Halfway Valentine | Special 6: "Haven"

“Haven”

I heard the sound of a key inserting into the doorknob, Naomi’s soft grunt of exhaustion, the opening of the door. I was huddled under the covers, anxious for her to come to me. I had just woken up from an afternoon nap that had apparently stretched until darkness. Naomi stripped off her clothes, slipped on her pig shirt and climbed in bed, then wrapped her arms around me.

“How’s your day?” I asked.

“Don’t talk,” she murmured, her lips against my nape. “Hug me.”

That I could do. Willingly. I was glad, too, that she felt the need to cuddle because I felt it like a stirring of my soul. Movingly silkily beneath the blankets, I curled my naked limbs against hers. I wore an oversized T-shirt that Naomi’s warm hands pulled off me. Her mouth touched the flesh at the base of my neck, her tongue circling the skin over and over again, as if she couldn’t bear to move on.

Then she rolled on top of me and sat up to straddle me. Her hands moved to my abdomen, paused. I didn’t know what was going on in her head. But I felt like all the love and desire she had for me was mirrored through her twinkling, blazing blue eyes that were fixed on my face. It was as if she were treating herself to a visual feast.

My brows wrinkled in query as I stared up at her through the darkness. “Naomes?”

Suddenly she lowered her head and moved her lips slowly across the smooth, taut hollow of my stomach. “I love it that you’re mine,” she said, kissing the supple skin. “I just love it that you’re mine.”

I smiled, and reached up to slip my hands under her shirt and run them along her back. Back and forth, lovingly.

She kissed her way up to my mouth and made love to it. “I missed you.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, half amused and half bewildered by her sudden oddness. “We were just apart for less than eight hours, Naomi.”

“I know,” she murmured against the velvet spot beneath my ear. “But I missed you a lot. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I said, my hands caressing their way down to rest on her hips.

Naomi sat up again and her gaze lingered on my exposed chest. “Has anyone ever told you you have really cute boobies?” she said teasingly. “Cute with a capital Q.” She ducked her head to blaze a trail of kisses around my chest, and I giggled because it felt ticklish.

“And yours is worthy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” I added.

She laughed into the valley between my breasts where she was kissing. Lifting her head, something caught her attention. Her eyes widened with delighted surprise.

“Oh, Ems,” she gasped, staring at a vase holding a bunch of white calla lilies behind the lamp. “Did you get those for me?”

“No,” I said dryly. “They’re for the janitress mopping the floor outside. She cleaned my little milk spill in the hallway.”

Naomi let out a laugh, then she pressed her lips on mine. “Shut up.” She lifted her head to gaze at the flowers again and reached for a stem. “Aww . . . this is just so romamtic, Em.” She took a long whiff of its scent. “These lovely lilies totally made my day. And your cute boobies. The lilies and your boobies.” She giggled, and I scowled at her.

When Naomi rolled off of me, I snatched up my shirt. “Are you done marveling at my cute boobies?”

She nodded, chuckling. Without further ado, I sat up and slipped my shirt on again. It was just oddly cold in the room, and for some bizarre reason, it felt so weird being the only half-naked one in the room. The darkness inside the room only made the atmosphere seem chillier so I switched the lamp on.

Naomi rested her head against the pillows, and I curled up beside her. And automatically she put her arms around me. For some reason we wound up that way a lot.

Feeling so much warmer now, I lifted my head to gaze up at her. She was looking silently at the ceiling. “Is everything all right, Naomes?”

Her fingers were skimming along my spine. “Not really,” she mumbled. “It’s just a stressful day. My new Development Economics professor is from hell.”

“Then tell him he can go back and fuck himself in hell,” I said, and the blonde laughed. “How about a back rub, babe?” I offered.

Naomi smiled. “Yes, please.” She rolled over and lay flat on the bed on her stomach. I sat lightly on her butt, straddling her. With her help, I took her pig shirt off, then started rubbing her shoulders. I unfastened the hooks of her bra then kneaded my way down her back.

“How’s that?” I asked, whilst my thumbs sank into her back.

She let out a blissful moan. “Mmm. Good.”

I rubbed her arms, working down to her hands, which were warm and smooth.

“My adviser asked me to be his research assistant and grader, by the way,” Naomi informed me.

“Okay. What does that work entail?” I asked, now massaging her lower back.

She tucked her arms under her pillow. “Just involves extra reading with reports back to him. Oral reports, not written. So it’s not much of a hassle. He has five classes of forty or more students.”

I paused mid-motion to which she quickly added, “It’s only two nights a week. Three hours max.”

“Any particular reason why he picked you?”

“I am his best student,” she said simply. “You know that. I’m always the best.”

When I didn’t reply, Naomi lifted her head and looked behind her at me. “If it bothers you so much, Ems, I could decline.”

“No,” I said. “If it’s strictly a business arrangement then . . . no objection, your Honour.”

“Emily, the guy’s forty-something, with a double-chin, married, has two kids already. And he has a cock,” she pointed out.

I smirked then. “Okay, okay. Point taken.”

I kissed my way up her butter-soft skin before drawing back, refastening the hooks of her bra, and plopping down on my back beside her on the bed. I sank back into the deep, soft pillows, turned my head to the side to look at my girlfriend.

Placing one arm over my chest, Naomi let out a contented sigh. “I love home.”

I let my eyes close for a moment and smiled. “Yea, this room gets 7 stars for its cosiness,” I said, grazing the arm she had thrown over me. “And this bed is beyond compare.”

“I meant you, Emily,” I heard her say softly. “You. My home.”

I opened my eyes and looked at Naomi, again. My smile bloomed not just from the bone-melting effect of her words, but also because of the tantalising sight. So strikingly beautiful, I was seized with an urge to kiss away all her strain, all her troubles. And so I leant in to place a soft, soothing kiss on her lips. Another blissful little sigh from the blonde revealed that I was somewhat successful.

“Naomi, are you happy here?” I asked quietly, tracing her arm with a gentle finger.

Her brows creased, and she let out a snort of chuckle. “What kind of a question is that, Emily?”

“I mean,” I said, “is this how you saw yourself five years ago?”

She paused for a while to think. “No. Not really,” she said at length. “Five years ago, I was sure—all right—I was sure I’d be away from Melbourne,” she said. “You know, just living the untroubled nomadic life. I dreamt of sailing off to some deserted island, or go travelling around the world and setting up orphanages.”

“Alone?”

“I did consider that, yes,” she said. “But then I thought, why not share the fun if the right globetrotter comes along, right? So I knew I would be doing all sorts of adventures—with the right person.”

“With the right person,” I quietly echoed, then my eyes strayed from hers to the ceiling.

“Yes, with the right person,” Naomi said, placing a finger under my chin for me to meet her eyes. “In other words, you, Emily.”

The corners of my mouth twitched with an answering smile. I was falling into her sincere blue-eyed gaze, her sensitive soul, her lips where unexpected syrupy words escape from time to time, and suddenly time begins to lose its grasp. It was always like this with Naomi. Only with Naomi.

“It would be nice, yea?” she said with a dreamy smile. “Now I’m thinking of you and me getting shipwrecked together during a storm, swimming to shore, healing each other’s wounds with local herbs and plants, building a little hut in the middle of nowhere, starting our own civilisation and all the love blossoming between us.”

I found myself picturing such a moment. Naomi and I. Girl and girl, taking refuge against the thunder, the lightning, the water rising in gargantuan waves, swept away by their feelings. Naomi continued to look into my eyes, to explore my face with her gaze, and I held it. It was almost a caress. A wave of giddy dizziness washed over me.

“I would be up for the globetrotting sort of adventure,” I said easily. “There are faraway places I definitely wouldn’t mind seeing. It’s up there on my wish list.”

“Sounds fun, yea? To go around the world. Hit all five continents. Pack light. One pair of really comfortable walking shoes.”

“Sounds really awesome,” I said. “And the putting up of orphanages—that part was good. I love kids. But just the being castaways and staying in a deserted island kind of worries me a bit. I think I have to prepare myself for all of that—the rubbing two sticks together, building a hut, catching fish or hunting for wild boars, climbing coconut trees, and the grilling. Especially the grilling.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, babe,” she said cockily, with a wink. “You got me—the Grill Queen, remember?” She snagged my pinky finger with her pinky finger and linked them, and I smiled at the sweetness of her gesture.

“What about your plan to go to Africa and teach teachers?” I asked. “What happened with that?”

“Well, I could always do that whenever I want to,” she answered. “It’s a continuous thing, you see. It goes on and on as long as there are sponsors and volunteers.”

“But don’t you think they need you there? I mean, your Grandpa’s there. And now Gina . . .”

Naomi lifted our linked pinkies and kissed mine. “I’m here to be with you. I just want to be with you. I don’t need to be anywhere else. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

Her words made my heart melt, but I had to ask, “And you suppose this is where you belong?”

“You make your own sense of belonging, Emily,” she said. “You can feel at home anywhere if you’re at peace with yourself and if you’re with someone whom you consider your shelter—shelter from all your troubles and anxieties. When you could take refuge in someone. When you feel safe and sound in their arms.” She lifted her other hand to cup my face. “You are my home, Emily. You are my haven. You’re my sweet safe haven,” she said with a tender smile. “So to answer your first question: Yes. I’m happy here. Very much so.”

I looked at her dumbfounded for a moment. Who was this girl who seemed to make me feel all these tremendous emotions all at the same time? Whom I felt like the only person who could make me feel this happy, this complete? Who was so heart-stoppingly beautiful that I was ready to give up everything but a single measly pair of Chuck Taylors and hop the next freighter to travel the world and set up orphanages with?

I blinked. “How’d you get to be so . . . clever?”

“Age,” she said dryly. “I am older than you. I think I’m some wise old lady.”

Too beautiful for a wise old lady, I thought. Too bloody beautiful.

I gave her a mock hard stare. “If you’re thinking two years makes you the boss, forget it.”

Naomi only laughed at my statement. Then when she sobered, she took her turn. “What about you, Ems?” she asked softly, running her fingers through my red waves. “Is this how you saw yourself five years ago?”

“Nope. Very far from it, actually,” I answered, gazing at the ceiling as I recalled. “I was convinced I’d be stuck in Bristol with the odd Fitches, living my humdrum life. My mother would probably be setting me up on dates with her friends’ eligible banker or lawyer sons or some young local politician. I’d probably be staying in the guest room because Katie—and this has been proven—gets increasingly irritating every fucking year. And I’d simply be working on what I used to plan my life around for many years. I was so dedicated, so enthusiastic at the time, you know.”

“So you never really felt at some point like you were losing touch with yourself?”

“I would pretend I wasn’t,” I admitted, toying mindlessly with the heart pendant of my necklace. “In the back of my mind, I knew I could work my way toward that goal and still suffer in the end. But it was just so much easier to imagine my life like that because it wasn’t uncertain, you know. Because it was convenient. I suppose the thought of probably being astray and unhappy had been lurking in my mind for a while then, and I’d never before let down my guard enough for it to surface until I came to Japan and broke free.”

Naomi nodded. “Like the lid to Pandora’s box unexpectedly flying open and having the ugly truth pop out.”

“Exactly. I dreaded it,” I said with a sigh. “There was even a moment when I thought if I get jaded, I could chuck it altogether and just sell sno-cones at a theme park,” I went on, making Naomi chuckle. “It was, you know, one of those thoughts that were so frightening you’re afraid to say them out loud.”

Naomi rolled over to her stomach and propped her chin up with her fist. “Now you make me think, Emily Fitch,” she said. “A little more conversation, a little less action.”

I turned gently to my side, pulling her close to me. “Why? Can’t you have a little more of both?” 

Pursing her lips, she gazed at me through narrow lids. “Hm. That could wait ‘til later,” she said, untangling herself from me. “I’ll go get some groceries. You want Honey Pops this week, yea?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know. I’m older than you. I don’t have to do anything.”

She said it so deadpan that I didn’t realise for a moment that she was teasing. When I did, I couldn’t help laughing out loud. She looked at me then, and I saw that glint in her eyes. She might be a bit nonchalant, but a devilish sense of humour lurked behind the cool exterior.

Along with a passionate fire that was hidden even deeper. A fire that had, from what I could see, surprised even her. And I couldn’t deny how that made me feel, to think she’d never felt that way before, that it was me, and my touch, and my kisses, that had startled her own response.

“—might be receiving desperate e-mails from him again.”

With an effort, I quashed my unruly thoughts and my body’s response to them, and tuned back in to what she was saying.

“Desperate?” I asked, hoping the fact that I’d just zoned out wasn’t obvious.

“Yes, I know, right?” she said, crawling off the bed and putting her shirt back on. “Before your little brother’s dangerous and now he’s desperate. So he’s dangerously desperate. The FBI should put him on their blacklist or something.”

I watched her grab her open laptop from the desk and saw her jump a little at the sudden ringing of a Skype video call. She looked down at the screen and a scowl broke into her face right away when she saw the floating window. “Oh, Jesus Christ, you must be having a laugh.”

My brows rose. “James?”

“The one and only,” she said wryly. With her laptop in her hands, she moved back to the bed and sat against the headboard. I reared up and sat beside her. She placed the laptop on her lap and only stared at the screen as the ringing went on.

“Answer it, then,” I nudged her.

“No,” she said. “This is unnecessary hypertension.”

“C’mon,” I prodded. “I’d like to hear what bollocks he’s got this time.”

“No, Emily,” she said, looking at me. “You might think this is a joke but the last convo your brother and I had did bother me for quite a while.”

An amused smirk curled my lip. “C’mon, babe. Answer it.”

The laptop began a second insistent ringing. Before Naomi could decline, I clicked on Answer.

My brother appeared in the little window, snickering. “Hi, Naomi. Thanks for answering,” he sang out, and the blonde rolled her eyes in response. “Hi, Emily. I know you’re there.”

I popped my head to the webcam’s range and flashed my brother a big, fake smile. He laughed harder.

Naomi stared at my grinning brother. “James,” she said in a serious tone, “if you think this—incessant calling and sending me e-mails—is some sort of a nice, little pastime for you, quit it, all right? Do I look like a fucking clown to you?”

“No. Not at all,” he said, trying to sound as earnest as possible. “You’re involved in this, Naomi.”

“I’m involved?” the blonde repeated blankly.

He nodded. “Yes.”

Naomi’s expression then turned severe. “I thought I made it clear that I don’t want any part in your pervy little businesses, James Fitch.”

“This is about my unpromising future,” James said. “With my potential wife. With our unborn kids. With our happily ever after.”

Naomi threw her hands in the air. “Which has every-fucking-thing to do with me. Oh, now I understand!”

“I’m getting to that part,” James said slowly.

Naomi’s e-mail inbox sounded with a new mail alert. She opened it in one window and found out it was from—none other than—James. A couple of image files were attached to the e-mail.

“Okay,” Naomi began, turning her attention back to James, “I’m completely and utterly baffled. This bafflement could easily morph into unbelievable fury at any moment. So I would really like an explanation for all of this now.”

“It’s like this,” James said briskly. “So a couple of days ago Gordon MacPherson’s brother received his monthly subscription of Sports Illustrated in the mail and, of course, Gordon and I devirginised the magazine first. And when I saw the cover I was just so ecstatic. It was like a gift from heaven.”

“Kindly cut to the chase,” Naomi said, her irritation rising.

“But, just last night,” he added, “Gordon MacPherson and I were surfing the internet and we stumbled across an article that really got me confused and broke my heart.” He placed a hand dramatically over his chest and made a sad face. “It really tore my heart into tiny pieces.”

When Naomi looked at me for help, I said sharply to my brother, “Fuck’s sake. Get to it quickly.”

“All right, all right,” James said. “Zoe’s gay. The love of my life, Zoe Hammond, is playing for your team. I mean, how could she be a dyke with mint tits like that?”

“What?” My brows came together in question. “I mean, how did you—?”

“Check out the files I sent you and all will make sense,” James said. “I also posted there some helpful links.”

We opened the image files. One was Zoe posing for the cover of the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. The other one was a collage of news articles of her being out as a lesbian.

My hand flew to my mouth at once. “Oh, my God. Zoe,” I gasped, staring incredulously at the front cover of Sports Illustrated. And the blonde next to me was just as shocked.

“Yes. Oh, my God, yea?” James said with a scoff. “I mean, who does she think she is stringing me along after all this time just to slap me with this without warning?”

Naomi looked him dead in the eye. “James—”

“No,” he said stubbornly. “She broke my heart, you guys. I thought we had something special. Her being gay means she rejected me.”

“She rejected a whole population,” I corrected him. “Not just you, you mong.”

“She used me. She led me on. All I did was love her,” James said, looking genuinely hurt.

“James, you and Zoe were never together,” Naomi pointed out. “You aren’t even friends.”

“I know. But she’s the girl I was gonna marry. What about that eternity?” James’s eyes were starting to well up with tears. And I swallowed a laugh at the sight of my wounded little brother, making Naomi pinch my thigh.

Naomi regarded my brother with unusual compassion. “James, it’s not the end of the world and Zoe’s not the last girl on earth. Soon you will find the right girl for you. You’re too young to take all of this seriously. So just wait and the perfect girl will come along, okay?” she said, her tone surprisingly sympathetic. “We knew about Zoe and we’re sorry we didn’t tell you before. And we’re sorry we know how much you like her.”

“Love,” James corrected, sniffling.

“Okay. If you say so,” Naomi said patiently. “But you have to start moving on, James. Now, if you don’t need anything else, can we just talk some other time? I have a bitch of a headache right now.”

But James wasn’t done. “There’s one more thing . . .”

Turning our gazes back to James, we saw his frown break into a wicked grin.

“If you could convert a straight girl to gay like what my sister did to you, Naomi,” he said, “is it possible to convert a gay girl to str—?”

Impulsively I slammed Naomi’s laptop shut, not letting James to even finish his question. “For Pete’s sake. That little worm is hopeless!” I leant back against the headboard then massaged my temples.

Naomi cocked her head at me, then burst out laughing.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Naomi, this is not a laughing matter. My brother has a serious mental problem. It’s outrageous.”

She laughed, then bit her lip. “It’s not funny.”

“Oh, yea?” I arched a brow.

“This is your fault, you know,” she said, trying to keep a straight face. “I told you not to answer his call. Look at you now.” 

She fought the chuckles of amusement that shook her body and lost the battle. I gave in and laughed with her. We had a brief pillow duel after that.

“Let’s look at the photos again,” I said, after we’d sobered. “I wasn’t able to—”

“No.” Naomi moved to crawl off the bed, hugging her laptop securely to her chest.

“Naomi, c’mon,” I implored, tugging at the hem of her top. “Just a quick look.”

“No—!” she half-squealed, as I pulled her back down to the bed. We both fell into fits of laughter.

“I want to see,” I prodded, trapping her writhing body in my arms.

She gave me a friendly shove with her elbow. “You perve. You just want to look at Hammond’s boobies, don’t you?” she said, making me laugh as we rolled on the bed.

Amazed that she could still be so naïve, I tried to take the laptop from her. “I just want to see how far she’d go.”

She twisted as I tickled her sides, but she kept hold of her laptop. “No.”

Laughing, I snagged one of her hands and held it firmly. “Naomi!”

Giggling helplessly, she reared up to try and free herself, but I pushed her back onto the bed and quickly sat on her legs to straddle her.

“C’mon, babe,” I urged, reaching for her laptop which she swiftly hid under the heap of pillows above her. It wasn’t really my intention to get the laptop from her hands; I just wanted to hear her giggles which were pure honey to my ears.

“No! Ems!” The laughing protest ended on a strangled gasp as I pinned down her arms to the mattress.

Desire choked off laughter as soon as I caught sight of Naomi’s sexy black satin bra partially revealed under her top. Her ivory skin looked beautiful in the soft lighting. Instant heat. Instant need. A fire directly licked along my nerves. Here’s a fact—a scientific fact: Women’s underwear is more appetizing than men’s. As if I really did care about what those beasts wear.

My gaze slid up to Naomi’s mouth. Her lower lip just begged to be bitten. Here’s another fact: In my modified Land of Oz, Naomi Campbell got the part of the Witch of the West. I would have sold my blood to bite any part of the blonde.

Before I even realised I was going to do it, I had leant over and was kissing her. Her hands slid up under my shirt, over my back, and I nearly lost it at the feel of her fingers caressing my bare skin. I went on kissing her, urgently, fiercely, the growing heat being fed by the little sounds of pleasure she made and the way she moved beneath me.

When Naomi’s hands went to the back of my head, to match my eagerness, the heat inside me turned into a leaping blaze. I stroked my way up her ribs to the undersides of her breasts. With my mouth continuing its ardent, loving work, I let my hands slip under her bra and thrilled to the warm velvety texture of each full mound. I cupped them, tenderly touched them, and the blonde’s breathing had become rapid. With maddening slowness, I kissed my way down to her chest, plucking at her skin softly with my lips, tasting her with my tongue. Then I kissed the lush, fragrant flesh with abandon, dropping fervent, damp kisses at random. When my mouth pushed the fabric down and fastened on a crest, a sound that was half sigh, half sob came out of her throat and she leant forward. She grabbed a handful of my hair as if frantically groping for a handhold to keep her on the world, to keep her from flying out into space as I suckled gently on a crest, laving her with my tongue.

Lifting my head, I watched as Naomi clutched at air. “Ripley’s Believe It or Not material, indeed,” I husked, smiling against the black garment that had miraculously stayed in place.

“Oh, Jesus, Em,” she gasped softly. Her head lolled on the pillow even as her chest heaved with gasping breaths. She blinked against the lamplight until I shaded her face with my head.

“Okay, okay—God, I can’t breathe.” She tried again. “Okay, okay, I give. We’ll look at it together.”

I grinned then dropped hot kisses on her lips. Naomi levered herself up so that we sat, facing each other. She straightened her shirt, then looked back at me, clearly washed with the previous fire. We exchanged a goofy grin, then a giggle.

“I knew it.” I pinched her chin lightly between my fingers. “Two years doesn’t make you the boss around here.”

“Shut up.” She batted my hand away, and I laughed victoriously.

We sprawled back down on the bed, lying on our stomachs together, and Naomi finally opened her laptop. “New babe in the pool,” I instantly read from an article as Naomi and I started to play footsie. It had become a custom for the two of us that whenever we’re on the bed—watching or reading something together—we would just stroke each other’s foot.

Naomi let out a derisive snort. “More like new badass in the pool.”

I scrolled down the article, and saw her photos with her supposedly teammates. “I wonder if Spandex has hit on all the girls on her swim team.”

“That’s not too far-fetched, knowing Hammond.”

“God, this is so awesome,” I said with an amused chuckle, as I studied her article. “Zoe’s definitely in it to win it, eh?”

Naomi frowned. “I am imagining her life is hell right now.”

“Or maybe not,” I said. “She’s advanced to sex symbol status and darling of the paparazzi. Must be awesome. And fabulous.”

“You’ve got a point,” she agreed, and her eyes slid down to another article. “And she’s out and proud now. Wow.”

“Yea, I bet she would be outing more closeted girls around her,” I said, smirking. “That girl is a female Casanova.”

I scrolled down again, and both our eyes bulged as I read a sub-headline, “Zoe’s wild nights in Japan.”

“Oh, dear God,” Naomi gasped. “Don’t tell me that includes my—”

“Ladylike slap,” we said in unison, and we both burst out laughing. Thankfully, Zoe didn’t mention any Clash of the Titans-inspired scenes in her interview. Just a bunch of drunken make-outs with random Japanese girls and wild body shots with my good ol’ buddy Sierra Tequila. Un-fucking-believable.

After we checked out some Hammond news, Naomi shut her laptop closed. “I should head off to the supermarket. What do you want for dinner?”

“You,” I answered, grinning naughtily. “With whipped cream on top.”

Naomi’s expression was severe. “Emily.”

“Just stay here,” I said cajolingly, trapping her with my leg.

“Seriously, Em,” she said, “the tofus are sold out by 7:30. What time is it?” She lifted her head to check out the clock on the bedside table, but I moved my head to block her view.

She scowled at me, and I said lightly, “You don’t need a clock to know the time, you know.” I snatched the clock from the table and dropped it down to the floor.

“Okay, you just sounded like my mum. She was a Gilt Cross awarded Girl Scout back in the days,” Naomi said, and I chuckled as an image of young Gina Campbell in green uniform popped into my brain.

“Anyway,” I said, rolling over to face her again. “If you need to know the time, you can just check the garden outside. Carolus Linnaeus, this Swedish botanist, observed that some flowers open at certain times. Like dandelions between five and six in the morning.”

“And when do dandelions close?” she asked, half joking, and half impressed by my obscure knowledge.

I squinted in the lamplight and propped my head up with one hand. “You’re testing me, but don’t . . .” I was tracing invisible patterns on her arm with the other. “They close at eight or nine.”

Her gaze flew to the flowers on the bedside table. “How about the lilies?”

“The lilies open at seven or eight and close around six or seven.”

Naomi raised her brows at me, genuinely in awe. “Wow. Now where did you learn all this, missy?”

I leant in and kissed her lips. “Two years doesn’t make you the Yoda here.”

“Master Yoda, I am certainly not,” she said, putting on a heavy guttural voice. “The Dalai Lama, I’d like to think I am.”

I cracked up at the hilarity. God, I have the funniest girlfriend. “But your astronomical knowledge is extraordinary,” I pointed out.

“Speaking of which . . .” she said, “You know, flower girl, you can use the moon to tell time, too.” I moved my head toward hers so we were nose to nose. “The moon—it’s highest at midnight . . .”

“Like a lot of wild teenagers,” I quipped, and she laughed and pinched my nose.

“I gotta go.” Naomi rolled off the bed and got to her feet. I started up after her, but she turned, pointing at me. “Stay here.” I did. She walked behind me, lifted my long red hair and kissed the nape of my neck. “I knew it,” she said smugly. “I am the boss.”

Then, as she drew back and turned to leave, she reached out and touched my chin with her fingertips. “Behave properly while I’m gone, ‘kay, Emsy Baby?”

As she moved to the closet to yanked on her jeans, I called after her, “Cougar.”

“Nice one,” she said with a little laugh. “Crybaby.”

“Cradle robber,” I shot back.

“Childish twat.”

“Dirty old woman.”

The last comeback made her wince and look at me, slightly open-mouthed for a moment. Her expression made me smirk triumphantly. Then slowly, menacingly, her brows rose up. “I’m gonna get you for this, Little Fitch.”

I grinned, truly excited for her payback. “Can’t wait, Aunt Naomi,” I teased in a little girl’s voice. “Could you bwing me some whipped cweam too?” I wiggled my brows suggestively.

Smiling in amusement, Naomi grabbed her wallet and bicycle key from the desk. “Don’t go anywhere, you naughty little girl. I’m gonna show you dirty later.” Then she took her grey hoodie jacket from the couch and turned toward the door.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and gazed at my girlfriend. I simply wanted to revel in what Naomi and I had found, that incredible fire, but I couldn’t help wondering what would happen in the future. Walking away from such incredible passion, something I’d never thought to find for myself, seemed impossible. But so did the idea of my boring and organised world ever melding with Naomi’s rough and tumble existence. But reflecting on what we have now, it was unquestionable that we just seem to . . . fit.

Naomi was my life now. I tried to picture myself being somewhere else—not even in Kyoto, necessarily, just anywhere without the blonde. But picturing myself to that life now, never seeing Naomi again, never seeing the flashes of sharp wit dart from behind that blasé mask, never seeing that sexy lip-biting only she could perfectly pull off, never hearing that melodic giggle again, never experiencing the magic that her fingers wove, never having another night just like we’d always had . . . It made me ache inside. It was another thought that was so frightening I was afraid to say it out loud.

“Wait!” I got to my feet, made my way toward her, held her close, and planted a soft, lingering kiss on her lips. But when I gave her another one, she pulled back.

“As much as I would love to play around some more, I’m leaving,” she said.

I kissed her neck, her cheek, her lips. But Naomi stood her ground. I let out a chuckle, but she remained expressionless.

Reading her stoicism, I sighed. “Oh, Naomi,” I said with real suffering. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Stay here,” she told me again, and spun on her heel but not before leaving me with knee-trembling wink and an electrifying line: “I’ll come back with some whipped cream.”

Smiling to myself, I watched as the door shut closed behind her.

I will stay. Of course.

Naomi Campbell was my happiness. My home. My haven.