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If you were to ask her, Max would say she doesn’t remember how it started. She’d look away, at her shoes maybe, cheeks dusted pink and pretending her hair isn’t still tousled.
It starts in Chloe’s truck, with her boots in Max’s lap; Max’s own sneakers are resting on the dashboard. They count birds and fiddle with the radio static until Chloe kicks off, turning the ignition on.
Max doesn’t ask where they’re going: when Chloe grins to herself like this, it’s impossible to get an answer out of her, other than “you’ll see.”
And she does see--the bell tower materializes into view, and when Chloe pulls up beside the church Max feels a twinge of unease. Not because she’s religious - the only service whatever god is out there has done is dump her back in Arcadia Bay, and she doesn’t have to ask Chloe if she’s a believer - but Chloe’s already out of the truck and extending a hand.
“C’mon, Max. Too late to chicken out.”
“I’m not chickening out,” she protests, but Chloe just laughs as she jimmies the wooden doors open.
They cross the threshold into silence, a darkened holy space heavy with leftover incense and temptations. Light filters in, muted hues of green and blue and purple, over pews and across polished tiles. Behind them, the doors shut with a sound like faraway thunder. Max’s eyes adjust, seeking out angles and positioning frames every which way, from arch to arch.
“Geek,” Chloe calls from down the aisle: her voice echoes back to Max, soft as a secret, colourful as the stained-glass windows above their heads. She pulls her lighter from her pocket and starts lighting candles: at the altar, then to the smaller ones reserved for collections and donations.
Max unslings her bag and shrugs out of her sweater, leaving them on a pew as she grabs her camera. “I think you’re supposed to pay for those.”
The lens is already focused on the girl in front of her, on shadows from the flickering light dancing across her cheekbones, on the frown of concentration gracing her features. “God, Max, you’re such a goody-goody. Fine. You got a quarter?”
Chloe sure as shit doesn’t have a halo, but Max still wants to capture her likeness and make her shine in a place like this.
The click-click-whirrr of the shutter makes Chloe look up from her handiwork. “Now you,” she announces, holding out the lighter.
It doesn’t take long for Max to comply: she finds another bench for the camera (after snapping a quick picture of the windows and making a show of ignoring Chloe’s teasing behind her), waving the print absently as she brings the lighter to a wick and watches it catch. The glow warms her face.
A pair of arms wind around her from behind, making her let out a yelp and drop the lighter: it hits the tile at her feet with a clink and rolls away, already forgotten.
“Why so on edge?” Chloe’s voice tickles the back of her neck. Max feels a blush creep up to her ears, and tries to brush it off as heat from the offering candles. Hands are at her waist; they tease, light touches here and there, ever so slightly pulling her backwards against the taller girl.
Max turns her head, and is met with a shock of blue hair. “You can’t...”
“I can, and I am,” Chloe replies, low against Max’s neck. Shivers crawl along her spine, beneath the fabric of her shirt.
“Chloe, I—in a church?!”
Her only response is a brush of fingers up Max’s side, her thumb tracing the curve of her bra over her T-shirt.
Max finally turns, flush against her. The photo flutters to the ground at their feet. “You’re crazy.”
In the candlelight, she can see that Chloe’s pupils are blown, darkened blue surrounding black, full of mischief and want and something Max has never been able to place.
“Yeah,” Chloe says, her lips brushing over the other girl’s, “I’m fuckin’ insane.”
Chloe tastes like cigarettes and some kind of fruit that Max’s mind is already too fuzzy to place. It’s unfair, really, how Chloe’s kisses set to work on her racing thoughts so easily; how her hands are everywhere at once, at the small of her back and against her ass and in her hair—
She feels the sharp tug and the sound she makes only registers a moment later, when it echoes around them in the empty chambers of the church. Chloe’s laughter is as warm as the candles, burning with something new, and the hand tangled in sandy locks doesn’t stray even as Chloe’s mouth does, leaving traces of her on Max’s skin in its wake.
Max lets her head tip back: any doubt about this, any doubt about anything is so easily erased by Chloe Price. It’s something of a drug, like Saturday mornings in t-shirts and boxers with the stereo on high watching smoke rise to the rafters. The only thing rising today is Max’s eagerness for more, and she pulls Chloe back up again to crush her mouth to hers. She feels the other girl grin against her lips, and a thigh presses between her legs.
Oh.
She lets herself be guided backwards until her back hits something solid—brick? Limestone? Max doesn’t care—all she sees is Chloe, her beanie abandoned somewhere on the tiles behind them, delicious pressure from her thigh making Max grind against it, forgetting to be embarrassed about it. Her tattoos dance beneath her fingers in the candlelight, alive and hot (so fucking hot).
Chloe’s lips move again, along her jaw, mouthing over her collarbone before trailing across her chest and down her stomach.
“Jesus, Chloe—”
She’s already kneeling on the floor, her face against Max’s crotch like it’s any other fucking day of the week. Chloe looks up at her again, stray strands of blue hair falling in front of her face and casting shadows over her eyes.
Any words Max had been planning escape her mind. Chloe must notice: she grins devilishly and makes short work of the zipper on Max’s jeans, sliding her pants down. The wavering heat from the candles mixed with the open air of the church makes Max shiver, goosebumps on her thighs. Chloe’s lips find them, too, before trailing lazily over her underwear.
A moan escapes Max’s lips before she can stop herself. Chloe drags the flat of her tongue over the fabric, and heat pools low in the brunette’s stomach.
“Jeez, Max, you’re soaking wet already. Why didn’t I bring you here earlier?” Chloe winks.
“Sh…shut up.”
That’s as far as Max gets, though, before Chloe’s clever fingers push down her underwear and spread her, giving a slow experimental lick with the tip of her tongue.
“God—”
Max’s head hits the wall behind her, her teeth digging into her bottom lip in a half-assed attempt to keep quiet as Chloe pushes her tongue deeper inside her. Her fingers weave themselves in bright blue locks, and one impatient pull against her coaxes a groan muffled between her legs. Painted fingernails dig into the soft skin of her thighs, raking their way down the sides: the sensation is enough to make Max see stars.
She’s not very good at being quiet, not even with the threat of the church’s acoustics—not when Chloe is so fucking good at this, with expert flicks of the tongue and teasing grazes of her teeth along the inside of her thighs. It doesn’t take long for Max’s moans to take on a note of desperation, drawing out every part of the other’s name between increasingly heavy breaths—“Chloe, Chlo-oh…oh, Christ, Chloe—”
Her hands in the taller girl’s hair tighten, locking her firmly in place even as her hips rock against her face of their own accord. Not that Max is sorry, not really—not at all, not when it feels this good. Chloe, to her credit, doesn’t seem to mind: an appreciative hum against Max’s crotch makes her shiver as Chloe resumes long, agonizingly slow strokes of her tongue that make every synapse in Max’s body fire.
“I’m—Chloe, I’m gonna—”
“Max…” Chloe’s fingers dig hard enough to bruise, her tongue playing at her clit until Max’s hips jerk and she comes: white-knuckled hands in the other girl’s hair, trembling legs and a string of swears worthy of whatever deity might be listening. Her moans reach the rafters like smoke, through the arches and up to the ornately painted ceiling.
When she finishes riding out her orgasm and loosens her grip on her head, Chloe sits back on her heels and makes a show of wiping her mouth. Her lips are red, shiny; Max pulls her up to kiss them, and tastes herself on Chloe’s mouth.
She’s not in a rush to pull up her pants. “Now you.” Max’s voice is hoarse, coherent speech still a foggy afterthought.
Chloe shrugs. “If you insist. But let’s find a new place.”
“Why not here?”
“Maxine Caulfield, we are in the house of God!”
Max punches her arm. “You still owe the house of God a quarter.”
“I think I paid my dues in full.”