"Since the tennis courts."
Elise reached up and brushed the smeared lipstick from the corner of Sienna's mouth with her thumb. Sienna went still under the touch, her breath catching. The skin beneath Elise's thumb was soft and her pulse was visible in the hollow of her throat, rapid and unsteady.
"I thought you didn't want me," Elise said. "Last night, when you pulled away. I thought I'd imagined everything."
"You didn't imagine anything." Sienna's voice dropped. The vulnerability in it was acute, stripped of every professional shield she usually carried. "I've wanted you since the first day I saw you. I've wanted you every single day since."
Elise's chest flooded with heat. She pulled Sienna closer by the lapel of her jacket, the movement instinctive, and Sienna came, and their foreheads touched. Sienna's skin was warm against hers. Their breathing mixed in the small space between their mouths.
"You're so beautiful," Elise said. "I need you to know that. You're so beautiful and you don't seem to know it and it kills me."
Sienna's eyes glistened. She shook her head, a small, reflexive denial, and the vulnerability on her face was so raw that Elise ached with it. This was the wound she'd glimpsed in pieces over the past weeks, in the self-deprecating comments and the deflected compliments and the way Sienna looked at herself inmirrors as if checking for flaws. Someone had made this woman believe she was unremarkable. Her parents, or the world, or the years of keeping herself so tightly controlled that she'd forgotten she was allowed to be wanted.
"Elise..."
"No. Listen to me." Elise cupped Sienna's face with her good hand, her thumb on her cheekbone, her fingers in her hair. The skin beneath her thumb was so soft. "You are beautiful. I don’t mean your face- although that is indeed so beautiful, I mean all of you. Who you are. The way you listen. The way you take care of people. The way you fold napkins into squares and organise soy sauce packets and can't take a compliment without blushing." She felt Sienna's cheek heat beneath her palm, the blush spreading like dawn. "You blush and it's the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen."
Sienna closed her eyes. Her lashes were damp. "Stop."
"I won't." Elise kissed the corner of her mouth, soft and brief. "I won't stop telling you. Get used to it."
Sienna's breath shuddered against Elise's lips. Her fingers tightened in Elise's hair. They were so close, foreheads touching, mouths almost touching, and Elise could feel Sienna's heartbeat through the fabric of her jacket, fast and uneven.
"Walk me home," Elise said.
Sienna pulled back enough to look at her. The question was in her eyes, clear and careful: what happens when we get there?
"Walk me home," Elise said again. Quieter this time. Certain. She held Sienna's gaze and let her see everything, every want, every intention, nothing hidden.
Sienna held her gaze for a long beat. Then she nodded.
They stood up from the bench. Elise's legs were unsteady and Sienna's hand found the small of her back, steadying her, the gesture automatic and tender. They walked. The waterfront path was empty, the restaurants closed, the string lightsdimmed. Their hands found each other somewhere between the bench and the first streetlight, Elise's fingers threading through Sienna's, and the contact was warm and grounding and shockingly intimate. Elise had kissed women before, slept with women before, but she'd never held someone's hand on a midnight walk along the ocean and felt the touch travel through her entire body.
Sienna's hand was slim and strong, the long fingers wrapping around Elise's with a grip that was both gentle and certain. Elise felt a small scar on Sienna’s left thumb and traced it with her own thumb as they walked.
They didn't talk. There was nothing left to explain. The truth had been spoken and the kiss had been given and now they were walking home together and the silence was full of everything that was about to happen. Elise squeezed Sienna's hand and felt the answering squeeze, and the simple exchange said more than words could.
Elise's building appeared. The cream stucco and the iron balconies, all of it familiar and changed, because the last time they'd walked through this door together, Sienna had been her doctor. Now she was more than that. She was everything.
They climbed the stairs side by side, their shoulders touching on the narrow staircase. Elise's hand shook as she unlocked the door. The keys jangled against the lock and Sienna's hand covered hers, steadying, and the gesture was so small and so tender that Elise's throat went tight.
The apartment was dark. The burned-down candles from last night were still on the coffee table, just pools of hardened wax in glass holders. The coffee cups were still on the table, unwashed, and the recycled sushi containers were still stacked on the counter. She'd left everything exactly as it was, as if cleaning up would have meant accepting that the evening was over and wrong. The sight of them made her chest compress.
She'd lit those candles for Sienna. She'd lit them hoping for exactly this, and then it had gone wrong, and now Sienna was standing in her doorway with smeared lipstick and mussed hair and the most open expression Elise had ever seen on her face, and it was going right, and the whiplash of it made her dizzy.
She closed the door behind them. The click of the latch was loud in the silent apartment. She turned and Sienna was right there, standing in the dark hallway with the streetlight from the window falling across her cheekbone and her lips still swollen from the bench. Her eyes were dark and wide and certain.
Elise pulled her in and kissed her.
This kiss was different from the one by the ocean. That had been desperate, breaking open, weeks of restraint shattering at once. This was slow. Intentional. Elise kissed Sienna slowly, thoroughly, her hand at the back of Sienna's neck, her fingers in the soft hair at her nape. She could taste the elderflower and beneath it the heat of Sienna's mouth, and she pushed her tongue against Sienna's lower lip and then past it and felt Sienna's whole body shudder.
Sienna kissed her back. Her mouth opened wider, her tongue meeting Elise's, and the kiss deepened until heat rushed through Elise's body, intense and focused. Sienna's hands came up to Elise's waist, her fingers curling into the fabric of her top, pulling her closer with an urgency that contradicted every careful, composed thing Sienna had ever done in Elise's presence. Elise pressed her against the wall and kissed her harder. The wall was cool against Sienna's back and Elise's body was warm against her front and the press of their bodies together was intoxicating. Sienna made a sound in the back of her throat, low and desperate, and the sound went straight through Elise, heat building between her legs.
"I want you," Elise murmured against her lips. Her voice was low and rough. "I've wanted you for weeks. I want to touch you. I want to taste you. Will you let me?"
Sienna's eyes opened. They were darker than Elise had ever seen them, the pupils blown wide. Her lips were swollen and wet and her breath was coming in short, rapid bursts against Elise's mouth.
"Yes." The word was certain. No hesitation. No professional mask. Just Sienna, looking at Elise in the dark hallway of her apartment with tear tracks still visible on her cheeks and her lipstick gone and her eyes blazing. "I want this. I want you."