chapter 17: hovering

They spent the rest of that afternoon in a comfortable silence that neither of them was bothered by.

Willow, as much as she wanted to trust the girl, could not make the mistake of leaving her alone in her room again. So she simply sat down at the table, trying her best to concentrate as she scribbled important things down in her book for business and things of the such; but every time the girl watching TV across the room from her would move even a muscle, her eyes discreetly snapped towards her. The doors were locked; she knew she couldn't escape. But maybe that wasn't the reason why she kept finding her eyes so fixated on the girl.

They went to sleep early that night, both emotionally exhausted from the day. August was exhausted from crying like a baby on the rooftop and fearing that Willow was going to rip out her windpipe, and Willow was exhausted from the troubles plaguing her mind. She was trying to swallow down the softness in her that she so obviously had for August. She knew that it was dangerous and wrong and so out of her usual, but as she laid down next to August that night, she found some sort of delight in the smell of her French vanilla soap; and she listened as the girl's breathing eventually slowed as she fell asleep, her body slightly moving up and down with every breath. Willow didn't know why she listened, but she couldn't stop. No matter how much she shifted in her bed or tried to count sheep, the girl simply sleeping next to her was troubling her so that she could hardly close an eye the entire night.

♠

As August's eyes opened the next morning, she rubbed her arms together and felt relief at the fact that she hadn't woken up handcuffed. Her eyes flickered open to see that during her sleep she had rolled over onto her left side and was lying right beside the woman who was still asleep on her back, August's arms only inches away from her bare shoulder.

August started to pull her arms away and roll over, feeling like she was invading the woman's personal space, but something stopped her from doing so. Maybe it was the way the woman's chest was lifting and then falling again with her every breath, but somehow, in that moment, the big bad Willow looked so...vulnerable.

Maybe sometimes in August's mind the woman was too cool to be real, too cool to be human. But there, on that bed in the silent room, August held her breath as she watched the woman do something so normal and so mundane that literally every human to have ever walked the earth did—breathe. Willow was human, after all, and she had two lungs laying beneath her chest for a reason.

Her sense of vulnerability perhaps also came from the way she was asleep, unconscious in a room with a girl who was not handcuffed and a loaded gun sitting right there on the table in the living room. August had every opportunity in the world to escape. She could get the gun, kill Willow, flee out the door, and again taste freedom. She had to admit that it was very noticeable the way Willow was slowly but surely letting her guard down around her, something that she would've wanted more than anything two days before.

But August didn't get up. She didn't get the gun, she didn't kill Willow, she didn't open that door and escape. She only laid there, her eyes memorizing every place that the woman's strands of raven hair fell across the pillow and her chest. She could finally look at her face without having to be permeated by those cool green irises that made her stomach twist. Willow's eyebrows looked sarcastically arched even in her sleep. August smiled, thinking to herself that she was probably smarting off to someone even in her dreams.

Her eyes trailed down to her lips. They were very plump and wide, and August remembered every time she had seen those pearly whites shine through beneath them and how small dimples would sometimes appear in the creases of the woman's mouth. She had thin smile lines, something that gave away the fact that she was nearing her thirties; but it was the only thing besides her sophistication and the way she held herself that indicated the woman was older.

August eventually forced herself to roll away, instead staring at the nightstand beside her as she lay on her right side and away from the woman next to her, running through her mind every detail about that alluring face she had memorized.

♠

"You really cannot be serious right now," she spoke as she stepped out of the bedroom, wearing black sweatpants and a white tank-top that was a little too see-through for August's comfort.

August's eyes snapped upwards to the sound of Willow's voice and were immediately drawn to the woman's chest where her black bra was visible through the thin tank top. August lifted her eyes back up as soon as she could, searching the woman's face for any sign that she had noticed the girl's eyes fall a little too southwards. Luckily, she didn't.

"What?" August inquired, nervously licking her lips as she tried to keep her eyes on Willow's, watching the woman rub a towel against her black hair that was damp from her recent shower.

"You cannot seriously be watching SpongeBob on my television," Willow spoke, her eyes narrowing in disbelief at the girl who sat in front of the TV that showed the yellow sponge and pink starfish characters.

"And exactly why shouldn't I be seriously watching SpongeBob on your television?" she popped back, raising her eyebrows at the woman who was reaching her tattooed arm behind her head, drying the back of her hair.

"Well," Willow began, throwing the towel down onto the arm of the couch and stepping closer to the piece of furniture that August sat on the far opposite side of. "Because The Office is on right now and it is, after all, my television, giving me the right to change the channel as I very well may please." She stood nearly in front of the girl now, staring down at her with a simper across her lips.

"Is that so? Because last I heard..." August picked up the remote that was lying on the couch arm she was leaning on, holding the black device up in the air, buttons facing the tall woman who stood over her and expected her to just comply with her orders. "You can't change the channel without the remote." She wiggled her eyebrows at Willow with a roguish smile upon her face.

Willow became amused at August's remarks—she was beginning to love when the girl smarted back at her. "You are quite the miscreant, August." She stepped closer, crouching down in front of the girl and resting her elbows on her spread knees.

August swallowed the nervousness that swelled in her throat as the woman crouched down so close in front of her. She looked down at the woman and chaffed, "Getting down on your knees won't make me just hand it over that easy."

The woman's jaw clenched as she held back a smirk, a dimple forming in her left cheek. "And you know what happens when depraved girls like you refuse to hand over the TV remote?"

The girl only slowly shook her head no, an almost inconspicuous smile resting on her lips, her eyes glinting with some sort of ardor that prompted Willow's eyes to match. There was a moment of silence and tension as the two stared at each other in a way they never had before; they often smirked  when having a playful banter, but this time there was an ardency in both of their eyes that gazed intensely upon one another. August held her breath, waiting for the woman to answer.

"You have to fight against them!" Willow yelled, springing up from the floor and jumping onto the couch right beside August, reaching her quick hand towards the remote.

August had been startled by how the woman suddenly pounced onto the couch cushion and was only inches away from her, diving her long arm towards the remote she was holding, but luckily she was able to hastily move her arm back far enough that the woman's outstretched one could not reach the remote in her hand.

Willow froze, staring at August with her arm stretched across the girl, reaching for the remote. She noticed how close their faces were, how August's eyes kept shifting up and down between her eyes and her lips.

"Oh, you want to play that game?" Willow's eyebrow raised up as she stayed in the position she was, her arm frozen in the air over the girl and her face only inches away.

August bit her bottom lip. "You told me you had to fight against me."

"Oh, so you're admitting that you are a depraved girl?" Her voice had suddenly lowered, reaching a husky tone that sent shivers down August's spine.

The girl could feel her cheeks tinge, heat rising to her entire face as the older woman's eyes burned through hers. She felt again as if she were a rat in a cage, cornered by the voracious cat, except this time its appetite wasn't coming from its stomach but a place much deeper—a place that caused the formidable woman to look at her with a new glint in those fluorescent green irises that seemed to burn away the thin piece of paper that August's placidity was riding on.

"I would be lying if I said I wasn't," August spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. Her breathing was shaky as she misdoubted her own bravery.

"Is that so?" Willow's voice was satiny, making the girl's ears feel as if they were laying in a bed of smooth silk. Her eyes seemed to darken as they fell to August's small lips. She swallowed, feeling a heat rise in her chest and almost floor her. This was the first time she had felt this heat, and within seconds it was eating her alive as her now heavy eyelids gazed upon every indention and curve of the girl's pink lips.

She abruptly snapped out of her thoughts, realizing that the girl was just as sidetracked as she was. She took this moment to make an impetuous attempt to snatch the remote, letting her whole body vault forwards. Willow was a competitive woman and would do everything in her power to win the silly rivalry over the TV remote.

August suddenly felt the woman's weight press her against the couch, her body flattening out underneath her. The remote slipped out of her hand as she sucked in a soft breath, hearing the remote hit the wooden floor before bouncing a few times and then rattling away into silence. The remote was the least of her worries at that very moment, though.

Willow's left hand pressed into the little space of couch next to August's shoulder for support while her right arm was still outstretched for the remote but never caught it as she watched August's hand loosen and the remote slowly fall to the ground. She lowered her now goalless arm and let it rest on the couch arm.

Her green eyes widened slightly as she realized the position she was in and that it had incited the remote to fall from August's grasp. She was completely on top of August, her broader body pressing against hers as her long legs tangled between hers. Her lips parted as she stared into the girl's midnight blue eyes, gasping for breath. She didn't know why she was out of breath so; all she had done was jump forward a bit. But the heat growing inside of her was what was stealing her oxygen away, and so was the girl underneath her. Her body could feel every inch of August's that it was touching.

August felt her heart racing as she gulped. The woman's face, outlined with her dark hair, looked different than it ever had before. Willow was staring at her with lust, with dark eyes that incandescently lit her entire body ablaze. The look was killing her. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she breathed, lashes fluttering as the sexual tension between them imbued her.

"Like what?" the woman purred, distracted by the way she enjoyed hovering over the girl so. She craved to slip her knee between the girl's legs, and she suddenly craved to do a lot of things between the girl's legs.

August glanced down at the woman's parted pink lips, mentally lecturing herself for letting her mind wander about how those full lips would feel against her skin. Everything about it was so wrong. She was supposed to hate Willow—she was her abductor, after all. But there she was, laying underneath the woman, her legs practically quivering from the smoldering heat she felt over her entire body.

Willow had thoughts—many dark, delicious thoughts that were running fervently through her mind. But then she remembered the situation she was placed in, not the one where she was pinning the girl against the couch and closing up any space between their bodies, but the one where she had kidnapped the girl to keep her from talking to people of her rival gang. She remembered her role as a gang leader.

She couldn't deny the fact that she was rapidly starting to adore August. The exasperating girl had grown on her, beginning to break down her cold barriers no matter how much she hated it. She always travailed and prevailed at causing the woman to lose her calm composure. Willow hated it so much, but a part of her knew that there was something special about August for being the only one who had ever made the woman feel that way.

But Willow grew graven as she remembered just how dangerous she was as a gang leader. She had already almost killed the girl twice, and she had only been spending time with her for approximately four days. Her job was to murder people, deal drugs, make money, and take care of her Blue Porcelain family—not start some kind of affair with a girl 11 years younger than her who practically oozed innocence.

She quickly climbed off her, standing up and running a hand through her raven hair and trying to fill the now awkward silence as August slowly sat up, staring up at the woman with a carefulness.

"Y-You probably broke the damn thing." Willow felt her cheeks blush slightly for the first time in decades. She had never stuttered in front of someone in her adult life, let alone a young, chaste girl whom she was supposed to be the boss of.

"Yea..." August mumbled, looking at the remote on the floor and its batteries that had popped out during its fall. She was confused as to what changed, as to why Willow was staring at her like she was her dinner, then her eyes suddenly hardening as she removed herself from the girl so fast. She didn't want to admit that she felt the same lust for Willow, but she definitely didn't not enjoy it. As much as her mind was telling her "no," something inside her was screaming "yes."

Willow walked over to the remote, picking it up and pushing its batteries back inside. She proceeded to change the channel to The Office, which caused August to sigh in defeat.

Chuckling, Willow walked around the couch and sat down on it, making sure she kept an empty cushion between herself and the young girl whose soft-looking lips she couldn't stop thinking about. "I guess I won," she spoke, looking over at August with a self-complacent smile.

August looked at the woman's cute dimples, a smile tugging on her lips as her fingers subconsciously found a loose string from her jeans and began nervously twiddling it. She glanced to the TV, chewing the inside of her lip as she kept thinking about the feeling of the woman's legs intertwined with hers.

They both sat there in silence, staring at the television screen even though neither of them were really watching. Their minds were too distracted by the idea of each other, the new one that had formulated during the tension they both felt only moments before. Willow felt as if she was going to explode if she kept thinking about the girl's slender waist that her own had pressed against or her light brown curls that had sprawled across the couch cushion as she had gazed up at the older woman. Her hair looked so soft... She wanted to touch it.

She instead ran a hand through her own dark hair, pursing her lips together as she tried to shake off the thoughts that were going to make her lose her control if she didn't swallow them down soon.

"There's a party downstairs tonight. Just some drinking and poker-playing, probably," Willow slowly began, her voice surprisingly shaky. She cleared her throat and turned her head to look at the girl, all of that blistering warmth returning in her cheeks and spreading throughout her body. "Would you like to go?"

August met the woman's eyes. She could tell that she was clenching her jaw, her entire figure tense and awkward. She had never seen Willow like that before.

The girl nodded, returning Willow's tense smile before turning her attention back to the TV.

They both tried to focus on the show playing in front of them, but all either could think about was the other's body pressed so close against theirs.