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The stone pathway felt marvelously cool and smooth under her bare feet. The gardens were quiet --a far cry from the large banquet hall swirling with people--and Shuri was grateful for the peace.
“I could just carry you,” Dewani offered with a smile.
Shuri shook her head as she carried her favorite pair of bright blue stilettos. “No. I want to walk. Just not in these.” She gestured with the shoes. “Bast, what was I thinking? I thought they were more comfortable than this!”
“Well, maybe for sitting in your lab and working, but not for standing on your feet for a couple hours.”
A couple hours. It had only been a couple hours. It felt like she’d been in the throngs of people for days.
Her brother and Nakia were finally engaged --and she was happy for them. Really!
She just didn’t see why she had to be so involved in the wedding planning and formal parties when she could be in her lab, working on her inventions. She wasn’t the one getting married, for Bast’s sake! Why did she have to sit through hours of her mother and Nakia going back and forth over what colors the flowers would be or what tribal traditions the vows would follow?
She wasn’t complaining now, though. The gardens were a far cry from her lab, but Dewani loved them and she loved Dewani.
Love did strange things to people.
Dewani nodded sagely when she said as much. “It’s all the endorphins. Unbalances your brain, makes your thinking mushy.”
It didn’t sound one hundred percent true, but it made sense to Shuri. She grinned up --and up and up and up, for Bast’s sake just how much taller could Dewani get?--at her girlfriend. “But it’s not a bad way to be unbalanced, eh?”
Dewani grinned back. “The best way, I think.” Then, without warning, she ducked into a little nook in the garden, taking Shuri with her. “Come on. Let’s sit here.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re still limping. Besides, I want some better privacy.”
Shuri plopped down on the stone bench, grateful to take the weight off her aching feet. “What do you want privacy for? We’re alone out here. Everyone’s busy with my brother and his fiancee, anyway.”
“Uh, the last time we thought we were alone, your mom caught us mid-wrestling match.”
Shuri snorted and shoved Dewani’s shoulder. “We were making out! Just say it!”
“I stand on my recollection of the events.”
“Are you sure about that? I’ve done both with you before, and they’re two entirely different activities.”
Dewani grinned in a way that was entirely too suggestive. “Well, you could show me what you mean by ‘making out.’ I could be persuaded to see things your way.”
Excitement coursed through Shuri’s veins as she clambered into her burly girlfriend’s lap, eager to show her precisely what she meant.
They were better at kissing than they had been at the beginning. Neither of them had known what they were doing; it had been less of ‘kissing’ and more of just... mashing their lips together. It was utterly artless, the way they’d moved their mouths and used their tongues, but it had still felt wonderful, still been exciting.
However, if kissing back then had been exciting, it was nothing short of exquisite now.
Shuri closed the space between them --relishing the groan Dewani let out when their chests pressed together--and ducked her head to start licking up and down the length of her girlfriend’s neck.
Within seconds, Dewani had Shuri on her back, pressed against the bench.
It would’ve been incredibly hot if it weren’t for the fact that the bench was too small to accommodate them.
Shuri let out a grunt as she tried to shift so her head and neck were better supported --then let out a hiss when she jammed her foot into the branches of a nearby bush. “Ow --wait--this isn’t working!”
“Sorry!” Dewani clambered back haphazardly, nearly knocking the bench clean over. She braced herself against the ground with her foot and grabbed onto Shuri to keep her from tumbling over. “Oops!”
Shuri got herself into a graceless sitting position --and started giggling as soon as she locked gazes with Dewani. “We’re quite the disaster, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Dewani agreed as she laughed softly. “Hold still, you have a leaf in your hair. Wait, no, there’s another one...”
Shuri checked her foot as Dewani picked the random debris out of her hair.
“Is your foot alright?”
“Seems like it.” She smiled up at Dewani. “Somehow, I pictured that going a lot better in my head.”
“Me too.”
They were quiet for a moment, simply enjoying the sound of the crickets and the muted sounds of the celebration inside the palace.
Shuri let out a gentle huff of laughter as she watched the guests dance with T’Challa and Nakia to celebrate their engagement. “Are we going to get married some day?”
Dewani wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s smaller frame, resting her chin on top of Shuri’s head. “I don’t see why not.”
Shuri tilted her head back so she could see Dewani’s face. “Really?”
“Yeah. I thought that was obvious.”
“Well, you’ve said you want to marry me, but we’ve never really talked about it.”
“What’s there to talk about? If we want to get married, we will. If we don’t want to get married, we won’t. Though, personally, I think we’d be quite the ideal match. We’d be perfectly balanced with your genius and my strength.”
It didn’t seem that simple to Shuri, but they didn’t have to have everything figured out right now. They were only seventeen, after all.
She opted to lean back against Dewani’s warm, strong figure, enjoying the feelings of comfort and safety that she always felt around her girlfriend. “Balanced and unbalanced. Sounds like quite the future.”
“Would you really have it any other way?”
Shuri closed her eyes and smiled softly. “No.”