Naomi pushed her hair away from her face and inhaled deeply, the first mouthful of pure oxygen in a long while. She felt the coolness of the room in her cheeks now, which had been previously shielded by the insides of Emily's thighs. It felt as if she had just been pulled out of an oven, a newly baked loaf of bread.
"Come here," Emily whispered, already beginning to reach down for her. The girl's croaky voice made Naomi smile, as she felt responsible for it, as for the apparent weakness in Emily's limbs, the slight trembling.
She let herself be guided back on top of the smaller girl, and kissed her with humid, almost smoky lips. Emily responded slowly, as she seemed to be well spent, and Naomi felt responsible for this as well, and proud. Sighing contently into her mouth, Emily draped her arms around Naomi's back, playfully sifting strands of blonde hair between her fingers.
"Hmmph," Naomi murmured, pressing her lips against Emily's naked shoulder. "I like it when you do that."
Every little touch of hers felt quite heavenly, in fact, from the completely unconscious to the most deliberate one. Naomi loved to lie still with her eyes closed, while Emily let her fingers wander, revisiting old roads and discovering new ones -there always seemed to be new ones- on her skin. It never failed to paint a satisfied, silly smile on her lips.
There had been a time when everything had been new. That electric night by the lake, or that other day in her old bedroom, they had both explored, really explored, each other, with a hunger born from fascination, and even years of yearning. There had been a desperate desire to learn, but also to claim, like a long-awaited conquer, and all of the energy that normally went towards containment, suddenly had been allowed to explode. Some version of these occurrences now happened every night, and most mornings.
"You're thinking about something, I can tell," said Emily, gently chastising her by tugging a chunk of her hair. "What is it?"
"Yeah... I was thinking about how I love to be touched by you, and how it was and how it is now."
"Yeah? Why? Do you have any complaints?"
Naomi looked up at the roundish face of the girl she loved more than anything, to see that she was smiling cheekily.
"No complaints at all, Ems," she said, scooting up a bit so that she could kiss Emily again. "And you know it."
"I do. And what were you remembering, specifically?"
The blonde's smile widened for a moment, before trying to explain about another glorious night, perhaps the most desperate and emotional of all, after she had allowed the contents of her heart to pour out and gather at her feet for Emily to see. That she had loved her from the very beginning, almost as long as there had been a girl called Naomi who was already quite opinionated at a tender age. That she had loved Emily so much that she had tried to push her away and seize her control, just as much as she had showed up at places only because Emily would be there.
That special night after Naomi's confession, Emily had smiled at her in a way that informed her that there was no other human being in the entire planet, and then she had taken her hand and led her out of Freddie's shed, back to their bedroom. Naomi wondered if she could indeed formulate in words the shock of touching and being touched by Emily after so long, after the emotional distance, the lack of communication, the way of living like two spirits that just happened to haunt the same house. She remembered exactly how Emily had healed her that night, and the following nights, inside and outside.
She wanted to be able to explain how she had finally opened the door to the labyrinth inside her, so that Emily could enter instead of just seeing it from a distance, and explore with every touch the trail of breadcrumbs that Naomi had left for her.