Chapter 24: Aftercare

The sunken bath in the Saint's House was full and steaming, and the cedar smell filled the room.

Mai had lit the lamps herself.

She stood at the edge in her shirt sleeves, rolled to the elbow, with the washcloth in her hand and her glasses fogged.

Hinata sat on the top stair in the warm water, still in her red hakama, soaked to the waist and grinning.

"You carried me," she said.

"Through a gate."

"Through a gate and across a garden and past three Temple guards, and the High Priestess."

"I was very dignified."

"You walked into a door."

"The door was ambitious."

Hinata laughed, and the laugh ended in a long happy sigh, and she held out both arms.

"Come in. Please."

Mai set her glasses on the stone and undressed in the lamplight.

The red cord shone on her finger.

She stepped down into the water and it closed around her shins, her thighs, her waist, so hot that she gasped.

Hinata drew her in by the hand and turned her gently.

Mai sat on the step with her back to the warm wall, and Hinata knelt between her knees.

"My turn," Hinata said. "Last time you did my back."

"I remember."

"I'm going to do your front."

She took the cloth.

She wrung it in the water, and drew it slowly over Mai's collarbone, down her chest, around each small breast, and Mai's eyes closed.

It felt like being carried again, but better.

"You're so good," Hinata murmured. "You got us home, and you got us back."

"You opened the Gate."

"You wrote the first word in the book."

"You wrote it too."

"We wrote it."

Hinata set the cloth aside.

She bent and kissed Mai's collarbone, the hollow of her throat, the wet curve of one breast, and took the nipple gently between her lips.

Mai threaded her fingers into the chestnut hair and held her there.

The water lapped around them in slow warm waves.

Hinata's hand slipped beneath the surface and settled between Mai's thighs, flat and warm, not moving.

"I'm going to do this slowly," she whispered. "Like we've got a hundred years."

"We have."

"Then I'll take all of them. Hold still, Onee-san."

"Please."

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