by Radclyffe
She typed quickly.
Tonight when you’re on stage, I want you to imagine the hands touching you are mine. I’ll be watching. You do not have permission to come.
As soon as she pushed send, she reached for her cell phone and pushed a number on speed dial. When Candace answered, Bren said, “I didn’t expect you to be home on a Saturday night.”
“Did you call just to make me cranky?” Candace replied.
“No,” Bren laughed. “Is it still my birthday weekend?”
“What do you need? Chocolate cake? A bottle of wine? I’m at your service.”
“I need a date.”
“Age, physical description, sexual proclivities?”
“I was thinking of you.”
Silence.
“I don’t want you to sleep with me, Candace,” Bren said, “just keep me company.”
“Damn. And now I’m horny.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Where are we going?”
“The Blue Diamond.”
“That works for me. Maybe tonight I’ll find someone I feel like fucking when I get her home.”
“I’ll call Liz,” Bren said.
“Okay. What time do you want me to pick you up?”
“Uh—twenty minutes?”
“That gives me five minutes to dress, darling.”
“Skip underwear.”
“I always do.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“So,” Candace said as she pulled into the parking lot at the Blue Diamond, “what prompted this spur of the moment visit?”
“I want to see Jae again,” Bren answered.
Candace turned off the ignition and regarded Bren intently. The club, looking more like a chop shop than a nightclub, crouched on a narrow strip of land between the I-95 bypass and the Delaware River, surrounded by convenience stores and empty factory buildings with boarded up windows. The lot was nearly filled with an odd assortment of vehicles—dusty pickup trucks with oversized wheels, shiny high-end luxury sedans, and a stretch Humvee limo. In the hazy yellow glow from the security lights hanging from the corners of the building, Candace’s face looked eerily unfamiliar.
“What?” Bren asked, her voice echoing hollowly inside the car.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“What am I doing?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, this is not a club where nice girls go to find dates.”
“I already have a date.”
“You don’t know her,” Candace pointed out.
Bren smiled, surprised at Candace’s concern. “You don’t know a lot of the women you bring home.”
“That’s true, but I have a lot more experience at it than you do.”
“I’m not as naïve as you think.”
“I’m beginning to get that you’re a lot more of a lot of things than I thought.”
“Thank you.”
“I can still worry.”
“I’m not going home with her,” Bren said. “I came to see how well she follows instructions.”
“She knows you’re coming?”
“No, and I don’t want her to see us.”
“Okay,” Candace said slowly. “I think I might like this game.”
Bren leaned over and kissed Candace’s cheek. “I bet you would.”
“Is it too late for you to play it with me?”
Laughing, Bren pushed her door open. “Way too late.”
“Damn. And now I’m really horny.”
*
Liz sighed and burrowed into the curve of Reilly’s neck. Reilly stroked her hair and adjusted the blouse she had draped over Liz’s bare back to keep her warm.
“Mmm,” Liz murmured. “You smell good.”
“Thank you.” Smiling, Reilly kissed Liz’s temple.
Liz responded by snugging her leg more firmly into Reilly’s crotch. Reilly’s breath caught at the unexpected pressure. Her body had never cooled below simmer, and it wouldn’t take much to bring her back up to a boil.
“What?” Liz asked drowsily.
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
Liz raised her head and looked around. It was completely dark except for the candle that flickered and flared a few feet away “We’re still in the backseat of the car.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I fell asleep, didn’t I?”
“Uh-huh.”
Liz replayed the last few things she remembered, and sat up abruptly. “Oh my God. I can’t believe I did that. I am so sorry.”
Reilly shifted her legs, one of which was completely numb from the weight of Liz lying on her for the last hour. She didn’t care. Even if gangrene had set in and her leg had dropped off, she wouldn’t have given up a second of holding Liz in her arms. She’d had sex a few times in the last several years, usually with women she knew from work who’d asked her out, and she had finally given in after running out of polite ways to say no. Sometimes she was lonely, and she surrendered to the need to hear someone, even a stranger, cry out in pleasure. But she rarely felt less lonely after a night of false intimacy. In fact, she had rarely felt lonelier than when waking up with a woman she didn’t really know in her arms.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Reilly said, taking Liz’s hand. “I’ve had a great night.”
Liz clasped Reilly’s hand in both of hers. With her head down, her hair covered most of her face and Reilly couldn’t make out her expression. “I wasn’t talking about just falling asleep.”
“I know what you’re talking about. You’re amazing.”
“I’ve never done that before,” Liz said in a low voice. “I didn’t even know I could.”
“Your body is changing.” Reilly held up Liz’s blouse, which had slid off when Liz bolted up. “You should put this on. The temperature’s finally dropped a little bit. Should I get you a sweatshirt?”
“Did you know?” Liz took the blouse but didn’t put it on. “That I…”
“That you came while we were kissing?”
Liz nodded mutely.
“Yes.” Reilly leaned over and kissed her softly. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything sexier in my life.”
Liz pressed her forehead to Reilly’s shoulder. “God, I’m embarrassed.”
“Please don’t be. You were so beautiful.”
“I couldn’t help it—the way you kiss me. The way you touch my breasts.” Liz traced Reilly’s mouth with her thumb. “I felt you inside me. Everywhere.”
Reilly shuddered. She wanted Liz again. She wanted to hear her soft, broken cries of pleasure and feel her tremble. She wanted the exquisite pleasure of Liz’s fingers digging into her shoulders as she arched into her. She wanted that, all of that, and so very much more. Swiftly, she pulled away and kneeled on the iron fire escape in front of Liz. She wrapped her arms around Liz’s waist and rested her cheek against Liz’s stomach just above the top of her shorts. “While you were sleeping, I put my hand right here. I imagined I could feel a heartbeat beneath my fingers. Any day now, you’ll feel movement.”
Liz stroked Reilly’s hair. “You’re the first one to touch me there.”
Reilly closed her eyes and pressed her face harder to Liz’s warm flesh. She and Annie had never made love while Annie was pregnant. She knew that, because they hadn’t made love for almost four months before Annie died. They had been fighting almost constantly, and she thought then it was because the demands of her residency left her absent, physically and emotionally, too much of the time. Now she wondered if it hadn’t been because of the secret Annie was keeping. She wondered if she would have known, if she would have noticed any difference in Annie’s body. She wondered now if she had really known Annie very well at all.
“I feel honored,” Reilly said.
Liz laughed and caressed Reilly’s cheek. “Believe me, there may be something miraculous going on inside me, but I am just an ordinary woman.”
“You’re shivering.” Reilly stood and took L
iz’s hand. “Come inside.”
Reilly climbed over the window sill and waited to help Liz. Then she pulled a T-shirt from her dresser drawer and held it out. “Here—this will be a little warmer than that blouse.”
While Liz shrugged into the T-shirt and dropped her blouse on the dresser, Reilly walked to the bed, turned on the small reading lamp on the bedside table, and stretched out on top of the covers. When she held out her hand, Liz gripped it and lay down facing her.
“Warm enough?” Reilly asked.
“Perfect.”
Reilly put her arm around Liz’s waist and pulled her closer until their bodies just touched. “You’re not ordinary. You’re brave and strong, and so sexy I’m just about crazy from wanting you all the time.”
“And I left you high and dry out there, didn’t I,” Liz said. “I still can’t believe I did that.”
“I told you, you’re amazing. The way I felt when I realized what was happening—believe me, that was better than an orgasm.”
Liz laughed. “Oh, you really are in a bad way.”
“Maybe. But I’m not complaining.”
Liz skimmed her hand under the back of Reilly’s polo shirt, pressed against her, and kissed her. “I wanted to go to bed with you when we came up here tonight. All the way to bed—no clothes, no barriers, no doubts.”
“But?”
“This is new territory for me.” Liz took Reilly’s hand and pressed it low on her belly. “This is new.” She carried Reilly’s hand to her breast and held it over her heart. “What’s going on in here is new too. I don’t know when Julia started to move out of my life, out of my heart. I didn’t notice the emptiness until it was so huge nothing we could have done would have changed things.”
“Not even the baby?”
“Especially not the baby.”
Reilly frowned. “What did she say when you told her?”
“She said it was wonderful.”
“She’s right. How could she not think—”
“Reilly, Julia didn’t know I was pregnant because she called me from California the day I was scheduled to be inseminated and told me she didn’t want to have a baby.”
“She was in California? Wasn’t she going with you?”
“We’d been talking about the insemination for a few months, and we had finally decided to go ahead. Or at least, I had decided, and Julia had gone along with it. Everything was scheduled and then Julia had a meeting come up that she couldn’t get out of.” Liz shook her head. “We both decided that if the timing was right while she was away, I would do it alone. After all, it wasn’t the mechanics that mattered, at least that’s what we said.”
Reilly grit her teeth to keep from commenting. She had no right to criticize Julia. Her lover hadn’t been able to count on her, either, or at least that’s what Annie must have believed. “Then she changed her mind, but you went ahead?”
“No,” Liz said quietly. “She called from California that morning to tell me not to keep the appointment. She left a message on my cell. Maybe she thought I was in a meeting or something, but my appointment had been moved up from the afternoon to the first thing in the morning. By the time I got the message, it was already done.”
“Jesus,” Reilly muttered. She couldn’t even imagine how Liz must have felt when she got the message from Julia telling her not to go ahead. “I’m sorry. You must have been shocked.”
“I didn’t know what to think. I was numb. I guess I didn’t quite believe that she actually meant it until she got home and I confronted her. That’s when she told me about her girlfriend.”
“She doesn’t deserve you,” Reilly snarled.
Liz pushed Reilly over onto her back and climbed on top of her. She propped herself on her elbows and smiled down at Reilly. “You are very good for my ego.”
Reilly tangled her hands in Liz’s hair and kissed her throat. “She’s an idiot.”
Liz grasped Reilly’s wrists and pinned her arms to the bed. Then she leaned down and nibbled on Reilly’s neck. “I need to go home before we start in again. Because the next time I come, we’re not going to have any clothes on and you’re going to be inside me for real.”
Reilly didn’t struggle to break free of Liz’s grip, even though what she wanted was to roll Liz under her and lose herself in her. Instead, she turned her head and kissed Liz on the mouth, sliding her tongue inside when Liz didn’t pull away. They kissed until they were both breathless.
“Okay, that’s it,” Liz gasped. “Curfew time.”
“I’ll walk you home.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m leaving?”
“No. Whatever you want. Whatever you need. It’s all right.”
“What if I don’t know?” Liz asked.
“Then we’ll wait until you do.”
Liz sat up, straddling Reilly’s hips. “What do you want?”
“I want what you make me feel.”
“What is that?”
“Alive.”
*
“God, she’s hot,” Candace moaned as Jae stalked onto the stage. This time she wore a black leather vest and chaps with a band of black satin between her legs that barely covered her clitoris.
“Isn’t she,” Bren said, sliding in behind Candace’s stool at the far end of the bar so she could watch the stage over Candace’s shoulder. The room was so dark, she doubted Jae could see her, but she wanted the privacy to watch Jae without Candace watching her.
Much like the night before, Jae posed and strutted, her attitude arrogant, her expression remote. When she strode to the very edge of the platform, unbuttoned her vest, and shrugged it from her muscular shoulders in one motion, Bren barely managed not to groan out loud. When she thrust her hips forward, daring those at the nearest tables to reach for her sex, Bren felt a wave of heat surge through her that settled between her thighs and left her wet.
“I would love to go down on that,” Candace muttered.
“Forget it. Tonight, she’s mine.”
Candace swiveled on her barstool. “You really are Melanie Richards, aren’t you?”
“I really am.”
Bren kept her eyes on the stage, her pulse racing as Jae gave one last insolent pelvic thrust inches from the groping hands, then pivoted and sauntered to the spotlit silver pole. The room went completely black except for that bright cone of light. Jae reached above her head and fisted one hand above the other, the pole a gleaming phallus protruding from her clenched fingers. She tilted her head back, and through half-closed eyes stared directly at Bren.
“She knows you’re here,” Candace whispered.
“She can’t.”
“She does.”
Again, the blood-tipped fingers reached from out of the blackness and roamed Jae’s body. Tonight, her skin glistened with sweat within seconds and the muscles in her stomach rippled convulsively. Her breasts flushed and her nipples tightened.
“Ooo, look at her. Whoever’s playing with her is doing a number on her tonight. I bet you she comes.”
“She won’t,” Bren said.
Jae’s tormentor slid two fingers into the cleft between Jae’s thighs, and when she slowly drew them out, they glistened wetly. The muscles in Jae’s jaws bunched as she clenched her teeth, and her thighs trembled. Bren could almost feel the harsh, hot breath of Jae’s arousal on her neck and sensed her body careening to the edge. Watching her, she saw the instant she began the inevitable climb to orgasm. Jae writhed, her back a taut bow, struggling to contain the uncontainable. She was beautiful in her utter need. The room was so quiet, Jae’s agonized groan carried through the stillness like a desperate plea. Her suffering was palpable and Bren took pity on her.
“You may come,” Bren whispered.
“No,” Jae cried. She pushed the hands from her body and collapsed to her knees. She fell forward, head bowed, barely catching herself on outstretched arms. “No!”
The crowd gasped as one and the spotlight blinked out, leaving them all teetering on
the razor’s edge of desire.
“I have got to get laid tonight,” Candace moaned.
Bren bit back the wild urge to laugh in triumph, certain that part of Jae’s out-of-control arousal had been because Jae knew she was watching. Watching, and forbidding her the pleasure she craved. The lights came up just enough for customers to move around the murky room. The stage was empty.
Bren signaled the bartender, and surprisingly, he came over immediately.
“Get you something?”
“I want a dance.”
“Fifty bucks. Grab an empty table if you can get one.”
“No. A private dance.”
“Way to go, Bren,” Candace murmured.
The bartender regarded Bren calculatingly. “Who?”
“You know who. She left me a message last night.”
He nodded, bent over, and pulled something from under the bar. He handed her a key. “Fourth room on the right.”
“How much?”
He shook his head. “It’s paid for.”
“Thank you.”
He shrugged and left to attend the swarm of men and a few women who clamored for drinks.
“Can I watch?” Candace asked.
“Not this time,” Bren said.
Candace gripped her hand. “Are you saying I might be able to, sometime?”
“I don’t know. It might be more fun to make her watch us.”
Candace’s mouth dropped open.
Laughing, Bren put two fingers beneath Candace’s chin and gently closed her mouth. “You are so much fun to play with.”
“You have no idea.”
“Will you be okay if I leave you out here alone?” Bren asked.
“Will you be okay in there alone?”
“Absolutely.” Bren jiggled the key. “After all, I’m just going to watch.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Liz and Reilly held hands as they walked from Reilly’s apartment on Twenty-second and Pine to Liz’s condo a few blocks away. Although after eleven, couples strolled toward Rittenhouse Square and soft jazz drifted out the open doors of a wine bar as they passed. If Liz let her mind drift, she could pretend she was on a date. She could imagine being free to go wherever her feelings took her, to embrace the joy and excitement of a new relationship. The euphoria lasted for a few seconds, and then she remembered that she was far from free. She had a commitment to something far more important than chasing a dream that might never be. In a little more than six months she’d be so busy juggling her work and the new baby, she wouldn’t have time to think about her own needs, let alone those of another person and a new relationship.