beautiful.”
“Naomi…”
She made me feel those words she’d just called me.
Worshipped.
Wanted.
“Harder,” Naomi moaned.
I felt her breath, heady and humid against my cheek when she asked again. Hearing it flipped on a switch inside me. I propped myself on one elbow, slipping deeper inside her, relentless—until she started tightening around me.
“Saanya—”
Her thigh trembled and, cheeky as ever, she pressed harder at the exact spot inside me that made the room drown. My grip on the sheets went white.
“Oh—Naomi, you’re going to make me come!”
We chased it together, noses brushing.
“That’s it,” she urged, eyes gone dark, fixed only on me. “Come for me. Come with me—oh!”
“Naomi—” I came with her name in my mouth.
She came with mine against my throat.
The world dissolved to this taste—salt, perfume, skin, and then returned in golden pieces of us.
I panted, “You—”
A stunning little hurricane.
We lay there breathless, laughing in the soft, stunned way of people who’d just fallen off a cliff and found a lake.
If only I’d known, I could have faced anyone, dared to come out, burned the entire world down—just to have this.
“Mmm…” she said, her nose grazing the salt-damp slope of my shoulder. She kissed my jaw, my temple. “Likewise, darling,” she panted.
“Oh dear.”
“What is it?” Naomi asked, eyes half-closed.
Heat radiated between our spent, half-undressed bodies. A deep, hot flush that had nothing to do with sweat or desire.
I covered my face and laughed. “You just called me darling.”
The first light seeped in and painted her skin light honey, reflecting those gorgeous green eyes as she opened them.
Naomi’s smile was slow. “I did.”
NAOMI
I woke to a room bleached in light. As I moved, I felt the parched, salt-etched pull on my thighs and stomach…my fingers. My skin felt different—thinned and strange but also…good.
It was the salty musk that had transferred from her to me, or from me to her. Both.
I didn’t want to wash.
Not for a little longer.
Saanya and I had fallen asleep, spent after our first time—God, that sounds so juvenile. But what was I supposed to call it, when she’d be outraged by the cruder word? Men always called it fucking.
What Saanya and I had done went so far beyond that.
The image of my body staking a claim on hers hours earlier left no room for doubt. I didn’t want to run.
I vaguely remembered gentle kisses and murmured confessions whispered against my skin. I couldn’t recall exactly what Saanya had said, but imagining her loving eyes traversing my body as I slept, all while telling me things she’d kept secret for so long, made my heart beat a little faster.
I turned, half expecting to see her curled up beside me, only to find empty sheets.
Saanya lay on her side of the bed, her back to me, propped against the pillows, barely covered. Her hair spilled over her shoulder, neck resting on the pillow.
I couldn’t see her expression—only the delicate curve of her profile. She felt far away. The morning light touched her skin, catching the shadows under her eyes—the ones that never seemed to fade, no matter how much she slept.
Then I saw it.
A small pile of jewelry sat on the nightstand—her bangles, earrings, and the ring that had been missing from her finger last night. It sat dead center, holding her focus.
As I watched her thumb circle the band.
Was she thinking of him?
I exhaled and skimmed my fingers along her arm in a slow caress. She blinked, as if surfacing, and looked at me with a self-conscious smile.
“I did it,” she said, turning the ring so the sunlight caught the ruby. “I know I’m still walking through the minefield he left me in, but at least now I can see the other side. Steady ground I can fight my way toward.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “And one day, hopefully soon, I’ll be able to walk freely.”
I brushed my knuckles against her wrist. “You already are free.”
Her shoulders eased, then went completely still. “Oh my God.”
I stiffened at her sharp intake of air. “What?”
She sat up abruptly, pinching the ring between two fingers. Her face was blank, but her pulse hammered at her throat as she stared.
I pushed myself upright. “Saanya, what is it?”
“The engraver’s receipt…” she murmured, tracing the inside of the band. “June fifth…”
“What engraver’s receipt?”
Her eyes snapped to mine, widening. “The Cartier one. The one from a few weeks before he was murdered.”
“Engraver? What engraver? I’m lost.”
“I never took this ring off.” She paused, then shook her head. “Except once—the week of my substitute chemistry class disaster. Do you remember?”
“I do. Your hands turned purple for a week.”
“Exactly.” Her fingers tightened around the ring. “I sent this to be cleaned that week. But Manish must have intercepted it and had it engraved.”
She handed it to me.
“Engraved with what?” I asked.
“Months ago, when those men were after me, I asked our shared secretary for his transactions in the months leading up to his death. There was a Cartier receipt. I’d assumed he’d bought something and had it engraved. But the dates line up—his transaction was June fifth. I’d already sent my ring there that week to be cleaned.”
