Page 35 of Take What Hurts

With a rustle of sheets that Elliott saw rather than heard, Mackenzie sat up in bed. “Where are you going? It’s only…” A pause, and a phone light illuminated Mackenzie’s face in the dark, her hair sleep mussed and her eyes bleary. Beautiful. “Two a.m.,” she finished.

“Yeah, the mattress deflated, and my ass is on the floor. Mom didn’t leave the pump, so I’m heading to the couch.” Unsuitable as it was, it was better than sleeping on the floor.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mackenzie huffed, shuffling over in the bed and flopping down. “This is a queen. Come in here.” Elliott heard her patting what she assumed was the vacant side of the mattress.

Elliott hesitated. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?” she asked, clutching the duvet closer to her chest. Elliott knew the answer. Knew it was a hard no. But her gay little heart leapt with the possibility that Mackenzie would disagree.

“Haven’t you ever been to a sleepover? Friends share beds, Elliott. Now come on; it’s late.”

She had a point. In fairness, though, any sleepover Elliott had been to where she’d shared a bed with another queer girl had ended either in cuddling, spooning, making out, or plain old run-of-the-mill sex, depending on the age she was at said sleepover. But Elliott assumed that wasn’t true for all sleepovers. “All right,” she sighed. She threw her covers on the useless mattress on the floor and climbed into the far-more-comfortable and warmer bed.

“Good,” Mackenzie murmured, rolling to face Elliott. In the dim light, Elliott could see the way her long eyelashes gently caressed the skin below her eyes, and the way her lips pursed slightly. She relished the way Mackenzie tucked her hands together under her cheek and how the hair that had escaped from her top knot fell in gentle waves around her face. Like a frame around a priceless work of art.

And every inch of Elliott’s body was aflame. The proximity to Mackenzie like fucking jet fuel. She lay there, flat on her back, frozen with hot arousal—Mackenzie inches away in the bed next to her. Close enough that she could reach a pinky out and touch the soft skin on Mackenzie’s wrist. That she could move her foot slightly and connect with Mackenzie’s toes. Elliott rolled her head to the side, studying the softness that overtook Mackenzie’s face. The muscles relaxed and the skin smooth with the pleasant drowsiness of a person unconcerned with space or time. Elliott watched the slow rise and fall of Mackenzie’s chest—of deep, regulated breaths—and marveled at how Mackenzie was able to return to the deepest, most content sleep of her life, apparently at will, and entirely unaffected by the fact Elliott was in the bed next to her.

Had Elliott’s brain made up the way Mackenzie looked at her the other week on the street outside Elliott’s apartment? Had her brain fucking concocted the way she’d leaned into the touch of Elliott’s hand and had covered it with her own like she’d crumble to dust if Elliott let go? Elliott concluded that she must have made that shit up, because she wasn’t sure how Mackenzie could lie next to her, in the same bed, and just… sleep like that, otherwise.

But it wouldn’t be the first time Elliott had misread and miscommunicated, and the worry crept into the edges of her brain, blurring together in a whirling vortex of fact and fiction that was so rapid that Elliott couldn’t grasp one thing long enough to bring it to a stop. Paralyzed with it, Elliott squeezed her eyes closed and repeated the mantra of sleep, sleep, sleep to quiet the racing in her brain.

As the tide of drowsiness began to pull Elliott with it, a final thought that floated across her consciousness challenged the panic associated with unrequited feelings: that unrequited or not, the feelings were irrelevant. They were friends. That was all.

It’s fine.

So fine.

Ugh.

EIGHTEEN

MACKENZIE

Wet. That’s how Mackenzie woke up the morning of their ski day. Tired, too, because she’d lain there for what felt like days, eyes closed and unmoving, but with every nerve ending tingling and desperate for one touch of Elliott’s warm skin next to her in bed. Apparently, simply trying to will yourself back to sleep in those circumstances wasn’t something that came easy. So yes, tired. But also, fucking wet and hot.

Because as she’d gently fallen out of what she was sure was no more than several minutes of sleep to the soft light filtering through the sheer curtains, Mackenzie had stiffened at the soft press of small, pert breasts and the minute swell of tummy along the length of her back, and the warmth of long legs tucked behind her knees. At her small movement, Elliott’s arm, already enveloping her waist, just under her breasts, tightened and pulled Mackenzie closer. Bare skin on bare skin where Mackenzie’s shirt had ridden up in the night.

And Mackenzie hadn’t moved. Hadn’t wanted to. Couldn’t have if she tried. She thrummed with vibrating heat between her thighs and, despite every cell in her brain screaming at her to fucking move away, her ass wiggled back of its own accord, pressing harder into Elliott’s pelvis—the friction, frankly, divine and intoxicating and not very “friendly” at all.

The only movement from Elliott was a hitch in her breath and a gentle increase in pressure against Mackenzie’s back. Mackenzie squirmed with the harder press of Elliott’s breasts into the space between her shoulder blades. A soft moan rumbled against the back of Mackenzie’s ribs. She luxuriated in it. Luxuriated in the soft puff of an exhale on the back of her neck. Squeezed her thighs together against the flooding there, with a soft hitch in her own breath as Elliott’s thumb ghosted at the underside of her breast. Melted helplessly at the gentle tug of Elliott’s arm tightening around her again—Elliott pulling her impossibly closer, forehead nestling into the soft space at the base of Mackenzie’s skull. Burned in the place where Elliott’s lips came to rest on the soft skin at the top of her spine, her breathing the soft rhythm of a person half asleep.

The soft moan built inside Mackenzie’s throat, then seeped long and low out past her lips like a barely there breath. Almost like an answer, Elliott’s soft lips pressed harder into the skin on her neck, teasing the strong tendon forming a column there. And then Elliott was… Was she? Fuck⁠—

She was.

Elliott’s mouth opened against Mackenzie’s heated skin, and kisses feathered over the back of her neck. A lascivious trail climbing upward—up behind her ear, before traveling back down—tracing the boundary of her throat. So light, so soft. Barely there. But unmistakable. And the burning spark sitting bright in Mackenzie’s abdomen ignited. Her skin. Her bones. Everything down to her fingernails. Her chest heaved, and she was sure if she examined it closely, it would bear the imprint in the shape of her heart with the way it rammed relentlessly against the muscle and skin there. She swore she could feel Elliott’s own heartbeat hammering against her spine as the kisses pressed harder and faster, Elliott’s mouth opening wider to Mackenzie’s skin, tongue lazily swiping over the goose bumps that erupted with each press of Elliott’s lips. Then, with unmistakable intent, the hand swiping absently at the underside of Mackenzie’s breast stroked higher, and higher, Mackenzie’s breath almost a wheeze with each gentle movement, until finally Elliott’s thumb swiped reverently over the hard peak of Mackenzie’s nipple, and⁠—

Mackenzie couldn’t take it. Did Elliott know she was awake? Was Elliott awake? She had to know, because she wanted—no—she needed more. She rolled gently in Elliott’s arms and came face-to-face with a dreamy smile and closed eyelids.

Some dream.

Fingers trembling, Mackenzie placed a hand on Elliott’s cheek. “Elliott,” she murmured into the muffled quiet of the morning, voice thick with sleep.

At the soft sound of her voice, Elliott’s eyelids fluttered, the golden brown of her eyes just visible as her mouth pulled broader, the lazy smile warmer than the sunrise. Mackenzie’s fingers twitched, desperate to run through the tousled curls on the top of Elliott’s head. Wanted to trace the crease in Elliott’s cheek from where she’d lain on it in the night.

But she didn’t get a chance.

Recognition washed over Elliott’s features. Then the warm tone of her skin flushed hot and red. Then the recognition gave way to open-mouthed abject horror.

Then she was gone.