Page 66 of Saving Graces
Kinsey felt tears dropping onto her forearms. Gently she reached up, brushing Rosalie’s cheek with her fingers. Together, they watched the snow fall.
“Thank you,” Rosalie said after a while. “I don’t get to talk about her much anymore. And it’s been, god, over twenty years since she disappeared. I’m actually okay, like ninety-nine percent of the time. Just every now and then something weird will trigger it.”
“The ball in the box,” Kinsey said. Rosalie twisted slightly in her arms to look at her.
“The grief theory,” she said, “with the pain button and the ball that keeps getting smaller?”
“But when it hits the pain button it still hurts just as much.” Rosalie’s green eyes shone like seafoam in the light reflecting off the snow outdoors, as if crying had changed the color. “You lost someone too.”
Kinsey nodded.
“Not a sister. And not the way you did. My best friend though.” She clenched her jaw slightly, holding back her own tears, refusing to take over Rosalie’s moment. “When I was twenty-one. Car accident.”
“I’m sorry,” Rosalie said, her voice genuine.
“Yeah,” she said. “We’d been friends since kindergarten. I’m not sure there’s an experience I’ll ever have my whole life where I won’t wish I could tell Chloe all about it.”
“Her name was Chloe?”
“Yeah.”
“We just lost a Chloe,” Rosalie said. “One of the kids from the centre. Suicide.”
“Oh, Rosalie.” Kinsey’s heart ached for her. For all of them.
“She was in your session actually,” Rosalie told her and all of a sudden she remembered.
“She sang,” she said quietly. “She had a lovely voice. Oh fuck.”
Rosalie finally turned all the way around, one of her legs bent, the other dangling over the edge of the seat. Their bodies were close, their faces closer. She stopped a silent tear slipping down Kinsey’s cheek with her thumb. Kinsey’s breath caught at the tenderness of her touch.
“I…” Rosalie said, then she bit her lip. “I don’t know that I deserve someone like you.”
“What are you talking about?” Kinsey’s heart began to hammer as she blinked and struggled to push the tears away. She tucked a lock of Rosalie’s hair back, needing to touch her, feeling a bit like she was drowning, the two of them raw in the gray afternoon light.
“The night we met I treated you like some hot young sex toy,” Rosalie admitted, dipping her head slightly. “I wouldn’t let myself see all of you.”
“And now?” Kinsey barely dared to ask, her eyes on Rosalie’s collarbones. When Rosalie didn’t say anything she finally met her gaze. Her green eyes were conflicted.
“I see so much,” Rosalie whispered. “And I don’t know what to do with it.”
Kinsey knew that wasn’t enough. She knew that if Rosalie still couldn’t see clear to dating her they had a problem. She knew that what she was about to do was not the right answer but she kissed her anyway. Slow. Soft. Tender. Rosalie whimpered. She pulled back and gazed at Kinsey again like she was everything. Then she kissed her. Hard.
Everything caught fire. Kinsey jerked off Rosalie’s sweater, Rosalie’s hands flew to her jeans zipper. They gasped into each other’s mouths, pulling at each other’s clothes, desperate to get at each other’s skin. Somehow they were on their feet, still kissing, and Kinsey found herself shoved down onto the bed under Rosalie’s body.
Immediately she switched them, pressing Rosalie back into the sheets with a kiss to her bare shoulder that turned open-mouthed in a hungry hard suck, marking her with a bruise. Rosalie moaned and bucked her hips against her, digging her fingernails into Kinsey’s back and scraping, the burn making her gasp ragged and loud.
She pulled Rosalie’s panties part way down her thighs and finding her slippery with want thrust two fingers roughly inside her. Rosalie cried out and wrapped her legs around her waist, encouraging her with hungry thrusts of her hip. Her hand pushed fast between them to slip inside Kinsey’s underwear, stroking her clit. Together they gasped and cried out, fucking each other until Kinsey - overwhelmed with the sounds Rosalie was making, the feel of her tight body squeezing her fingers and the sight of her breasts bouncing with every thrust - came savagely hard against her.
Immediately, barely recovering her breath, she slipped down between Rosalie’s legs. She tasted her arousal, opening her mouth like a hungry kiss and adding a third finger, hearing her moan as she took her with hard thrusts. Just when Kinsey’s biceps were burning, Rosalie came with a violent shudder. Still gasping, she pulled Kinsey up to kiss her.
As they kissed, they pulled at the rest of their clothes until they were finally naked, pressing together, their touches becoming gentle. Rosalie kissed her like she was fragile, breakable, precious and Kinsey felt like she was coming out of her skin. In the fading afternoon light they held each other and moved, falling into the kind of sex that was like trying to meld yourself into the other’s body, like there was no physical way to get as close to each other as they wanted.
They lay in each other's arms as darkness fell, the room turning into such deep gray shadows she could barely make out Rosalie’s face in the gloom.
“We should get out of bed,” Kinsey said finally. “If we both miss dinner I think that might raise some eyebrows.”
“You’re right,” Rosalie agreed and Kinsey found herself wishing she’d said fuck that, let them talk, I just need you here and kissed her all over again. Instead they both sat up on opposite sides of the bed.
