by Cynthia Dane
The reporter was likewise excited. His pen flew across the pages of a notepad, and he barely had the coordination to ready his cell phone for an opportune shot.
Great. Everyone thought she was proposing. It was Valentine’s Day, after all, and she had a little black box in her hand.
“Open it.” Sloan slid the box across the table. “Consider it your Valentine’s Day present. No, wait…” She would relish this. “Consider it your reward for thinking about me so much.”
Was that disappointment? Or a glimmer of relief in those gray eyes? Either way, Leah slowly popped open the box and stole a peek at the sparkling diamonds that would make any woman gasp.
Good. She already likes it, and she doesn’t know what it is. Sloan’s plan had worked. What better way to take out the trash from her life than to re-gift it into something splendid and new?
Maybe imbue it with new meaning?
“Oh my God…” Leah pulled out a delicate bracelet and held it up to the table’s candlelight. “This is gorgeous!” Three large diamonds dangled from the top of the bracelet. Leah held out her wrist and allowed Sloan to snap the silver chain into place. “Where did you get something like this?”
“I had it custom made.” It was the truth, too. Sloan personally entered the jeweler’s and went over a design she had kicked around in her head for over a week. Ayla was the one who picked it up, but it was Sloan’s creative brain that brought it to life.
“The settings look vintage.”
“They are,” Sloan said. “They came from my collection. They were sitting around collecting dust, and I thought that maybe it was time for someone else to make use of them.”
Leah held her wrist up, eyes twinkling with delight as she admired the way the bracelet fell against her skin. “Where would I wear something like this?”
“When you’re with me, of course.” Sloan leaned in closer. She barely waited for Leah’s consensual cue before kissing her.
She never intended to keep the kiss tame. Not even in a classy place like that. Since when am I classy? Ask anyone around Chicago, and they’ll tell you I’m a demonic monster of bad manners. So what if she slipped her girlfriend a little tongue at the dinner table? Leah slipped some right back!
Sure, half the room sent them dirty looks, but Sloan would take them in stride as she sat back, hand still wrapped around Leah’s. “Happy Valentine’s Day, precious. It’s already the best one I’ve ever had.” She didn’t wait for Leah to respond. “It’ll be even better once I tell you that you’ll be wearing that bracelet a lot when I begin taking you to my parties. As my official girlfriend, of course.”
Leah struggled to keep up with everything happening so quickly. Slow down, before you give the poor dear whiplash. That was Sloan’s middle name some days. Not Desiree, as her birth certificate liked to claim. Whiplash. People often said she made them look twice, because one minute she was quiet and content, and the next? Bam! She couldn’t sit still. Didn’t know how. The silence, the stillness – it killed her.
The more silence, the more thoughts in her head. The more stillness, the more likely she was to be caught in another web of deceit.
“Leah?”
She let out her pent-up breath of amazement. “Wow, Sloan, I… this is a lot happening right now.”
“I’m not asking you to move in with me.” Sloan sipped what remained of her wine. “I’m asking you to go steady with me.”
“Still, I thought you weren’t the relationship kind?”
“Sometimes you meet someone who makes you reconsider.” Besides, Sloan often mused, she would need someone like Leah in her corner when she put her plan to leave Giles & Sloan into action. “Maybe it was fate we met that day.”
“On my birthday.”
“Yes, and now I’m asking you to be my girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. What, did you think I flew you out here in the middle of your work week for a mere hookup? Please. I could’ve waited for the weekend for that.”
Leah squeezed her girlfriend’s hand. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Why are you thanking me? You’re the one who said yes.”
“You’re the one who asked!” Leah had both hands on Sloan now. A glimmer of excitement on her countenance conveyed everything Sloan needed to know. She has dirty thoughts on the brain. Because that’s the kind of couple we are. Leah had implied it more than once. She saw sex as more than a biological function, or an intimate way to express one’s emotions. It was a reward. It was raw power that went both ways. An equal balance had to be achieved. Sloan couldn’t always be the one initiating foreplay. Sometimes it was better to let the demurer one take the reins.
What’s wrong with me? Was she kidding herself? Letting someone else take the reins! She might as well ask for a collar around her neck and a leash yanking her across the room!
“You okay?” Leah rubbed the inside of Sloan’s thigh, careful to not disturb anything lurking within those tight pants. “Did I say something?”
Sloan drank in the visual gracing the candlelit table. Leah was more than a frilly cupcake adorning a chair in a five-star restaurant. She was a grown woman with her own needs. Her own hopes and desires. She had a history Sloan knew nothing about, like Leah knew nothing about Sloan’s sordid past. If she were really my girlfriend, I would tell her where that bracelet came from. That was the difference between a lover and a partner. The lover only received the outcome of Sloan’s past. She didn’t know how it came to be.
Pink lace. Cinched waist. Soft legs and rouged cheeks. Curly hair and a hint of freckles. None of it was unfamiliar to Sloan. The only foreign thing was that look in Leah’s eyes.
She wants to fuck me. She wants to love me.
“Do you think I’m someone who can give you everything you want?”
Leah didn’t sit back. Her perfume was light enough to only be detected now. Cherry blossoms. God, it would be pink cherry blossoms to round out this floral look. “I don’t know that yet. But I hoped…” Leah averted her eyes. “I’ve been trying to waylay any feelings I have for you. In case it doesn’t work out.” She pushed her arms together. Did she know that amplified her cleavage? “Yet I think we complement each other. I’ve always dreamed of having someone who understood what makes me the way I am.”
“Submissive?”
Leah nodded. “It’s something I’ve always been at peace with, but it’s difficult to explain to other people. If I try, they think I’m weak, or that I’m a pushover. The truth is…”
“You want someone to take control and release you from the burdens of everyday life.” Sloan hated how well she understood that. “You said so yourself – you get off on making people like me happy. You like following orders and achieving someone else’s vision. You’re a follower.” She meant that with nothing but respect. Every leader needed at least a few followers to keep the world turning.
Leah sheepishly smiled. “I’d like to make you happy right now.”
“Right now, huh?” So happened the waiter chose that moment to bring them their dessert. “Where’s the restroom?” she kindly asked him.
As soon as he walked away again, Sloan took Leah by the hand and pulled her out of her seat.
Chapter 22
“Excuse me.” Sloan politely shoved aside a waiter on her way to the women’s restroom. “Wardrobe malfunction coming through.”
Leah could barely keep up with the long strides powering them both across the gallery. Half the diners looked up from their meals to see the commotion. Few were prepared to witness a woman in a lacy pink dress be pulled along by a taller woman in a blazing blond wig.
Wardrobe malfunction. That’s a good one. Sloan threw open the door leading to the restrooms. The quiet hallway was empty, save for an attendant standing outside the men’s room. He nodded to Sloan before realizing she had someone attached to her hip – and they were clocking in at fifty miles an hour.
“Excuse us. She has a tear in her skirt. It’s tragic.” Sloan opened the women’s restroom
door and hustled Leah inside. “It’s going to be a few minutes.” She shut the door behind them – and locked it.
Leah melted like a creamsicle beneath Sloan’s heat when one pushed the other up against the wall. The throw rug on the marble floors tangled behind Sloan’s boots as she hoisted up Leah’s skirt and covered her throat and face in the harried kind of kisses that powered scandalous decisions. Eat your heart out, fuck-face reporter. Sloan had never been so famished for another woman before. If they had to do it in a ritzy bathroom, then so-fucking-be it.
“It may not be the back room at the club,” Sloan said between her kisses, “but it’ll have to do.”
Leah bit her lip so hard that Sloan struggled to kiss it again. “I want to see what you have in your pants.”
“Now you’re all into it? After being so shocked earlier?”
“Shocked isn’t the same thing as put-off.”
“I suppose not.” Leah fumbled with the zipper on Sloan’s pants. “Except it is the same thing as intrigued.”
“Is it?”
“No idea.”
Sloan didn’t have time to laugh at Leah’s ever-moving thoughts. Once the sight of her surprise was in Leah’s hand, everything changed.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Sloan said, an extra bite lacing her words. “Let’s get this done quickly so we can go eat our cake.” Although I’d like to eat this cake first. Maybe she would. That dress begged Sloan to rip it apart and consume everything beneath it.
Leah slammed her hand against her girlfriend’s chest before they could kiss again. “Wait,” she said, hesitation a one-way affair. “I want to do you.”
“Are you nuts? Look at you. How am I supposed to say no to this?” Sloan grabbed one of Leah’s breasts. The way her girlfriend seized beneath the touch, shivers of delight passing between them, was the shit Heaven rained upon the earth every time the clouds covered the sky. “My face should be in these right now, and something better be inside of you. I’ll let you pick whatever will make you come the hardest.”
“I don’t want to come yet.” Leah removed the hand on her chest. “I want to make you come instead.”
“What’s this about?” Leah wasn’t usually this aggressive about what kind of games they played. She was a follower, after all. She made requests, but in the end, Sloan was the one calling the shots and guiding the events along their natural paths. Right now, the path said “Throw her against the wall and fuck her brains out.” Who was she to ignore the fucking path? “Don’t you want your reward for thinking about me so much these past two weeks?” That should appeal to her nature.
Yet Leah would not be swayed. She pushed off the wall, hand never leaving the depths of her girlfriend’s unzipped trousers. “This is my reward. I’ve thought about you so much… yet you don’t really know in what ways I did.”
“Then tell me.”
Leah tugged on the tie keeping the front of Sloan’s blouse decent. “I want to serve you. Please. Let me.”
Serve. That word was like a pick between Sloan’s eyes. Don’t take your issues out on her. How could she not? Look at her! Leah was the definition of faithful little wench who never strayed from the path, until it suited her whim. Remember that? Remember when you left the path, Mags?
“You don’t know what that means.”
“Of course I know what it means.” Leah ran her hands down Sloan’s torso, her touch lingering on silk and 100% cotton alike. Not a thread of polyester touched either of them. “What do you think I dream about when I’m all alone at night?”
“Serving me, apparently.”
A gentle kiss touched the edge of Sloan’s lips. “Don’t say I don’t know what it means.”
“Fine.” Sloan leaned against the wall, eyes never leaving that expectant visage before her. You want to debase yourself in front of me, go right on ahead. She wouldn’t be the first woman to make that decision. Perhaps, however, Sloan had hoped to have already met the last.
Some women have to figure it out on their own.
Yet when Leah looked at her like that, with her clear, adoring eyes and a glow that said this was the happiest she had been in years, Sloan couldn’t fault her. Maybe it does make her happy… Maybe it was genuine happiness. At least a level of contentment that didn’t hurt anybody, including Leah. That’s possible? I don’t believe it. The more Leah gently felt up her girlfriend, however, the more Sloan wanted to believe it.
“Do you really want to do this?” Sloan asked her one more time.
She had never seen such a confident nod before. “Don’t you want to know what I can do?”
Too bad there were no smoking signs all over the bathroom. Now was the perfect time for a cigarette, because Sloan wasn’t sure what her answer was.
“Go on, then,” she finally said. “We only have a few minutes in here before management comes knocking.” All those women drinking wine and water. Bah. They’ll interrupt us to pee as often as they can get away with.
“Tell me to do it.”
This was getting ridiculous! This is also not what I had in mind when I dragged her in here. Sloan leveled her gaze upon her girlfriend’s face and said, “If you’re so determined to do what you want, go ahead. The only one stopping you is yourself. I’m here to enjoy the ride.” She then added, “So go on. Make me come, if you can.”
Leah held herself closer to Sloan. The perfume clung more to her hair than her dress. Infatuating. Infuriating.
“You can’t touch a natural part of my body while you do it.”
Leah’s lips parted. Sloan cut her off again.
“You heard me. Do whatever you want, but don’t touch the real me.” Her smirk was more of a byproduct of her self-congratulation for thinking that up – not so much genuine amusement. “Don’t forget who is really in charge here.”
Leah pressed both hands against the wall, careful to not touch a hair on Sloan’s body. “I’ll make you proud.” Her eyes fluttered shut. That wasn’t the only part of her going down. “Let’s play a game, Ms. Sloan.”
That was the thing about games. There was always a loser.
Sometimes the loss was inconsequential. Lost time. A little lost money. Maybe the sex wasn’t as good as usual, or Sloan risked some embarrassment, either in front of her lover or the rest of the world. Those were inconsequential, like what happened to the hem of Leah’s dress when she knelt on the floor of the cleanest restroom in Chicago.
And, sometimes, the loss was the greatest risk of all. The loss came from within. Time could be forgotten. Money regained. Dignity recovered, and they could always try at lovemaking again. Yet was it worth the risk of losing a piece of Sloan’s sanity?
Then again, maybe she would like it. That’s it. That’s the biggest risk I’m taking. Not that she wouldn’t be able to handle it – that she would like it.
Wasn’t this what she searched for over so many years? A chance to know what it felt like to be in the “other” shoes? Sloan had spent much of her youth acting subservient to other people. She followed their whims, preached their truths, and left pieces of herself in unclean hands. What did a woman do when she reclaimed those pieces, only to find the glistening glamour of youth now marred by another person’s dark soul? No matter how much she shined those pieces, they never regained their luster. The only way she could understand what happened was by paying women to reenact those moments with her.
Maybe she could get something back.
This isn’t what I had in mind. Leah wasn’t like those women. She didn’t come into these scenes – let alone start them – with professional, and sometimes personal, detachment. She was invested from the moment they met. Sloan was the one with the power. Power to lead, power to influence, and power to destroy a young woman’s life with one wrong experience.
It was an incredible threat to behold. Could Sloan live with herself if she brought a woman like Leah down that path?
I’m not like him. Sloan finally looked down. She had to immediately look away again, becaus
e she was not prepared to meet Leah’s reverent gaze. I’m not like him at all. He wouldn’t have broken eye contact so easily. He would have reveled in it. Lorded it over the woman doing this to him… for him.
C’mon, it’s not like you didn’t like it too. Sloan thought she had liked it. She had more than a few moments in her life when she looked into her lover’s eyes and felt the irresistible urge to do anything, even if it brought her nothing but physical discomfort. That was love, right? Giving, giving, giving. When the well of giving dried up, it was time to move on.
Leah was eager to give. Way too eager.
This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have egged her on. This wasn’t what I had in mind when I got dressed tonight. Anxiety consumed her in lust’s stead. Sloan wrapped her hand around Leah’s hair, but it wasn’t to bring her closer. Nor was it to yank her away in a single, violent movement that declared this night over.
It was protective. Because Sloan knew what this moment felt like on Leah’s end, and she would do everything to keep her happy and full of that need to give.
I have to give, too. That’s what keeps the balance. That was what Sloan had missed in her last relationship: balance.
Over dinner, Leah had talked about the book she bought. Sloan had only half-listened as she checked out her girlfriend’s body in this dress and fantasized about getting her back to the private apartment for a long night of sexual revelry. But the few things she heard included strong communication and an insurmountable bond between partners. Which sounded great in theory.
Yet was it possible in practice? I barely know this woman. For example, some women were naturally submissive, yes, but Sloan’s experience told her that nurture had as much to do with it as nature when it came to creating women like Leah. What had happened in her past to bring her to this moment? What injected this scenario into her head? When presented with what her girlfriend kept in her pants, Leah’s first inclination wasn’t to find the nearest bed and ride Sloan until the dawn broke – it was to get on her knees in a restaurant bathroom and serve.