Sleep would not come.
Ocellus scrunched her eyes shut and wrapped the duvet even tighter. Her body responded to the physical memory, twitching as warmth bloomed beneath her carapace. It felt safe and snug. It felt like a strange and wonderful new home, and yet a place where she had always known she belonged.
She giggled softly to herself, her wings buzzing beneath the heavy fabric. Sleep would not come, but that wasn't a bad thing. She didn't want to miss a single second of the night.
"Is this gonna become a habit?" Smolder's voice pierced the warm veil. "'Cos I'm seriously regretting sharing my bed with you right now."
"Just tonight... Probably." Ocellus giggled again. She stretched one of her hindlegs behind her, lightly pressing it against Smolder's... knee, was it?
"That's my stomach and it hurts." Smolder roughly re-positioned Ocellus' limb between her longer legs. "We're gonna need to somehow get the school to buy us a double if we're sleeping together from now on. I need space to sprawl."
"So sprawl, my love." Ocellus felt the warmth inside of her increase by a few hundred degrees. Every thought, every touch and sound, was a blade severing her senses from the material world. She could taste Smolder's love, slightly burnt by tired irritation, but everything else was a fog of intangible delights. "I don't mind if you—oof!"
Smolder sprawled.
After a few blissful moments, Ocellus felt her girlfriend's body stir again.
"You okay under there?"
Ocellus tilted her head up and planted a kiss at the base of Smolder's neck. The shiver that passed through her girlfriend's body delighted her—the purr that escaped from her lips even more. Ocellus closed her eyes and enjoyed the heavy weight of Smolder against her body, and the growing spears of love against her heart.
And sleep would not come.
Opening her eyes again, Ocellus studied the scales running down the back of Smolder's neck. She studied the curve and shape of her shoulders and she studied the ridges of her spines and the angles of her muscles. Ocellus studied her girlfriend until the warmth within her turned sick and feverish.
The percussion of her heart was threatening to shake her carapace from her body. Ocellus licked her lips.
"Smolder," she whispered. She could hear the crack of her voice, feel the heat bleed out with every heavy breath. "I—I..."
"Yeah." Smolder's voice was dry. "M—Me too."
"Mm," Ocellus replied. "Good."
Slowly, Smolder uncoiled herself from Ocellus, repositioning her body so that they were lying side by side, face beside face. Ocellus was barely able to look at her girlfriend, such was the way she radiated love and desire and far too many other feelings for Ocellus to be able to process.
She didn't try to, though. A wild smile pulled at her lips as Ocellus instead surrendered herself to it. Her brain popped and fizzed, misfiring and miscuing as her body tried to make sense of a love that was like nothing she had tasted before. A feverish clarity attempted to surface, but Ocellus was desperate in her denial. She closed the gap with kisses and caresses, with bites and growls. She tried to take every wave, every pulse of almost painful delight, and turned them into something she could give back. Ocellus wanted Smolder to feel her love they way she felt Smolder's, and as she opened up her senses further, as she absorbed not only the taste, but the sound her girlfriend's voice and the touch of her body, Ocellus knew she was succeeding.
Later, they both lay entangled amongst a cocoon of blankets and the sharpness of broken wood.
Sleep had finally come.