by Sacchi Green
She deepens the kiss, parting lips, seeking with her tongue. This is the only woman she’s kissed since Teri, only the second woman she’s kissed in her life. There’s heat and the taste of red wine, but it’s how Justine kisses that sets her alight. She kisses deep, and the taste and feel of the body under her hands take her breath.
Justine breaks the kiss and arches an eyebrow in question. Eve doesn’t stop to consider; indeed the decision to sleep with another woman was made weeks ago. It’s only the focus that has changed. She stands and sheds her clothes with the economical movements she uses at home. There’s no seduction in undressing with Teri, it’s merely something she does before bed. When she unhooks her bra, she pauses. She’s been naked with other women, of course—in the gym, at the doctor’s office for the impersonality of medical exams, and once in a giggly drunken riot of skinny-dipping women after an evening out—but this is the first time in years she’s undressed in front of someone in a sexual way. She feels she should slow it down, add some allure to the process.
Justine rises and stops her hands. Her lips trace a line down Eve’s collarbone, down to where the bra cuts a satin line across her flesh. Justine’s lips close over Eve’s nipple through the bra, the damp suction shooting arrows down her belly. Her bra falls away—when had Justine unhooked it?—and then Justine’s mouth is on Eve’s naked flesh, teasing her nipples into hard points.
Eve focuses on the moment, on the way Justine’s mouth is making her feel, on the dampness of her panties against her cunt, on the throb and pulse of her clit. Justine is still dressed, but when Eve moves her hands to the buttons of Justine’s shirt, the dark woman shrugs her aside, drops to her knees and presses her mouth to the crotch of Eve’s panties. Eve lightly trimmed her bush for this evening—it’s not something she usually does, but, aware of current trends, she didn’t want her luxuriant curls to be a turn-off. She must smell musky down there, even through the satin of her panties, but Justine presses her face closer, pulls the gusset to one side, and traces the outline of her pussy with her tongue.
There’s a bucking bronco of sensations riding in Eve’s stomach. A stranger’s touch. Teri knows what she likes, but Justine is learning as she goes. She’s not tentative in her movements, but it’s the wrong sort of friction for Eve. She likes it on the side of her clit, she needs a steady pressure, she has to have rhythm, not this touch, withdraw, touch, withdraw that Justine’s doing. But then Justine tickles a circle with her tongue, and Teri flies out of Eve’s head, and what she likes is being redrawn with each movement of Justine’s tongue.
There’s white noise in her head, and when she closes her eyes there’s a whole universe behind them. This is what she wanted. Her stomach clenches and she thinks she’s going to come, and suddenly she’s scared at how instantly she’s aroused, how urgent the pressure and how she’s going to peak in only a few minutes, when it normally takes longer. She opens her eyes, and her knees shake. The sight of Justine’s dark body on the floor in front of her, face between her legs, is overwhelming, and she sits abruptly on the edge of the bed and removes her panties with trembling hands.
Justine rises, sheds her clothes, and crawls up alongside her. “Touch me,” she commands.
Eve’s fingers want to fall into familiar patterns, but she halts them with conscious effort. Instead, she bends and takes Justine’s nipple deep into her mouth, swirling and sucking. She bites lightly. Justine’s answering arch of her back, pushing her breast deeper into Eve’s mouth, is her reward.
She concentrates on the newness, the sensations, the differences. Justine’s skin is springy over hard muscle. There’s resilience to her body, a lack of fragility in her limbs, a robustness that seems to come from within. Eve’s used to leading, but as she’s learning the contours of Justine’s body—biceps, dimples, curves, planes and the places in between, like highways to be traversed between attractions, Justine takes her hand and shoves it between her thighs, as if she’s impatient to get to the climax.
Eve’s fingers still. This is the part that will take her to hell, this is where there is no coy evasion about motives, or intent. This is where the evening has been going, and this is the moment where there is really no going back. She can feel the heat and slickness and this is what she has wanted, what she’s risking everything for. She explores, mapping the contours of a different pussy, learning the shape of puffy outer lips, of slick inner folds, learning that one woman is as different from another as night and day. When her finger pushes inside, as she adds a second, she falls into the pattern of strokes that Teri likes.
Justine raises a thigh so that Eve has better access. Eve looks at her hand, how it rests against a different pussy, the dark crinkly hair that is so harsh against her hand. The allure of the forbidden steals her breath momentarily. She pistons her fingers, watching Justine’s face, the tiny movements that signal her delight. This level of concentration on the act is strange for Eve; something that normally is a welter of learned moves is now tentative.
Justine holds Eve’s wrist and directs her movements, with nudges, and encouragement in her voice. “There, honey, a little faster, a little harder, oh, honey, now you’ve got it.” There’s an authoritarian tone to her voice, like a schoolteacher explaining something for the first time, but Eve ignores it. When it’s her turn, she resolves, she will be just as direct.
Justine’s orgasm is an explosion of sound, a flurry of movement, as her voice keens in pleasure and her hips shudder and jolt. Her pussy clamps hard on Eve’s fingers, and in delight, Eve feels the internal shivers and spasms.
This is what it feels like, she thinks, these are the sounds, the smell, the taste, the joy of sex with someone else.
Justine rises onto her elbows. “You’re a fast learner, honey. Your Teri is a lucky woman.”
At the mention of Teri’s name some of the pleasure seeps from Eve’s head. But she pushes the thought away, as she needs to taste, and her own clit is throbbing an insistent rhythm for release. She bends, puts her mouth to Justine’s cunt and tastes. She’s not trying to make her come again, this is for her, to know the sensation of another pussy on her tongue. Justine is spicy-sweet, and her juices are thicker than Eve is used to. She pushes her tongue inside the other woman’s cunt, eager to experience.
Justine lets her for a few moments—maybe she remembers their conversation of earlier—before she pushes her away, and in a quick reversal, Eve is on her back on the bed, Justine kneeling over her.
“How d’you want it, honey? I have long fingers and an agile tongue.”
The buzz of expectation is back. “Both,” says Eve, in a voice dry with need, “fuck me with your fingers, suck me with your mouth.”
Justine pushes her thighs so wide apart Eve feels she might split. She is open, exposed, and the way Justine studies her is unnerving. But then Justine kisses each nipple, and her mouth works downward, over Eve’s belly, down to where the curls start. Eve is wet, and her breath comes in thick pants of anticipation. Justine’s fingers outline Eve’s cunt lips, and then with one push she slips two fingers deep inside. Her lips descend, and she sucks Eve’s clit with her whole mouth. It’s different from before, different from anything Teri does, it’s rough and it’s raw, and it overwhelms Eve. The evening coalesces in her head, a blur of euphoria, anger, disappointment and lust. It’s like a patchwork of weeks shoved together into the space of a few hours. So when her orgasm rises as fast as a hurricane and just as fierce, she goes with it, riding the tide, letting it buffet her, letting it wash the guilt and worry from her head and replace them with the immediateness and physicality of the moment.
Now I know, she thinks, in the aftermath of the storm, as Justine wipes her mouth, and presses a kiss to her belly. This is what another woman is like.
After Justine has left, Eve lies on the bed that smells of sex, with her hands behind her head, and although she’s watching the ball game on TV, she’s thinking of home.
Teri and Murphy come barreling out of the shabby r
anch house before the car has come to a halt. The weak sun paints Teri’s eager face with warmth and Eve looks at her as if for the first time, sees her tip-tilted eyes, the curve of her cheek with the downy hairs Teri hates catching the sunlight. She is beautiful.
“How did it go? Did you get the contract?” Teri runs to the car, Murphy on her heels, and pulls the door open.
Eve blinks at her, stupidly. Contract? Her brain connects once more and she remembers the lies she spun as the reason for the trip to Denver. She has to swallow hard, once, twice, before she can trust her voice. “I don’t think so. I think they thought we were a bigger operation.”
The words she rehearsed as she drove up I-25 have evaporated into the mist in her brain and all she can think of is how much she loves Teri. She thinks of their bed, and how they lie there together, Murphy on their feet taking up too much room, and she longs for the taste of Teri’s mouth, the delicate shiver of her pale skin, the hot clasp of her pussy.
She thinks of all she found so mundane, before Denver, and now it seems so fragile and wondrous, something to be treasured. Eve exits the car, and holds out her arms. Teri walks into them, and Eve realizes that it will be all right, that Teri doesn’t—can’t—know.
She kisses Teri, pushes her hands into her short hair, holds her close, and rocks her. “I missed you so much,” she murmurs and the words are the truest thing she’s ever said.
“Told you I should have come too.” Teri settles her face against Eve’s shoulder, and sighs. “Murph and I really missed you.”
Eve holds her lover and thinks about all that she could lose if Teri were ever to find out. For she will hold the secret now, afraid of slipping, afraid of what its revelation could bring. Already it sits in her stomach, in the back of her throat, a hard ball of words threatening to break free.
Eve pushes the words away and holds Teri close, settling into her lover, all that they have been together, and all that they can be.
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES
OF MISS SCARLET
Emily L. Byrne
Kendra could almost feel someone’s eyes burning a hole in the back of her head. She didn’t even need to turn around to confirm the feeling, thanks to the mirror over the bar. If it had been any other bar, she would have been more surprised. But Riley’s was a cop bar and it attracted a specific clientele, mostly law enforcement and their families and friends. Plus the occasional groupie.
Whatever this woman was, she wasn’t law enforcement, at least not any kind that Kendra had seen before. Or could imagine. She was beautiful: heart-shaped face, arched thin eyebrows over wide dark eyes, bright-red kissable lips. Her red dress set off her curves, accentuating her small, full breasts and curved hips, even sitting down. And what was she looking at? A big African American butch with dreads, a broken nose and shoulders like a linebacker’s. For a minute, Kendra wished with everything she had that she was cuter, and bit back a sigh.
But that moment passed; she was cute enough to stare at, so that was as cute as she needed to be. At least for now. She could turn her attention to wishing she were less shy around pretty ladies instead. That wish settled down into her crotch with a dull, aching thud of thwarted desire. It had been way too long, and she was uncertain and out of practice.
She was entertaining herself by covertly studying the other woman’s reflection, trying to figure out if she’d run across her before and could use that as a conversation starter, when her partner nudged her. “Got yourself a badge bunny, Ken? Not too shabby.” James grinned as she turned and wrinkled her nose at him. He took a swig of his beer and glanced around the rest of the bar as if her potential romantic drama held no more interest for him.
It probably didn’t. James would finish his beer and head home to his wife and kids, just like he did every Thursday night. In the times between his one weekly night out and his biweekly card games, he mowed his lawn, played with his kids and stayed home as much as he could. And worked with Kendra to solve homicides the rest of the time.
Though, come to think of it, that last part was more than enough drama for Kendra, too. She found her eyes wandering back to the mirror anyway. The woman had disappeared and she stifled another sigh. There had been something intriguing, challenging even, in the other woman’s stare. It had been a while since anyone had challenged Detective Kendra McClain, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it until now.
Disappointed, she called it a night, said goodbye to James and the others and left the bar. She let her steps take her toward the subway while her mind wandered back to the woman in red. She had a weird sense that she’d seen that same woman, or someone who looked like her, before.
The fact that she couldn’t place her bothered Kendra. It wasn’t like she knew that many beautiful women of Asian descent. She didn’t know very many beautiful women, period. And certainly not any who would stare at her like that.
She imagined the other woman in her bed for a wild moment, tan skin silky under her hands, the woman’s long black hair cascading over both of them like a veil. Her wet, warm flesh parting around Kendra’s hands. The detective bit her lip, her skin on fire, her body one giant, quivering nerve ending that ached with longing.
Clearly, it had been way too long.
Kendra drew a shaky breath and walked down the subway stairs, grateful for the cool night air on her cheeks and the fact that the stairs were deserted at this hour. If she was blushing, at least there’d be no one around to see it. She smiled to herself as she entered the dimly lit corridor that led to the ticket booth.
Then her instincts took over. Something was wrong. She caught a flash of red at the end of the corridor. Someone either turned or ducked back around the corner, like they were hiding from her. Kendra moved her hand closer to the gun in her jacket and kept walking, all senses alert and focused. A quick glance at the booth told her that it was unoccupied, so she’d need her pass to get through the gate to the station platform. And there’d be no one to call for backup if she needed it.
She paused for a moment. Maybe she should backtrack and go to another entrance. More trouble was no way to end an already stressful week. She could always call the Transit Police when she got back up the stairs. That was when another flash of red caught her eye. This time, though, she could see that it looked like a red dress. A familiar red dress.
Kendra frowned; this was one coincidence too many. What if this woman, whoever she was, wasn’t alone? She might be walking into a trap. It might not even be the woman from the bar. But her curiosity, leavened with a bit of residual lust, overrode her common sense. Instead of turning back, she loped forward, dashing around the corner to catch whoever was waiting for her by surprise.
But the station looked empty from where she was standing. She cursed quietly and pulled out her pass. A train rumbled in the distance and for a moment, she wondered if she was letting her imagination run away with her, fantasizing about strange women in her bed and then stalking her for good measure.
She stepped out onto the platform and looked around. The woman from the bar was sitting on a nearby bench, seemingly engrossed in an e-reader. Then she slowly crossed one long, lithe leg over the other, displaying them to full advantage in the latest fashion in stilettos. She shifted on the bench just a hair, giving her back a tiny arch. The movement was clearly an invitation and Kendra went over to sit next to her.
The other woman ignored her, but she twisted one lock of hair around her finger and Kendra could see her white teeth chewing her scarlet lower lip. Something about the way she did it went straight to Kendra’s crotch. If she licked those lips, the detective knew that she was doomed.
“Didn’t I see you at Riley’s Pub tonight?” Kendra tried to make her tone sound innocent, like every inch of her body wasn’t stirring to a slow, fierce arousal.
The other woman tilted her face up to look at Kendra and the detective had the nervous urge to straighten her dreads and check her teeth for scraps of food. She was every bit as beautiful as her re
flection in the bar mirror: dark eyes above high cheekbones, kissable full lips, low-cut dress showing more than a hint of cleavage.
Her expression was anything but welcoming, though, and that detached, even icy look triggered a memory in the back of Kendra’s mind. She knew where she’d seen that face before, knew that it was something to do with another department’s case. But which one? Not a homicide. That much, at least, she was sure of. Hopefully.
“Yes, detective. You did see me at Riley’s.” The woman’s voice was a purr, stroking its way up Kendra’s thighs. “I’m glad that you found me so…memorable.” Her lips curled in a smile that didn’t make it up to her eyes.
Kendra’s brain murmured words like “drama” and “trouble” and “potential criminal” while her pussy sang a different song entirely. “You certainly seemed to want me to notice you. What’s your name?”
The smile widened, brilliant lipstick parting over bright white teeth. “You can call me Scarlet, Miss Scarlet, if we’re going to be formal.” She tucked the e-reader away in a small black bag that matched her heels, but she didn’t take her gaze away from Kendra’s face.
“Are we playing Clue? I’m not sure I want to be Colonel Mustard in the library, with or without a candlestick.” Kendra grimaced. She glanced down, this time looking beyond Scarlet’s body to her accessories. James always said that you could read a lot about a woman by what kind of jewelry she wore and how she put together her outfits. Kendra usually blew that off as his one concession to metrosexuality, but she was willing to make an exception tonight.