“You are the most beautiful woman who has ever been alive,” Elizabeth murmured against her throat, her dark hair falling over them like a curtain. “I am ever going to love you, no matter what tries to come between us.”

Their eyes met and they both remembered being in this bed chamber so many years ago, verily like this, when Lady Capulet’s husband came home early from his journey. It had been a cruel twist of fate, an ill-timed thing, and both women had sobbed at their husbands’ feet and begged forgiveness. They had been long separated that first time. Both husbands had put their heads together and had been quite successful in keeping the families apart.

“You are the beauty.” Catherine pulled the dark-haired woman onto her and kissed her full on the lips. “My dark beauty.”

Their breasts, full and soft, pressed together as they rolled on the bed, kissing and touching each other, all hungry hands and mouths. There seemed no sating their desire for one another. They had tried.

Elizabeth rolled to her belly and lifted her bottom in the air, looking back over her shoulder at her lover. Catherine chuckled, slipping between her thighs and spreading the other woman’s lips. Her hair here was dark and curly, her center appearing even more pink in contrast when she was parted like this. So wet! Catherine could smell her, and longed to taste her.

But she knew Elizabeth wanted something else first. Catherine knelt between her thighs, slipping first one, then two, then three fingers into her crevice, making her lover moan and press back against her hand. She began moving her fingers, slowly at first, in and out, putting her hips into the motion, giving them more force. Catherine used her own thighs to spread her wider, working her hips and pelvis against the other woman’s bottom as she shoved her fingers deep, again and again.