Make Room for Love

Chapter 19

19

Mira turned underneath the covers again, overheated and restless.

She was turned on. Even admitting it to herself made her face burn. That was why she’d been feverish all day after she and Isabel had put up the shelves. It had been so long since she’d been truly aroused, not just lukewarm and willing, that she’d almost forgotten what it was like.

Sex had never been very interesting to her. With Dylan, it hadn’t been terrible. He hadn’t coerced her or hurt her. She had liked being desired; as long as he wanted her, she had a place in his world. Sometimes she had thought about her research while he did what he wanted.

She rarely ever touched herself, either. She was more or less at peace with her body these days, but there was never any particular reason for her to seek out pleasure. She had always retreated into her intellect to escape her bodily existence, and old habits died hard. Wasn’t there always something more interesting to think about?

Right now…there wasn’t. Her skin was hot and sensitive, caressed by her pajamas and by the cotton sheets. The memory of Isabel’s body a few inches from her own—all those powerful muscles shifting under Isabel’s clothes—was making her burn up. Isabel wasn’t a statue. She was a person with a thick, gorgeous body, curves and muscles that you could touch…

Mira squeezed her thighs together, and the dull ache between her legs grew so sharp she gasped. She needed more.

She slipped a hand between her shorts and her underwear, a thrill running through her as though she’d never done this before. She pressed the heel of her hand against her clit and quivered in relief. Isabel’s hands had been so big, so deft, so careful… Mira cupped one of her breasts through her camisole, and her nipple tightened as a pure, sweet shiver of pleasure coursed through her.

She twisted herself under the sheets to get a better angle. She was giddy, flushed, and by her usual standards, wildly out of control. This time, she pressed her fingers against her clit, indistinctly imagining Isabel touching her—and the searing jolt of arousal made her moan, hips lifting off the bed, the bed frame creaking.

Mira went still, her heart racing. She’d been far too loud in this very quiet room. Isabel was on the other side of the wall. Oh, god. Mira had been fantasizing about her.

She wasn’t into women in that way. Maybe she was. Mira rolled over and groaned into her pillow. Now wasn’t the time to be reconsidering everything about her sexuality, her relationships, her desires…

She took a long breath in, then out. It slowed her thoughts but didn’t make her any less desperately turned on.

Time to face the obvious truth. This was not what platonic friendship or admiration felt like. She rarely had orgasms during sex, or even on her own. But now she was so needy that she could barely recognize herself—and if she kept touching herself and thinking about Isabel touching her, she would come from it, and it would be good to the point of being unendurable. Then all the questions would flood back in.

She lay unmoving in bed, taking more deep breaths, willing herself to cool down. Somehow, after an unbearably long time, it worked.

The embarrassment set in. Maybe she did like women. She could take some time to consider it. Maybe put it off for another few months or a year while she got the rest of her life sorted out. There was no reason to lose control like this, tempting herself with desperate measures while her roommate was sleeping in the other room.

She could use a shower. She was sticky. And she needed to metaphorically wash everything off.

She slipped out of bed. It was chilly, and her nipples tightened and rubbed against her camisole, making her quiver with arousal again. It was too much. She tried to ignore her body screaming at her and opened the door.

And walked straight into something big, soft, and warm. She yelped as Isabel inhaled sharply.

They both stepped back. Isabel’s… Isabel’s breasts had been pressed against hers, and Mira’s were still aflame from the contact. She almost wept from frustration. There was nowhere safe to look. Even when she dropped her gaze, there were Isabel’s solid thighs, her well-built calves…

Mira’s eyes wandered wildly. Isabel’s breasts were incredible under that thin cotton T-shirt, so lush and heavy—and Mira knew, because she had felt them. And Isabel’s nipples were right there, in light and shadow, and the fabric draped over them somehow made it worse?—

In sheer panic, Mira jerked her head up. Isabel looked terrified. She ran a hand through her hair. It made her T-shirt ride up, the thin material shifting over her breasts. Her eyes flicked downward for a moment.

Oh. This was real. Mira had been thinking about it all week, lying awake in bed, her brain constantly buzzing. But she hadn’t seen it before. Yes, Isabel really did look at her like that . Her body knew it now, too—her clit throbbed from Isabel’s gaze, and her face and breasts and thighs tingled with heat. She was beyond reason. She was going up in flames.

Isabel closed her eyes, inhaled and exhaled through her nose, and opened her eyes again. She stared at something right above Mira’s head.

Mira found the wherewithal to speak first. “I, uh… I…” Maybe she hadn’t. “I needed to shower. Are you— You’re not usually up. At this time.”

Isabel ran a hand through her midnight-dark hair again, exposing her ear and the line of her neck in the dim light. Mira couldn’t believe it. She, of all people, was doing this to Isabel.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Isabel said.

“Me neither,” Mira blurted out. She couldn’t look any lower. Not at Isabel’s parted lips. Definitely not anywhere lower than that.

Isabel might have heard her. Her gasps and moans, the creak of the bed frame. Mira winced. The embarrassment was a splash of cold water. Not cold enough to make her stop overheating.

Isabel frowned. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s fine. I just— I need to shower.”

Why had she said that? Before she could embarrass herself further, she ran past Isabel to the bathroom. She’d forgotten to bring a towel, but she couldn’t go back and risk running into Isabel again.

She shut the bathroom door, turned the light on, and exhaled. Her reflection in the mirror was a mess. Tossing and turning hadn’t done her hair any favors. Her camisole was askew, one strap nearly falling down.

And there was a flushed glow to her skin, and her eyes were wild, and her nipples were straining against her camisole. Maybe Isabel hadn’t seen in the dark.

What if she had?

Mira was dizzy. She turned and sat on the hard edge of the sink, waves of need rolling through her body. The bathroom was on the other side of the apartment from where they slept. Could she?—

Isabel was surely still awake. But Mira didn’t hear anything. Still, she turned the shower on. The noise drowned out her thoughts, especially the ones about how bad of an idea this was.

She slid her hand inside her underwear this time and found her clit again. A fantasy came to her. Usually, Mira never fantasized about anything , and this one didn’t make any sense, and in her right mind she’d be embarrassed, but she was in no state to care.

When she’d said what she’d said earlier—that she’d repay Isabel however she could, in exchange for Isabel putting up shelves for her—Isabel’s mask had slipped for a moment.

The idea was absurd. Isabel would never, ever ask Mira for sexual favors as compensation. But Mira was in the relative privacy of her bathroom, alone with her fantasies, and she was so turned on it didn’t matter. What if she offered herself up? She’d be wearing something cute, maybe a blouse and a short skirt, and she’d unbutton her blouse and let Isabel decide if she liked what she saw…

Mira moved her fingers and rolled her hips, sparks of pleasure arcing through her. She sped up. Picturing Isabel looking at her, no longer bothering to hide the smoldering heat in her gaze.

Mira tugged her camisole down, as though she were baring herself to Isabel, and the cool air against her sensitized skin made her gasp. She rolled a nipple between her finger and thumb as she rubbed her clit, squirming at the jolts of pleasure from two places at once. Isabel’s hands had set her on fire merely from brushing against hers. If Isabel palmed her breasts, cupped her bare pussy, made sure Mira felt those calluses?—

Mira moaned, unable to help herself. She had to do something to muffle the sound, but she couldn’t take her hands off herself, couldn’t stop, not with this sweet, searing tension coiling inside her.

Isabel would pin her against the wall as easily as she’d held up those shelves. She’d lift Mira’s skirt with one hand and push her underwear to the side, teasing Mira’s nipples like this with the other—oh, that was good—and turn Mira into a desperate, sticky mess pinned to the living room wall. Squirming like she was squirming against the sink now, her most soft, wet, sensitive places yielding to Isabel’s hand.

And then Isabel would sling Mira over her shoulder and carry her to Isabel’s own bedroom. She’d spread Mira’s thighs open and sink her fingers into Mira where they belonged. She’d would take what she wanted from Mira, but she’d make it good for Mira, too, taking control but being so careful?—

Mira’s orgasm tore through her so hard and fast it hurt. She let out a desperate, choked-off moan, her knees buckling, her toes curling against the cold tile. It was too much, but she kept going until she was wrung out.

She went limp against the sink. Too sensitive all over, too vulnerable, and somehow still unfulfilled.

And she was. The woman she wanted was a few rooms away, and Mira had just made herself come while thinking about her. Mira squirmed, this time from embarrassment. She pulled her camisole back up over her breasts, still so tender that the soft cotton felt like sandpaper.

She still couldn’t make sense of this. Her anxieties about wanting and being wanted were catching up to her fast. She’d indulged in a silly, illogical heat-of-the moment fantasy—and, yes, it had been unbearably hot. Which could mean anything or nothing at all.

It wasn’t like Mira had a problem with being queer. Before she’d realized that she was a woman, she’d quietly accepted that she liked men. And even before that, people had sensed something in her that they didn’t like, singling her out before she’d had the words and ideas to understand herself.

And Mira had known Vivian and her circle of queer trans women for years. She cherished her friends, but their lives weren’t quite the same as hers. Most of them didn’t date men or didn’t date them often. They had their own vocabulary and parties and dating drama that Mira wasn’t fully in on. They had their battles to fight, and Mira had hers, on top of what they all dealt with. Most of them had always liked women, and Mira had not.

She’d thought that was all there was to it. Saying yes to the men who pursued her, both the ones who’d treated her well and the ones who hadn’t, had always been good enough. Hadn’t it?

She hadn’t expected her life to take this turn. Desperately making herself come in the bathroom from the thought of a gorgeous butch touching her. Imagining herself with a woman, not suffocating in a man-shaped prison but as herself . Being forced to confront that she might want something different, something more.

She didn’t know how to be a queer woman, if she even was one. But one question crowded out all others—one she’d never been good at answering, one she’d spent the last two years pushing down until it had gone silent within her. What did it mean to want something for herself?

Isabel hadn’t asked anything of her. She hadn’t even put anything on the table. Evidently, she was planning to never bring up her so-called feelings again. If something was going to change, it would have to come from Mira herself.

This was the freedom she’d wanted. It was terrifying, and she had no idea what to do with it.

She took another deep breath. Washed her hands in the sink. Avoided her reflection, since she’d be even more of a mess now. She turned off the shower—guilty about the wasted water, but she’d taken barely any time at all—and listened for sound from outside, trying to ignore the pounding of her own heart.

The coast was clear. She tiptoed back into her room, grabbed her phone with shaking hands, and texted Vivian.