Free Elves and Escapades (Scholars and Sorcery Book 2) by Eleanor Beresford Page A

pieces, to remember that I might have it all wrong, that this might just be sisterly affection still, but I’m kissing her back in a way that is not sisterly at all, my hands caressing her and pulling her closer. Too much, I’m risking too much. But Rosalind’s mouth against mine is fierce and wanting and when my lips part under hers I feel her tongue warm and soft against mine, something I’ve never imagined even in my most secret dreams. Past her lips her mouth is not cool at all, but hot and demanding. So demanding, my gentle little Rosalind, pushing her tongue into my mouth and pulling at my lips with hers.
    I should stop. But somehow the curve and press of flesh under linen, through my pyjamas is a natural part of me, as if all the hopeless wanting I have felt is gathering into fire, like a flame pegasus’ wings spreading. As if all the hidden love and longing I have carefully covered over with friendship is exposed and burning, taking feverish form in my body. Rosalind makes a small desperate sound against my mouth, a sound I recognise from the night I touched myself, and the flames consume me as I pull her fully on top of me. Her thigh presses between my legs, and my entire body jerks with wanting more contact.
    My heart, at the same time, seems to let go of all the aloneness I have felt for so long, in a rush of happiness. It feels like, somehow, like in the heat of the kiss my heart has melted and combined with Rosalind’s, and is whole at last.
    Her mouth breaks away. I can still feel the painful heaving of her breasts, her breath audibly catching so sharply that fear catches at me as well. She is going to panic at the thought of what we are doing and leave, I know it. I hold her more tightly to me so that she can’t escape, my arms hard against her slender back in a plea for her to stay.
    “Charley. Oh, Charley. I’m so sorry. But you promised not to hate me.” She sounds so afraid, as if I haven’t been clutching her close and kissing her as if my life depended on it. “Even if I’m… all queer and wrong.”
    “Nothing about you could possibly be queer and wrong.” It’s the simple truth. All my worrying and guilt, all my feeling that I was wrong and twisted, has melted away in a single kiss. It’s so sweet, and so perfect, and so overwhelming, and there’s nothing of sin or wrongness about it, just my precious dear Rosalind who is good and loving and, by some miracle, in my arms and wanting me. It can’t be wrong, if she was the one who came to me.
    “Do you mind, then, if I kiss you again? Charley. . . Oh, Charley, I want to kiss you so much.” She sounds fearful and fierce all at once.
    “Kiss me, then,” I say, unsteadily.
    Her mouth comes against mine again, and I let any tiny fragments of resistance I have break, giving myself up to whatever happens here in the darkness, to kissing and touching and all the things we seem instinctively to know.

    I wake just once during the night. At first, I don’t remember what has happened and can’t understand why I can feel breathing so close to me, nearly in my ear. Then my memories come back to me along with a sense of the weight and warmth on the bed behind me, the unaccustomed feelings in my body, and the hand splayed against the curve of my hip. There’s something very possessive about that hand. But then, there was something very possessive about Rosalind, last night. She had made it clear that I belong to her, entirely. I shiver happily at the memory.
    I have been sure, for a long time, that in her way Rosalind was truly the bravest of the two of us. She was the one who chose to keep Sunflame, who faced Diana with forgiveness and grace and kept my friendship in the face of hostility. Even so, I have not realised before just how brave Rosalind truly is. To come to me like that, to kiss me… There is so much courage in her small frame, so much knowledge of who she is and what she wants, despite having been betrayed before. Maybe it’s