Discovery

by Radclyffe

  In addition to forgetting how to speak, I am also guilty of being too late to recover any of whatever it was you had in mind. So now I’m tired again, frustrated, feeling the itching in my fingertips that still want to do grievous bodily harm to my cousin just for looking at you the way she does no matter what she says, and when I finally walk through our door, even Dusty, our dog, doesn’t bother to say hello.

  I find out why after I chuck my jacket and hang it on the peg as she raises her head from her paws to acknowledge me from her place on the rug: by your feet, where you’ve fallen asleep on the sofa, waiting—for me.

  “Good girl, Dusty,” I tell her softly, and pat her head briefly as I close in on the sofa. She’s watching you, guarding you. I’m proud of her for doing it—she does it better than I do, and without any snappy comments, either.

  I can’t help the soft sigh that escapes me as I see your face. The last few years have left some gentle lines, but they’re all gone now in your sleep, in your dreams, and as I watch you, I sit lightly on the edge, next to you, and you shift unconsciously, making room for me.

  I’m not tired, I’m not angry, I’m just a little sad. I gaze down again and can’t help but trace the defining lines of your face, smooth through the hair you’ve let get a little longer lately, silky and soft as it pours through my fingertips. I’m sad because I can’t make you smile anymore, sad because if someone else, someone worthwhile, made you happy I’d step aside, sad because despite all the dumb muteness I can’t seem to shake, I know that no one loves you the way I do—not that they don’t want to try.

  I don’t want to be mute anymore—I don’t want to be me anymore—and I just give in to the way I feel, the overflowing in my chest that hurts because I love you so damned much even as I hug you to me, fit my body to yours, every curve known, precious, familiar, and as necessary to me as breathing.

  You call me “angel” all the time, but it’s not true, baby, it’s not true. You’re my heart and my light and I can’t help but kiss you, run hands filled with love and desire and possession over you, and you begin to wake even as I feel your skin, warm, soft, your heart beating under my palm before I skate it over your breast, the tip that hardens for me, and your kiss…your kiss is sleepy, achingly sensual, and even while you protest as you try to shift once more to reach me, I hush you with my lips.

  “Please, baby. Let me,” I beg silently with my tongue on yours, and instead of under your shirt, I’m unbuttoning it, revealing the silky expanse of your skin, my hips pressed solidly against your firm backside. You flash eyes ringed with deep forest green around ale-red center over your shoulder at me even as I lean over you, fill my hand with your curves, pause to feel your heart, the beat strong, steady, real, under my palm before I trace it down the length of you, and I don’t know how your jeans disappeared and I don’t care either as I claim your mouth once more, and while once more my tongue visits yours, so too do I let a finger slip between lips that welcome me in a hot embrace, a hint of hardness and slickness as I travel, a stroke of promise along this groove, this part of you that you give to me—and it is a gift, I know that. Every downstroke finds the tip of my finger against your wet welcome, every upstroke brings that wetness against the sensitive hardness that pushes insistently, an insistence, a need my body feels and answers, a need I want to fulfill.

  “Skin,” you half gasp, a welcome hot breath against my throat because we have shifted together and I lie on top of you, your thighs embracing mine, and you lean up to kiss me even as your hands pull my shirt from my waistband. I don’t want to stop what I’m doing, don’t want to stop touching you, loving you.

  “Skin…now,” you growl against my lips, and it’s a demand, another desire I want—no, I need—to meet, and for a moment I savor the taste of you before I comply: fire meets fire, your hands with my hands, we do this together.

  We are close and hot and tight and I am beautifully lost and wonderfully found, no longer mute. I know the things I’ve forgotten, remember and relearn you, me, the sacredness of us—it fills my heart as you enter me, then stretches my mind, my body, my soul. I am forgiven, I am absolved, and my heart, so full, now overflows from the beautiful whispered “oh yes” that warms my ear as I enter you, and the knowledge that floods me when I do, because you are so soft and so smooth and the way you feel is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I know, I feel, the physical proof literally in—on—my hands, a pliant close fit around me, showing me what you wanted to tell me.

  “Tori…baby,” I choke out, amazed with what I’ve learned, with the way you make me feel. I kiss your neck, the tender skin just below your chin, catch your mouth with mine as I feel the fine line edge building through you.

  “Perfect, angel. That’s perfect,” you tell me, the words throaty, low, and you’re already doing what I love, what I need, showing me in every way you can what you feel, how you feel, bringing me with you to that place we’re both shooting for—because we do this together, the cascade-chain-reaction of love and lust as you say the words your body proves, and I echo them in the same ways.

  There is such perfect trust in your eyes, such open, honest, love for me in your gaze…I have been a jerk, and you love me. I have been surly, and you embrace me. You are my heart, you are my life, you are—the realization chokes me with its fullness, and you reach for and wipe away the first tear before it even falls.

  “Angel, what’s the matter?” There is nothing but gentle concern in your voice, the same in your touch on my face.

  “I’ve…I’ve been such a jerk lately,” I answer honestly. “I’m so sorry, baby, so sorry.” I hold you closer, kiss you between each word.

  “Well,” you tell me, “I’ll pass on the jerk thing again, but”—and you trace a very delicate trail down my nose—“keep the sexy arrogant thing. That I like.”

  “Just ‘like,’ huh?”

  You’re already pulling me even closer to you when you say, “Maybe more. I’m gonna show you.”

  Sometime later you stir next to me, and under the blanket one of us has pulled from the back of the sofa. “Stay, baby,” I tell you and pull you back into me, on top of me, because I’m in love with how it all feels, “we’re both off tomorrow.”

  “Yeah?” you ask, then nuzzle against my neck.

  “Yeah,” I confirm, then kiss you as nuzzle becomes a taste, “and good thing, too,” I add because kiss and taste have become the knowing reach of hands to re-mark and re-map claimed and beloved territory.

  “Why’s that?”

  We are already fitting together; the familiar entwine only adds to the anticipation because each experience with you still feels like a first. I gaze up at your face and my heart lifts, expansive and light at the sight of your smile, “my” smile on your lips as I ease beneath you. “Well,” I tell you with a smile of my own, because I love you, because I’m happy, because I don’t think you know what your body has told me, and I am eager to touch you, to feel that, to learn and know it all over again. “We’ve got lots to talk about.”

  The Promise - Larkin Rose

  LARKIN ROSE lives in a “blink and you’ve missed it” town in the beautiful state of South Carolina with her partner, Rose (hence the pen name), a portion of their seven brats, a chunky grandson, and too many animals to name. Her writing career began two years ago when the voices in her head wouldn’t stop their constant chatter. After ruling out multiple personalities and hitting the keyboard, a writer was born.

  Larkin’s work now appears in Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2008 (w/a Sheri Livingston) and Wetter 2008 (w/a Larkin Rose). Her novel, I Dare You, releases from Bold Strokes Books in September 2008.

  The voices continue. The clatter of keys continues. The birth of erotic creations carries on.

  Come, step inside your fantasies.

  The Promise

  Larkin Rose

  “Jimmy Choos!” Lindsay draped the dry-cleaner bag across the open suitcase and shot back to the closet. “If you insist on taking me out to s
ome overcrowded place for dinner, those are a must.”

  Andrea sighed as she watched her partner of ten years wade through at least fifty pair of designer shoes. Lindsay would know the name of each pair, something Andy couldn’t care less about. “How about jeans, T-shirts, and a good pair of sneakers? We’re only going for the weekend.”

  Lindsay poked her head around the door frame and rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in jeans, as you well know, and I’m not prancing around anywhere in a damn pair of tennis shoes.”

  God forbid you look human, or comfy, Andy thought. She pushed away from the wall and rechecked Lindsay’s bags. Hell would burst loose if anything was missing when they arrived in San Diego. What happened to the down-to-earth, humorous woman she’d met ten years ago today? The one who squealed with delight every time Andy jerked her up in a bear hug, wearing a smile to melt the moon for everyone? The one who walked barefoot in the grass, low-rider jeans resting dangerously close on her hips, not a care in the world?

  Hopefully, tonight, when the sun kissed the ocean, she’d bring back the old Lindsay. Or so she prayed, because if she couldn’t…

  “Got ’em.” Lindsay stomped back to the bed and carefully slid the shoes into the side pocket. She zipped the bag and exited the room without bothering to carry any of the load.

  Andy picked up the bags, then followed Lindsay to the car.

  “I don’t see why you’re making me go. I have a deposition to get together, files to read over, a new secretary to find right after I fire the bitch I have now, and, my God, I don’t have time for a romp in San Diego even if only for two days,” Lindsay complained while Andy packed the backseat. “I’ve heard the place reeks of crime and prostitution. Couldn’t you find another place to take me to, another place I’ve never been? I won’t be missing a thing if I never see San Diego, or California, for that matter.”

  Without a word, Andy tossed in the last bag and slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Are you even listening to me? I have work to do, and I sure can’t get it done with all this going on. And, God forbid, all those screaming children! What parents in their right mind take brats on a plane?” Her eyes widened. “Did you get my laptop? And the cord? The last time you dragged me off to some romantic getaway, you forgot everything.”

  Andy reversed out of the driveway, biting back the fact that Lindsay was the one who forgot everything. “I got the laptop, and the cord, and the cell phone charger, and your files you left in the bathroom last night.”

  Lindsay huffed and propped her elbow on the window, nervously chewing the edge of her French-manicured nail. “We’re going to miss the flight.”

  “We’re way ahead of schedule. Stop worrying.”

  “It’s my job to worry. You sure as hell don’t.”

  Andy shook her head and wove into the thicker traffic heading for the terminal.

  “Do you have the tickets? First-class, right?”

  “Of course.” Andy tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  “I hope they have better champagne. The stuff they served on my flight to New York tasted like well water. Took me three hours to get that foul taste out of my mouth.”

  Andy remained quiet. She’d already heard the story a hundred times. After parking in the garage, she found an empty cart and unloaded their bags, then led them across the parking lot.

  With any luck, check-in would go without a hitch and they could be on that bird destined for the sky, right on time. As soon as the security tech gave them a quizzical stare, Andy knew she’d have no such luck, and wondered what Lindsay had managed to sneak into her bag.

  “Ma’am. I need you to step over here while we go through your luggage.”

  Lindsay’s eyes narrowed into a death stare. “Me?”

  “This way, ma’am.” He motioned her out of line while Andy pushed her own bags forward.

  Once cleared, Andy moved through the scanner. Down the hall, Lindsay waved her arms angrily while the guards unpacked her belongings and placed them on a table. Andy slowly approached, careful to stay far enough behind the red line.

  “It’s a freaking pair of knitting scissors. Who could I possibly murder with those tiny things?” Lindsay ranted.

  “They’re not allowed on the plane, ma’am.”

  “Since when?” She glanced around the terminal. “Where’s your superior? I want him out here right this instant. This is ridiculous! I want your badge number!”

  The men continued removing and repacking, ignoring her loud complaints. Andy sighed and slid onto the bench.

  Lindsay shoved her hands on her hips and glared at Andy. “You’re just going to sit there while these assholes manhandle me?”

  When the agent finally closed the bag, Lindsay yanked it from his grasp and stormed around him. “You haven’t heard the end of me, I promise!”

  Andy gave him an apologetic look and followed her fuming girlfriend through the terminal to their gate, then down the ramp to the airplane. Lindsay shoved around people and stomped down the aisle. With a huff, she dropped her carry-on bag in the vacant chair and plopped in the window seat. “Well, this romantic getaway is starting with a freaking bang. I don’t know how I let you talk me into this shit.”

  Andy pushed their bags into the overhead compartment and sat down.

  She carefully took Lindsay’s hand and pulled it to her lips. “Because you love me?”

  *

  Once they were airborne, Andy breathed a sigh of relief. Her plans were in motion, even if Lindsay hadn’t settled down from her rage over having her scissors banned. She made a mental note to buy a new pair and smiled as the flight attendant approached.

  “Champagne?” She looked between Andy and Lindsay.

  Lindsay dragged her gaze away from the window and stared at the woman, then down at the bubbly. “You know, as much as we pay for these tickets, you’d think you could at least serve Dom. I don’t expect Cristal but, really, Cordon Negro? Could you be any cheaper?”

  The woman’s smile faded. “I’m sorry. Is there something else I can get for you? We have Wattwiller bottled water.”

  “I suppose that’ll have to do. I’ll buy some real champagne in the VIP lounge when we land in Dallas.”

  Andy shook her head at the offer and the flight attendant walked away. Plain old Fiji water was just fine with her.

  “You don’t have to be so nasty. She’s not in charge of ordering food and drinks.” Andy wanted to retract her words as soon as they slid from her lips.

  “Why do you find the need to protect the world against me? Would it kill you to agree with me once in a blue fucking moon?”

  Andy only grinned and nodded toward the flashing sign. “The seat belt sign’s off. Why don’t we make a bathroom trip, then you can nap until we land for our layover.”

  “Why, so I’ll shut my damn mouth?” Lindsay removed her seat belt, stepped over Andy’s legs, and started down the aisle.

  “Hell, yes,” Andy muttered and followed her.

  Just as Lindsay started to shut the bathroom door, Andy stuck her foot in and gently pushed it open. “We can share.”

  Lindsay gave her a hard glare before she stepped back.

  Andy shut the door, grabbed her hips, and pulled her against her chest, turning Lindsay to face the mirror. “See that pretty face? When you put a smile on it, it’s breathtaking. You should try it more often.” She cupped her breasts through her silk shirt. She was sure the blouse had a brand name and was sure Lindsay would scold her for any wrinkle left behind. Right now, she didn’t give a shit. She wanted the growling bitch fucked out of this woman before they landed. Lord knew what hell she could unleash there in this foul mood.

  “Flattery gets you nowhere, sweetie. You know that.”

  Andy smiled and circled her thumbs over the hardening nipples. “Of course I do. But it calms your tiger.”

  Finally, a smile appeared on Lindsay’s face. God, how she loved that grin. She’d give anything to be back on the
East Coast in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where they’d met, without a care in the world and crazy in love. She’d met Lindsay online in a chat room for lesbians. There was something about her that was wild and sexy. She was drawn to her humor and found herself addicted to the e-mails and chats. Being a starving artist, she didn’t have much to offer a city girl, especially one who was accustomed to the finer things in life. Andy had juggled two jobs to pay her way through art school. Lindsay’s tuition had been paid in full by her parents. Andy lived in a shack of an apartment where a bungee cord had been her only defense against drug addicts roaming the streets for a score. Lindsay had been given a condominium as her high school graduation present, furnished with everything a daddy’s girl could dream of. Yet somehow, Andy had snagged the city slicker’s attention. Now she didn’t know how to keep it…and wasn’t sure Lindsay even wanted her to anymore.

  Andy was still the same person, no matter how many paintings she sold, no matter how fat her bank account grew. She still loved with fire. Lindsay loved with stones and daggers, only looking at the career ladder in front of her, never looking over her shoulder to see if Andy was still connected to her.

  Lindsay turned in her arms. “The mile-high club. We’ve never done that.”

  “There are several things we’ve never done.”

  Lindsay’s smile softened and she pressed her lips to Andy’s. “True. But who has time anymore? We knew it would be like this once I became a lawyer. And now, you’re a famous painter. Our lives are chaotic.”

  “We’re supposed to make time.”

  Lindsay shrugged and pulled herself onto the counter. “What was it about a tiger you wanted to calm? Have you ever considered that maybe I’m a bitch because you tame me so well?”

  Andy wished that were true, knowing it was far from fact. Truth known, Lindsay went above and beyond the call of duty to claim her title of queen bitch. Even their sex life had changed, going from whenever the mood struck, to making appointments on a calendar. Hell, even their dates had to be scheduled…and most were rescheduled. She was still waiting on a few rain checks. She unfastened the clasp of Lindsay’s soft slacks and yanked them down while Lindsay lifted off the counter.