Heartsick

by Tracey Richardson

  Hand in hand, Angie and Vic stood in the spot where Angie lay wounded two weeks ago and where McIver drew one of his final breaths. There was no evidence anything had happened. Carpets had been scrubbed clean, broken furniture replaced. Life went on, filling in and erasing evidence of the things, the people, the events that had come before.

  Angie looked at Vic, felt her heart expanding against her ribcage. Nothing was perfect. And nothing was going to last forever. But she wanted, like never before, to see where her life was going to take her, what it had in store for her. There was another chapter ahead, and another and another after that. She wanted desperately to open them all and to open them with the woman standing beside her.

  “Can we go now?” she said quietly.

  Vic arched an eyebrow. “You sure?”

  “I’ve seen everything I need to see here. And I’m tired of looking backward.”

  Vic wrapped an arm around Angie’s waist, simultaneously planting a kiss on her cheek. “Okay, let’s go. Lunch is on me. And someplace nice.”

  “If I’d known that I would have suggested we leave long before this.”

  They walked back into the bright sun and the tinkling sound of snow melting. But as she took a look back at the double glass doors of the ER entrance, it occurred to Angie with a sinking feeling that she soon wouldn’t have Vic all to herself for much longer.

  “I guess you’re going to need to go back to work soon.”

  “Yes. Unfortunately.” Vic unlocked her car, opened the passenger door for Angie.

  “When?”

  “One more week, I’m afraid, is about all I can squeeze out of them for time off right now.”

  Angie swallowed, bereft at the idea of being alone, of having to leave Vic’s house. “I guess that means I’ll move back to my parents’ place next week.”

  Vic belted herself in, started the car, shifted it into reverse. “I might have some ideas on that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Vic’s smile said everything and nothing. “I don’t think we need to make any rash decisions about that right now.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Vic halted mid-sentence on the page she was reading and felt Angie’s eyes on her. Impatient eyes. They were reading a lesbian romance novel out loud together on the couch, taking turns, but now the book had arrived at a steamy scene and it made Vic nervous. Nervous because, as she quickly scanned a paragraph on the next page, she saw that it wasn’t just steamy make-out stuff, but full-out, graphic, jaw-dropping sex.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Angie said playfully.

  “Nope. Sex has got my tongue all tied up in knots.”

  “Ooh, too chicken to read it out loud, are we?”

  Vic handed her the book. Angie was up to reading pages on her own now, having progressed from a few sentences, then a few paragraphs, before becoming exhausted or losing her concentration. She was getting back to her old self, which was great, but the upcoming scene, Vic feared, might overload the sex-starved circuits in both of them. “Go ahead, if you’re so brave. Be my guest. But I’ll bet you five bucks you can’t do it.”

  “Deal.” Angie harrumphed and began reading the scene like it was no big deal.

  “‘Jane whimpered and her eyelids fluttered closed again. She could only nod her assent, and before she knew it, Alex was mercifully undoing her pants and sliding them down her legs. She arched back into the couch as Alex’s lips tenderly and unhurriedly trailed down her stomach, her body so rigid now, she felt like a guitar string about to snap.’”

  Angie read on, showing no emotion, not even a hint of discomfort. Vic, meanwhile, had begun to squirm lightly because she was turned on, dammit. Which was exactly what she was afraid would happen if they read the scene out loud. How could Angie be so stoic, so immune to the steam rising off the pages? Did she not feel anything?

  “‘Jane thought she could not possibly hold off any longer when Alex began to fulfill her promise. Her fingers drew the panties aside just enough to make room for her tongue, and when it found her, Jane felt herself dissolve to a new level of liquid pleasure. She pushed back hard into the soft couch as Alex’s tongue lightly, but in quick, sure strokes, plundered and caressed her to the very edge of diabolically sweet, swirling, delicious orgasm.’”

  With a flick of her wrist, Angie tossed the book to the floor, where it made a satisfying thump. “All right, that’s it, I can’t take this anymore. You win.”

  “Now that’s the best five bucks I’ve ever won,” Vic cooed.

  “Lording it over me, huh?” Angie began tickling Vic, her fingers like an invading army over her stomach and up her sides, leaving a pleasurable, fiery trail wherever they went. Even through her cashmere sweater Vic could feel her skin burning at Angie’s touch.

  “W-wait, that’s so not f-fair.” Vic giggled and squirmed as Angie worked her way up her neck, which was one of her erogenous zones. It was sensitive as hell, and right now she could hardly breathe.

  “You’re right, I’m not being fair using my hands.”

  Angie’s lips took the place of her fingers on Vic’s neck, licking, nipping, kissing the area around her collarbone, the hollow at the base of her throat. Vic was slowly combusting, melting from the outside in, wanting, needing this woman’s hands all over her, under her clothes and on her bare skin, inside her. Her head was back, her eyes pinched shut, her body taut and turned on and ready to burst and she could think of nothing else but Angie making love to her. Angie’s mouth crept to hers, sucked on her bottom lip, and Vic whimpered for more. They’d been posturing, flirting, skirting ever closer to acting on their sexual attraction to one another these last few days. Touches lingered longer, looks took on new heat, words of affection turned into innuendo. They’d been playing with matches, and the trouble was not the matches but in the dry tinder their bodies had become.

  “Ange…wait, honey.” Oh God, it hurt to stop. Physically hurt. “This…we…”

  “I don’t want to stop. I want to make love to you, Vic.”

  Angie’s eyes were dark, almost black, with longing. She kissed Vic again, tenderly and with feeling. Her hand rested just below the swell of Vic’s breast while a thumb rubbed slow, tiny, mesmerizing circles.

  “Slow,” Vic mumbled, her breath coming out in short, sharp bursts. “We’re supposed to be…going slow.”

  Yeah, sure. Tell that to the hard throbbing that had taken up residence between her legs. Whose stupid idea was that anyway? Oh, right, it had been hers.

  “I can’t even remember why we thought that was a good idea.” Angie kissed her again, dancing her thumb higher until it made contact with Vic’s nipple. Sweet, agonizing contact that made Vic’s stomach do a slow, tantalizing roll. And then Angie was pulling off her sweater, and Vic let her because she knew resistance at this point was little more than some principle whose power and appeal was fast disintegrating.

  “I think,” Vic said between breaths, “it had something to do with us wanting to be sure.”

  “Oh, trust me, I’m sure I want to do this.” Angie’s fingers made short work of the buttons on Vic’s cotton shirt. She parted the material, stared with unveiled wanting at Vic’s breasts and the lacey black bra covering them.

  “I think…” Could she even think right now? “…it had something to do with being sure about us. About a future together. About commitment.”

  Angie’s eyes swung to Vic’s. “I am sure, darling. Of all of it. I don’t want to wait any more for you to understand that I want us to be together. I want a life with you, Vic. I want a future with you. And I want it to start right now, because waiting any longer is making me crazy.”

  It was too late to take back her declaration now, but Angie carefully watched Vic’s eyes to gauge its effect, because those eyes were the most expressive, unguarded thing about Vic and they never lied. Seconds ago the gray in them had been flecked with green and gold in what Angie guessed—no, knew—was arousal. Now they transitioned to something slightly
darker, something obsidian. She could see that Vic wanted to believe her, but wasn’t sure if she could.

  “Angie…are you sure?”

  “Yes. And I’m sorry it sounds impulsive, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Weeks. It’s how I feel, Vic, it’s what I want and it isn’t going to change. Which means the ball is in your court.”

  Vic made some space between them. Not an entire cushion’s length, but a few inches anyway. And that was bad news. “It’s just…You know what I worry about? I worry that we’re both perfectionists. Overachievers. I worry we won’t confront a problem if…no, when we have problems, down the road.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I tend to put my blinders on and pretend everything is fine while I go save the world, and you…you clam up or close yourself off so you can’t be hurt. Angie…” She looked at her with a mix of fear and hope that was almost heartbreaking. “I don’t want to screw things up again.”

  Shit shit shit. I’ve misread everything. I’m an idiot. Vic doesn’t want anything more than what we’ve been doing, of course she doesn’t. It’s why she won’t take that next step and sleep with me. It’s why she won’t—

  “Honey,” Vic said. “You look like you’re about to have a panic attack. Are you okay?”

  Angie’s voice came out three octaves too high. “Define okay.”

  Vic reached a hand out and touched her cheek, and dammit, Angie couldn’t help but close her eyes and sink into the feel of Vic’s soft skin. She wanted to cry, and it took all her willpower not to.

  “Oh, sweetie. What I’m trying to say is that if we do this, there are some things we need to do a better job with. Like, we need to accept that we’re going to screw up sometimes. That we might even hurt one another, even though we’re not trying to. That we’re not going to be perfect, that we’re not going to be a perfect union all the time. And we need to be okay with that. We need to not run away from things. Which means we need to talk about everything, all the time.” Vic laughed away her tension. “That’s some kind of list, isn’t it?”

  “Kinda, but I love lists.” Angie smiled because she was pretty sure Vic had just given her—them—her blessing to try to make this work. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Vic leaned closer. Angie inhaled the scent of her citrus shampoo, the laundry detergent that smelled like sunshine. “I want to try to build a life with you. Do you think we can do that? Do you think we can try? I’m scared as hell, but—”

  “Oh God, I love you.” Angie began covering Vic’s face with little kisses, kisses that were like tiny, electrifying sparks. Then she touched her forehead to Vic’s and looked into her eyes. “I know what you’re saying. And I do want to try. With you. And I promise we’ll talk. We’ll talk so much you won’t be able to shut me up.”

  Vic smiled, the light back in her eyes.

  “I won’t clam up and be the tough, silent soldier type,” Angie continued. “I promise you that. And I promise I’ll be okay with making mistakes. Well, not okay with it, but…you know what I mean. We’ll work through them. I won’t try to be Miss Perfect all the time, or think the world is crashing in around me if things are not perfect all the time. There, you see how much I can talk?”

  Vic laughed and kissed Angie’s lips softly. “That’s a very good sign. And I promise you that I won’t put my blinders on. And that before I save the world, I make sure first that everything is okay with us.”

  They kissed again, deeply this time, and it made Angie feel like she could do anything, including conquering the world and presenting it to her lover on a silver platter. “I love you, Victoria Turner. I love you so much. With you, I feel like me, the real me, if that makes sense. And do you know the most important thing to me?” She wanted to tell Vic everything and all at once. “I respect you. I respect you absolutely.” She’d never respected Brooke, and that was probably the very start of their problems.

  “And I respect you, Angela Cullen. And I love you with all my heart, did you know that?”

  “I didn’t until now. I mean, I’d hoped.” Angie wiped a tear that had appeared out of nowhere. “When did you know?”

  “That’s easy. That time I showed up at your family’s winery and drank too much. You drove me home. You were so nice to me and I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “That’s when I started loving you too. You were more vulnerable than I expected. Human. And I realized I couldn’t blame you for what happened. That you were as much a victim as I was.”

  Vic swung her leg over Angie and climbed onto her lap, straddling her. “I don’t want to talk about that time anymore. In fact, I don’t want to talk at all.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Vic threw her head back as Angie’s lips found her neck. God, her kisses! They were soothing and incendiary at the same time. Fire and ice. Yielding and conquering. Whatever the two of them had meant by going slow together, well, that was clearly in tatters now, because Vic couldn’t imagine not being loved, not being made love to, by this woman after they’d both laid bare their souls. Laid them bare and took them gently and lovingly into one another’s hands. I know what it’s like to hold her heart in my hands, to possess it and cherish it, and I know what it’s like for her to have my heart in her hands. She wasn’t scared by the thought so much as awed by it.

  Angie’s mouth hovered closer to her breasts now, her hands cupping the underside of them. It had to go, this bra, because she needed Angie’s mouth against her skin. Needed it more than she needed to breathe. “My…I need to…”

  “No,” Angie whispered, her breath warm against Vic’s flesh. “Let me, but not yet.”

  She could feel Angie’s eyes caressing her breasts. She seemed to be inhaling Vic, breathing her in, and then her fingers moved with wondrous, slow exploration. First circling her breasts, then tracing the outline of the bra’s fabric before ever so lightly brushing against her nipples. It was almost too much, except there was so much more she desired; they’d not even scratched the surface of their desire yet.

  Breathless with desire, Vic urged her to kiss her breasts, hearing the pure need in her own voice and not recognizing her desperation. She’d never wanted another woman’s mouth on her as much as she did Angie’s.

  Angie moaned softly, licked her lips and parted the fine fabric of the bra that Vic could only think about being ripped from her. Screw its ninety-dollar cost. A kiss as soft as a butterfly landed next to her nipple, and Vic wanted to scream. Scream and push Angie’s mouth to her rigid flesh because she could hardly stand it anymore, her body clenching painfully, every cell clamping down as if to somehow gather more of Angie to her. Into her.

  “Vic. You’re so goddamned beautiful.”

  And then she moved that sexy mouth to Vic’s nipple and took it gently, her tongue playfully suckling, her lips so soft and moist that Vic could barely press down enough on the gathering orgasm deep in her belly. God, that mouth. That mouth was surely one of the seven wonders of the world because it was doing things to her breasts she never knew were possible. She arched into Angie’s mouth, felt Angie reach behind her and unclasp that damned bra.

  “The bedroom,” Vic managed. “We should move upstairs to the bedroom.”

  “No,” Angie said, her voice all deep and gravelly and sex-fueled. “I can’t wait that long.”

  Oh dear God. Vic inhaled a deep, shuddering breath as Angie’s hand moved between her thighs, stroking higher and higher until they landed on her apex. Fingers teased her through her jeans, and Vic hardened at the combination of Angie’s fingers and hand working in agonizing synchronicity.

  “Angie, sweetheart…I don’t think…I can…take much more of this.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

  She gently nudged Vic until she was lying down on the couch, and her mouth moved down to her stomach, making the muscles there twitch and jump at the exquisite little pulses Angie’s mouth unleashed. She’d never made love on a couch before, it occurred to her a
s Angie’s fingers tugged on the zipper of her jeans. Why is that? Why have I never done that before? Making love had always been a planned affair, acted upon like ticking off a checklist: bedroom first, clothes second, light on or off, bed, kissing, etc. But this, this had the shadow of something forbidden about it, something naughty and animalistic and too acute to be constrained by practicalities and rigid priorities. This was a raging fire that couldn’t be extinguished.

  Her jeans were down past her knees now, her matching black panties too. She could admit to herself that she’d dressed in these sexy underclothes today because somewhere deep in her mind she’d hoped this would happen with Angie tonight. Or soon, in any case.

  Angie’s fingers were on her, light and making circular patterns, and she was smiling, grinning at Vic. “God, Vic, I want you so bad. You feel so good, do you know that?”

  Unable to speak, Vic shook her head lightly.

  “Tell me what you want. Because I want to touch you everywhere, all at once, but I’m afraid it might be too much. Too fast.”

  “You…no…it’s perfect.”

  “I want to discover every part of you. Love every part of you.”

  Vic’s eyes slammed shut. She wanted Angie in and around and on every part of her too. She felt fingers dancing on her most intimate flesh, claiming her, expertly possessing her, like a piano player caressing familiar keys and making beautiful music. A finger slipped inside her, then another, and Vic pressed against them, began moving her hips in time to the short, quick thrusts. She was so wet, so close to coming, that it was all she could do not to. Yet.

  “I want to suck you,” Angie said, her voice throaty and dripping with desire.

  “Oh God…yes. Please. Please, Ange.”

  “Please what, my darling?”

  “Please…suck me.” The dirty words ratcheted Vic’s arousal higher, and the first touch of Angie’s lips on her jolted her, sent white heat through her. When her tongue began moving in sure, rhythmic strokes, Vic was thrust to the edge, and then she was falling over it, throbbing and pulsing as her orgasm ripped through her, shattering her, making her its bitch, leaving her quaking and more in love with this woman than she’d been before.