Chapter 7: Under the Witch's Moon
Annie’s finger traced the high arch of Josie’s cheekbone, over the wet skin, the pad of her thumb brushing the corner of Josie’s mouth. The wine hummed in her veins, a low, insistent frequency that made the night feel liquid, pliable. Josie’s gaze held hers, unblinking, a challenge and a question fused into one. Her grip on Annie’s wrist tightened, not painfully, but possessively.
“I can hear your accent,” Josie murmured, her voice a low purr that vibrated against Annie’s touch. “All those dropped G’s. ‘What are we doin’?’” she mimicked, her own voice flattening into a drawl. “It’s cute. When you’re not acting like a backwoods tyrant.”
Annie didn’t pull away. The insult washed over her, diluted by the alcohol and the surreal intimacy of the water and the dark. “You talk like you learned English from a dictionary,” she slurred back. “All sharp edges. Like you’re cuttin’ paper.”
Josie laughed, a short, sharp exhalation that fogged the small space between them. “And you talk like you’ve got molasses in your mouth. Slow. Sweet.” She tilted her head, her lips brushing the heel of Annie’s palm. “It’s deceptive.”
Annie’s breath hitched. The touch sent a current, hot and immediate, straight to her core. She’d never been this close to another woman, not in curiosity, certainly not in desire. Girls at school had been competitors or nuisances. On the farm, there was only work and solitude. Levi had been a storm she’d willingly walked into, a singular focus. This was different. This was a slow, probing exploration of a shadowy room she didn’t know existed in herself.
She let her eyes travel, a drunk, hungry catalog. The water beaded on Josie’s collarbones, traced the lush swell of her breasts, the dark nipples tight from the cool air just above the waterline. The curve of her waist, the flare of her hip. She was sculpted, a polished thing, entirely alien to Annie’s own work-hardened body of angles and sinew.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” Annie confessed, the words thick and honest. “You’re my… rival. But you’re here. And he ain’t.”
Josie’s smile was a sickle moon. “He owns both of us. That makes us more like… stablemates.” Her free hand came up, fingertips skimming the surface of the water, then tracing the line of Annie’s shoulder. “He’d be furious if he knew we were like this. Touching. Talking.”
“I know.” Annie’s voice was a whisper. The thought should have chilled her. Instead, it added a layer of forbidden heat. This was hers. Not Levi’s. A secret rebellion in a shimmering prison.
Josie saw the calculation in Annie’s hazy eyes. She felt the tremble in the wrist she held. This was the moment. She could press the advantage, twist this drunken curiosity into a weapon, a hook she could set deep in Annie’s vulnerability. She could make Annie need her, then use that need against her. The strategy unfolded in her mind, clean and ruthless. But then Annie’s other hand, clumsy and bold, came to rest on Josie’s thigh, just above the knee, under the water.
The touch was electric. It short-circuited the calculus of revenge. A low, involuntary sound escaped Josie’s throat. It had been so long since anyone had touched her without an agenda from Levi, without it being a performance for his approval. This was blunt, curious, warm. It was terrifying.
“Can I…” Annie started, her words trailing off. Her gaze dropped to Josie’s mouth, then lower, to where their bodies disappeared into the dark water.
Josie’s mind screamed a warning. This was chaos. This was unpredictability. Levi would see it as the ultimate betrayal, a consolidation of power outside of him. He would punish them both, but Josie knew she would bear the greater brunt. Annie was the shiny new toy; she was the old one who should know better.
Yet, the hand on her thigh was moving, a slow, rough caress upward. Calloused fingers, a farmer’s fingers, scraping gently against her water-softened skin. It felt impossibly real.
“You don’t need my permission, Annie,” Josie breathed, the words laced with a bitter truth. “You’ve already taken everything else tonight. But yes. You can touch me.”
Permission granted, Annie’s hesitation evaporated. She closed the small distance between them on the step, water sloshing. Her mouth found Josie’s, not with finesse, but with a hard, desperate hunger. It was all teeth and clumsy pressure, the taste of wine and chlorine shared between them. Josie opened for her, her own hunger rising to meet it, sharp and competitive. This was a new kind of fight, a battle of tongues and breath.
Annie’s hands were everywhere, mapping territory. They cupped Josie’s breasts, her thumbs circling the stiff peaks of her nipples, pulling a ragged moan from Josie’s throat. She’d never touched another woman like this. The soft weight was different, the response more immediate. Josie arched into the touch, her own hands gripping Annie’s shoulders, pulling her closer.
“You’re so fuckin’ soft,” Annie mumbled against her neck, her lips trailing wet kisses down to the juncture of her shoulder. She bit down, not hard, but enough to mark, to claim. “Like you’ve never done a day’s work.”
“And you’re all hard lines,” Josie gasped, her fingers skating over the corded muscles of Annie’s back, the scars from barbed wire, the landscape of labor. “Like you’re carved from oak.” She found Annie’s breasts, smaller, firmer, the nipples like pebbles. She pinched one, twisting gently, and Annie jerked against her with a sharp cry.
The water was no longer cooling. It was a barrier, a frustrating layer of fabric they needed gone. “Out,” Josie commanded, the assistant’s tone bleeding through the haze of lust.“Now. On the tiles.”
They stumbled out of the pool, water cascading from their bodies onto the dark, wet concrete. The night air was a shock, raising goosebumps instantly. Josie didn’t let her pause. She pushed Annie down onto her back, the tiles cold and rough against her skin. She knelt over her, straddling her hips, a vision of dripping, predatory beauty silhouetted against the city lights.
“You wanted to explore?” Josie whispered, her voice thick. “Let’s explore.” She leaned down, capturing Annie’s mouth again, swallowing her gasp. One hand palmed Annie’s breast, while the other slid down the flat plane of her stomach, over the barren mound between her legs.
Annie’s hips bucked off the ground when Josie’s fingers found her. She was already wet, swollen, the slickness a stark contrast to the cold air. Levi had touched her here, possessed her here, but this was different. This was a knowing, focused attention. Josie’s fingers circled her clit, a lazy, torturous rhythm that made Annie’s vision blur.
“Oh, god,” Annie choked out, her head thrashing from side to side. “Josie…”
“Shut up,” Josie said, but there was no malice, only a frantic intensity. She watched Annie’s face, saw the disbelief, the pleasure cracking through the stubborn farm-girl reserve. It was a victory more potent than any verbal jab. She plunged two fingers inside Annie, deep and sudden.
Annie screamed, her back arching. The stretch was exquisite, the angle different. Josie curled her fingers, searching, and found the spot almost immediately. She rubbed it with a relentless, practiced precision that spoke of a vast and selfish experience. Annie came apart fast, violently, her body clamping down on Josie’s hand as waves of pleasure ripped through her. Her cries echoed off the glass of the condo tower, swallowed by the indifferent city.
As Annie shuddered through the aftershocks, Josie withdrew her soaked fingers. She brought them to her own mouth, sucking them clean, her eyes locked on Annie’s. The taste was musky, sweet, entirely Annie. “You taste like the country,” she smirked. “Earth and heat.”
Before Annie could recover, Josie moved. She turned, presenting herself, kneeling on all fours on the hard tile in front of Annie’s face. “Your turn. Since you’re so curious. Explore that.”
Annie, still gasping, propped herself up on her elbows. The sight was obscene, glorious. Josie’s ass was high, the smooth cheeks glistening with pool water. Between them, her cunt was swollen, glistening in the ambient light, a darker pink against her skin. Annie felt a new, aggressive hunger roar to life. This wasn’t passive curiosity anymore. This was a demand.
She didn’t hesitate. She pushed herself up and forward, her hands gripping Josie’s hips. She had no technique, only instinct. She buried her face between Josie’s legs, her tongue licking a broad, wet stripe from her opening to her clit.
Josie jolted, a sharp cry tearing from her. “Fuck! Yes. Like that.”
Annie ate her like a starving woman. She used her tongue, flat and firm, then pointed and probing. She tasted the unique salt of Josie, a cleaner, sharper flavor than her own. She found the hard nub of her clit and sucked it into her mouth.
Josie collapsed onto her forearms, a litany of filthy encouragement and gasped obscenities pouring from her. “Yes, right there, you fucking redneck.Just like that. Don’t stop. God, your fucking mouth.” She pushed back against Annie’s face, grinding herself against Annie’s tongue, her own fingers digging into the grout between the tiles.
Annie was drunk on it. The power, the taste, the raw, vocal feedback. She fucked Josie with her tongue, driving it inside her, then circling her clit again. She felt Josie’s thighs begin to shake, heard her breaths turn into sharp, desperate whines.
“I’m gonna… don’t you dare stop… Annie!” Josie’s command ended in a shattered scream as her orgasm hit. Her body clenched, pulsed, and she flooded Annie’s mouth with the sharp, tangy evidence of her climax. Annie drank it down, relentless, until Josie collapsed onto her side, spent and trembling.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing mixing with the hum of the pool filter. The cold of the tile began to seep into their bones. Annie rolled onto her back beside Josie, staring up at the smog-blurred stars.
The reality of what they’d just done settled over them like ash. The wine was receding, leaving a sharp, hungover clarity in its wake. They were naked, wet, and covered in each other.
Josie was the first to speak, her voice hollow. “He can never know.”
“He won’t,” Annie said, but the words felt flimsy.
“He knows everything,” Josie whispered, a tremor in her voice that had nothing to do with the cold. “He’ll smell it on us. He’ll see it in the way we look at each other.” She turned her head, her dark eyes wide with a fear that dwarfed any jealousy. “This was a mistake. A catastrophic fucking mistake.”
Annie looked at her, at the perfect face now twisted with genuine terror. The connection they’d just forged, the secret power, it was already curdling. Levi’s shadow was longer than the night. He wasn’t here, but he owned the air they breathed, the tile they lay on, the panic now constricting Josie’s throat.
“Then we don’t let him see,” Annie said, sitting up. The farm-girl practicality surfacing through the mess. “We go back to hating each other. Better than before. We sell it.”
Josie sat up too, drawing her knees to her chest. The vulnerable gesture made her look young, breakable. “And what about this?” she asked, gesturing weakly between their bodies. “This… thing?”
Annie stood, water dripping from her. The euphoria was gone, replaced by a cold, hard knot in her stomach. “There is no ‘thing’. There was wine, and there was revenge, and there was curiosity. It’s done.” She sounded like she was convincing herself. She walked to where her clothes lay in a heap, began pulling them on over her damp skin. The jeans stuck, the t-shirt clung.
Josie watched her, a slow, brittle mask reassembling on her face. The fear was pushed down, buried under layers of practiced sarcasm. “Right. Just a bit of drunken pussy-eating between rivals. How modern.” She stood, her movements stiff, and wrapped herself in the towel again. “I’ll take the first shower. You smell like me. And failure.”
She walked inside, the glass door sliding shut behind her with a final, quiet click.
Annie stood alone on the terrace, dressed but feeling more exposed than ever. She could still taste Josie on her lips. She could still feel the ghost of Josie’s fingers inside her, the violent, unexpected bliss they’d wrought. It wasn’t done. It couldn’t be. It was a door kicked open inside her, and she had no idea how to close it, or if she even wanted to.
Inside, the shower started to run. Annie looked at the closed bathroom door, then at the empty wine bottle lying on its side. She had won a battle tonight, in a way she’d never imagined. But the war, she realized with a sinking dread, had just become infinitely more complicated.