By Lara Zielinsky
The hour rolled over. 3:59. 4:00. Four a.m. Cassidy’s eyes slowly rotated away from the digital clock’s red numbers, taking in the deep shadows of the rest of the room as she lay on her back.
The desk lay outlined with its lamp stalk hunched over piles of papers. The ladder struts of the chair back drew her eye to tracing their orderliness.
Her arms held loosely to Brenna’s smooth bare shoulders and she dropped her chin, pressing her lips to the dark hair on top of Brenna’s head. She felt the expansion and contraction of Brenna’s chest against her own side. Her breathing was even, and warm wisps of it drifted from Brenna’s nostrils across Cassidy’s collarbone.
Trying to focus on the rhythmic, calm breathing, Cassidy sought to match it, but her heart would not slow down. Her mind filled with images, fleeting and pandemonious. Their work day always ran long, often past midnight, and she enjoyed when they took their leave of colleagues and friends together; when they came here.
Her mind filled with the languorous memory of undressing, skin sliding against skin. She grew warm and shifted.
“Mmm,” Brenna’s voice purred under her chin, vibrating into Cassidy’s own chest in her unique way. Small, lightly roughened fingers soothed across her stomach.
Cassidy felt the strange tightness in her chest ease, unaware until it was leaving that her lower back had been taut and aching.
Brenna’s fingertips slowly circled. Cassidy felt her skin tingle and muscles flex and relax in the wake of the movement.
“Mmm,” she felt herself murmur, the sound rolling up and out of her, along with the nameless, numberless tensions of the day.
Elusive sleep claimed her as she felt warm breath, then soft lips fairy brush against her cheek.
Brenna shifted close, and at last, the night, and Cassidy’s mind, lay still and quiet.
These characters are from Lara Zielinsky’s novel Turning Point, www.lzfiction.net.