Claire stiffened and pulled back.
“Calm down. I won’t,” Delilah said.
“That’s not what I . . .” Claire closed her mouth, her eyes searching Delilah’s. “I want to be alone with you.”
Delilah grinned, pressed her mouth to Claire’s neck, growling a little into her skin. “Me too.”
Claire laughed. “Not for that.”
Delilah’s tongue traced a path up to her ear, and Claire sucked in a sharp breath.
“Okay, not only for that,” Claire said. “But I want . . . I want to talk too.”
Delilah pulled back, alarm tightening her stomach. “What about? I won’t tell anyone what we’re doing. I already told you that.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Then what?”
Claire sighed and pressed her forehead against Delilah’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Delilah said, pressing a kiss to her temple. “What is it?”
Claire lifted her head and smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. I can tell.”
Claire shook her head. “No really . . . I . . .” Then her brows lifted, just a little. “I want to see that picture. The one you took of me by the river five years ago.”
Delilah’s eyes widened. She had a feeling that’s not at all what Claire actually wanted to talk about, but she let it go. “Really?”
Claire nodded and her arms tightened, hands sliding down Delilah’s back. “Of course I do. You know Iris and I plundered your Instagram, right?”
Heat spilled in Delilah’s cheeks. She still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of anyone other than total strangers roaming through her art.
“I had a feeling,” she said.
Claire frowned. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s just weird.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be. You’re really talented, Delilah. Even Iris likes your work. The way you use light and your angles. I don’t know anything about photography, but your stuff . . . I don’t know. It’s emotional. Angry and sad and empowered. It made me feel something.”
Like any artist, Delilah viewed her own work with a dizzying mix of self-loathing and self-aggrandizement, so Claire’s words nestled like an ember deep in her chest and stayed there, glowing warm and bright.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really,” Claire whispered. “Your pieces at the Whitney are going to be breathtaking.” Then she kissed her softly, slowly. That ember in Delilah’s chest flared, igniting into a full flame. In that moment, Delilah didn’t care about secrets or Josh or Astrid or the way Jax had pulverized her heart or how the idea of showing at the Whitney and still not advancing in her career made her want to curl into a fetal position and suck her thumb. She only cared about this, Claire in her arms, whispering things that made Delilah feel seen for the first time in . . .
Shit.
Maybe this was the first time she’d ever felt this seen. Or, no, not this exact moment, but every tiny moment with Claire since she’d been back in Bright Falls—talking with Claire at the bookstore, lying with her in bed at Blue Lily, listening to her talk about her worries over Josh, telling her about Jax, watching how Claire’s eyes literally sparkled when she talked about Ruby. Hell, even letting the woman unknowingly hit on her at Stella’s.
Then last night, her skin, her body, her touch. Just sex that suddenly felt like anything but.
Delilah leaned into the kiss, trying to shut down her thoughts with her mouth, her tongue, her hands sliding into the back pocket of Claire’s shorts.
It didn’t work. Claire, sighing into her mouth, like she was happy. It all swirled in Delilah’s mind like a hurricane gathering strength. She pulled back, needing air, needing space. Needing to get her head back in this casual sex game.
Claire frowned at her. “You okay?”
Delilah didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Zips echoed through the campsite, followed by Spencer’s booming voice directing Astrid to fill up his water bottle.
“Better get this happiness-ruining going,” Delilah said as she turned away, swallowing around the infuriating thickness in her throat.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SHE’D COME ON too strong. That must be what it was. Delilah could tell that what Claire had really wanted to talk about was them, what this thing between them was, even when they’d already established it was sex, sex, and more sex. Why else would Delilah have pulled away from her like that, gasping for air like Claire was smothering her? She knew this was a mistake. Claire couldn’t do casual, and now Delilah was freaking out and realizing that Claire was starved for love and wanted nothing more than to climb inside Delilah and set up shop.
Except Claire didn’t want that.
She couldn’t.
This was Delilah Green, her best friend’s stepsister who took off on her family twelve years ago and barely looked back, and Claire knew too well what it was like to love someone who couldn’t stay. Who wouldn’t stay.
Only . . . after listening to Delilah talk about Astrid last night, how she and Astrid weren’t complicated at all, how Astrid and Isabel simply hadn’t wanted her . . . something about it rang true. Not that she blamed Astrid for it. She’d already lost her own father, then a stepfather, and Isabel wasn’t the kind of mother who doled out love easily. Delilah was strange as a girl, cold and distant, but she’d lost both parents by the time she was ten years old.
Wouldn’t that make anyone strange and cold and distant?
And now, as an adult, Delilah was anything but. A little rough around the edges, sure. Prickly. But something about her made Claire’s blood hum, apart from the amazing sex, even if they were just talking. Delilah was brilliant and funny and strong, and Claire wanted to wrap herself around her, soak her up, help fill that haunted look in the other woman’s eyes with something soft and gentle.
Claire rubbed her eyes under her glasses, trying to press back all of these damn feelings. She had always wanted to be one of those people who could sleep with someone and let it be just that—sex, feeling, skin. She knew it wasn’t a bad thing that she’d never been like that—she’d had a kid young, and there had always been too much at stake or simply not enough time in the day, but it always sounded so fun, hearing about Iris’s exploits in her early twenties. Even Astrid had had a few one-night stands, and those were only the ones she’d told Iris and Claire about.
You’re just not wired for casual, and that’s okay.