by Radclyffe
July 3, 9:47 p.m.
“What are you doing here?” Sax asked as she closed the door to her on-call room and turned to discover Jude in the deserted hallway. Finding her there so unexpectedly, she was reminded of Maddy’s request that she bring that director along on her next trip north. And for one brief moment, she imagined Jude Castle behind her on the bike, body pressed to her back, arms around her waist, hands tucked into the curve of her thighs. She could feel the warmth of those hands cupping her. Her legs quivered unexpectedly, and she thrust her hands into her front pockets to hide the response.
“Waiting for Mel,” Jude replied, flustered at running into the woman she had just spent the last few hours studying. Even the stark, powerful images of the surgeon on tape paled compared with how compelling she was in the flesh. Feeling the need to elaborate, she added, “She’s in the OR locker room. Shower—she’s taking a shower.”
“Ah,” Sax replied, raising a brow. “Something wrong with the plumbing in her apartment?”
Laughing, Jude explained, “I dragged her here from the gym earlier, and we ended up taking a lot longer than I expected. We were reviewing some film and time got away from us.”
“I’m sorry there’s no bathroom in your on-call room. I’ll get you a key for mine. You can shower there if you need to.”
“Thanks,” Jude said, immediately unsettled by the prospect of inadvertently walking in on Sinclair in the shower, or vice versa. Needing to dispel the image of them both in a small steamy room with one of them naked, she asked quickly, “What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t due to be on call until the morning.”
Caught off-guard, Sax grinned a little sheepishly. “Just checking up on things. I was out of town overnight, and I wanted to make sure everything was stable here.”
“So, we’re both working.” Jude added under her breath, “Why am I not surprised?” She wondered, though, if Sax really was working, considering what she was wearing. Totally in black, dusty and disheveled, she looked so unlike a doctor and so much more like a Soho artist or a bartender at one of the bars Melissa loved to frequent that it was difficult to reconcile this vision with that of the woman she’d watched, just moments before, choreograph a masterpiece of high-tension drama.
One thing she was certain of, though. The surgeon was intriguing. And sexy, she thought, remembering the way Sinclair’s hands had moved so surely over flesh and bone. Without her intending it, her gaze traveled from those hands, which now rested partway in the pockets of low-slung jeans, up the long stretch of torso to linger briefly on the tantalizing hint of breasts beneath a body-hugging silk T-shirt, along the sculpted column of Sinclair’s neck, and finally over the angled architecture of her face. Deep blue eyes, laser sharp and penetrating, stared directly into hers.
Jude blushed, feeling unexpectedly exposed. God, I’m standing here cruising her, and she knows it. I never do that.
Completely unaware, both women took a step closer until they were only a few feet apart.
“You should get some rest,” Sax said quietly, watching the smooth ripple of blood surge and throb beneath the ivory skin of Jude’s throat. “Tomorrow’s Friday, and there’s going to be a full moon, and it’s the Fourth. We’re gonna get killed tomorrow night.”
“You think?” Jude’s voice was so oddly thick she almost didn’t recognize it. The air between them was nearly vibrating, and her skin sang.
“Count on it,” Sax murmured, captivated by the way Jude’s lips darkened and swelled as her neck flushed a pale rose. A fist of fire forced the breath from her lungs, and she almost gasped out loud.
“I will then. Get some sleep. Tonight,” Jude managed. She was having trouble forming sentences. In another second, she’d be incoherent. Dear God. She caught herself leaning forward, drawn by the intensity of Sinclair’s gaze on her mouth. Startled, she almost jumped back. For a heart-stopping second, she thought Sinclair was going to take a step forward and close the distance between them, but, mercifully, a voice interrupted.
“Time for dinner?” Melissa asked lightly, not entirely certain what she was seeing. It appeared for all the world as if the two of them were about to jump each other. However, she knew that couldn’t be true because drop-dead gorgeous Jude Castle just did not do that kind of thing. It wasn’t because she was too uptight to do something risky or outrageous; she was just too preoccupied and too damn practical. A pity, that was for sure. “You coming with us, Doctor?”
Sax turned slowly to face the newcomer, her vision cloudy, as if she were underwater. Except she was anything but cool. Her entire body was hot; she was surprised she wasn’t dripping sweat. The blood was roaring through her head, and she wondered if either of the women near her could sense the sex seeping from her pores. Jesus Christ.
“No,” she replied. Her voice was low and gravelly, and she cleared her throat as she straightened and stepped back. “No, I need to...uh...I have some things I need to take care of.” She took another step away and pulled herself together, back from the edge. “Good night, Ms. Castle, Ms. Cooper.”
Sax barely noticed leaving the building. Outside, safe in the anonymity of night, she swung one leg over her Harley and tilted her head back to the sky, breathing deeply. Her T-shirt clung to her chest, soaked through in places with sweat that was rapidly turning cool. She shivered in the heavy, scorching air, running a shaky hand through her hair, astonished at the tremor. Nothing made her hands shake, not fatigue or caffeine or disaster. Not even the perfunctory physiologic release of orgasm did what standing three feet away from Jude Castle, feeling the redhead’s eyes move over her body, had done to her. Even now, she was burning.
She glanced back at the hospital exit, half expecting to see Jude and Melissa emerge. She really didn’t want to see the filmmaker again so soon, because it had taken all her restraint not to accept the offer to join the two of them for dinner. She didn’t need any further stimulation; she needed to get her mind off those green eyes stripping her bare.
*
After a silence that stretched for far too long, Melissa nudged Jude’s shoulder and asked, “What was that all about?”
“Nothing.” Jude was still slightly dazed. What in God’s name just happened?
“Excuse me, but I could have sworn the two of you were about to start ripping each other’s clothes off.”
“We were just talking, Mel,” Jude said a little more sharply than she’d intended. She was too unsettled by her unanticipated and completely uncharacteristic reaction to make a joke of it.
It was true that she found Sinclair fascinating, as well as compellingly attractive, but she had met other interesting, eye-catching women in her life, and they hadn’t thrown her system into overdrive. It wasn’t like her to respond so physically, so mindlessly, to anyone, but especially not to a near stranger. Her knees were still quaking, and arousal thudded persistently between her legs. What she wanted at the moment was not dinner. What she wanted was to have Sinclair’s hands on her.
Determined to ignore the signals her body was emphatically sending, she said hoarsely, “Let’s go.”
“Anything you say.” Melissa hurried to keep pace as Jude headed for the stairwell like the place was on fire. “But you’ve got to admit, she’s fantasy material.”
Jude didn’t even want to consider that. She didn’t have time for that kind of complication.
“Where are we going?” Melissa asked.
Like she cared. A distraction. That’s what the situation called for. “Wherever you want,” she replied.
*
An hour later, Jude knew she should have gone home to bed and settled for lying there awake. “This is really a bad idea.”
“Why? We’re not breaking any rules,” Melissa pointed out. “And I promise to behave myself. I haven’t tried to seduce you in at least three and half years.”
“We have early call tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten,” Jude responded grumpily, even as she handed over her twenty-dollar cover charge. “And I know you
’re not going to try to seduce me.”
How do you know that, when I don’t even know it myself? Melissa thought, waving hello to one of the two bartenders working the length of a bar that extended all along one wall of the cavernous space. A heavy bass beat from speakers at either end of the room made the thick, hot atmosphere in the dimly lit room vibrate. She put her mouth close to Jude’s ear and said, “We don’t have to stay late. After all the work we did this afternoon, I think we’ve earned a couple of drinks. I promise I’ll get you home in plenty of time to catch a few hours of sleep, unless you want me to drop you off at your lawyer friend’s for a quickie.”
Jude gave her a scathing look, but it was hard to be annoyed in the face of Melissa’s irrepressible good humor. “All right, I agreed to come with you, and I’m going to stop complaining. But you might have warned me about this place first.”
Feigning innocence, Melissa lifted both hands in mock supplication. “What are you talking about?”
Conversing in near shouts, they edged their way toward the bar through the milling crowd of women. Along the way, Jude couldn’t help but notice that most of the women wore a combination of leather or denim. “This looks like some kind of leather bar. I would have preferred to at least dress the part if I had known that’s where we were going.”
“It’s more of a biker bar, really.” Melissa shouted to one of the bartenders for two beers. “Besides, you’re wearing jeans. That’s good enough.” And if you think it matters one iota what you’re wearing, you have no idea how hot you are.
Jude didn’t comment on the fact that, in addition to the rough trade atmosphere, there was an unmistakable aura of sex in the air. At midnight, the place was packed with writhing revelers in a simulation of dancing that came very close to public sex. Under the strobing black lights, bodies seethed in a continuous fusion of arms and legs and searching hands.
“It doesn’t bother you, does it?” Melissa asked, leaning close to be heard as she passed Jude a beer.
They cut a path through the crowd toward a post at one corner of an enormous dance floor. Jude pressed her back against the post to keep out of the stream of constantly passing people. She kept her eyes moving so she wouldn’t accidentally witness something meant to be private. She didn’t need a guide to know what was happening in the murky recesses of the shadowy room.
After a healthy swallow of her beer she answered Mel’s question. “Just because it isn’t my particular style doesn’t mean I mind.” She watched Melissa, who was evidently cruising the crowd. “But aren’t I going to cramp your style?”
“No.” Melissa shook her head. “I don’t have the energy for it tonight, anyway.”
“My, my,” Jude chided good-naturedly. “You were all primed earlier. Is our age showing?”
“Bite your tongue,” Mel snapped, but she was smiling. “I’m going to need some sleep tonight, too, especially if we’re going to be up until God knows when tomorrow. We’ll just have a drink, think about what we’re missing while we cruise all these gorgeous women, and toddle off home like good, responsible professionals.”
“In that case, I’ll have another beer.” Jude wasn’t much of a drinker, so two beers were just about the right amount to make her feel mellow without encouraging her to act stupid. After her intense afternoon and evening of work and the disquieting encounter with Sinclair, unwinding a little seemed like a very good idea.
“I’ll get them.” Mel placed a hand on her arm before she could move toward the bar. “I have to go to the john anyhow.”
“Okay, but if you pick someone up along the way, let me know. I can always get a cab home if you get tied up.” Mel gave her a wide grin, and Jude punched her on the arm. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know, I know. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
As Mel was swallowed by the crowd, Jude turned back to the dance floor and idly observed the activities. Smoke hung like mist, and the strobes gave everyone an otherworldly appearance. Watching women moving against each other to the rhythm of the pulse-pounding beat, hands disappearing beneath T-shirts, hips straddling thighs, and mouths seeking sweat-dampened skin, she became aware of her own body responding.
She doubted she would have been as sensitive if she hadn’t already been aroused when she arrived. The time it had taken her and Mel to grab a quick sandwich and walk the few blocks to the bar, however, had not been enough to dissipate the effects of the intensely erotic encounter she’d had in the hospital hallway with a woman she barely knew. That was not a thought she wanted to dwell on, and she tried to forget it as she glanced around.
The second time her gaze swept the shadows near the edge of the room, she caught her breath in surprise and pressed harder against the column that supported her, unconsciously attempting to hide from view. Barely ten feet away, Saxon Sinclair leaned against the wall. Most of her body was shrouded in darkness, but her face was starkly highlighted in the flickering strobe light.
Irrationally, Jude didn’t want the surgeon to know that she was there. Sinclair had obviously come straight to the club after leaving them earlier; she was still in her dusty black jeans and T-shirt. Standing with her head tilted back, one arm dangling by her side holding a longneck bottle loosely in her fingers, she appeared to be eerily removed from her surroundings. Jude was so close she could see sweat shining like jewels on her face. Her lids looked heavy, her eyes partially closed. In any other setting Jude would have thought her half asleep.
But that clearly wasn’t the case. A woman, her back to Jude, was angled against Sinclair’s side in such a way as to shield what she was doing from those nearby. From where Jude stood, however, she had an unimpeded view.
With a gasp of astonishment and an unwelcome rush of envy, she realized that the woman’s hand was moving under Sinclair’s shirt. And if the expression on Sinclair’s face was any indication, the caress was more than casual. Jude knew she should look away, but the raw beauty of Sinclair’s arousal had already mesmerized her.
Sax had no idea she was being observed. Her vision was unfocused as she stared unseeing above the heads of those around her. The thunderous vibration of the music hammered through the floor and up her legs, a furtive accompaniment to the echoing surge deep inside. She was dimly conscious of the heat from the woman leaning into her, but most of her awareness was focused on the cadenced movement of the woman’s fingers on her bare skin. The muscles in her abdomen contracted involuntarily as the progressively firmer strokes trailed along her ribs and edged down toward the top of her jeans; the occasional rasp of a fingernail underscored the building pressure with a swift jolt of electricity that threatened to elicit a groan.
She had never lost the hard, heavy fullness that had started in the hallway outside her on-call room, and by the time this stranger had moved up beside her in the anonymous throng of the darkened bar, her arousal had moved from pleasure to the edge of pain. Stiffening as a practiced hand discreetly opened the buttons on her fly, she worked to maintain her composure. She was willing to acknowledge her physical needs and accepted the offered release, but emotionally, she was determined to remain detached.
Even as her hips involuntarily arched forward and her fingers tightened on the smooth cylinder of the beer bottle, she didn’t look at the woman touching her. When skillful fingers unerringly found her, closing firmly along her length, her thighs shook with the effort to contain the explosion. She pressed her head hard against the wall, swallowing convulsively, struggling not to orgasm immediately.
She forced herself to concentrate on the faces swimming in the crowd in front of her, meaning to distract herself from the rhythmic torment of the fingers now stroking harder and faster over her clitoris, pushing her closer to her limits. With sudden clarity, she found herself staring into the same incendiary gaze that had nearly demolished her a few hours earlier.
She fell into Jude Castle’s eyes and came instantly.
Jude almost felt the orgasm as it flew across Sinclair’s face, a
nd watching her shudder—jaws clamped shut, body rigid—imagined she could hear her moan. Her own stomach clenched, a molten trail of fire searing along her spine, and for one precarious second, she feared she might go over with her. It took every shred of willpower she possessed to contain the surging pulsations that gathered between her legs and threatened to peak as Sinclair’s eyes fluttered closed with the last wrenching spasm.
Jesus. Jude forced herself to breathe. And finally, with an effort that tested much more than her mental resolve, she dragged her eyes away from Sinclair’s face. She didn’t need to view any more to know that she was going to be haunted by what she had seen.
When Sax opened her eyes, aftershocks still rippling through her, the woman who had delivered a brief wordless respite was gone, and so was Jude Castle.
Chapter Eleven
July 4, 6:02 a.m.
“How did you sleep?” Melissa asked as she joined Jude at a table in the hospital cafeteria. She removed her coffee, a small carton of milk, and a cardboard box of cereal from a tray and then slid it onto the empty seat beside them. “Considering you didn’t even want to stay to finish our second beer, I figured you must have been pretty beat.”
Despite her casual tone, Melissa was desperate to know what had brought about the change in Jude’s attitude in fifteen short minutes the night before. After maneuvering her way through the circuitous line to the bathroom and then clamoring over people in the bar line to secure two fresh beers, she had finally rejoined Jude only to discover that her friend wanted to leave immediately. Jude had kindly assured her she would grab a cab and had only waited to let her know she was leaving, but Melissa figured she might as well go, too. She hadn’t planned on scoring and would’ve been too tired even if she had gotten lucky, so there was no point in hanging around.
Nevertheless, she couldn’t help feeling that something had happened while she was gone. Jude looked positively spooked and hadn’t said more than two words the entire time it had taken them to walk back to the hospital and pick up Melissa’s car. No matter how hard she tried, Melissa couldn’t get her to say anything on the ride uptown either. Eventually, she had just given up and left her to her preoccupied silence.