I don't know what's happened to me, I think I've caught to Zoe/Tessa bug. I might do more of this if anyone wants it.
She hadn't expected Tessa to be as soft as she is. Her exterior is so hard, but when they're alone together, there's something else about her. Zoe does not know how to explain it. There's brief doleful glimpse she catches in Tessa's eyes. The tips of her fingers are more tender against Zoe's skin than she had expected. She's softer.
Of course, there are a lot of things that surprise her about Tessa. The tiny birthmark above her left hip. The scar on her ribs, faded now, that she won't explain. Her black silk underwear that's patterned with butterflies in dark, vivid colours, tumbling together in an intense warped jumble, a kaleidoscope of colour at her breasts and her groin.
…...
She'd never done this with a woman before. Tessa, evidently, had. She had heard it whispered before, and wondered, watching with a not unappraising eye the movements of Tessa's lean and attractive figure though she would not care to have admitted it.
They were unmatched in their experience, but, as always, Tessa proved quite an exemplary teacher; always willing to praise- her voice soft and crooning in Zoe's ear- always willing to demonstrate. Still stern, authoritative, maintaining with superb composure the unremitting persona she presented on the Grid. But now not altogether unyielding. She is a very good teacher. But then, Zoe supposes, in this instance it suits her to be.
She can remember, with a vividness that makes her shudder, the first time she tasted Tessa. Buried her head between the older woman's slender legs and tasted her, pushing her tongue into her folds, insistently and uncertainly. Tessa's hands wound into her hair, holding her firmly there, tugging a little, hurting a little too- not that Zoe cared. She was lost in her musky scent, the heat and wetness of her against her tongue and her lips and the sound of Tessa's voice, throaty, still commanding as she made sounds of her approval;
"Oh God, Zoe, yes, that's it, just there. More, harder, Zoe, yes."
…...
Tessa has obscenely expensive sheets on her bed. Far too expensive to do this on, and one night Zoe wonders lazily how much Tessa gets through in cleaning costs just through sex alone. And white lilies in a large glass vase on the bedside table. They're always there, and she muses whether or not they're real or plastic. But they are real, they wilt and the odd petal falls onto the cold, smoothly varnished wood of the table. And a bottle of Chanel perfume resting, always in exactly the same place, by the long narrow mirror behind the bedside table.
That mirror. The mirror where she can see them, her eyes above Tessa's shoulder, as they fuck each other; two women sitting in each other's laps, their wet skin slipping blissfully over one another and writhing against each other on a ridiculously expensive bed, on white sheets under white lilies. The lines of their bodies blending smoothly and moving into one another.
…...
She's always found Tessa's shoes potently erotic, the unmistakeable sound they make, the plushness of their dark shimmer, the forbidding look of the pointed heels and triangular toes. She noticed them as soon as they met on the Grid, admired them. Tessa caught her looking and she felt her cheeks flush. She turned her eyes away quickly, back to her desk, but when she risked another look back, Tessa's eyes had not left her.
The first time Zoe takes the lead and fucks, really fucks, Tessa- pushes her back into the bed, almost bites her as they kiss, shoves her hand inside her- she is wearing she shoes; and she ends up wearing only her shoes, and her silk stockings and hold-ups, her legs parted in the air and moaning throatily as she comes.
…...
After a while she learned that it was best not to sit next to Tessa in briefings. Or opposite. It's difficult to strike a balance, but the friction that Tessa's proximity is too much for her to be able to concentrate. She tries sitting away from her, but Tessa realises exactly what she's doing. Tessa is not to be evaded.
The next day Tessa comes deliberately late to the briefing and sits down with the appearance of being hurried, in the chair beside Zoe. In the chair very close beside Zoe. More than close enough for them to touch. More than close enough for her to slip her hand under the table and undo Zoe's trousers, and push her hand into her underwear. Her face was completely unperturbed, her butter-wouldn't-melt expression totally preserved as her fingers slipped between Zoe's folds and she tried not to keen, tried desperately hard to keep her breathing level.
Tessa was certainly not to be evaded.
…...
By God, Tessa can drink. Zoe wonders if she's the only one who notices that tonight she's had vodka in just about every drink imaginable. But no one else seems to realise, and Tessa is disconcertingly composed. She is the centre of attention, in a midnight blue dress, everyone in the embassy seems to be looking at her all through dinner. Though she could have thought how lucky she was that the envy of London that night it her lover, Zoe wonders how she's not completely pissed. Perhaps she is but wears it well, that would be typical Tessa. No one notices Zoe next to Tessa. Not that she would want them to. She's never known anyone else who can dazzle a room in dark blue.
But at last the alcohol has a telling effect on Tessa, one that Zoe notices anyway, and one that she's terrified someone else might spot. There's a voluptuous gleam in her eye on the occasions when her eyes flit over to Zoe, openly provocative and full of sex. It makes Zoe shudder and reach for an extra drink as well.
She pays a visit to the ladies' room. Washing her hands in the cold water, she looks up and sees Tessa's reflection from over her shoulder. They are alone and the look is there more than ever.
It was not noticeable through dinner but Tessa's dress has a slit up to the thigh. Zoe turns and their eyes meet without the mirror. And before she really knows it, Tessa's bare thigh is pressed between her own, through her dress, pinning her up against the sink and she has Tessa's red lipstick all over her collarbone.
…...
Tessa chooses the most surprising places to meet in public. The Sacred Glass and Silver section of the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is not where lovers or spies meet. And that is Tessa's genius.
Zoe waits for her, looking up at the colour above her, the light from the sky shining through. What does Tessa want to tell her here that she can't tell her in bed?
When she tears her eye from the glass, she sees Tessa standing in the doorway by the stairs, watching her. And in that moment Zoe thinks she loves her. She does not think it, she instinctively knows it and the realisation rises in her throat like fire. She wonders if it showed in her face. It probably did, to Tessa, whom nothing escapes.
Hurriedly, she makes her way towards the stairs where Tessa is waiting for her. It is the middle of the week and the museum is nearly empty. They are alone in the darkened stairwell.
"Hello, Zoe."
She knows.
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