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Ruby's heart pounds in her chest as Nicole's soft lips move slowly against hers, languidly, their tongues sliding together in a wet dance. Nicole straddles her on Ruby’s bed, her body warm and pliant, pressing down atop Ruby's. Ruby's hands roam up and down Nicole’s sides, tracing from the curve of her waist to the dip of her hips.
Ruby’s mind swims in a haze of overwhelming blissー how she always feels with Nicole. Late at night, when Ruby thinks back to these moments, she compares herself to a tide, and Nicole is the moon that commands it. Nicole breathes against her lips, a soft exhale. Ruby hums and kisses her slower.
“I have to go,” Nicole murmurs into the kiss.
Ruby’s heart gives her ribs a kick, though she doesn’t let it show, keeping her hands steady and her mouth where it wants to be. “Don’t,” Ruby whispers into the corner of Nicole’s mouth.
Nicole hums. “I have to.”
Ruby’s fingers slide down Nicole’s arms, find her wrists, and hold them gently, stroking into the delicate skin. “Yeah, yeah.”
Nicole hums and keeps kissing her, laughing softly. “I do. I really have to go.”
Ruby’s breath hitches. She guides Nicole’s wrists down to the mattress on either side of her own head. “Stay,” Ruby says quietly.
Nicole simply presses another kiss to Ruby’s mouth. “I can’t,” she murmurs.
Ruby’s jaw tightens, trying to swallow down her frustration. She kisses Nicole through her next sentence. “You always say you can’t, and you always…” she hums, “You’re still on top of me.”
Nicole grins against Ruby’s lips, gently tugging on her wrists with no real effort to release them. “You’re holding me hostage.”
Ruby’s thumbs press into the inside Nicole’s wrists. “Don’t go yet.” She kisses Nicole again. When she breaks the kiss, her eyes stay on Nicole’s face, pleading without the indignity of saying ‘please’. Her hands slide down from Nicole’s wrists to lace their fingers together.
Ruby thinks Nicole’ll pull away and put her walls back up, the way she always does when Ruby accidentally lets it be tender rather than the casual agreement they’ve fallen into, but Nicole stays right there, breathing Ruby’s air.
Ruby isn’t stupid. For all Nicole’s player reputation, the blonde doesn’t let many people into her space, not really. There’s a difference between being wanted and being let in, and Ruby can feel the border Nicole keeps around herself, even when Nicole is panting and pliant in Ruby’s hands. Ruby tells herself Nicole just needs time, that if Ruby doesn’t pushー if she stays patientー Nicole will circle back to the serious conversation they keep almost having. In the meantime, they do get closer in these small, disarming ways, with the occasional glimpse of Nicole half-asleep and unguarded and soft, a moment of vulnerability that flickers across her face before she remembers how to smirk it away.
Sometimes it feels like it could end badly. Sometimes Ruby can sense the cliff edge, a heartbreak and fight she’ll never be ready to face. But for now, it’s strangely sweet, softened by the fact that Nicole keeps coming back.
“I really have to,” Nicole uselessly insists again.
Ruby’s throat tightens. She gently lets go of Nicole’s hands to bring her own back on the blonde’s hips. “Okay. In a minute,” Ruby says as she connects their lips again.
“Yeah, in a minuー mhh, fuck…”
Their mouths meet again, and whatever restraint Ruby managed to keep for the last few seconds dissolves on impact. The kiss starts out slow, again, but it doesn’t stay very civilized for long.
It quickly turns sloppy again. Ruby pulls Nicole closer, her mouth opening wider to push her tongue in, making her own pulse throb low in her belly. Her hands tighten on Nicole's hips, not ready to let this end. Nicole moans softly into the kiss, her response a hesitant push of her tongue against Ruby's. She makes no effort to move, her body warm on Ruby's thighs, her hands sliding up to fist in Ruby's hair.
Overwhelmed, her chest tight with how much she needs Nicole, Ruby's hands slide down, cupping the curve of Nicole's ass through her jeans. She grips hard, her fingers digging in with a strong hold, and she presses Nicole forward, grinding her against Ruby's core in a deep roll. Nicole gasps into her mouth, her body arching instinctively.
Ruby's palm lifts, then comes down in the lightest spank, a tap, really, against the denim-clad flesh, but it's hard enough to make Nicole moan, the vibration humming through their joined lips. Ruby feels the way Nicole instantly clings tighter, and it pushes her further into that blissful overload, her own breath hitching as she spanks again, a bit harder this time. It makes Nicole's ass jiggle under her hand and draw another throaty moan that Ruby swallows whole.
The haze of desire cracks open in Ruby's mind, a heavy flood of memories crashing through the sensual fog. All those times Nicole whispered promises against her skin, late nights tangled in sheets, murmurs about the future only to vanish by morning with excuses, the hope Nicole dangles like bait, pulling Ruby deeper each time, making her believe they’re actually building something real only for the line to snap and leave the redhead adrift, heart bruised while she still waits in anticipation for the next time she’ll feel Nicole’s lips…
Every abandonment suddenly stings, the pain a knife twisting in her gut, fueling the fire in her veins. She's let it happen again and again, swallowing the hurt for those stolen moments, for just a fragment of the affection Ruby craves so desperately.
“Ruby…”
Her grip on Nicole's ass tightens, overcome by her emotions. Her palm rears back and cracks down harder this time, sending a jolt through Nicole's body that makes her yelp into Ruby's mouth. Each strike is, unfairly, a release of the bottled-up agony the redhead has been carrying for months. She spanks again, the force stiff, watching Nicole's hips buck forward, her hair whipping as she gasps. Another follows, harder still, Ruby's hand stinging from the impact, but the pain in her chest demands more, for Nicole to feel even a fraction of what she's endured.
Ruby’s lips leave Nicole’s to breathe against her jaw, down to the shell of her ear. She nips at the lobe. “Count,” she orders. Nicole's breath hitches, and she nods against her neck. Ruby’s palm comes dwn in a firm slap.
“One,” Nicole breathes, the word muffled into Ruby’s neck, her thighs squeezing Ruby's sides as the heat builds between them. In Ruby's mind, the counts align with her regrets: the first time Nicole left her stranded after the first holiday party. Her hand swings again.
“Two,” Nicole gasps. Every time Nicole has openly, shamelessly, flirted with Brad in front of Ruby. The redhead’s thoughts spiral. Another spank follows, harder, the impact jarring Nicole forward.
“Three.”
Nicole’s breasts press into Ruby’s chest as she whimpers. Ruby's free hand slides up Nicole's back, holding her in place, refusing to let her escape this time, even as the memories claw at her feeble brain: the hope of a shared future shattered by Nicole's casual 'I can't commit,' followed by glossy lips and sweet words that reeled her back in.
Ruby’s fingers dig in to soothe the ache she’s creating as Nicole whispers a weak ‘Four’ at the next spank. The blonde’s legs are shaking, her grip on Ruby’s shoulders desperate. Ruby can feel hot breath panting against her neck. She recalls Nicole getting jealous over Penelope, only to hide this jealousy behind jokes and a too-tall-to-climb wall.
Another smack translates her hurt into physical force, her palm burning now from the repeated contact. “Five,” Nicole counts, her voice breathier, her hips grinding down against Ruby's thigh even as she tries to pull away.
The friction pulls a low groan from deep in Ruby's throat. She thinks about how she was so close to a confession when they catered for Poppy’s grandma, and that, too, went to shit. That, technically, wasn’t Nicole’s fault, but…
Her mind races through the litany of pains: letting Nicole flirt with others in front of her, smiling through the jealousy for a chance at intimacy, enduring the emotional whiplash of hot and cold, over a year of push and pull and playing games, all because a sliver of Nicole's heart feels like enough to survive on.
Nicole's counts rise in pitch, her ass bouncing with each hit, the denim tight over theー surely reddeningー flesh beneath. Ruby's overwhelmed state peaks, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as she lightly pants, but she channels it into the next strike, harder than the last, making Nicole cry out 'Eight!' with a sob that mirrors Ruby's inner fracture.
It’s lunacy, a sort of mixture between masochism and sadism she can't stop, the physical act purging the emotional torrent even as it binds them closer.
“Nine,” Nicole mumbles wetly into Ruby’s neck at the next slap, the redhead remembering trying to speak to her at this year’s holiday party, only for Nicole to turn it into a joke. Nicole’s body melts into Ruby’s despite the pain, her hands clutching and clawing.
Ruby can feel tears leaking onto her neck, but she ignores the wetness. The tenth spank is the loudest yet, the counted number dissolving into a muffled sobー that one’s for the first time they had sex: Nicole left Ruby cold and alone in her own bed right after they were done.
Nicole buries herself deeper into the crook of Ruby's shoulder. The warmth of her tears soaks into Ruby's skin, a reminder of the rare vulnerability cracking through Nicole's facade. Ruby moves one hand up and pulls back just enough to tilt Nicole's chin up with her thumb, forcing those teary eyes to meet her own. The sight of Nicole crumples Ruby’s heart, a blend of triumph and ache. Another swing of her palm connects with Nicole’s ass.
Nicole gasps out, “Iー twelve? I don’tー”
Ruby shakes her head. “Eleven.”
Nicole gulps. “E-eleven,” she whispers, the word slurred through her tears, her body shuddering.
Ruby needs more, and the denim is in the way. She lets Nicole’s chin go, lowers her hand, hooks her fingers into the waistband of the jeans, and tugs them down. Nicole gasps as the cool air hits her overheated skin, and Ruby’s hands immediately slip beneath the cotton of Nicole’s underwear, her palms covering the reddened flesh.
It’s warm to the touch, and Ruby hums as she feels it under her fingertips. She squeezes hard, pulling Nicole forward, grinding her hips forward. Nicole’s head slumps to the side, exposing her throat. Ruby buries her face there as she tugs the underwear aside. She pulls one hand up only to bring it down again. The sound is lewd.
“T-twelve.”
Ruby aligns the strike with the memory of Nicole ditching her on New Year’s, letting the physical catharsis bleed out the emotional rot. After they had kissed at the countdown for midnight, Nicole had simply re-joined Bridgette and Amber to dance, leaving Ruby alone on the dance floor of a club Nicole had invited her to.
Ruby sighs. Nicole is destroyed, laid bare, sobbing and panting, but she’s here, taking it. She’s not running. There’s a cruel comfort with the knowledge of knowing that Nicole isn’t going anywhere… can’t, for now.
Ruby’s hands are rough and her slaps are grim, but her heart is softening with every cry she pulls from Nicole’s throat, sniffling away her own tears. She leans in and presses a soft kiss to Nicole’s temple.
“I’ve got you,” she whispers, the words meant as much for herself as for Nicole, “I’ve always got you.” She takes a deep breath before she spanks her again, thinking about the tenderness she had felt holding a sleeping Nicole in her arms, only for the latter to have disappeared come morning time.
Watching the ripple of skin and the way Nicole’s back arches, one of Ruby’s hands strokes up Nicole’s spine, her rough finger tracing the knobs of her vertebrae before cupping the back of her head, holding her close.
Nicole melts into it, boneless, the tension draining out of her limbs as Ruby’s fingers card through blonde hair, a stark contrast to the heavy hand on her ass. Nicole leans into the affection, and Ruby’s heart breaks with a devastating sweetness.
“You forgot to count,” she whispers against the shell of Nicole’s ear.
Nicole stiffens slightly, whimpering. “Ruby, pleaseー I’mー”
The plea breaks something inside of Ruby. She thinks she might sob right along Nicole, the pressure behind her eyes burning. The memories paired with the feeling of Nicole is all too much to bear, but there’s a desperate need to purge this poison from their system. She holds back the tears, burying her emotions under another stinging slap.
“Fourteen, now,” Ruby whispers in Nicole’s ear. The memory of Nicole flirting with Brad on Valentine’s day when she and Ruby were going out after their shift plays in high definition in Ruby’s mind.
She can feel some wetness smearing against her own thigh where Nicole straddles her. It hurts to know Nicole can take this pain and turn it into pleasure, that her body accepts Ruby’s punishment so willingly even if her heart holds back.
It’s all coming up like bile.
“I love you,” Ruby stupidly, suddenly confesses, blurting it out before she can think it through. Her voice shakes as she tugs slightly on blonde hair.
Nicole slowly nods against her neck. “I know.”
Not that Ruby was expecting any sort of reciprocationー she knows her own emotions are terrifyingly big, too intense. It burns her chest and, silently, a few unbidden tears leave her eyes, wetting Nicole’s hair. She wishes Nicole would just say it, even if it was a lie. She wishes she could hear it and believe it.
She spanks her again, harder, for this moment precisely, mourning the love she gives so freely that never seems to find its way back to her.
“Ruby,” Nicole whispers. It sounds fragile.
Ruby feels the breath against the sensitive skin of her neck. Then, softly, Nicole’s lips press there, placed right over the frantic and pounding pulse point where Ruby’s heartbeat hammers. It feels like Nicole giving something small and true back to herー as much as she can.
Ruby’s breath shudders. Slowly, Nicole pulls back to look up. Their eyes meet, and it feels like the oxygen has been sucked out of the room. Nicole’s lashes are spiked with tears, her dazed eyes swimming with a fractured sort of expression. Ruby knows her own eyes are wet too, probably looks as wrecked as she feels. They are both panting, open-mouthed and staring at each other across the expanse of their own hurt.
Ruby lets a few seconds pass before she leans down and crashes their lips together. It’s wet and sloppy, messy with the salt of their tears and the desperation of the moment.
“I thought you really had to go,” Ruby whispers against Nicole’s mouth.
Nicole shakes her head, their noses bumping. “No,” she breathes.
Ruby’s traitorous heart flares with hope, and she immediately attempts to stomp it out. But then Nicole is pulling back slightly, and Ruby all but dies at the raw need in her gaze.
“Ruby,” Nicole pants, “Ruby, fuck me. I want you to.”
Ruby thinks if Nicole had punched her in the face, the blow would hit the same as the request. She shakes her head. “No, No, Nicole.”
Nicole’s hands come up to grab Ruby’s face. “Yes. Ruby, please. I need it. Please.”
Ruby keeps shaking her head, the denial tasting like ash on her tongue. She is too overwhelmed right now, her heart literally in the palm of Nicole’s hand. Not that they’ve never done it, but if they do this right now, Ruby might not survive it.
“Ruby, pleaseー” Nicole keeps begging, trying to grind her voice down.
Ruby shakes her head. Gently, with a trembling strength she doesn’t quite feel, she grips Nicole’s waist and flips them around until Nicole is sinking her back into the mattress. The blonde goes willingly, her hair fanning out against Ruby’s pillow, her chest heaving. Ruby moves over her, bracketing her head with her arms.
Nicole looks beautifully debauched. For a long moment, they don’t speak. Ruby looks into Nicole’s eyes and she feels like she’s re-reading a book she’s already memorized by heart. It feels, terrifyingly, as though their souls were meant only to be understood by each other.
Nicole’s hands, trembling slightly, lift from the sheets and come up to frame Ruby’s face. Her palms are warm and slightly damp with sweat. Ruby lets out a shuddering breath as she leans her cheek into Nicole’s touch. She turns her head enough to press her lips to the center of Nicole’s palm, kissing her there.
“Ruby,” Nicole breathes, her thumbs stroking Ruby’s sharp cheekbones. Her voice is so desperate. Ruby’s delusional enough to confuse arousal for a plea for a connection, for obliteration. “Please… please, fuck me. I need you. I need you, Ruby.”
Ruby’s resistance crumblesー a paper house built on a foundation of self-preservation blown down by one look at Nicole’s wrecked expression. She is down so bad, hopelessly devoted to this woman who holds her heart in herー often carelessー hands. She is obsessed, even when it hurts. She can’t deny her, she doesn’t know how to deny her anything.
“Okay,” Ruby whispers, “okay.” She settles her weight fully against Nicole, relishing in the way Nicole’s legs wrap immediately around her, pulling her in. RUby captures her mouth in a messy kiss.
Clothes are discarded frantically in the rush to get skin to skin. Ruby realizes, with jarring clarity, that she needs this just as much as Nicole does. She needs to be buried inside of her and anchor them both before they float adrift.
Her weight presses Nicole onto the mattress as she brings two fingers to Nicole’s lips. The latter takes them instantly, her tongue swirling around the callouses, sucking them deep as they both moan. The sight makes Ruby dizzy.
When she pulls her fingers free, they’re dripping with spit. She slides them down and pushes between Nicole’s thigh with a non-existent resistanceー Nicole is already soaked and she opens up effortlessly.
“Fuck,” Ruby breathes. Her head is spinning. She pushes her fingers inside, so so slowly. The sensation seems as overwhelming for Nicole as it is for her. Nicole’s core pulls Ruby fingers in, and the latter pumps in and out, unhurried but so deep, dragging out the feeling for the blonde. They pant into each other’s mouths.
Ruby dips her head to kiss down the column of Nicole’s throat, while Nicole’s hands are clawing at Ruby’s back, her fingernails digging through the skin hard enough to bruise, to leave crescents in Ruby’s skin. It hurts slightly, but in the best way. Ruby wants the marks.
Her brain is so cloudy, bewildered with the feeling of Nicole. It feels like a fever dream, everything around her blurring until there’s nothing but the bodyheat of Nicole’s skin and the sound of their ragged breathing. In the haze of her mind, she can imagine Nicole saying the three words she’s starving for. It’s so sudden, but so perfectly placed. It sounds like an involuntary truthー something that spilled out of Nicole at the precise moment her defenses are down and her mind is no longer manning the doors.
The phantom sound is so vivid it stops Ruby’s heart for a second and her movements freeze inside of Nicole.
She looks up at Nicole, who in turn looks down at her. The blonde’s eyes are glassy, her expression wiped clean, giving away nothing: no realization or shock, just overwhelming pleasure. Though, for just a flicker, Ruby sees the aftermath of the words as Nicole becomes aware of them, too, a minuscule tightening of her lips, realizing something slipped.
Ruby’s heart swells in a painful expanding pleasure, so sweet, threatening to crack her ribs. She feels delirious. It sounded so real that she feels insane, dangerously desperate and hopeful. She can’t tell if she’s projecting her own need onto the silence of the room, but… she knows the timbre of Nicole’s voice well enough to recognize it even when it comes out altered. Selfishly, she chooses to believe it before she starts to move again.
She curls her fingers inside of Nicole, knuckles-deep. With every push of her hand, she grinds her hips forward onto Nicole’s thigh. Her boxers are in the way, but the friction is still enough to get her offー well, she mostly gets off on Nicole taking her fingers.
“Fuck,” Nicole gasps, her head thrashing against the pillow, “Rubyー Ruby!”
Ruby pants. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”
It’s an agonizingly slow build. They barely kiss, simply panting into each other’s open mouths desperately. Nicole moans continuously, matching the rhythm of Ruby’s hips as the latter grinds down harder. Nicole’s legs tighten around Ruby’s waist, her heels digging into Ruby’s lower back.
“‘M close,” Nicole whimpers. Her hands move up from Ruby’s back to fist in damp red strands of hair, tugging her closer forcefully, “Ruby… Please.”
“Me too,” Ruby chokes out, “me too. Come on. Let go.”
She thrusts her fingers in deep, one last time, grinding the heel of her hand against Nicole’s clit while she presses her own hips down, riding Nicole’s thigh with a broken sob as they crash together.
Nicole arches off the bed, her body bowing as tight as a string as a silent cry tears from her throat, sounding like Ruby’s name, repeatedly. Ruby, feeling the pulsing against her fingers, falls over the edge. She buries her face in Nicole’s neck as her hips twitch.
Ruby’s enamoured, completely lost in her, how her chest heaves and her hips stutter and her core clenches around Ruby, how she goes slack and the last of tension leaves her in tremors. Ruby holds her through it, breathing her in.
As many times as it happened by now, it’s always this part that makes Ruby feel a little ruined. She could live off the sight of Nicole like this, so beautiful, so vulnerable, her pleasure at its peak. She presses a kiss to Nicole’s neck as she allows her to keep tugging her hair until she comes down.
For a moment, there is only their breathing. Ruby’s heart slows reluctantly, resenting going back to normal. She lifts her head to look at Nicoleー a radiant Nicole in the afterglow.
Ruby pulls her hand out, her fingers curling slowly as she draws it back to herself. She doesn’t quite know what to do with her hands, now, when they’re not holding Nicole together. She drags her thumb across her lower lip, absent and thoughtful, brown eyes never leaving Nicole’s face.
Nicole’s gaze flicks up, catching Ruby watching, then catching Ruby pressing her two fingers in her mouth, sucking and licking at them, tasting Nicole’s slick on her tongue, humming contentedly.
When she pulls her fingers out of her mouth, it takes Ruby a second to speak, gathering her thoughts and remembering the last few minutes.
“Nicole?”
“Yeah?”
Ruby’s voice is careful. “Did you say anything?”
Nicole blinks. “Hm?”
“Did you… say something? While we wereー”
“No.” Nicole’s breath stutters.
Ruby’s stomach drops. She might’ve been too gone in it, but she was sure. She is painfully, vividly sure. She heard it, she felt the three words land deep in her chest.
“I thought you saidー”
Nicole shakes her head, too fast. “You’re imagining things.”
Ruby narrows her eyes. She hates that she knows when Nicole is lying. “I don’t think I am.”
Nicole sighs with a short laugh that doesn’t contain any humour. “Rubyー”
“Nicole.” Ruby’s voice is low, weighted with plea and certainty. “I heard you.” Nicole stills. Ruby notices a faint tightening at the corners of the blonde’s eyes. She leans forward. “Did you say it?”
Nicole looks away. “No.”
Ruby thinks she’ll split open. She tries again, gentler, as if tendernessー the thing Nicole is always so afraid ofー can coax the truth out without frightening her. “You can tell me. You should tell me. Please.”
Nicole blinks three times.
Ruby’s stupid brain, her ridiculous brain, her delusional brain, desperate and in love, takes that as a code. She thinks that if she pushes just a little, the walls around Nicole will crack.
“You said it,” she insists, spoken so softly it barely qualifies as a sound, “I know you did.”
Nicole’s face shifts and suddenly, the afterglow looks less like soft languor and more like panic. Her shoulders draw in and her hands loosens on Ruby’s shoulders, then pull back when realizing she’s still holding on.
“Stop,” Nicole says. It’s not sharp, it’s not mean, it’s worse than that. It’s afraid.
Ruby’s chest aches at the fear in it. Ignoring her own ache, and suddenly overcome by the pure need to help, she reaches toward Nicole’s cheek, murmuring, “Hey. Hey, I’m notー I’m not trying to trap you. I justー”
Nicole flinches from the touch. She sits up abruptly, causing Ruby to stumble back on the bed, creating agonizing distance in one ruthless motion. The air between them turns cold where it was warm a second ago. Ruby’s hands hover, helpless.
“Nicole,” Ruby says. Her throat feels scrapped. “Come here. Let me—”
Nicole’s jaw tightens. Her gaze drops to anywhere that isn’t Ruby’s eyes. “I have to go.”
There it isー her old refrain, her practiced exit line.
Ruby swallows hard. “Don’t.”
Nicole shakes her head. She seems to hate herself for how her voice wavers when she says, “I can’t stay.”
Ruby sits up too, slower, like she’s trying not to spook a wild animal. “You can,” she says reassuringly, “you’re already here. Justー just let me take care of you for a second. We went pretty hard before, andー”
Nicole shakes her head again. “No.”
Ruby’s heart keeps stuttering, trying to find the right angle, the right words, the right softness that won’t send Nicole running. “What’s wrong?” she asks.
Nicole’s eyes, alarmed, flash up to Ruby’s for the briefest second, and then away again. Her lips press together.
And Ruby understands, with a sick clarity, that it isn’t the question Nicole is fleeing, but the answer. The irrevocable weight of three simple words.
Ruby’s voice cracks anyway. “You don’t have to be scared of me.”
Nicole scoffs, and her laugh is small. “I’m not scared of you.”
Ruby’s throat closes. “Then what?”
Nicole stands, collecting herself as she gets dressed fast, already closing in on herself again out of routine. It’s brutal how quickly she turns solid again. how fast she re-becomes the Nicole who leaves.
Ruby swallows down her own ache. “Hey,” she says softly, pushing upright, “look at me.”
Nicole doesn’t. She grabs her shirt and her purse and puts pieces of herself back on like armour plates.
Ruby’s voice gentles further. “Nicole, breathe.”
Nicole shakes her head. “I’m breathing.” It’s defensive.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m justー” She steps closer.
Ruby stops herself from saying ‘I need you here’ because it will sound like a selfish demand. She stops herself from saying ‘please’ because she has too much pride for it, and there’s too little left. She stops herself from saying ‘I don’t care if you can’t say it again’ because it’s a lie: she cares, she cares so much it feels like it might kill her, but she would rather be here with Nicole in silence, than alone with the words she didn’t get.
“I don’t want you to leave like this,” Ruby settles on instead, careful, “justー stay for a minute. Let me… let me take care of you.”
“It’s okay. I don’t need aftercare,” Nicole says.
Ruby’s throat tightens. Aftercare. The word feels clinical and small compared to what Ruby is asking for. She isn’t asking for an after-sex necessary, she’s asking for Nicole to remain, warm and here, with her. She feels the guilt bloom under her skin: flashes of how demanding she’d been earlier, how she’d used her hands with certainty and heat, meanly, how she’d taken Nicole’s willingness and leaned into it. And now, suddenly, Nicole won’t let Ruby offer gentleness in return. Now, when Ruby wants to smooth it all out and keep her close, Nicole won’t hold still long enough.
“Just stay,” Ruby says quietly, “we don’t have to talk. You don’t have toー” Ruby stops herself from saying ‘say it’ because it will send Nicole straight out the door, “ーyou don’t have to do anything. Just… be here. Let me kiss you and hold you for a sec.”
Nicole’s shoulders lift then fall in a shaky motion. Her gaze lands on Ruby’s face and stays, and for a second Ruby sees the truth in it: Nicole wants to, she’s tempted.
But Nicole has always been better at leaving than staying.
“Ruby,” Nicole says.
Ruby’s heart leaps at the way her name sounds. “Yes?”
A thousand things pass behind Nicole’s eyes, like apology, deflection, fearー all in rapid succession. Ruby stands very still, as if moving might break the fragile thread.
Nicole exhales and looks down. “I can’t.”
Ruby’s throat closes. She forces herself to breathe, to keep her voice from turning into begging, because she can feel the pleading rising like bile. “Okay,” Ruby says, surrendering.
Nicole picks up her jacket as Ruby puts her own t-shirt back on.
The redhead tries once more, bargaining with fate. “At least let me walk you to your car.”
Nicole hesitates, and Ruby sees it, again, that sliver of softness. Then Nicole shakes her head. “It’s fine.”
Ruby’s mouth twists, pained. “It’s not.”
“Don’t,” Nicole says.
Ruby falls quiet. She swallows the rest of her words, like swallowing glass.
Nicole moves to the door. Ruby follows, because she can’t not. There’s something animal in her that refuses to let Nicole disappear without her eyes on her. Ruby stops a few feet away as Nicole’s hand finds the doorknob.
The silence stretches. Ruby feels her heart in her throat, feels the ache of every night that ended like this, feels the foreshadowing of all the nights that will.
Nicole turns back just enough to look at Ruby. Her face is composed, but there’s something cracked in her eyes, something Ruby thinks looks like regret, or longing, or both. She doesn’t know.
Ruby takes one step forward. “Nicoleー”
Nicole crosses the distance instead. Two strides and then her hands are on Ruby’s face for the briefest moment, palms warm. Ruby goes still, stunned by the sudden affection.
Nicole leans in and kisses Ruby’s cheek. It’s the cruelest kind of gentleness.
Ruby’s eyes close reflexively, hoping to trap the moment behind her lids. When she opens them, Nicole is already pulling away.
“Goodnight,” Nicole whispers.
And then she’s gone.
Ruby stands there in the quiet with the kiss still burning on her cheek, like a brand. She lifts a hand and touches the spot. Her chest aches with a love so bright it feels like a wound.
She knows this will happen again.
Because Ruby will always answer when Nicole knocks, will always make space when Nicole asks, will always take whatever fragments Nicole offers and arrange them into something she can survive off of. Even when it isn’t enough and it leaves her hollow. Ruby will make it be enough.
Loving Nicole is its own sort of devotion, and it feels exquisite and, most of all, humiliating. She wonders if that’s how it feels like for Nicole, too. She wonders if she’ll ever know.