Page 98 of The Guest Book
This wasn’t going to be a very long experiment.
“Are you okay?” Cosima’s wide eyes were on Edie’s face, even as her hips found a rolling pulse that made her eyes roll back. “Is this okay?”
Edie pushed down, meeting Cosima’s rising hips. “It’s okay, it’s so okay.”
“Kiss me, Edie.” Cosima used her hair to pull her close—such a demanding move that it made Edie’s scalp burn, whichmade her eyes burn worse, and that was when the angle changed again, their hips discovering a better rhythm with every sliding, sloppy, welcoming kiss until one of them sent Cosima over, pressing her face into Edie’s neck, and Edie right behind her.
“I love you, I love you,” Edie breathed, letting herself fall into something that she couldn’t feel the beginning or end of. It was pleasure, it was love, it was just the right amount of new and forever.
“I love you.” Cosima kissed Edie’s forehead, something she had grown to love so much, how this difficult woman poured tenderness through her and made whatever was happening easy.
Edie slowly rose up, coming to Cosima’s side, then helping her with the buckles so they could pull off the harness and press themselves together, face-to-face.
“Was that like your fantasy?” Edie rubbed her thumb over Cosima’s mouth.
“No. That was much more romantic than what I’d thought of. I didn’t think about the mutuality of it. I didn’t imagine how all the love would get in there. But I didn’t know about love yet, how it specializes in what should be impossible. Very sneaky.” Her cheeks were pink, her lips swollen. The tension was gone from her eyebrows, and the contrast to the first time Edie had seen Cosima at the door of this very room was more than stark.
“So in your fantasy you’re strapped in, very hot, and fucking me to the mattress?”
Cosima closed her eyes. “Sometimes into the wall. Or over a chaise.”
Edie laughed. “Plenty of time to see those through. I’ve already sent a chaise I found in the attic to the upholsterer.”
“Edie,” Cosima slurred. “Here’s the thing. Two weeks of near twenty-hour days. Lots of suits. Late-night conversations withDuncan when we should have been sleeping. Too many feelings. No you.”
“You’re falling asleep.” Edie slid her arms under Cosima’s shoulders to lift her up and grab the top of the duvet, bringing it down and then over them both.
“Oh, that’s good.” Cosima settled into the spot she’d claimed, the nook of Edie’s shoulder, her leg over both of Edie’s. “Don’t move even a little. No, scratch that, you can Edie-wiggle. But make sure one part of you is always touching me. Wake me up in ninety minutes and make me Morag’s carrot bread. I assume you’ve managed to steal, test, and improve the recipe by now.”
Edie had. She kissed into the curly mass of Cosima’s hair. When she adjusted to fit her cheek against the top of her head, she noticed the place on the wall where Cosima had cut her mother’s letter from beneath the wallpaper—the first one of fifty years of letters that brought them here. Right here.
And most of what they found hadn’t been on the map.
