Marked

The lipstick was always red. Bold. Brazen. Beautiful. It made its mark on everything it touched, wine glasses, thighs, my mouth. The kind of red that never apologized for where it landed. Just like her.

It was the first thing I noticed when she opened the door. The second was her eyes. Dark, alluring. The kind that make you spread your legs without a word, that make you ache before the first touch.

She leaned against the frame like she owned it. Like she owned me.

Her skin was pale, almost porcelain, but not delicate -- lit from within by something slower, deeper. Hair darker than I remembered swept into a loose twist that made her neck look longer, her collarbone more dangerous.

And her body was breathtaking. Tall. Sharp. Curved in all the places I used to know too well. She hadn't changed. She just looked like someone who had stopped pretending.

Her eyes dragged over me, slow, deliberate, like she was deciding whether I still tasted the same.

"Where do you want the first one?"

I could've said my mouth. I could've said my chest, my thighs, my hips.

But I didn't.

I tilted my head back, baring my neck, where the skin was soft, thin and traitorous. Where my pulse was already throbbing. Where I used to shiver when she said my name.

"Here," I whispered. "Start here."

She didn't say anything. She pulled me close, and her hands reached up. I held my breath as her fingers brushed the chain at my throat.

I hadn't planned to wear the necklace. But it was the one she gave me. The one I said I lost years ago, back when I was still pretending to forget her. I wore it tonight like an invitation.

Her fingers unlocked the clasp. A quiet click, and the necklace fell away. Then her mouth was on me.

Not my neck.

Lower.

Right at the base, where skin turns soft and nerves sit close to the surface. A place close enough to make me ache.

Her lips pressed there, slow and knowing.

A tease. A reminder of who was in control, and my body gave her everything.

My breath hitched.

I could feel my heartbeat in places I shouldn't.

A tremble raced down my spine, heat pooling fast between my thighs.

I felt her, felt myself opening, softening.

Melting under a mouth I'd sworn I wouldn't taste again.

Then her mouth was on mine. Hard. Hungry. Like she'd waited long enough.

I froze. Not because I didn't want it, but because I craved it.

She tasted like wine and lust -- dark, heady, familiar.

Her lips moved like they owned mine. And her tongue -- wet, slow, certain--parted me with that same old confidence.

My body remembered before my mind could argue.

I moved into her. My hands gripped her hips, needing her closer.

She grabbed my ass, pulled me tighter, until there was no space between us.

I moaned into her mouth, helpless.

Kissing her back like I was starving.

She spun me around before I could breathe --her hands already at my hips, dragging the dress down in one practiced motion.

Cool air hit my skin, and then her palms were on me.

My breasts, bare, aching.

She didn't ask. She didn't need to.

Fingers spread wide, cupping, lifting, then pinching, just hard enough to make me gasp.

My head fell back against her shoulder.

Eyes closed.

And I felt it.

The ache, low in my belly. The slick heat starting to gather.

Her thumbs rolled over my nipples, slow, deliberate.

A pull of pleasure that sent everything inside me tightening.

My knees went weak.

And still, she didn't stop.

I hadn't been touched like that in years. Touched with heat. With hunger. By someone who used to say I love you with her tongue first and her voice second.

She kissed down my neck, her mouth painting heat into every inch of skin she passed.

Her lipstick left smudges in her wake. Red blooms on pale skin. Bright against the curve of my shoulder. Faint along my collarbone.

Proof of where she'd been, of what I was letting happen.

She yanked my dress the rest of the way down. I kicked it off along with my heels, until it lay crumpled at our feet. I stood there in just my panties. Open. Exposed.

Her hands slid down my sides, firm, possessive, and I shivered. Goosebumps broke across my skin.

Then she turned me. Pressed me back until I hit the couch and dropped into it. She stepped in close, raised one foot and held it to my lips.

"Open."

I obeyed. Her toes slid into my mouth and I sucked. Soft skin, faintly salty and toes perfectly pedicured. Crimson polish, the same red as her lipstick.

Her foot pressed deeper. I hollowed my cheeks, tongue curling around each toe, worshipping her the way I used to. The act was obscene, submissive, and so fucking familiar.

I moaned around her foot. I couldn't help it because this was what I'd missed most.

The weight of her dominance and the taste of her control.

She pulled her foot from my mouth -- slow, wet, and gleaming with spit.

Her eyes met mine.

"Good girl."

I almost came from that alone.

I slid down my panties and spread my legs wide for her. I was ready for whatever she had.

She knelt right between my thighs, kissed down my neck, my chest, the tops of my breasts.

She pulled my nipples into her mouth one at a time sucking hard, then soft, then hard again until I was moaning, hips twitching, pussy already wet from want.

She moved lower. Her lipstick left trails across my ribs, my belly, the space just above where I ached.

Marks. Proof. Like she wanted to brand me one last time. She licked the sweat from my skin, down to where I burned.

I was shaking. Not from fear. From anticipation. From the unbearable ache of being so close.

She kissed the tops of my thighs, first one, then the other and looked up.

"I remember this," she whispered.

Then lowered her mouth again and worshipped me. With lips. With tongue. With the kind of reverence that made me forget how to breathe.

I wasn't supposed to want this. Not tonight. Not anymore. But I did.

"Please," I whispered, not to stop her. To keep going.

Her mouth found my pussy, hot, open, unrelenting. Her tongue dragged across my clit, slow at first, then firmer, more deliberate. My head tilted back. A moan tore from my throat, loud and unrestrained. The kind that didn't ask for permission. I rolled my hips into her face, grinding down, chasing more.

She moaned too low and rough. The vibration sparking through me like a wire.

Then her fingers -- God -- her fingers slid inside me.

Two. Deep. Curling.

She fucked me while her mouth stayed at my clit, tongue working in slick, perfect circles.

I cried out -- high, raw, broken.

My thighs clamped around her head.

She didn't pull away.

She pushed in deeper.

Tongue, lips, fingers -- all of her.

Every part of her in me, owning me.

"Fuck" I gasped. "Don't stop. Just there. Right there."

She didn't. She couldn't.

I came with a scream. Loud. Splintering.

My back arched off the couch as the orgasm ripped through me, hot and messy.

My body bucked. My hands clutched the cushions. I sobbed and still she didn't stop.

She licked through it. All of it. Every aftershock. Every tremble told her she still knew exactly how to break me.

She lifted her head, crawled up my body, and kissed me -- deep, claiming. I could taste myself on her mouth. Salt. Heat. Something sweet and sharp and unmistakably mine.

We stayed like that for a moment. Lips pressed, breath tangled.

Then we opened our eyes. We stared at each other.

Unblinking. Unmoving. Everything we hadn't said hung there between us.

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and then one from mine.

We didn't speak.

We both knew what this was.

The last time. The one we'd never talk about. The one we'd always remember.

Her smudged lipstick was dark against her mouth. No need to fix it. No reason to hide.

She stood slowly, smoothing her skirt. When I stood up, I caught my reflection in the window. Hair mussed, chest flushed, thighs sticky from release.

There were lipstick stains everywhere.

My neck.

My breasts.

My thighs.

I reached for a tissue and dabbed the ones I could reach. But when I got to the one on my upper thigh, where her mouth had lingered last, I stopped. It was shaped like a mouth still wanting.

I left it there. Maybe I wanted to get caught. Maybe I wanted him to ask. Maybe I just needed proof that, for one last night, I'd been touched like I mattered.

I stepped into my shoes and slipped my dress back on. Then I reached down for my panties. Still damp, still warm.

I didn't put them back on. I held them out to her. She took them and pressed them to her lips, like something sacred. Then she folded them, tucked them into the pocket of her skirt, and met my eyes without flinching.

She'd keep them. She'd keep me.

"I should go," I said softly. "I'm walking down the aisle at two."

She nodded and fixed the clasp of my necklace, her necklace, and let her fingers linger on my collarbone a beat too long.

I opened the door and stepped out into the night.

The air hit me first, cold and sudden against skin that had just been kissed. My thighs brushed bare. My center pulsed, open, aching, still wet. No fabric. No shield. Nothing between me and the night. Just skin, memory, and the slow, silent ache of goodbye. I could feel the breeze against me.

Her voice cracked behind me. She was crying. Bawling.

"You'll forget," she called out. "But your body won't."

She was broken and I knew she was right. Because I could already feel the lipstick drying on my thigh, still warm, still red, still hers.