Best Lesbian Romance 2009

by Radclyffe

  Xia looped one manicured hand through my arm. “Let’s go,” she said. She sounded businesslike. Was she really a friend of Angie’s, or a professional? I decided it didn’t matter. I would go with this woman, and I would get off in a public place, and I would like it. Hell, everybody else seemed to do it. Why not me? Maybe then I could forget Angie. For ten minutes or so.

  Xia led me into the park like a dog on a leash. It was fall, the air just beginning to get that crispy apple edge, the leaves waiting to let go. The concrete path ran in a circle around the park, with rays leading in to the King Tree, oldest tree in the city, now circled by its own weatherworn bench. Each path was lined with old-fashioned lampposts that cast a yellow gleam, to my eyes not as bright as the silvery moonlight.

  We stopped and Xia casually balanced on one foot. She unzipped her boot, flashing bare calf and thigh while she yanked it off. Wrapping her thigh was black webbing, not a garter but a harness for something, probably a knife. She meant to let me see it. I wasn’t too excited. If she planned to hurt me, I would smell it.

  Xia didn’t stagger or even waver in her posture as she set one boot on the sidewalk and took off the other while I watched. No harness on that leg. She folded the tops of the boots and tucked them under her arm, explaining, “I don’t want to tear up the turf.”

  “How socially responsible of you,” I said.

  Walking backwards, she beckoned me onto the damp grass.

  I followed, because I’d followed this far, and if I backed out now, it’d be embarrassing. And...because I was intrigued, just a little. Women like Xia didn’t turn up in my corner bar every day. In fact, women like Xia never turned up in my corner bar. Wasn’t it strange—no, Angie must have told her. I’d been trying to forget Angie’d had a hand in this. Nobody normal would want to—then again, Xia wasn’t what you would call normal if, say, you saw her in my local Stupidfresh.

  I said, sarcastically, “Are we there yet?”

  “Behind the King Tree,” Xia said, grabbing my wrist and dragging me. I let her. Someone was there, waiting. A figure clad head to tiny feet in black leather—motorcycle boots, snug trousers, zipped jacket, gloves, and form-fitting mask—slowly stood up from the encircling bench and strolled toward us.

  I sucked in my breath, floated on her scent for a second, and then blew it all out again. “Not fucking funny, Angie!” I growled. I wanted to scream, but that would bring the cops down on us. Sending Xia was one thing. Showing up herself was another.

  Angie unzipped the mask and tugged it off. Her hair was shorter than it had been, short as velvet and dark as shadow. I could clearly see the vivid scar slicing down her high cheekbone, a raised pink line against her dark skin. It gleamed accusingly.

  Angie said, “This isn’t a joke. I asked Xia—”

  “You can both fuck the hell off,” I said, and whirled to stomp away. The only thing that stopped me was Xia’s taloned hand seizing my wrist. If I wrenched loose, I would hurt her, and I never wanted to hurt anyone again, ever.

  “I want you back!” Angie said.

  Very carefully, I tried to pry off Xia’s fingers. When I couldn’t loosen her sharp grip, I took a deep breath, then another, like I’d learned in meditation class, before I spoke. “I hurt you,” I said. “I fucking bit you in the face. One day either way and you would’ve been like me, trying to chew the chains off your own fucking feet every month. If you think I’m going to risk that happening again, then fuck you, because you don’t know me at all.” I tugged harder at Xia’s hand, without success. Fuck, she was strong.

  Angie moved closer. Overwhelming about a million other things, I could smell her. She’d touched an engine sometime that afternoon, not her bike but another one, and had eaten Chinese food, and drunk too much black coffee. But she’d stopped smoking, long enough ago that the stench had faded from her leathers. She said, “I know you too well.”

  I said, “It’s over, Ange.”

  “I refuse to let it to be over. That’s why Xia is here.”

  I said, as roughly as I could, “Some bimbo is supposed to give me the hots and I’ll fall face first into your pussy?”

  Xia laughed. “Bimbo, huh?”

  Angie lifted her chin. “You’re worried about hurting me. Well, Xia will make sure you don’t. She’s a professional bodyguard.”

  I looked at Xia. She grinned back at me and did something to my wrist that made me gasp. Still, neither of them seemed to understand. I said, “I. Am. A. Werewolf.”

  Xia said, “Not tonight you aren’t.”

  “I’m still stronger than both of you.” Or would be if I was ruthless enough to attack them.

  “Will you at least try?” Angie took one more step and laid her hand on my shoulder. I could barely feel it through my layers of denim and flannel, but at the same time I flushed, because she was so close, because she dared to touch me. Because she trusted me.

  Normal people might not understand that. I mean, how many people know a werewolf, and if they do, how many of them know what it’s really like? Even our families, even our lovers? How many of them can know?

  Like I explained to Angie one time, it’s like we have a contagious disease. We do have a contagious disease, even though it’s really difficult to pass on—there has to be a bite, at the right time of the month, and the bite has to puncture deeply enough, and there has to be enough spit. I just didn’t trust myself not to lose it one day. I couldn’t.

  “Come on, El,” Angie said. “Do you want me to spend the rest of my life alone?”

  “Stop guilt-tripping me,” I snarled. I tried to remind myself why I couldn’t do this, but the reasons wouldn’t come. It was the wrong time of month for me to be contagious, and creepy as it seemed, we had a safety monitor, and damn it, I still loved her.

  “Let me go,” I said to Xia, and when she did, I walked over to Angie and kissed her.

  I barely touched her lips with mine, just brushed back and forth, showing her I could be gentle, showing her I was sorry. She turned her head a little and opened her mouth, and then I felt the barest tip of her tongue touching me before she drew back. She smiled.

  Then Xia jumped me. Her hand slapped my neck and I felt a tiny sting. After that, nothing.

  I woke up, pissed as hell. I was still outside, still in the park, from the smell of green plants and a hundred dogs who’d marked their territory. It was still night, the same night; I knew because I can always feel the moon’s phase. My wrists were cuffed behind my back. The bar between the cuffs was attached to an oak; they’d used one of those chains that’s sheathed in plastic. I wrenched at it. No good. I growled, hurting my throat, which wasn’t the right shape for growls yet.

  Angie stepped into sight; I’d been able to smell her lurking behind a bush, waiting for me to make a move. She had the leather mask back over her face. Xia stood behind her, at her shoulder. Angie said, “It’s for your own good, El. And it had to be when you’re this close to Changing, so you’d know for sure I can keep you safe.”

  “I trusted you,” I said. “What’s this about? You wanted to get some wolf pelt while it was in season?”

  She didn’t say anything. She sauntered up to me, her scarlet avenger backing her up. She grabbed my ears and shoved her tongue down my throat.

  I was angry but I was horny, too. I was always crazy for sex right before I Changed; we’d made a lot of jokes about Pre-Lupine Tension. I kissed her back and then, to show I was pissed off, tried to nip. She jerked back before I could catch her lip in my teeth.

  Xia stepped up and, still with that perfect balance, pressed her long, bare foot into my crotch. “Hold still, honeybunch,” she said. “Angie’s not through playing with you.”

  I snarled and lunged. This didn’t get me much further from the tree, but it did drive Xia’s clever foot into my pussy. She grinned, grinding a little before she lowered her leg and took up a guard position by my shoulder.

  “She can’t hurt me like this,” Angie said to her. Of me, she asked, �
��Can you?”

  She was right. In a way, this was what I’d wanted. I was still mad, though. Nobody had asked me. Well, not about being chained to a tree. I had consented to sex. With both of them, if you wanted to be anal-retentive and insist.

  “She wants this,” Angie said. “Ellery, I’ve won.”

  Xia began humming something. I knew the song. It’s called “You’re the Top.” What a smartass.

  I asked, “Won what? Me being pissed at you?”

  Angie didn’t say. She shoved my denim jacket off my shoulders, letting it help tangle up my arms. She unbuttoned my flannel shirt the rest of the way, then shoved my tank top above my tits. “Xia, hold her,” she said.

  Angie was still wearing leather gloves. When she grabbed my bare tits, the gloves abraded and I twisted away from her. Xia forced me back and held me immobile. Angie hadn’t hurt me accidentally. Her palms rotated hard against my nipples until they were swollen and painful prickles shot into my belly.

  “Does that hurt?” she asked, shoving her face into mine.

  When I spoke, I could feel her scar against my lips. “Not as much as I hurt you,” I said. I reached out my tongue and touched her scar with the tip. “I don’t like being hurt. But you can hurt me. You deserve it.”

  “Damned right,” she said. Then she sank her teeth into my cheek.

  I have a pretty high pain tolerance, more since I was Changed, but her teeth hurt enough to tear a sound out of my throat before she stopped as suddenly as she’d started. She shoved me into Xia, and staggered backwards, away from me, her hand over her mouth.

  “Holy shit,” Xia muttered. If she was sympathetic, it wasn’t enough for her to let go of me; instead she twisted one of her arms more firmly through one of mine. I appreciated the support. My whole face throbbed, radiating out from where Angie had bitten me. The air was cold on the dampness she’d left behind. Gradually, the cold numbed it. It was going to bruise for sure. I tried to tell myself I didn’t want her to do it again.

  I wanted to touch the spot. I wanted her to hurt me again, because when she had, the pain that lived coiled in the pit of my belly felt a little less. She’d been mad, mad enough to hurt me. That meant she still cared.

  I couldn’t see Angie’s face, but I could tell whatever she was feeling, it was fucked up. Probably not as fucked up as me wanting her to bite me again, though.

  Angie said, “When you bit me, did you want to hurt me?”

  “No,” I said. “I wanted to bite you. I was—”

  “—turning into a wolf, I know—”

  Angie kept talking, faster and faster. The sound of her familiar voice, the smell of her, Xia’s hot grip, and the sweat that had sprung out on her were making me restless and twisty inside. I squirmed and tried to focus on Angie’s face, which sometimes worked when I wasn’t too far gone. It worked better than I’d expected. Her scar shocked me back from the wolf again.

  She was saying, “I never would have gotten you here tonight if you hadn’t been close. And see, I took care of you. I knew you were close, and I made sure you couldn’t hurt me. You can trust me to take care of you when you’re like this. You want me to do that, don’t you? Don’t you, El? Because you don’t want to live without me, either. If I could be safe, you’d want us to be together again. And I can make that happen. Just trust me. Just let me take care of everything.”

  She kept talking, and I was making a sound in my throat, and it sounded like an animal whimpering. Begging.

  Because she was right. I wanted that. I wanted her to take care of me, to be the one in charge, the one who made sure everything was all right. I wanted to be her bitch. I already was, after all. I’d proved that tonight.

  And I wanted her to bite me again, and I wanted not to be able to do a damned thing about it. That was the only way I could make it right.

  “Ellery!” Angie said. Xia gave me a shake. I shook my forelock out of my eyes and lifted my head. “Say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “Let her go, Xia.”

  I didn’t want Xia to let me go, but Angie hadn’t meant for her to unchain me, just to release the lock she had on my arms. Xia tidied up my tank top, making sure it was folded neatly above my tits. Then she undid my fly and wrestled my jeans down my hips until they tangled at my ankles. She didn’t bother taking off my work boots, just reached back up and peeled my underwear down. Then she stepped back, flashing a grin and a salute.

  Angie didn’t even unzip her jacket. She said, “From now on, I’m in charge. Right, El?”

  “Right,” I said. I turned my head just enough to show my throat.

  Angie leaned in and closed her teeth on my pulsepoint, gently. Heat blossomed across my skin. She licked the place on my cheek she’d bitten, then slid her tongue into my mouth, tasting inside my lower lip, and flicking along the edges of my teeth. One of her gloved hands held my head still while the other one rubbed my tit and then skated down my belly. I let her do what she wanted. That was what I wanted.

  Xia slid behind me again, only this time with her hands gripping my hipbones, massaging my lower back and ass, teasing me with her nails, and pressing me open for Angie’s gloved finger. Xia pressed scalding kisses to my neck and ear. Her long hair swung over my shoulders and draped my tits, tickling and carrying her scent. I could smell myself now, too, my own cream wafting into the air, and I smelled hot leather and Angie.

  I felt surrounded by more than two women. I shuddered, straining against their leather, the clothes that bound my arms and ankles, the cuffs. I writhed around the rawness of a gloved finger working its way into my pussy and a gloved thumb digging into my clit until I spasmed hard, and twisted up on my toes to force Angie’s hand into me again, and again. This time the spasms kept coming, jerking out of me with each breath until I slumped between them, my knees hitting the cold wet grass.

  It was over, and I hadn’t bitten anybody. I hadn’t even wanted to bite. They’d kept me safe, just like Angie had said.

  Xia uncuffed me. Angie kissed me. I kissed her back. For the moment I was content. I said, to both of them, “Thanks.”

  Angie smiled. “Next time, we’ll even chain you to a nice comfortable leather couch.”

  MUSIC ON THE WIND

  Radclyffe

  Anna woke in the dark to the sensation of a cool, damp wind blowing across her face. She reached for Graham, and when she didn’t find her, shot upright, her heart racing. The cabin glowed with the eerie blue-gray cast of moonlight in the midnight sky, and it took her only a second of glancing frantically around the strange space to realize that the doors to the balcony were open and she was completely alone.

  “Oh, my God.” She lurched from bed, grasped her robe in one hand, and hastily pulled it on as she ran outside. “Graham!”

  Graham Yardley turned her face away from the ocean and toward the sound of Anna’s voice. “Anna? What’s the matter?”

  “I couldn’t find you,” Anna gasped, pressing her hands to Graham’s chest. With the moon and ocean behind her and her face in shadow, Graham’s chiseled profile and blade-thin form appeared like a rent in the fabric of a dark and dangerous painting. Searching for something to say that wouldn’t betray her terror, Anna said, “Darling, your shirt is soaked.”

  “I’m surprised at how much spray there is all the way up here.” Graham covered Anna’s hands with hers and bent to kiss her. “We’re quite high up, aren’t we?”

  Anna shivered, thinking just exactly how high above the water their suite was situated. From the balcony where Graham had stood alone, it was at least a hundred feet to the surface of the ocean. Had she fallen…Anna pressed her face to the curve of Graham’s neck and wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. “How long have you been out here?”

  “Not long. Ten minutes.” Graham stroked Anna’s hair and gathered her close. “You’re upset. Why?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t take midnight tours without me, darling,” Anna said lightly.

  “After five years you don
’t trust me to walk around by myself?” Graham tilted Anna’s face up with a finger beneath her chin and kissed her again, skimming her tongue lightly between Anna’s lips before drawing back.

  “There’s no one in the world who knows as well as I how independent you are,” Anna murmured, resting her cheek on Graham’s shoulder. “But it’s our first night and we’ve never been on a ship like this before. Graham, you can’t realize what it’s like out here—it feels as if we’re a tiny city adrift in an endless, uninhabited universe. There’s nothing around us except the stars overhead. The seas are quiet right now, but if there were turbulence and you lost your footing, you wouldn’t be able to—”

  “Anna, love,” Graham whispered, “I’ve seen the ocean. I’ve even seen oceangoing ships.” She reached beside her and curled one hand around the balcony railing. “And I can hold on quite adequately.”

  “I know, but you haven’t seen this one, and I’d feel better if you got acquainted with it a little more before you started investigating on your own.”

  “Well then,” Graham said, “let’s take a walk and you can show me.”

  “Now? It’s the middle of the night.” Anna laughed, realizing she was the only one exhausted by four months of nonstop touring on three continents. Graham never seemed to tire of the hectic concert schedule, and performing only seemed to invigorate her. “You’re not tired at all, are you?”

  Graham smiled. “Excited. We haven’t had a vacation together in a very long time.”

  “It seems to me that we’ve been in every major European city in the last few—”

  “It’s not a vacation for you when I’m touring, I know that. I’m distracted and self-absorbed, and you worry that I don’t eat enough.” Graham slid her hands inside Anna’s silk robe and caressed her breasts. “And I’m not very attentive.”

  Anna caught her breath, ambushed by the sudden swelling of her breasts. Every part of her responded to Graham’s touch, as if her body were as precisely strung as the strings on Graham’s concert grand. “Graham, darling, you are very attentive when you’re touring because all the passion that wells up in you when you play is still there after the performance.” She kissed Graham lingeringly. “And I’m always waiting.”