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“Tai. Where are you going? Tai, wake up.”
Tai jolts awake with a gasp, wild-eyed, feeling like she’s just crashed back into her body from miles away. She tries to orient herself. The rope is digging into the delicate skin on her wrist. Her feet are damp with dirt and grass, her arms prickling with goosebumps from the cool night breeze. The trees rustle and sway in the woods around her, and Van’s face is luminous in the light of the moon, inches away from Tai’s, her eyes wide and curious.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Van says soothingly. “I’m right here.” Her hands find Tai’s and grasp them tightly, grounding her.
Tai looks around uneasily. They can’t be too far from the cabin, but every tree looks the same in the near-darkness, the woods feeling impossibly large around her. She is grateful for Van’s rough hands in hers, the ease with which their fingers interlock and the familiar cadence of Van’s thumbs rubbing her own.
“What was I…”
“Doing? Yeah, I don’t know,” Van fills in with a rueful smile. “Wandering around like you do. Looking for whatever you’re looking for. Nothing in particular that I could tell. I think I heard once that you’re not supposed to wake someone when they’re sleepwalking? But I think maybe all of this could be considered special circumstances.”
A fleeting smile crosses Tai’s lips in spite of herself. The daze is fading and she feels a little more like herself again, enough that the guilt starts to settle back into her chest. She pushes back on it defensively. “What, were you worried about me?”
“Me? No,” Van retorts. “It just gets boring trekking through the woods after you all the time. If you’re going to keep me up all night, you should at least make it interesting.”
Tai raises an eyebrow and heat races up Van’s neck, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “I… well. You know what I mean.”
Tai smirks. She takes a step closer, her movements quiet and soft in the grass. “Do I?”
The wind picks up, whispering up Tai’s arms and blowing strands of Van’s red hair into her face. Tai reaches up instinctively and smooths them back, her hands lingering on Van’s neck, her ears, with a profound gentleness that only Van has ever known in her. The rope tugs at Van’s wrist with the movement, almost urging her forward.
Van reaches for Tai’s waist and pulls her in until their foreheads nearly touch, closing the last few inches between them. A mischievous smile turns up the corner of her mouth. “Don’t you?”
Tai laughs, filling Van with warmth, and tips Van’s face upward, cupping it firmly in her hands. Her lips find Van’s easily and she kisses her softly, slowly, savoring the feeling of Van’s mouth on hers. Van traces tiny patterns into Tai’s back with her fingers, trailing lightly in circles as she revels in the sweetness of it, the warmth that rises in her with Tai’s touch.
Suddenly, she is off balance as Tai pushes against her, sending her stumbling backward until her heels strike the base of a tree. Her back presses into its trunk with a shock of pain and excitement as Tai kisses her harder, Van’s bottom lip between Tai’s teeth, Tai’s tongue in Van’s mouth, Tai’s hands sliding down her neck and onto her chest, her waist, navigating the familiar curves of her body with such relish that Van shivers. Tai shoves her knee between Van’s legs and Van gasps into her mouth, digging her hands into Tai’s thick curls, grasping for something solid to steady her.
Tai shifts her attention from Van’s lips to her cheek, her jaw, then her neck, sucking at her skin hungrily, and Van tips her head back to the sky, trying in vain to catch her breath. Tai’s hand rises to Van’s collarbone and closes gently around her throat. She pauses to look at Van. “Is this interesting enough for you?”
Van shrugs, not trusting herself to keep her voice steady, and tries her hardest to rearrange her face into something resembling nonchalance. Tai’s laugh echoes around them in the dark. She squeezes just a little tighter around Van’s neck, forcing Van to keep her face turned toward Tai, and then suddenly her other hand is sliding up Van’s thigh, under her shirt and onto her stomach, eliciting a shuddering gasp that Van is immediately and profoundly embarrassed of.
“That’s what I thought,” Tai drawls, and then her mouth is on Van’s again, sucking and biting at her lip with an insatiable hunger. She presses her thigh between Van’s legs while her hands tease at everywhere else, grabbing at her ass, her chest, the backs of her thighs. Tai rolls Van’s nipple between her fingers and Van moans softly into her mouth, pressing against Tai with all her strength, begging for more.
Tai’s hands are insistent and growing more confident by the second as they roam over Van, sliding Van’s shorts down in one swift motion before Van even fully registers what’s happening, and then she’s running her fingers over the most desperate part of Van and Van can no longer contain herself. “Please,” she murmurs, and finally, mercifully, Tai obliges, dipping her fingers into Van and relishing the slick warmth that envelops them.
Van clings to Tai, her fingernails scratching at Tai’s back as Tai brings her to a dizzying state of bliss, her middle fingers working a fervent rhythm while her thumb circles Van’s clit. Van’s breath is coming in shallow gasps as the pressure builds inside her and she buries her face in Tai’s neck, delighting Tai with her muffled moans and the way she shakes and trembles against Tai, beautifully at her mercy.
Soon Van is at her tipping point, and Tai knows it. Pressing her full weight against Van, she forces Van’s face to her own and closes her lips around Van’s as she takes Van over the edge, reveling in the way Van whimpers into her open mouth, her body shaking uncontrollably, completely undone beneath Tai’s hands. Tai can’t help the grin that spreads across her face as she finally pulls away. She makes a show of sucking on her fingers, savoring the taste of Van on her tongue, while Van holds on tightly around Tai’s shoulders, trying in vain to steady her breathing.
Tai is glowing with pride, Van dizzy and dazed and flushed with sweat, and Tai’s hands, satisfied, deftly slip Van’s shorts back over her hips before taking Van’s hands once more. She leans in for a short and sweet kiss, pulling away quickly, still admiring her handiwork.
“Fuck,” Van mutters, bashfully avoiding Tai’s eyes. “Never let it be said that Taissa Turner doesn’t know how to make things interesting.”
With that, both girls dissolve into laughter, leaning into each other with a careless, easy kind of satisfaction. When they finally settle, Van presses her lips to Tai’s temple.
“Thank you,” she whispers. Tai can find only a hint of sarcasm in her low voice, and it flusters her a little.
“Really, it’s the least I could do,” Tai replies after a moment, half-joking. She interlaces her fingers with Van’s. “Now, are you really going to keep me out here until the morning, or can we get some real sleep?”
“Oh, please, as if it’s my fault that we’re even out here in the first place. Might I remind you which of us is the crazy sleepwalker…”
Hand in hand, they bicker all the way back to the cabin. The woods are quiet as they pass, frozen in time, as if even the wilderness falls silent occasionally, in recognition of something so beautifully separate from itself.