Timeless Tides | ENGLOT

Chapter 10: After

Ember's POV:

It has been a while since I woke up like this, fingertips drawing Cheetah eyes on my back, goosebumps dancing in their wake. It has been a long time. Too long. Or, maybe just the right amount of time. The truth is, I have waited forever for this moment.

All these years, the few women that did end up in my bed, none of them were good enough, none of them felt just right. None of them had fingers that studied the cheetah with the reverence it deserves. None of them could, because they didn't know the story. They asked about it, they all did, but I kept it close to my heart.

It didn't belong to them: not the story, not my heart.

All these years struggling against someone I was expected to become, but never felt connected to, are scars to my soul, and they seem of minimal importance as the only fingertips worthy of the Cheetah caresses me awake.

Lips press against my spine, and I feel the first behemoth of a rock lifted off my shoulders. Fingers slide through my hair, brushing it to the side, and another kiss is pressed into my neck.

I hum, eliciting a low chuckle from Calista.

"Em," she murmurs, her nose pressing against the shell of my ear.

Calista has never called me Em before, but there's an endearment to it, something sacred that makes me melt, and I decide, I'm already quite fond of it.

"Mh," I hum, still covered in a veil of delicate sleepiness and a morning sun barely awoken.

"Wake up."

"Nh-nh," I mumble resistance into my pillow.

"Em," Calista whispers, her voice as playful as the fingers trailing down my spine.

I grin into my pillow.

"I thought you were a morning person. Rise and shine and all that."

"My alarm hasn't–"

As my alarm clock blares from its spot on the bedside table, I groan and Calista chuckles again. A drowsy hand fumbles to turn it off, and when it finally succeeds, I roll over onto my back, meeting Calista's eyes for the first time this morning.

"Hey," she, propped onto one elbow.

"Hey."

Calista's hard and cold, so they say, but I never found a greater warmth than the one dancing in her eyes. Even when I broke her heart and she hated me, I still saw the fire within them. That's how I knew Calista was going to be okay. That's how I survived my own shattered heart.

Soft fingers lace with my own, and I watch Calista lift my hand to press a kiss against my knuckles.

"You stayed," I say, still not quite believing it's real.

There's a flash of something in Calista's eyes, a bit of panic, and I worry it was the wrong thing to say. For a second, I can't help but worry that falling into bed again, this soon, was the wrong move. Our friendship is already fragile under the weight of our history.

But then Calista looks at me, lifting her eyes from our entangled fingers to meet my gaze, and she says, "I wish we could stay here all day."

The morning sun is peeking through the blinds, bathing Calista in a soft glow of early orange, and I lift my free hand to brush her hair behind one ear. I tug gently at her neck, meeting her lips halfway in a goodmorning kiss.

"I can push it another half hour," I say, dwelling in the way her smile grows wide. "But no more than that."

"I'll take it."