Games We Play

by Cynthia Dane

  Leah was on another level, though. Not only did she sate the hunger in Sloan’s brain, but she made her want to be completely enveloped in the physical aspect of sex as well. Which was why she teased Leah to the point of orgasm before turning off the lights and joining her beneath the covers. Naked.

  Yes, Sloan was completely nude when she slipped beneath the silky sheet and wrapped her body around Leah’s. Heat and sweat instantly greeted her, and it was such a foreign feeling that it almost startled her. I haven’t been naked in bed with a woman since… three years ago? There was a script. Scripts kept Sloan on track and out of trouble. Saturday night at the club had been a script. One of Sloan’s tried and true ones that wasn’t supposed to come back to haunt her.

  Oh, it had. Right at the intersection of Couch and 10th.

  We’re off script. This is bad. This is wonderful. Leah didn’t know anything about scripts. That was the danger of women like her. She wanted this. She wanted that. She wanted Sloan to cast off her trappings and embrace the deepest, darkest parts of her sexuality.

  Remember when she was you? Remember when you looked at someone with those same eyes she gives you?

  There was pleasure in that level of familiarity. There was also a film of fear that made Sloan dive deeper into it, because sometimes the only way to release her fears was by throwing herself face first into them. Didn’t she know that well by now?

  She released Leah from the headboard but kept her wrists handcuffed together. It prevented them from wandering where they weren’t supposed to go, and gave the princess what she wanted deep in her heart. Sloan knew that look in Leah’s eyes like she knew her own in the mirror. Leah had never said the word submissive, but it was there, in the depths of her soul. Not only that, but she was aware of it. She wasn’t a woman who denied it or pretended it didn’t exist. She embraced it. She met a woman like Sloan and made their mutual needs known.

  Dangerous. So dangerous.

  Yet so damn good.

  If I’m going to do this to myself, I might as well go all-in. That meant kissing every bit of skin. Touching the mundane and the taboo. Eliciting squeaks and moans alike. Most of all, she wanted to hear those magic words on Leah’s lips.

  “Yes. Please. Do it. More. Now. Oh, my God. Don’t stop.”

  No, Sloan wouldn’t stop. She was in too deep. Once Leah got her way – and by that, one meant getting her mouth between Sloan’s legs so the pleasure could be truly mutual – Sloan knew that the only way out of this was through.

  How long had it been since her toes curled beneath the covers? And how long had it been since she moaned in a hushed whisper that only Leah could hear… deep beneath those covers?

  Even Leah’s lack of finesse was charming. She knew what she was doing and proved it by quickly bringing Sloan to the edge of climax. There was no teasing involved here. Raw, blunt stimulation directly on Sloan’s clit. Leah was definitely no stranger to pussy. Nor was she afraid to get in there and do her most sacred duty.

  If you come first, you idiot, you risk losing your edge. Not only the edge that said Sloan was the dominant one in this encounter, but the edge that kept her sharp and alert. Aware of the hazards that came with giving the smallest part of herself to a woman. Because there weren’t many pieces of herself to give anyone anymore.

  Someone else had taken them. Long ago, when Sloan was younger, dumber, and convinced she was in love.

  “Fuck!” She bit her knuckles, her feminine cry echoing in her cavernous hotel suite. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  Leah hadn’t only found the spot inside of her that drove her the craziest, but her tongue had started swirling around Sloan’s clit instead of licking it with unreserved gusto. That was it. That was the most dangerous combination Sloan could encounter, and Leah had figured it out in five minutes!

  There was no putting off orgasm any longer. Like a wild creature lurking in the shadows, it pounced upon Sloan and threatened to drag her off into the abyss like the foolish girl she was.

  Was it worth undoing everything for a night like this? Would she return to Chicago the next day with the same steely resolve she always took with her to the windy city? Or had Leah blown it up with one fucking flick of her tongue?

  Some women were more treacherous than they ever gave themselves credit for.

  What part of Sloan wanted to take back total control, and what part remembered what it was like to give it up? Was it the same parts? Or had she completely split herself in two when she faced that terrible decision over ten years ago?

  God. Ten years ago. I know it feels like ten years passed in a blink of my eyes.

  Control. She needed to take back control. That was the most important thing right now.

  So happened that Leah was handcuffed and willing to do anything her partner commanded. All it took was one mighty yank, and Leah was back on her stomach with Sloan riding her ass in the ways the universe loved best.

  “Did you like doing that?” One hand firmly held the back of Leah’s neck while Sloan’s words dipped into her ear. Sloan grinded her pelvis against the ass between her legs. Amazing how she found the strength after what Leah did to her. “You like having my pussy on your mouth, Leah?”

  “Yes,” came a muffled reply. The pillow pressed against Leah’s face. Sloan had to release some of the strength in her hand to keep the poor woman from bruising. I’m not into that kind of kink. She was into the games. The mental benefits. The pleasure. “You taste good.”

  “Better than yourself?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “No?” One of Sloan’s fingers hooked into the corner of Leah’s mouth. “How about now?” A kiss would suffice. A kiss so Leah could taste herself on Sloan’s lips.

  How unfortunate that Sloan did not foresee an endless kiss before her. Because that’s what she received once she invited Leah to rub her lips all over her lover’s.

  If it had been too long since Sloan last wrapped her naked body around another woman’s, it had been longer since she knew what it was like to enter an eternal kiss. The kind that allowed only tiny, peppered breaths because of necessity, and never accounted for the needs of the stupid mortals who engaged in them. Sloan could be a stupid mortal. It was women like Leah who brought it out of her.

  Dangerous! Stay away! Stop kissing her! Get your fingers out of her pussy, you idiot! You’re supposed to be the hardest bitch in America. The whole fucking world. What is your God damned problem? Fuck you!

  I can’t stop…

  Was it really Leah’s doing? Or had Sloan been looking for an excuse to act this way for a while? Was it really a problem for her to purge the parts of her that wanted to act like a slovenly dumbass in bed?

  Those romantic parts of her that still believed in love and sex, and how they really could be married?

  Was it so bad?

  “Oh my God!” Leah’s handcuffed wrists were pressed between Sloan’s breasts, those curling fingers brushing against chin and shoulders alike. “Don’t stop!”

  Sloan couldn’t if she wanted. Her only purpose in life right now was to feel Leah’s inner walls break her lover’s fingers off her hand. Which they were well on their way to doing as Leah gasped her way into a torrential climax that shook half the bed.

  Letting her come down now would be detrimental. Instead, Sloan was better off getting on top of Leah and grinding against her until they both came again.

  She never did play the games she wanted to play that night. Then again, when she woke up that morning, she never thought she’d be playing any games at all… let alone exposing her soul to the things she knew she needed most.

  Chapter 8

  “Want a cigarette?” Sloan had lit up ten seconds earlier, the wispy trail of smoke snaking into the dark room. Leah turned her head away, content to keep staring at the lacy curtains covering the early 20th century windows of the hotel suite.

  “No, thanks. I don’t smoke.” Nor did she care if Sloan did. Leah’s father still smoked, although he had gone
from smoking all the time in the house to smoking once or twice a day on the back porch. The smell didn’t disgust her like it did some other people. It wasn’t good for anyone, no, but she would survive ten minutes. “Might need a mint, though.”

  “I’ve got plenty of those in my bag.”

  “Me, too. But our bags are over there.”

  They lay in silence for another ten minutes. Sloan eventually extinguished her cigarette and suggested they wash up. No cuddling. No pillow talk.

  Leah knew this would happen. Although she was prepared for the insinuation that it was time for her to leave, she didn’t think it would come so soon. Yet as soon as she popped out of the bathroom, freshly washed and looking for her clothes, Leah knew a ride home was imminent.

  She didn’t expect Sloan to offer her use of the Mercedes. She called Sean the driver and announced that he was to take Leah home as soon as she was ready. This was made more official when Leah admitted she lived only a ten-minute drive away from the hotel. While Sloan sat by the window in nothing but a navy-blue robe, Leah got dressed and patiently waited for Sean’s text that said the car was ready.

  “Thank you,” Leah said. Sloan sat with her legs crossed in Leah’s direction. “I mean… thanks for dinner and the ride home. I don’t mean thanks for…”

  Sloan put her phone down. With the lights back on, Leah could see every small groove in her lover’s scalp, even though it was covered in a light layer of dark hair. “I know what you mean. Suppose I should thank you as well.”

  “What for?”

  “For not suing me, of course.”

  Leah chuckled. “You’re funny. Why would I sue you for money when getting sex out of you is so much more satisfying?”

  Sloan raised her perfect eyebrows, now more stunning when they were the centerpieces of her visage. “Maybe I should be apologizing to you. That wasn’t my best.”

  “It wasn’t?” If that was her worst, then sign me up for the rest of my life. “I thought it was great.”

  “I promise you, I’m usually much more of a Top in the sack.”

  Tingles Leah thought she had shed returned to her skin. “Not sure how you could be. That was… well, it was exactly what I like.”

  “I always strive to be better. In every aspect of life.” The text came to her phone. “That’s Sean. Head downstairs and he’ll find you in the lobby. Have a good night, Leah.”

  So, that was it, huh? The best sex of Leah’s life, and it was already a memory. Better to have memories than none at all, I guess. Leah left a frigid peck on Sloan’s cheek as she left, never looking back.

  It wasn’t until halfway home, when she rode in the back of a Mercedes by herself, that Leah realized she never went back to work that day. Nor had she told anyone in her family that she would be out so late. Mom’s gonna flip. Leah was thirty years old and still afraid of her mother’s wrath when she went sneaking home.

  Sure enough, Janet sat in the living room, poring over the monthly finances, when Leah quietly came through the front door and hung her purse up on the nearby hook.

  “Where the hell were you?”

  Janet could be as aggressive as Sloan, but the differences in tone were striking. One woman made Leah’s toes curl. The other made her blood curdle.

  “Sorry. I completely lost track of time after I…” She couldn’t tell the truth. She couldn’t say that she had been irresponsible enough to go out on a random date with a businesswoman and then went back to her place for some hot, somewhat kinky sex. Not kinky enough, honestly, but I’m not truly complaining. “After I got back to work. There was a really big order that needed to be finished by tomorrow morning, and I was the only one available to do it.”

  Janet sniffed, eyeglasses still pointed at the family ledger. “Don’t scare us like that. Do try to remember to at least text, Leah.”

  “Us?”

  “Karlie’s been asking for you since dinner. She says you brought her home and then disappeared. How could you leave her here like…”

  Leah stopped listening. She removed her jacket and headed upstairs to her sister’s room.

  Karlie was already asleep, curled up in her twin bed with the covers bunched up around her chin. The heating pad was on her desk chair, near an empty bottle of generic ibuprofen and a fashion magazine.

  “Sorry I stayed out so late.” Leah sat on the edge of her sister’s bed and refrained from brushing away the hair on Karlie’s forehead. “You know how it is. You think one thing’s gonna happen, then something else comes up.” Maybe she would try to explain further one day, but not now. Not even if Karlie were wide awake and pain free.

  She rolled over in bed, grumbling.

  Leah pressed her hand against her sister’s side, feeling the slow and steady breaths of a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood. She grew up so fast. Yesterday she was a tiny baby who could fit in one hand. Leah had been there when Karlie was born. She knew what this child had looked like fresh from the womb. Bloody. Screaming. So tiny that she was taken straight to the NICU and kept under observation for three whole weeks. Leah had cried more than Janet. Because I didn’t understand what was happening. I was too young to understand.

  She hadn’t wanted to understand, honestly. Those middle school years were like a giant blur now. Trying things she had no right trying. Discovering mature concepts her childlike brain could not handle. Even now, I feel like I’m too young. What kept her feeling so young and immature? Was it being trapped at home? Or was it the people she was trapped with?

  I felt like an adult tonight with Sloan.

  She would never see Margaret Sloan again. She didn’t live in Portland. She lived in that faraway city called Chicago, a place Leah had never been and had no reason to visit. If their paths crossed again, it would be months or years from now. Sloan wouldn’t recognize her, like she hadn’t that day.

  But Leah would recognize her. She would always recognize the woman who lit an ever-burning spark in her heart… and awoke the serpent slumbering within her stomach.

  Leah looked down at her sister again. Karlie lightly snored. She and Leah had the same nostrils. Her mother often said they looked the same when they slept.

  No one ever doubted that they were sisters. Maybe that’s why the truth hurt Leah enough to send her into the arms of people who had the power to fuck her up all over again.

  ***

  Sloan had regained her bearings by the time she landed in Chicago and made it back to her three-level penthouse. The heads of housekeeping and security both greeted her, and the booming voice of personal assistant Ayla rang on the intercom system. She was in Sloan’s study, running facts and figures sent from Portland. Something about needing more information about how Julian Marcus handled the transaction Sloan signed Monday morning.

  “That’s nice.” Sloan waited for the housekeeper to go by with the luggage. As soon as she had passed with two Louis Vuitton suitcases rolling behind her, Sloan approached the intercom and pushed the button. “Ayla? How much longer do you plan on being here?”

  “Maggie! You’re finally home!”

  Was there a ghost on her floor of the penthouse? That was the only explanation Sloan had for the shivers racking her body as she turned around and faced business partner Aaron Giles, currently stepping off the private elevator.

  “Aaron.” Sloan turned off the intercom so Ayla would not hear the ill-timed reunion. “I see you’ve been hitting the tanning bed. Or is that the Lake Michigan burn happening this fine winter?”

  Other women would have called the “glow” on Aaron’s skin healthy, but she knew the truth. The man was addicted to the spa life. Facials, massages, and god knew how many manicures and pedicures. He goes there more in a month than I have in my life. During the winter, he spent a little too much time in the tanning beds to make up for the lack of yachting and beaching he did during the summer. Not that Sloan blamed him. Aaron did not pull off pasty and pale as well as he did bronze. That’s why I’m sent to Portland, huh? Sl
oan wasn’t pale, per se, but she blended in with the crowds of Scandinavian-descent Oregonians more than Aaron did. “You should’ve seen the little flurry we had recently. Sidewalks were a pristine white for a whole hour. How was the weather in Portland? I see you went with the blond hair.”

  She turned, removing the studs from her ears and slamming them against her palms. With any luck, Aaron wouldn’t follow her all the way to the master bedroom. Sometimes he forgot what boundaries meant. “Rainy. Windy. Freezing. Why? Did you miss me that much?”

  She reached the back of the hallway leading to her chambers. Aaron stayed a respectful distance behind her, but Sloan received the distinct impression that he cared more about chatting than getting the hell out of her hair. “I missed you enough to think about you every day.”

  Her middle finger was the only response he received. Yet Sloan made the mistake of not shutting her bedroom door in his face.

  “How were Bradley & Marcus?”

  Aaron stood in the doorway while Sloan slumped down at her vanity and removed the blond wig from her head. She had a shelf in her closet full of nothing but wigs. Long. Short. Bobbed and razor-cut. Black, chestnut brown, platinum blond, and fiery red. She could have any look she wanted, but she tried to only take one along on her business trips. Men freak the fuck out if they see you with different hair every day. Sometimes that was to her benefit, like when socializing at parties or conferences. Other times, she wanted to keep their attention off her changing hairstyles – like during business proceedings.

  The bald head was dedicated to Aaron.

  “They didn’t want to budge on the numbers.” Since he was here, she might as well remove her makeup, too. “But they came around.”

  “Can only imagine how you made that happen.” That dramatic sigh should have gotten Aaron kicked out of the room. “Especially with a man like Julian Marcus. Didn’t he get his girlfriend a collar?”