I crawled toward Belle on the mattress, my knees sinking into sheets that were already soaked through with Naomi's milk and sweat. Belle watched me approach with the expression of a woman who had been sitting on a porch for twenty minutes listening to her best friend get fucked through a farmhouse wall while the California sunset painted everything gold.
Her patience, which had never been her strongest quality on the best of days, had evaporated completely somewhere around minute twelve.
"Fourteen seconds," she said.
I grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her hard enough that she stopped counting.
Belle's mouth opened immediately. No warmth-up, no gentle build. She bit my lower lip and pulled until blood came, then licked it off with her tongue before I could react. The copper taste mixed with cherry from her lip gloss and something underneath that was just Belle, sharp and demanding and never satisfied.
