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In the stone overhang, Cinta counted the seconds between Vel’s snores.
The lamp is dimmed as much as it possibly can be without plunging them into the all-encompassing dark of Aldhani at night. Once, when she had been with Skeen after a dray got out of its pen, they had had to find their way back to camp by starlight.
With no one else around to see her, Cinta allowed herself to smile. Vel had been so worried, her cheeks red from the cold, her braids askew, and her breath harsh and frantic.
Now, looking out at the fog lights from the dam, there is a relative peace.
It’s only when Vel’s snores transitioned into sharp inhales, accompanied by a chattering of teeth, that Cinta turned her attention from the dam. In the low light, she can see the other woman curl in on herself, a shudder thundering through her limbs, the soft skin of her brow furrowed in pain and small whimpers escaping from between her chattering teeth.
Cinta’s so cold she can barely feel her fingers. The heat pads, small and oblong, are doing what they can, but it’s barely enough to keep her own teeth from clacking together.
Still, watching Vel suffer from the cold? Much worse.
“Vel.” The metallic rasp of her seldom-used voice pierced the silence between Vel’s whimpers. When Vel didn’t stir, she reached out, fingers crawling into the space between Vel’s neck and the single fur blanket Cinta had wrapped around her. When Cinta found her pulse, strong and steady, she tapped it.
Underneath the gentle pressure, Vel’s eyes – twinkling sapphires within the dark crust of their surroundings – cracked open. Vel blinked, bleary-eyed, and moved a shaking hand to stifle her yawn. It was irritatingly cute and exactly the sort of thought Cinta knew she shouldn’t be having the night before they would descend into the Aldhani highlands and wreak havoc.
She was having a lot of those lately. Thoughts that didn’t belong.
“S’okay?” Vel’s voice was small, but groggy. “Did something happen?”
“You were cold. Here.” Cinta reached for her canteen, nestled in between her back and the overhang’s freezing stone. It’s the last of Nemik’s soup, probably the last good meal they’ll have outside of the stale ration biscuits that Cinta’s been keeping a close eye on. Tomorrow, her word was absolute, and her strength was needed. Cinta had planned to give her the soup anyway – better now than never.
Vel took it from her and drank. It was hard to tell whether her fervor was due to hunger or the chill.
When she finished, she shook her head, smacking her lips. “I’m cold? You’re all over there, without a blanket.” For a brief moment, there was a look of hesitation, as if Vel was going to regret what she said next. Cinta was piecing together what that could be before she saw Vel lift the blanket up and gesture with her chin. “Come here. We’ll be warmer together.”
Cinta sighed. “Vel, be serious.”
“I am. If you want me to be rested for my watch, you’ll get over here. Besides…” Vel trailed off, sniffed loudly, and turned her face inwards as she readjusted the blanket. “Never mind. Get over here.”
Like how her sister used to unwind their yo-yo’s to play with, Cinta felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. For anyone else, a command from Vel Sartha would have led to a straightening of the spine and even a mutter of acquiescence. For her? It did the impossible, like drawing blood from a stone: it made her smile.
Grabbing the lamp, she moved closer until she and Vel were thigh-to-thigh, and the other woman, murmuring something under her breath, threw the fur over both of them.
It didn’t matter how many times she touched Vel; there was always a swell of feelings that Cinta didn’t know what to do with. Growing up, love had been described as butterflies or small sparks going off inside your stomach. For her, with Vel? It was as if she were pacing up and down a corridor again and again with the undeniable knowledge that there was no door at either end.
Beside her, Vel had stopped trembling.
“Warm enough?” Cinta asked, leaning forward to gently press her hand against Vel’s cheek. Far from hot, but better than before. “Good. You need your sleep. Early day, tomorrow.”
“I know. Could be our last.”
There was something sardonic about the way Vel said that, which made Cinta pause. “Maybe.” She chose her next words carefully. Vel would be leading tomorrow; anything but support might blow back on her, and Cinta would be damned if she made Vel mess up in any way. “Might not be.”
Vel let out a low whistle, her eyes sparkling with humour. “Optimism from Cinta Kaz.”
“Don’t get used to it.” Cinta looked over to the dam again, only to find that Vel was already looking at her. “What?”
“Nothing. Just taking you in.”
“Focus, Vel–”
“I am. On you.” When Cinta opened her mouth to protest, Vel was already there, faster than a whip. “Might be my last night, let me have this, alright?”
Cinta took her in: the earnestness of her gaze, and knew that she couldn’t deny Vel this – nor did she want to. Vel was right.
With a small but steady breath, she nodded and allowed Vel to reach out, her freezing fingers pressed to Cinta’s left cheek. Despite herself, Cinta leaned into the touch and exhaled softly when the other woman moved forward to crush their lips together.
“I love you,” Vel whispered against her mouth. The quiver of her voice felt like ice, but the desperation in her tone was nothing short of scalding.
Cinta knew Vel meant what she said, and that the way her chest constricted painfully at hearing it, that she must feel the same way. That had to be the only reason why it hurt so much: to know she had something so monumental, so special, and to deny herself it anyway. That she still had something to lose after all.
The thought sent shivers, none from the cold, down her spine.
Cinta pressed a kiss to Vel’s lips, rough and chapped from the harsh winds. “I know.” She whispered.
Repeating the words back, as she had done a few months into their setup for Aldhani, should have become easier over time. Now, huddled together in the freezing temperatures and the damp? Cinta felt as though her throat was closing up.
She wanted to say it. It was there, on the tip of her tongue.
Vel brushed her knuckles with the pad of her finger. It was a touch as delicate as a Thranta feather. To Cinta, it was a knife scraping across her ribs, peeling at the bone to get to her traitorous heart.
This could be their last night. Why couldn’t she say it?
Maybe it was because she felt it too much and that feeling was as if Vel had reached out and pressed her hands to Cinta’s throat. And yet, Cinta couldn’t help herself: she cupped Vel’s cheek in her hand, rubbed her thumb over the soft skin, and pulled them together, lips and tongue searching for breath inside Vel’s mouth.
This could be their last night. The words were a serrated edge and it pressed, harsh and unforgiving, to Cinta’s throat.
She couldn’t speak, but she could touch.
Breaking away from Vel’s mouth, Cinta glanced out at the blackness of Aldhani. The lights of the dam flickered in the distance, and there was nothing else to hear but the sound of their ragged breathing filling the air.
When she looked back, Vel was staring at her as though she had put the stars in the sky just for her. The joy of romance had been bled out of her like a leech on a wound, but seeing Vel now, staring at her like this? Cinta’s breath stuttered in her chest.
Her thumb was still pressed to the apple of Vel’s cheek.
“Warm?”
The corner of Vel’s lips quirked up. “Freezing.”
“That won’t do,” Cinta whispered and kissed her again.
Vel’s hands immediately wove around her, pulled her further in as though she could get any closer. Cinta helpless when in Vel’s orbit, followed. She crawled further under the blanket to sit on Vel’s lap, the other woman’s strong thighs tense and warm underneath her.
When their lips parted, Cinta dragged hers down the column of Vel’s throat, bit at the skin so gently that it wouldn’t bruise. Though she supposed, if they’re to die tomorrow, then it might be good to have something of her on Vel that the Empire couldn’t take away. She unfastened her collar, pulled Vel against her neck and bit back a groan at the dull pain of teeth and the sharp rasp of a tongue that followed moments later.
In the dark and the cold, Vel was sunlight. Her lips parted, and in the distance, her breath fogged the view of the dam’s lights.
She pushed Vel away from her neck, her body thrumming at the wetness spread across Vel’s lips and the desire that made her clearwater blue eyes dull and dark. It wasn’t the first time that the other woman looked at her as though she was some deity to worship, her mouth open, her fingers tight and tense against the fabric of Cinta’s pants. It wasn’t the first time that Cinta had no idea what to do with it. Usually, she could redirect Vel; there was always more training to be done, or maybe the dray needed to be groomed. Vel would allow it too, grumble maybe, but with the knowledge that Cinta was right.
Now, in the pitch of the Aldhani night and inside this stone tomb, Cinta found there was nowhere to redirect. Nor did she want to.
She crushed their lips together, one hand behind Vel’s neck, the other untucking her jacket and shirt from her pants, digging in between the leather and the cloth until she could feel Vel’s flesh, her soft and wet slit against her fingers.
“Cinta…” Her name is a gasped plea when they break apart. She’s already eager, far more than she realized, but hearing Vel so wanton makes her shudder even as she tucks Vel’s head back against her neck to silence her words against her skin.
At this angle, it’s hard for Vel to grind against her finger, and far from enough to undo her. Cinta withdraws, silently delights in the whimper of displeasure, before spitting on her hand and curling her two fingers inside Vel again. Vel’s wet enough, but there’s something about doing this for her, the way her eyes track the spit hanging off Cinta’s fingers before they’re inside her again, that makes Cinta feel like she’s flying through the star-lit skies.
When she pistoned them inside, deeper, harder, Vel throttles her groan back down her throat, but only just. As far as Cinta is concerned, the damage is done. Even in the pink haze of lust among the blackest of night, Cinta knows they have to be quiet.
She shoved her hand over Vel’s mouth. It only makes Vel’s hips twist up further to meet her thrusts. In another world, another place, another time, Cinta would have grinned. Instead her eyes are closed, and she gets lost in the pull of Vel around her. Her scent, the dirt and sweat in her hair, and the way the hand that isn’t clutching at Cinta’s ass joins only a moment later, pushing her forward against the meat of Vel’s thigh.
The friction sends electricity up her spine and her cunt throbs, aches. It startles her from the rhythm that she’s got Vel thrusting to, forces her to drop her hand from her lover’s mouth to push her fist against the space beside Vel’s head.
There’s a smugness in those eyes, the curve of her thin but irresistable mouth, that Cinta wants to kiss out of her.
Vel’s hands shoved her forward again and like a spark reaching up into the night sky, Cinta’s hips and fingers jerked, pleasure coursing through her synapses like wildfire through a rainforest, robbing her of thought and sense and nothing but a name.
“Vel.” The whisper comes out as a warning.
Vel’s smirk is enough for Cinta to want to wring every last drop of pleasure out of her. So she does. Her thumb moved across the pink, swollen flesh, flicked and teased until Vel jerked against her with a hiss that Cinta has no choice but to swallow, damp hand abandoning its task to force Vel’s hips back down, stabilize her until they’re both rutting against one another like two akk hounds in heat.
Together they convulsed before becoming still, breath mingling in each other’s mouths, as if only they could breathe enough air to keep the other alive. It’s a horrifying image, considering their future might be cut short, but Cinta’s too wired, too out of her own body, to care.
Vel’s fingers brushed the small, flyaway hairs at the nape of her neck, tender and grounding. Cinta lets her for a few more moments before she grounds her in the present, until she’s forced to look up and meet her mouth again in a slow, lazy kiss.
When they parted this time, Vel’s eyes were hooded behind her eyelids, and her chest heaving. It might be the dim light, or it could be because she’s still riding that high, but Vel looks so beautiful. For a moment, she is overwhelmed by the utter betrayal of everyone and everything, and a forbidden thought flashes to the front of her mind.
What if they ran? She knew how to get out of here – it’s how she’ll eventually leave the planet altogether. There are ways…
The thought vanished: stuffed deep and buried in a box that Cinta promptly sat on. That’s what’s so dangerous about Vel. Just being near her encourages the most dangerous thoughts possible.
Breathing hard through her nose, Cinta crawled off her lover to slot herself back at her side. Vel, exhausted, collapsed against her immediately, head tucked into the bone of Cinta’s shoulder. She brought her hand to tuck the sweat-damp braid behind Vel’s ear.
Even now, with the clinging heat of shame warming her face at her own inane thoughts, Cinta can’t bring herself to deny Vel this comfort.
Tomorrow wasn’t here yet. Tonight, this was what was left.