CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 

Thisbe checked her phone so many times that Shy threatened to throw it out the window if she didn’t stop. And even after that, Thisbe’s fingers still twitched along the smooth surface of the small device, as if she couldn’t help but reflexively check to make sure it was still in her hand.

“Put it away, seriously,” Shy urged as the heavy iron gates to Starfall Ranch opened at her signal and she pulled onto the long driveway. “You know it’s just going to get worse and worse. Idle speculation has never led to a good headline.”

Thisbe made a face but put her handheld back in her bag.

“I can’t help it, you know? The not-knowing is almost as bad as reading what they’re saying.”

Shy checked the ranch control network to make sure the gates at both the front and the back of the property were securely locked.

“We’re home now. If you need something to occupy your hands or your mind, I can put you to work on about a dozen tasks,” she said, trying to sound playful and encouraging.

It didn’t come naturally to her, but she’d be damned if she didn’t at least make the effort for Thisbe’s sake. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like, to have her family up on intergalactic networks talking about her like that.

“Are you hungry?” Thisbe asked. “I could fix up some breakfast while you check on the animals. Wallis should be here soon, right? I bet they’d like something warm to eat waiting for them.”

“You are a queen,” Shy declared. “If you weren’t around, I swear it would be a nutrient bar for every meal.”

“If I wasn’t around, you wouldn’t be locking down your ranch like you were preparing for a siege.”

Shy snorted as she pushed a few more buttons on her control panel, then pocketed her com. “That honestly sounds like a normal pre-Thisbe day around Starfall to me. Here, I’ve set you up with access to the whole place. The doors should open for your signal now. You go on ahead and I’ll join you when I’m done in the barn.”

She said the words as casually and confidently as though it were the easiest thing in the world to hand over access to Starfall to anyone else, but inside, Shy’s stomach had gone well past flip-flops and was currently forming some sort of giddy, nauseating, endorphin-fueled whirlpool. The stunned look on Thisbe’s face at least confirmed that this was A Big Relationship Deal for the both of them and definitely not casual or to be taken lightly.

“I—yeah, alright. See you inside in a bit.”

Thisbe took a few steps towards the house, then rushed back just as Shy turned to go and flung her arms around Shy’s neck, pulling her into a deep, fierce kiss that managed to turn Shy’s internal whirlpool into a bonfire.

“Welcome home,” Thisbe said quietly.

“Welcome home,” Shy repeated. She brushed her lips against Thisbe’s for the briefest moment, smiling mouth to mouth, then pulled back and gave Thisbe a playful swat on her phenomenal ass. “Now scoot, I’ve got goats and robots to deal with.”

✽✽✽

By the time Shy had checked in with the herd and seen to the chickens (thankfully, the auto-feeders and egg gathering drones had all managed to function properly for one morning), Wallis had arrived, groceries in hand.

“You’re lucky my only plans today were to binge on trashy action-romance shows and eat giant bowls of cereal,” Wallis said. “Where’s your Earthling princess? Up in the house, I’m assuming?”

“Don’t call her that,” Shy said offhandedly. “And yes, she’s up at the house right now making the two of us breakfast, as a matter of fact.”

Wallis’ manicured eyebrows shot up. “I take back the princess remark. She is surely nothing less than an intergalactic goddess. Wait—she’s not making porridge or something she found on social under the tags wholesome or clean eating, is she?”

Shy smirked and shook her head. “I highly doubt it.”

“Then yes, she is most assuredly a goddess. Let’s go introduce me.”

Shy grabbed one of the bags of groceries from Wallas’ car, and together they went up to the house. They found Thisbe setting the dining room table, an act that had likely never once before occurred at the Starfall Ranch dining room table since the house had been built. When Wallis had collected their jaw off the floor, they moved in with a wide smile and set the groceries on the counter between the kitchen and the dining room.

“Thisbe!” Wallis exclaimed, drawing out each syllable in Thisbe’s name. “It is so good to finally meet you, you utterly splendid jewel of a human.”

“What Wallis means to say is that they’re looking forward to breakfast.” Shy smirked as she placed the other bag of groceries in the kitchen and then set to work fixing a pot of hot coffee.

“Wallis said what Wallis meant to say,” Wallis sauced back. “It smells like heaven’s version of heaven in here. What’s for breakfast?”
      Thisbe finished setting the last fork on the table and held out a hand to Wallis.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you in person,” she said, smiling as they shook hands. “Breakfast is an old-fashioned bacon-apple-walnut strudel. Breakfasting like a BAWS, get it?”

Wallis stumbled and held up a hand. “Okay, hold on, I’ve got one question and it’s really inappropriate but Shy, just how good are you in bed to have this intimidatingly hot presence here, in your house, making you an bacon-apple-walnut strudel and furthermore a meal that she turned into an adorable compliment?”

“Wallis!” Shy snapped, but Thisbe just put a finger up to her lips and winked conspiratorially.

“You know what, I think I need to check on the strudel. Excuse me.”

 

Over breakfast and cups of Shy’s extra-strong coffee, the three of them worked out a plan.

“Okay item one: get Gran Haver and the entire Haver clan out of the picture,” said Thisbe. Wallis looked impressed.

“Starting off with the hired kills, alright, alright. I like the way your mind works, Earthsider.”

“I wasn’t talking about killing him! I just mean… he was sniffing around trying to find an in with Shy the day I arrived. And Shy, you mentioned that he said that was the last time he would make you an offer. Then he finds out who I am, and suddenly he’s all over me, sharing detailed plans about what he’ll do with the land once it belongs to him, trying to lure my money in with ridiculous implied promises of marriage and mining company management.”

Shy thunked her coffee mug on the table so hard it sloshed over the side, and the other two jumped at the noise.

“And then there’s the sabotage evidence that Shy found,” Thisbe quickly moved on from any unpleasant thoughts of marriage to Gran Haver, which Shy was thankful for. She’d rather eat her own teeth than stand by and see Thisbe bullied into marriage with that goat turd.

“Judge might find it circumstantial at best,” Shy said. The security footage is blurry enough that it might be Gran, might not be. And he’s got enough pull in the city to get himself a quality lawyer.”

“We can get you a better one,” Thisbe replied. She put her hand on top of Shy’s and squeezed. It had the effect of making Shy feel as though the sun had risen all over again that same day.

“Just as soon as you get an even better one for yourself,” Wallis pointed out around a mouthful of strudel. Thisbe made a face.

“If I can. On Earth, my parents’ reach is locked down. Everyone knows I’m their heir, but they’re still well in control of the family affairs—and more importantly, the family funds.” She hesitated, as if unsure if she should continue, then kept going.

“I have quite a bit of my own money in my personal accounts, but those have all been frozen by my parents as well. If they decide to disown me, I mean legally every penny I earned as an adult is mine by rights, but they would subject me to a lengthy court process, just to spite me. And of course, my inheritance would be lost.”

“Define quite a bit of money,” Wallis said, ignoring a jab in the ribs from Shy.

“Several billion, as it stands,” Thisbe blushed and poured herself more coffee to keep her hands occupied. “It’s my hope that, perhaps, a Sironese lawyer looking to get in good with the next heir to the Vandergoss fortune and somewhat disconnected from the day-to-day affairs on Earth, would be willing to take my case.”

“From there, if I can secure my own personal finances and liquidate any of my holdings and properties on Earth without my parents taking too much with them in court—I should easily be able to afford to pay the matchmaking agency’s contract fee and get Starfall Ranch the equipment and labor it needs to mine the platinum vein without any interference from the Havers.”

“Purely as a business loan,” Shy rushed to add, and the way Wallis looked at her as though she’d grown a second head and the way Thisbe looked at her as though she’d stood up and slapped the other woman across the face left Shy feeling a lot of complicated, tangled ways inside. She changed subjects with the grace and nuance of a freight train running into a steel barrier:

“You can use my office to make any calls or do any research you need to. In the meanwhile, Wallis and I will be out in the workshop, upgrading the security drones and making some modifications to some of the other farm bots.”

Wallis side-eyed Shy suspiciously.

“Does that mean…?”

“Apple cannons,” Shy said firmly.

“Ugh, this is so illegal, but whatever! I’m ride or die at this point.” Wallis finished their third helping of strudel and stood to go.

“We’ll meet back here for lunch to go over our progress,” Shy said. She flashed Thisbe a look that she hoped conveyed and I’m not talking about sandwiches, but Thisbe seemed already distracted by the figures and charts she had been scribbling out on a tablet.

“See you soon,” Thisbe said distractedly. But the way she glanced up and smiled at Shy from the kitchen table lit Shy up from the inside and stayed in her mind the rest of the morning.

✽✽✽

Around noon, Thisbe was interrupted from her research by a knock at the office door. She bit her lower lip, remembering that look Shy had given her earlier in the morning, and answered the door.

“I just came to check on how you were doing,” Shy said. She leaned against the doorframe and glanced around at Thisbe’s orderly stack of notes and Post-Its. “Need a break?”

Thisbe stretched, raising her hands high above her head and arched her back in a way that gave Shy little tremors between her thighs. Unable to resist, she caught Thisbe mid-stretch and pulled her into a deep, slow kiss.

“Yeah,” Thisbe murmured against Shy’s lips. “I think I’m done with paperwork for a little bit.”

They went up not to Shy’s bedroom, but to the library and for a little while, Thisbe was content to snuggle in Shy’s lap in her armchair and make out with the woman she loved.

Eventually, she slid her hands up inside Shy’s shirt and trailed her fingertips along Shy’s abdomen, which had the desired effect of obliterating Shy’s mind.

When Thisbe moved down from Shy’s lap and sat on the floor, on her knees between Shy’s legs, Shiloh felt a second flush of arousal compete with concern.

“You don’t have to—” she began, but Thisbe shook her head and shushed her and reached up to unbutton Shy’s jeans.

She took her time sliding Shy’s pants down, pausing every inch or so to lick and kiss her way down Shy’s inner thigh. When the jeans were around Shy’s ankles, Thisbe moved in closer and slipped Shy’s panties off in one quick, eager motion.

Silently, and with only the briefest of glances up at Shy’s face through her thick lashes, Thisbe lowered her head and gently, slowly, slid her tongue vertically up the very edge of Shy’s wet, sensitive lips from bottom to top. Shy gasped, barely audible, and clenched the arms of the chair, tilting her pelvis out a little to give Thisbe an easier area to work with.

In return, Thisbe administered a few more teasing strokes of her tongue along the outer edges, before moving up to wrap her lips around Shiloh’s clit, applying pressure and suction slowly, building up little by little until she was rewarded with a moan of pleasure from the back of Shy’s throat.

Shy wanted to say something, anything, but words evaporated from her mind with every stroke of Thisbe’s tongue. She would have to make do with inarticulate moans and whimpers, and the sound of Shy’s nails digging in to the plush armchair.

When Shy closed her eyes from the pleasure, Thisbe pulled away unexpectedly.

“What’s wrong?” Shy gasped.

“Look at me,” Thisbe murmured. “Look at me when my tongue is buried inside you. I want you to look me in the eyes when you come into my mouth, baby.”

She waited for Shy to nod her head ‘yes’ and then Thisbe dipped back down between her legs, reaching up with both arms to scoot Shy’s hips ever closer to the edge of the chair.

When Thisbe’s tongue dipped inside her, Shy wanted to scream with pleasure. Instead, she let her mouth fall open slack-jawed and kept her eyes locked on Thisbe’s upraised gaze.

The intimacy felt, somehow, more obscene and more brazen than any porno Shy had ever watched, or any kink she had explored with other partners. She could see everything in those dark bruised-plum eyes: all Thisbe’s desire, fears, needs, hopes, and in knowing Thisbe could see the same in hers, Shy felt beyond naked, beyond exposed.

I see you, Shiloh Kerridan. I know you, Thisbe seemed to say with her eyes. Her tongue pushed deeper into Shy’s slick, tight pussy and Shy almost closed her eyes reflexively until Thisbe began to pull back in warning. Shy kept her eyes well open after that, up until the point where Thisbe’s fingernails dug into her ass cheeks and Thisbe’s artful tongue made curling strokes deep within her that made Shiloh forget her own name as she came, loudly, panting, sweating, dripping down Thisbe’s chin, in her favorite library chair.

Afterwards, and after Shy had moved Thisbe onto the library’s huge blue faux fur rug for her own mouthful of delights, the two of them lay half-naked and entwined on the floor, taking turns sipping gin from one of the library’s bar cart glasses. Shy caught Thisbe looking up at her with an inscrutable expression and propped herself up on one elbow.

“What?” Shy asked, searching Thisbe’s eyes with hers.

“I was just thinking… I had given up on finding anything like real love a long time ago. I thought it was just a fairytale, you know? Something other people got. Turned out, I just needed to look on the other side of the galaxy.”

“Thisbe…”

“Yeah?”

“I love you more than fresh coffee.”

Thisbe laughed and Shy laughed with her.

“I’m serious! If I had to choose between a lifetime of fresh roasted coffee and a lifetime with you, well hell. I could make do with store bought coffee.”

“You could not!” Thisbe’s laugh had erupted into giggles.

“Maybe I’d switch to tea,” Shy conceded, and they fell against each other into mouthfuls of kisses and bubbling laughter in a pool of afternoon sun.