Insatiable Appetites
Page 23
“Do you feel played?” Phil sighed and stretched out in the seat, body on sleek display, face damp with sweat, her eyes satisfied. Her fingers brushed over Sage’s still hard nipple through the tank top.
Hell, yeah she felt played.
But she also felt good enough to melt all over this car and drip with pleasure all over Phil’s delectable body. Despite the cool wetness slathered all over her underwear, a deep and satisfying breath trembled through her.
“So, you didn’t say anything.” Phil took her feet off the dashboard and arranged the long sunlight-colored skirts around her thighs like a queen settling into her throne. Her fingers plucked at the material of her skirt, betraying her nerves. She was so damn cute. “What do you think about me asking Errol to be our donor?” she asked finally.
Sage almost laughed, but held back. The last time Errol had been to their house for dinner, she’d thought about asking him the same thing. She decided to wait though, not sure if Phil was ready for that important step. But apparently, her woman was more than ready.
“Sure, baby.” Sage squeezed Phil’s thigh through the pretty skirt. “Whatever you want.” And she meant that.
“Good, because he already said he would do it.” A thread of nervousness ran through Phil’s breathless confession.
“Why did you bother asking me then?” Sage muttered.
“Don’t be like that, baby. I just—” For the first time since her orgasm, she met Sage’s eyes and obviously saw the humor there. “You bitch! You’re making me squirm on purpose!” She slapped Sage’s thigh, a sharp and loud sound. Relief twitched up the corners of her mouth.
“Hey, that hurt!” But Sage couldn’t hold back her laughter anymore. Her relief.
They were back on the same page again and it felt so incredibly good. Like how it should be.
“You are such an ass sometimes…” Phil muttered, but her smile was as bright as the late afternoon sun.
“That’s part of why you love me, baby.”
Phil grunted. “Not really.”
The song changed to something moody and sensual, and the sound of it mingled with the light sound of the SUV’s tired rushing over the highway. Following the beat of the music, Sage tapped her fingers on the steering while. Her face hurt, she was smiling so hard.
“So we’re really going to do this, huh?” she asked.
Phil bit her lip through a smile of her own, looking both excited and nervous. “I guess so.”
Music and the sound of tires against the road ticked between them for a few breaths.
They spent the rest of the drive talking about what it meant for them to have a kid. To change their lives. By the time they pulled up to the two-story bungalow they were supposed to share with Dez, Victoria, Rémi, and Claudia for the next three days, they‘d moved on to picking names for their hypothetical baby.
“It’s about time you all got here.” Dez strolled down the drive to meet them, relaxed and casually sexy in linen pants rolled up at the ankles and a tank top that showed off her sleek muscles. The front door hung open behind her and loud, feminine laughter poured out. “We’ve been waiting.”
Through the wide windows of the lime green and white house, Sage could see the other three women gathered around the coffee table. Sage couldn’t tell if they were playing cards or calling bullshit on one of Rémi’s many ridiculous stories.
“Now you don’t have to wait anymore,” Phil said, jumping out of the truck. “Here we are.” Twirling in a skirt-swinging circle, she smiled wide like she was auditioning for The Sound of Music. Happiness looked good on her.
Sage tried not to be jealous when Dez swept Phil up high in a big hug, leaving bare feet dangling inches off the ground.
“I missed this look on your face.” Dez grinned up at Phil who, in her bright yellow skirts and thick hair loose around her face, looked just like a piece of sunlight.
Although she knew all was forgiven, Sage flinched. It was a gut reaction. Yeah, she was an idiot. Because of her, for months, Phil’s smile had taken off for parts unknown.
But Sage was done with the fuckery. This woman made her happier than any other. She would do whatever it took to keep her around.
“You guys going in or you going to make kissy faces at each other all afternoon?” she muttered at them, only joking a little.
Dez looked at her around the gorgeous explosion of Phil’s hair. “Now that you mention it…” She loudly kissed Phil on both cheeks and Phil, laughing like a wild thing with her head thrown back and her hair blowing in the salt-laced breeze, allowed her to.
Then she looked over at Sage whose heart squeezed tight at the look in her woman’s eyes. Phil threw out her hand, her fingers spread wide and wiggling playfully.
“Come on, baby,” she invited with a grin. The edges of that grin were soft, asking for promises Sage was eager to keep.
I’m yours. You’re mine. That’s it.
With an answering smile and gladness warm in her chest, Sage grabbed her woman’s hand. She allowed Phil to pull her along, up the driveway and at their friend’s side, toward the rest of whatever their lives together would bring.
THANK YOU
Thank you so much for reading INSATIABLE APPETITES, book 3 of the How Sweet It Is series! If you enjoyed it, please take the time to write a starred review online – it doesn’t have to be a long one – and share your experience with a friend or three.
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To find me on the interwebs, go to my website www.fionazedde.com, my Facebook, Twitter, and/or Tumblr pages. You can even use old-fashioned email: f.zedde@gmail.com.
NOVELS NOW AVAILABLE
Bliss
Broken in Soft Places
Dangerous Pleasures
Les Tales (novella collection with Skyy and Nikki Rashan)
Nightshade (novella)
Rise of the Rain Queen
The Power of Mercy
To Italy with Love (novella and stories)
When She Says Yes (stories)
Every Dark Desire (Vampire Desire #1)
Desire at Dawn (Vampire Desire #2)
A Taste of Sin (How Sweet It Is #1)
Hungry for It (How Sweet It Is #2)
Return to Me (How Sweet It Is #2.5)
AN EXCERPT FROM THE POWER OF MERCY
Mai stood on the roof of the twenty-story building, naked except for the cloak of her restlessness. Faint pain throbbed in her back—scratches from the anonymous woman she’d taken to bed barely two hours before—her thighs ached from the work she’d put into bringing them both pleasure, and the muscles in her arms still burned. The city of Atlanta, studded in starlight above and in bright lights below, hummed its particular late-night songs. A whisper of street traffic. A distant chopper. The thumping baseline from a rap song as a car cruised past.
The woman she’d gone home with still slept peacefully in her bed one flight below, but that same peace escaped Mai. Earlier that night, a familiar restlessness had pushed her into her favorite local bar, a place dark enough for private pleasures yet with a wide-open patio for fresh air and a bar well-stocked enough to drown even the deepest of sorrows. But she didn’t go there for sorrow or for fresh air.
The woman she found wasn’t exactly what she craved, but in that moment, with familiar demons pulling at her, the lush form with a head full of springy coils had been enough. She tasted like forgetfulness, pain subsumed, pleasure without the consequence of a tomorrow. Starved for what the stranger had offered, Mai had devoured her—the wet flesh between her thighs, her mouth gasping and plush, her breasts like summer-ripe mangoes.
But afterward, Mai was still keyed up. Tight. The big muscles in her arms and thighs jumped just under her skin, ticking away the moments toward an implosion she didn’t want to happen. She rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck, spread out her senses to feel what was going on in the city below. It all rushed up to
her in a wave of sound and color:
Couples whispering intimately to each other while their bed sheets beneath them rustled to the rhythm of their lovemaking. A police car roaring down the city streets with sirens screaming and blue lights ablaze. Even young children were awake and playing in a nearby courtyard, which was odd for the early fall, when schools were in session. And it was more and more of the same, in a rolling tide of awareness of murder, sex, cruelty, and laughter. The tapestry of a large city.
Mai felt it all, the ceaseless movement of Atlanta—a wild organism in constant flux that could not be tamed. All these things unfolding below her were too far away or too late for her to change. Other things... Mai tilted her head toward the sound of screams pulsing beneath her conscious hearing.
Screams of terror.
A fire.
Mai’s breath hitched, and her body unconsciously swayed toward
that blast of heat barely two miles away. She narrowed her gaze toward the fire, sharpening her hearing. No sirens headed toward it. Not yet. She wasted a moment wishing for the phone she’d left in the pocket of her discarded jacket somewhere on the stranger’s floor.
Then she jumped.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jamaican-born Fiona Zedde is the author of several novels, including the Lambda Literary Award finalists, Bliss and Every Dark Desire. Her novel, Dangerous Pleasures, received a Publishers Weekly starred review and was winner of an About.com Readers’ Choice Award for Best Lesbian Novel or Memoir. Her latest work, The Power of Mercy, is available now.
The Power of Mercy is the second in Ylva Publishing’s SuperHeroine Collection and features meta-human, Mai, a woman as strong as she is vulnerable. For her, jumping into burning buildings is easy, it’s the women in her life that make things truly dangerous.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Thank You
Novels Now Available
An Excerpt from The Power of Mercy
About the Author