Written in the Stars(58)

“I’m guessing you didn’t just move in,” Darcy said, smirking over shoulder.

“Ha ha.” Elle smiled. “No. I’ve lived here . . . four years? Five?”

“With Margot?” Darcy asked.

Elle nodded. “With Margot.”

Darcy’s eyes darted around the space. She flicked the bobblehead astronaut on the bookshelf and arched a brow. “Where is Margot?”

Elle jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Her room, probably.”

Her stomach somersaulted when Darcy nodded and stepped toward her, thumbs tucked inside her front pockets. Casual, graceful, Darcy’s footsteps didn’t even wobble at she put one foot in front of the other, stopping about a foot away from Elle. “And your room is . . . ?”

Elle tugged at the lobe of her ear. “Also, down the hall. Not to be confused with the bathroom. Not that my bedroom looks like a bathroom. Just that you’d be in for a rude awakening if you somehow managed to confuse the two. Basically, everything’s down the hall. It’s small. My apartment.”

“Can I see it?” Darcy asked, hand reaching up and tucking her hair behind her ear.

Elle toyed with the rings on her Neptune earrings. “My room?”

Taking one step closer, so close there was nowhere else for Elle to go, so close their toes bumped, Darcy set her hand on Elle’s hip and nodded.

“Sure,” Elle breathed. She covered Darcy’s hand with hers, slotting their fingers together, and tugged, leading Darcy down the hall to the last door on the right. Feeling along the wall for the switch, she flipped the lights. Not the regular ones that were too bright, gross fluorescents that turned everything in the room an unflattering shade of blue and made her hair look green, but the strands of twinkling fairy lights she’d tacked up along the walls. They bathed the room in a warm, champagne glow bright enough to see, but dim enough to set a certain ambiance. Flattering as candles, but less dangerous. Mood lighting at its safest, not to mention cheapest. That, and hopefully they’d keep Darcy from spotting the mountain of laundry between Elle’s desk and dresser that she had yet to fold.

Her concern was for nothing. Darcy didn’t look around, definitely didn’t judge. She was looking straight at Elle, lids low, her lower lip captured between her teeth.

Elle gripped her sleeve, rubbing the fabric between her fingers and her palm. “So. My room.”

Darcy reached out and ran her hands up Elle’s arms, over her shoulders, until her fingers rested on either side of Elle’s neck. Beneath Darcy’s fingertips, Elle’s pulse pounded in an unmistakable display of nerves.

Not just nerves. Elle wanted her so badly her fingertips pulsed with the need to touch Darcy, skin burning with the desire to be touched in turn, but she didn’t want to mess this up. This, whatever it was they were doing that Elle didn’t know for sure, didn’t want to risk asking because what if she didn’t like the answer and—

“Hey.” Darcy’s thumb brushed along the underside of Elle’s jaw, a gentle graze that made Elle shiver. “What are you thinking?”

What was she thinking? God, what wasn’t Elle thinking? A flurry of half-formed thoughts zipped through her mind. What she wanted, what she hoped . . . so much hope her bones ached, her body too small, almost bursting with holding it inside. Her skin was too tight, hot, itchy, and she wanted to strip it off, strip herself down, let Darcy see the full shape of her heart, messy and imperfect and with a space carved out, a space she’d been aching to fill for so long but no one ever fit, their angles too sharp, too rough, puzzle pieces never lining up right with hers. Elle had been waiting, waiting for the right person to come along who fit inside the space, that space inside her heart carved out just for them. For her person, not a perfect person, but a person perfect for her.

A person she hoped just might be Darcy.

Elle turned her head and brushed her lips along the inside of Darcy’s wrist. “You know, hoping I’m wearing cute underwear.”

Laughter sputtered from Darcy’s mouth, warm and bright, replacing the anxious swirl in Elle’s stomach with a giddy sort of levity.

“I should be the judge of that, don’t you think?” Hands still cupping Elle’s jaw, cradling her face with a delicacy no one had ever treated her with, Darcy leaned closer until their noses brushed once, twice—

Patience wasn’t a virtue Elle possessed. Surging up on her toes, she pressed her lips fully against Darcy’s, smiling into the kiss, her stomach erupting in a kaleidoscope of butterflies when Darcy smiled, too.

Hands sliding back to tangle in Elle’s hair, Darcy swept her tongue against the seam of Elle’s lips. Elle opened, moaning softly when Darcy flicked the tip of Elle’s tongue with hers, tasting, teasing.

The kiss was dizzying, her knees going stupidly weak stupidly fast. Screw sports cars, Elle had zero to sixty down pat. Fingers knotting in the hem of Darcy’s cashmere sweater, Elle gripped her tight, swaying into her. She groaned when Darcy’s tongue traced the roof of her mouth, sending tingles down her spine, her nipples pebbling against the wool of her sweater.

Gasping for air, Elle tore her mouth away and panted. “Can I take this off?”

Elle already felt bare, stripped down to hope and bones and the pulse inside her veins, raw from sharing on the astronomy tower and inviting Darcy over. It was only fair to strip Darcy down a little, too.