And August … August cheats.

Because she does have a head start. She spent weeks learning what Jane likes. So she grabs at her hair and tugs, nips at her bottom lip, tilts her chin up and bares her neck for Jane’s lips, just to hear the soft little moans that fall out of her mouth, high on the feeling of giving Jane exactly what she wants. It’s better than any of their first kisses, any memory, red hot and real under her hands. The city glides past through the window, framing them in, and August’s skin is on fire. Her skin is on fire, and Jane’s dragging her fingers through the embers.

“These fuckin’ thigh highs,” Jane mutters. Her hand grazes over the top of one, short fingernails skimming the place where elastic cuts into August’s thigh. She was nervous when she put them on, afraid of looking like she was trying too hard, worried about the way they dig into her soft fat. “What the fuck, August?”

“What—ah—about them?”

“They’re criminal, that’s what,” Jane says, pressing her thumb hard enough into the flesh there that August hisses, knowing it’ll leave a mark.

Jane snaps the elastic over the same spot, and the sharp pain goes straight through her and out her mouth in a breathless “fuck.”

“August,” Jane says. She dips into her shoulder, nosing at her collarbone through her shirt, and August’s brain slowly surfaces. “August, what do you want?”

“I wanna … kiss you.”

“You are kissing me,” Jane says. “What else do you want?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not embarrassing.”

“It is when you’ve never done it before,” August blurts out, and Jane stills.

“Is that it?” she says. “You’ve never had sex with a girl before?”

August feels her face flush. “I’ve never had sex with anyone before.”

“Oh,” Jane says. “Oh.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s—”

“It’s okay,” Jane says easily. “I don’t care. I mean—I care, it just doesn’t bother me.” She traces a thumb up the inside of August’s thigh, and her mouth melts into a loose smirk when August gasps quietly. “But you have to tell me what you want.”

August watches Jane lick her bottom lip, and a thousand images flash through her mind so fast, she feels like she might black out—Jane’s short hair between her fingers, her teeth digging into the ink lines on Jane’s bicep, wet fingers, wet mouths, wet everywhere, Jane’s low voice pitched up an octave, Jane’s eyes burning up at her from the end of the bed, the insides of Jane’s knees, miles of skin shining with sweat and the light through her bedroom window. She wants Jane’s hands fisted in her bed sheets. She wants the impossible.

“I want you to touch me,” she finally makes herself say. “But we can’t.”

And the train stops. The lights go off.

For a second, August thinks she did black out, until her eyes pick out the shape of Jane squinting back at her in the dark.

“Shit,” August says. “Did it just—?”

“Yeah.”

August blinks, waiting for her vision to adjust. She’s suddenly painfully aware of herself, of Jane’s fingers wrapped around her wrist. “Emergency lights?”

Jane closes her eyes, mouthing along as she counts the seconds in her head. She opens them.

“I don’t think they’re coming on.”

August looks at her. Jane looks back.

“So we’re … trapped on a dark train,” August says.

“Yeah.”

“Alone.”

“Yes.”

“With no chance for anyone else to get on.”

“Correct.”

“On the bridge,” August says, more slowly. “Where no one can see us.”

She shifts, adjusting her weight on Jane’s thigh, and closes her mouth on the sound that tries to slip out at the friction.

“August.”

“No, you’re right,” August says, moving to slide Jane’s hand off her, “it’s a bad idea—”

Jane’s grip tightens.

“That is literally the opposite of what I was about to say.”

August blinks once, twice. “Really?”

“I mean … what if it’s the only chance we get?”

“Yeah,” August agrees. It really is a good point, pragmatically. They have finite resources of time and privacy. Also, August will die if Jane doesn’t touch her within the next thirty seconds. Which is another logistical consideration. “You—yeah.”

“Yeah? You sure?”

“Yeah. Yes. Please.”

It happens fast—August inhales, exhales, and suddenly Jane’s jacket is gone, thrown blindly at the nearest seat, and they’re kissing, hands everywhere, messy and wet and full of small sounds. August’s hair keeps getting in the way, and when she breaks off to rip a ponytail holder off her wrist and haphazardly pull it back, Jane’s at her neck, tongue soothing over every spot she introduces her teeth to. Everything goes fuzzy, and August realizes Jane has taken her glasses off and chucked them in the direction of her jacket.

Somehow the buttons of August’s shirt are undone, and she can’t think about anything but wanting more, wanting skin on skin. She wants to rip their clothes off, use her teeth and her fingernails if she has to, and can’t—not here, not the way she wants. Still, she slides her fingertips under the waistband of Jane’s jeans, catches the hem of her T-shirt, and she waits half a second for Jane to stop kissing her and nod before she’s untucking and pushing it up, and oh God, there she is, this is happening.

In the moonlight, Jane’s body is kinetic. She shivers and tenses and relaxes under August’s hands, a nipped-in waist and sharp hip bones, a simple black bra, gentle ridges of ribs, tattoos winding up and down her skin like spilled ink. And August—August has never gotten this far before, not really, but something takes over, and she’s dropping a kiss on Jane’s sternum, and she’s pressing her open mouth to the swell just above the cup of her bra, the devastating give of it. Every part of Jane is spartan, practical, made into what it is by years of survival, and yet, somehow, it gives. She always gives.

It occurs to August that Jane is thinner than her, and maybe she should care that her own hips are wider and her stomach is softer, but Jane’s hands are on her, pushing her shirt open, everywhere she’s afraid to be touched—the shape of her waist, the dimples of her thighs, the fullness of her chest. And Jane groans and says, for the third time of the night, “What the fuck, August?”

August has to choke down a sigh to say, “What?”

“Look at you,” she says, dragging her thumbs out from the center of August’s stomach to her hips, skimming over the waistband of her skirt. She leans in and tucks her face under August’s collar, bites her shoulder, presses a kiss there, then pulls back and just looks at her. Looks at her like she doesn’t ever want to stop looking. “You’re like—like a fucking painting or something stupid like that, what the fuck. You just walk around like this all the time.”

“I—” August’s mouth tries to form several words, maybe even some that make sense, but Jane’s hands are spanning her waist, brushing the delicate lace edges of her bra, and her mouth is trailing lower, and all that comes out is, “I didn’t know. You—I didn’t know you thought that.”