Chapter 23
It was well past eleven when the pair, to the workers gratitude, finally left the restaurant. They’d talked about everything from the first man landing on the moon to why Coco Puffs are the best cereal ever invented (Rio’s words). And during that time, touches had become more frequent, eye contact had become more intense.
Agatha had an arm slung around Rio’s waist as they stumbled back towards their hotel via the winding roads of the mountainside. Alcohol plus hotel on top of a hill was not a good combination. She had tripped a couple of times already, almost dragging Rio down with her. Rio had cackled and Agatha had to cover her mouth with her hand so as to not wake up the sleeping residence.
“Shush,” Agatha hushed as she and Rio sat in the middle of the road because she’d slid backwards climbing the mountain for the fourth time.
Rio’s breath was hot against her palm as she tried to stifle her laugh.
When Rio’s laughter settled, the two wives simply stared at each other and Agatha’s entire body pulsed. Rio blinked lazily at her, her long eyelashes coated in mascara and her brown eyes outlined with black eyeliner. They seemed to sparkle from the reflection of the dim streetlights.
Agatha dragged her hand down past Rio’s lips, it caught on her bottom one, tugging it slightly before she rested her hand lightly on the base of her neck. She felt Rio’s heart pounding against her chest. Evidence of how much she wanted Agatha…or maybe she was just drunk and high off laughter.
Rio pulled at Agatha’s dress by her waist to pull her closer, the action caused her dress and bra strap to fall loose at her shoulder and Rio’s eyes darted there immediately.
Are we about to fuck on this road? I mean I’m not complaining.
Rio’s eyes returned to Agatha’s as she snaked her hand up Rio’s neck to draw her into her. They were nose-distance away before the sound of a speeding motorbike filled their ears. Agatha’s agent brain switched on as she got to her feet, pulling Rio up with her and dragging her to the sidewalk.
The motorbike shot down the road soon after.
The two women paused, staring at each other with furrowed eyebrows before they burst out laughing again. Almost getting run over because you got caught up in your wife’s eyes would be an interesting way to go.
“You wanna stick to the sidewalk from now on?” Agatha suggested.
Rio shook her head. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Agatha smiled.
They continued making their way towards their hotel. Still stumbling, still trying to keep each other quiet. They came up to a sign that indicated to the sea.
Rio’s eyes widened. “We should go swimming!”
“Now?” Agatha asked in alarm.
“Yes…when else?”
“This is true. Let us go.”
Rio cackled. Agatha wasn’t sure what possessed her to start talking like 15th-century British royalty, but it made her wife laugh so she didn’t question it.
By the time the pair had made it down the many steep, jagged and slippery stairs that were most definitely a safety hazard. Agatha had the biggest bruise on her knee from where she’d fallen. For now, she didn’t care, too drunk to feel its effects.
Rio was dragging her around the big boulder in the centre of the stone beach. Agatha didn’t know how she was moving so quickly; the stones were digging into her feet and if it weren’t for Rio she would be taking her sweet precious time walking over them.
“Hurry up, Aggs!” Rio told her as she found them the perfect spot and started stripping off her dress.
Agatha laughed. “I’m coming!” She said as she took off her shoes.
Maybe the fitted dress wasn’t a good idea. In her drunken state, she couldn’t begin to pull down the zip at the back of it.
She felt Rio coming up behind her, felt her brush her hand against hers, felt her move her hair to one side, felt her begin to unzip her dress. Agatha tried to suppress the shudder that came with Rio’s tender touch.
Rio’s hand followed the other as she moved the zip down her back. Cool air hit Agatha’s exposed skin. She did actually shudder when Rio grazed her fingernails down her now mostly exposed back. Rio slid the straps of her dress along her arms until it pooled around her feet on the stones.
Agatha stepped out of it, turning to face her wife in the poorly lit night. The only light came from the full moon and the streetlights on the mountainside above.
She drew her wife into her by her waist, letting her hand rest half on her underwear, half on her bare skin.
Rio stuck her tongue in her cheek before rolling it around to the front of her mouth in front of her bottom teeth.
It was like there was static in the air from how charged this moment felt. It was as if the moment Agatha pressed her lips against Rio’s lightning bolts would shoot from the sky.
Rio stepped closer towards her; her breath hot on Agatha’s face when she said:
“I’ll race you,” before darting away from her.
“Hey!” Agatha called after her. “No fair! You distracted me!” She said as she chased Rio down the beach.
Rio was waist-deep into the water before Agatha got there. She took a calculated (well for her drunken mind) risk when leaping towards Rio and crashing their bodies into the water.
They tumbled around in the sea, arms and legs pushing at the other to keep them underneath as they fought to get to the surface first.
Agatha won.
She let Rio up soon after.
“You bitch,” Rio said, splashing water at her.
Agatha laughed. “You shouldn’t have cheated.”
Rio started circling her. “I don’t think you can call it cheating.”
“Well, I-”
Rio disappeared underneath the surface before Agatha could get her rebuttal out.
Seconds later, Agatha was being dragged beneath the waves as her wife tugged at her feet. She let out a yelp before the sound got cut off.
“You trying to off me like a shark?” Agatha asked once they re-emerged.
Rio chuckled. “Another reason why I would want to move to Australia.”
Agatha’s laugh joined hers before she dove into the water again. It was warm, and although she couldn’t see them, she could feel the fish swimming around her…or maybe that was just Rio.
They spent the next god knows how long splashing each other with seawater and trying to see who could hold the other down for the longest because of course, with everything Agatha and Rio did, it turned into a competition.
Rio’s head popped out of the water next to Agatha, she pushed her hair out of her face before spraying Agatha in the face with water she shot out her mouth.
Agatha landed a harsh slap to the water by Rio’s face, drenching her in it.
“Eugh!” She grimaced as she wiped her face. “Do you know how many germs are in the ocean?”
“The sea,” Rio corrected.
Agatha deadpanned and Rio laughed.
For the first time since being on the beach, she reached for her wife gently by the waist. In no time at all, Rio snatched Agatha up and propped her on her hips. They bobbed up and down as Rio tread water, Agatha’s arms wrapped around Rio’s neck as they held eye contact.
Rio looked so beautiful with her hair soaked and her mascara slightly runny under her eyes. Agatha stroked her hair behind Rio’s ear as she became hypnotized by her wife’s gaze.
She let herself snap out of it to dip her head down and kiss her. There wasn’t any tongue or fire, it was tender, sweet even.
Agatha wondered why it had taken her all evening to do so.
Rio pulled back with a smile on her face.
The bell from the cathedral in the heart of Portofino rang out signalling the new day. Agatha looked back at Rio from where she’d momentarily taken her eyes off her to locate the sound.
She smiled. “Happy birthday, baby.”
Rio blinked at her, a slight furrow in her brow. “How did you…?” she trailed off. “Thank you,” she whispered before pressing her lips to Agatha’s.
“You’re welcome,” Agatha replied against them.
***
Rio’s legs felt like jelly. Whether that was because of the drunken walk back up the steep mountainside or the tight coil in her stomach from having her wife’s tongue down her throat she wasn’t sure. It was probably both.
Her hair was wet, her clothes stuck to her body and her mascara was ruined. She told Agatha she needed a bath as they had begun to make their way up the mountain. Stupid. She didn’t want a fucking bath she wanted her fucking wife.
Now Rio sat on the edge of the bathtub running her fingers through the warm water regretting her entire life while her wife moved around in the next room.
She could ask her to join her? Yeah, that seemed like a good idea.
She made her way into the bedroom to do just that.
Every thought Rio ever had left Rio’s mind as she set eyes on Agatha. To anyone else Agatha would look the same, but to Rio…
Now in the brighter lights of the dim bedside table lamps, Agatha glowed. Her hair still wet sat in loose curls that stopped just below her waist, her usually pale skin had gotten some colour in the Italian sun and her cheeks were slightly pink from sunburn.
She looked…Rio couldn’t find the words.
Agatha looked up from where she was fishing around for something in her suitcase.
“You, okay?”
Rio tried to swallow what little saliva was in her mouth. It was bone dry due to the salt water and her wife.
“Yeah,” her voice hoarse.
The water from the running bath filled the short silence as the two wives stared at each other.
“How’s your bath going?” Agatha asked, meeting Rio where she stood before their open balcony door just in front of the bed.
“It’s going,” Rio heard herself reply.
“That’s good.”
Rio tried to channel the confidence she had found the first time she’d kissed her wife to ask her…hold on…what had she come to ask?
She channelled the confidence just the same, stepping into her wife’s space and closing the distance between them.
She tugged at Agatha’s dress and the two straps on her right shoulder fell just as they had the first time Rio pulled at it. Her eyes flicked up to Agatha’s again.
Agatha nodded to the bathroom. “You should probably go check on your bath.”
“Yeah, I probably should.”
Rio didn’t move a muscle.
Agatha placed a hand on Rio’s waist and pulled her closer. “You wouldn’t want to flood our hotel room.”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
Rio didn’t take her eyes off Agatha’s.
A sly smile spread across Agatha’s lips as she lifted Rio’s chin with her index finger.
Rio forced her body to still as Agatha brought her lips to hers. The kiss was soft, tender, like the first one Agatha gave her on the beach.
And then it grew claws.
Agatha’s tongue pressed into Rio’s mouth without warning forcing her lips open. The index finger holding her in place withdrew and was replaced with a firm hand that rested at the base of her neck. Agatha’s other hand on her waist dropped to palm her ass, bunching up the ends of her damp dress as she did so.
An involuntary gasp escaped Rio’s lips before the sound was swallowed by Agatha’s.
Agatha wasted no time in ridding Rio of her dress. From where her hand cupped her ass, she pulled up the bunched material in her hand and lifted it over Rio’s head in one swift movement.
The hand on Rio’s neck tightened to angle her head up. A cool breeze hit her exposed neck courtesy of their open balcony door before Agatha’s lips quickly replaced it. Rio genuinely didn’t know how she was still standing as her wife pressed hot kisses into her skin and sucked on her pulse point.
Her heart was beating at a million times per hour, and she was sure her body couldn’t tell the difference between running for her life and having Agatha on her body. The adrenaline was just the same.
Agatha’s kisses trailed down to her collarbone; Rio felt the graze of her wife’s teeth on her shoulder until she realised, she was using her teeth to slide her bra strap down her shoulder.
Fuck. Why was that the hottest thing Rio had ever seen?
To Rio’s dismay, Agatha stopped kissing her, but only to remove her wet bra entirely. The other woman took a step back, her fierce gaze softening. Her eyes wandered over Rio’s body, taking her in as she stood before her in her dark green lace underwear.
“Eres tan hermosa.” You are so beautiful. Agatha breathed. She nodded as if it were the only truth in the world.
For some reason, her words made Rio self-conscious. She instinctively wrapped her arms around her body to cover herself.
Agatha’s gaze hardened once more. She closed the space between them and tugged Rio’s arms from where they shielded herself.
“What’d I just say?” Her voice was low, challenging.
Rio swallowed. “That I’m beautiful.”
“Exactly. Don’t go getting all shy on me now.”
Rio was sure she would’ve laughed if Agatha didn’t look like that. She looked the way she had in the hotel room during the ski mission. Hunger in her eyes:
Dark. Devastating.
Rio wondered if she looked like that. She doubted it. She probably looked like a mortal before a god:
Powerless. Devoted.
She was aware she probably shouldn’t look like that. Agatha didn’t need to know how easily she was willing to give herself over to her. With everything Rio did, she had to challenge her.
So…she did just that.
“Momentary blip,” Rio said, reaching out to grab one of Agatha’s hands that were no longer on her body.
She placed the other woman’s hand on her neck before using her own to begin guiding it down her body. Her gaze never shifted from Agatha’s as Rio left her wife’s hand to sit on her left breast, her hand on top of it.
A slow smile slid onto Agatha’s lips as she watched Rio for a long, long time. Rio’s breath hitched in anticipation. The other woman wasn’t moving, applying pressure and the lack of it was going to send Rio into an early grave.
She realised her wife wanted to torment her, make her wait, drag this out. And Rio had to force down a frustrated whine.
She couldn’t bear it. Her patience had run thin.
Rio clamped down on her wife’s hand on her breast finally getting the pressure she was itching for. Her head fell back at the sensation before it was abruptly cut off. Agatha’s hand resisting against hers.
“No!” Rio whined. “Do it again.”
Agatha’s head tilted and it was almost sinister. “Remember when I said I’d have my way with you?”
Rio’s breath caught and she had to steady it to get out a weak, “Yes.”
“Then let me.”
Rio’s lips parted, she knew she should argue, should fight this, but as she said, she’d take anything Agatha would give her. And if that meant having to be in agony as her wife pushed her to her breaking point. She’d do it.
She managed a nod.
That smile returned as Agatha pushed her onto the bed next to them.
Rio barely had time to prop herself onto her elbows before Agatha was on top of her, and without warning Agatha’s knee pressed into her core the same time her lips were on hers. A moan was forced from Rio’s lips at the sudden contact.
The feeling of Agatha’s lips, Agatha’s tongue, Agatha’s knee felt so good she wanted to scream.
Her hips lifted from the bed to find more pressure and as soon as she did the knee withdrew.
“Fuck,” it was breathless and frustrated.
“Take what I give you,” Agatha hissed in her ear.
The woman was going to send her to a mental asylum.
Rio was too worked up she couldn’t even muster a nod.
“Words. Use them.” Agatha told her.
Rio sunk into the bed, another pathetic whine escaping her lips before she said:
“Yes.”
Agatha tucked her hair behind her ear. “Good girl,” she cooed.
She rolled her eyes at the mocking praise.
She wanted to kiss Agatha again, her entire body itched to do so, but she stilled in fear of the repercussions.
The hand in her hair tightened as Agatha dragged her lips up to hers once more.
As Agatha’s tongue explored her mouth, the hand in her hair slid from it to roam over Rio’s body. It played with her breasts, ran across her stomach, fiddled with the lace trim of her underwear.
Rio took it back. There was a better feeling than a spider crawling up her arm. It was this. Her wife’s soft fingers everywhere (well, except the place she desperately wanted them) sending shivers up her spine.
After however long of Agatha’s teasing, Rio was nearly brainless. All she could think about was the painful pleasure that sat tight and coiled in her heat.
She’d been so good, she hadn’t tried to make a move just as Agatha had instructed her to, when was she going to get her reward?
On accident, she knocked into the arm her wife was using to prop herself up. Agatha jolted and those fingers on her stomach slid to the middle of her underwear. She moaned at the contact.
To her surprise, Agatha didn’t withdraw. Instead, cupping Rio over her underwear.
The next moan that left Rio’s mouth would definitely be heard by anyone if they happened to be on their balcony at this hour.
The look on Agatha’s face in reaction to the noise only made Rio want to do it again. It was smug, but not the type of smug that made Rio want to roll her eyes, it was pride, as if she knew she was the only person who could get Rio to sound like this.
And Rio realised in that moment that that was undoubtedly true.
“You look so pretty like this. So desperate for me to be inside you.”
The words hardly registered. Rio was too focused on the pressure between her legs. Of how much it hurt, how much she’d always want to feel this type of pleasure.
Agatha dipped her head down to kiss Rio’s neck again and the hand cupping Rio’s underwear slid the damp material to the side before pushing a light finger in.
Rio’s hips jerked up at the contact, her breath becoming strained as Agatha ran it up her folds before withdrawing again. But only momentarily before replacing the one finger with two.
She gasped as Agatha started circling her entrance.
She felt the wave of an orgasm wanting to crash through her already. She had to bite her lip to keep it at bay. She wasn’t ready for any of this to be over yet.
Rio could see her own chest rise and fall as her wife continued to tease her. She didn’t know how she was still breathing let alone functioning.
Her eyes fluttered shut as the feeling became overwhelming.
“Rio.” Agatha’s lips were no longer on her neck.
She nodded.
“Look at me.”
She couldn’t.
The fingers stilled and slid out.
Rio’s face pinched from the withdrawal; from the tears she was sure she’d shed.
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Look at me?” Agatha’s tone was softer.
Rio nodded weakly and Agatha’s fingers slid back inside.
They ran up her entire core forcing Rio’s head to snap back in pleasure before they started pumping into her. Rio’s breaths came out fast and strained and desperate as her hips rode Agatha’s fingers.
“Eyes on me, baby,” Agatha told her.
Somehow, Rio got her head up to lock onto Agatha’s eyes.
"You make me feel like I'm losing my mind,” she got out through her shallow pants.
Agatha grinned as she finally, finally applied direct pressure to Rio’s swallow clit.
The sound that left Rio’s mouth ought to be considered shameful. She didn’t care. Her head rolled back in pleasure as Agatha pumped faster.
“What’d I say?”
In the haze of it all Rio found the strength to lift her head, her eyes meeting the deep blue of the ocean. It took everything in her not to let her eyes drift shut as Agatha’s eyes bore into her.
It was almost too much, her beloved’s eyes on her face watching her fall apart. It was a type of vulnerability, intimacy that Rio had never experienced before. No wonder Agatha enjoyed sex so much if this was how she made people feel.
All that power she wielded to get her partners to shatter and crumble. Wouldn’t you chase that feeling forever? Rio was sure she would.
Rio watched Agatha’s expression in return. Watched her eyes glisten with satisfied joy, watched her lips part, her own breaths audible at the pleasure she too was feeling.
One heavy dragged-out run over her clit had Rio’s orgasm crashing through her. Her body pulled taunt, her head snapped back and an almost ear-shattering moan escaped Rio’s lips.
Agatha’s fingers didn’t still as she fucked her through it.
The fingers didn’t ease up until Rio lowered her body back to the bed and her breathing calmed down a little.
Agatha withdrew and Rio flinched at the lack of contact. Her head snapping back to lock on to Agatha, Agatha who was still in her fucking clothes after picking Rio apart.
As if in 0.5 speed, Agatha brought her now wet fingers up to her mouth, parted her lips and sucked on Rio’s slick. Rio swallowed what little saliva she had at the sight. She wanted it framed. No. Burned in her memory forever.
Agatha moaned at the taste of Rio on her tongue. And again, all Rio could do was watch.
Only once Agatha had sucked her fingers dry did she touch Rio again, moving her now even damper hair off her forehead to tuck it behind her ear.
The events of the day (running for her life, the long drive, the drinking, the swimming, the fucking) had finally caught up to Rio. She felt sleep amongst the high of sex wanting to drag her under. Her body crumpled deep into the bed and her eyes began to flutter shut.
Get up. You’ve got to return the favour.
“Just give me a sec,” Rio got out through her still shallow breaths. “And I can-”
“Don’t you worry about me,” Agatha soothed.
She felt covers being pulled over her, felt Agatha wrap her in an embrace, her arms circling her stomach.
“It is your birthday after all.”
Rio managed a smile. She felt sleep consuming her until a question popped into her head. In her delirious state, she found the confidence to ask it:
“Why did you wait so long to have sex with me? Did I do something? Was it me?”
“Yes,” was Agatha’s soft reply.
Rio’s breath caught again and not for good reason.
“Sex means nothing to me until it does,” Agatha continued. “When I’m with the right person, there’s no need to rush it. There is nothing more intimate than being as close as physically possible with another human. I wanted to make sure you knew that what we have is more than just the physical stuff…you know…given my reputation.”
Rio smiled against her wife’s neck as Agatha drew her impossibly closer.
“Is that okay?”
Rio hummed and Agatha pressed two kisses to her forehead.
Rio was seconds away from sleep now, the soothing sounds of the breeze rustling their balcony door curtains, the drum of Agatha’s heartbeat, the rhythmic dripping of water hitting surfaces edging her on.
“Baby?”
“Yeah,” Rio sighed.
“You never turned off the tap for your bath.”
Rio’s eyes shot open. “Fuck!”