by Fiona Zedde
Kneeling, she tugged Claudia’s dress all the way off and shoved it behind her on the shelf. Her hands trembled and the only cure for it was to press them against her lover’s skin. Against the pretty ankles and feet slipped into the high heels, the waiting weight of her ass just above Rémi’s face. Claudia’s skin gave off the most delicious scent. Even here in the closet with the clothes that had touched other flesh pressed against her face, brushing her shoulders and cheeks, Rémi smelled her. And her mouth watered.
Like a ripe pear, its flesh coated with the sap of its readiness, Claudia’s body hung before Rémi. Tempting. Sweet. She reached into her pants pocket. When she’d picked these up at Claudia’s house, she wasn’t sure why. Then it had been something to occupy her hands with in case she got bored at the party. But deeper, in the scheming recesses of her mind she knew what she wanted them for. What she would use them for.
Rémi tested them. Squeezed them open and shut, then reached up. The blunt tips of her fingers scraped over Claudia’s belly, the underside of her breasts. Among the strangers’s clothes, her lover shivered. The nipples were already hard, anticipation turning them to pebbles, into heat that called Rémi’s heat. She stroked them. Pulled them. Flicked her thumbs over the hot flesh until they stood up even more. Then she closed the clothespins on them. One after the other. Claudia jerked in surprise but didn’t pull away. A soft sob left her mouth.
“If you won’t be quiet, I’ll make you quiet. Understand?”
She felt the movement of Claudia nodding.
Ever since she knew what sex was, Rémi had wanted Claudia. It was a fact. No exaggeration. No hyperbole. Every time she grew aroused, pussy wet with want, nipples tingling with ache for a wet mouth, hands itching to be buried inside wet warmth, it was for Claudia. That elemental spark to desire. Rémi wanted to take every bit of the woman inside her.
She sank her teeth into the solid flesh at her calf. Like passion and hot fruit trembling on the vine. That was her taste. Her smell. Her scent wove its way into Rémi’s nose, into her body until everything in her wanted to taste. Did she taste as good as she smelled? Did she? Ah yes. She did. She does. The dick bobbed through the gap in Rémi’s pants but she ignored its insistent thrust for the wicked pleasure of sinking her teeth into Claudia again and again. The backs of her knees. Smooth-fleshed thighs. Quivering bottom. Her lover flinched, breath hitching in her throat.
The more Rémi bit, openmouthed, tongue gently lashing the tattoos her teeth left against the skin, the more fragrant her lover became. Secreting hot sweat, thick juice from her cunt. Rémi’s hand brushed that tender place once, then reluctantly moved on. The dimples in her back were delectable. Their flavor shook something deep in Rémi, something that made her teeth sink deeper than before. Claudia bucked. And Rémi breathed in the smell of her pain. Of blood just beneath the surface of the skin. She kissed the damp valley of her back in repentance. Then bit into the soft flesh around it, her own body singing in gratification at the tiny tremors moving up and down her lover, at Claudia’s restraint as she held tight to the wooden closet rod, fingers clenched between the cedar hangers that added to the exotic perfume of their hiding place.
Curling over Claudia’s back now, teeth pressing, tongue soothing, Rémi was saturated. The phallus still strapped to her hips slipped between Claudia’s thighs, probing. Her lover thrust back against it. Widened her legs to receive it. But that wasn’t what Rémi wanted. Under her palms, Claudia trembled like a flower in a brisk wind. Her petals were soft. Slick. Wet. A smothered groan left Claudia’s throat.
The door clicked, opened, cutting a shaft of light through their darkness. Claudia squeaked. But Rémi held her still, not moving. Not breathing.
“No, that’s not the bathroom,” A male voice slurred some distance away. “It’s farther down the hall.” The door pulled shut and the voices disappeared. The darkness became theirs again. Claudia’s body began to tremble in earnest now, fear of discovery and desire battling hard within her. It was time for Rémi to end it.
“Don’t make a sound.”
She dropped to her knees, shoved her face between the quivering ass cheeks. Sweetsop. Her tongue was covered in sweetness, running fresh and wet over her lips. Another noise bubbled from Claudia but Rémi didn’t have the time to punish her. She wanted this, too. Tongue diving into the marsh of her pussy. Clit tight between her lips and against her tongue as she sucked. The dripping slit moving against her face. Rémi reached up and pulled the clothespins from Claudia’s nipples.
The roaring cum slammed hard through Claudia. Rémi felt it, felt its echo in her own pussy as her thighs trembled and wetness flooded between her thighs. The cunt under her mouth spasmed, squeezed its juice over Rémi’s face. Claudia didn’t make a sound.
“That’s my girl,” Rémi breathed softly. She pressed a kiss against a quivering thigh then stood up blindly in the dark.
“Oh my god!” Claudia sagged against her, shuddering, offering up her mouth. “Oh my good god!”
Rémi sucked on the soft lips, instinctively pressing her fingers to the wet pussy. Claudia’s thighs opened. Her shaky laugh leaked into the dark space. “Not that I wouldn’t mind.” Her pussy opened up, wetly swallowed the seeking tips of Rémi’s fingers. “But I think we should go home. Eventually someone’s going to come looking.”
Rémi agreed with a nod, sensation still tripping through her. She reached back into the darkness for Claudia’s dress and helped her into it before tending to her own clothes. Claudia led them out of the closet.
In the sudden brightness of the hallway, Rémi blinked. Two dark-clad backs receded slowly down the hallway and they straightened just as a third person rounded the corner. The woman, pale skinned, goth, and dressed in a black corset and floor-length skirt, as if for a party much more interesting than this one, gave them a distracted smile before continuing past.
“Home,” Claudia said, leaning close to bite Rémi’s earlobe. “Now.”
The renewed throbbing in Rémi’s pussy couldn’t agree with her fast enough. They said their goodbyes to Claudia’s colleagues and not-quite-friends before jumping in the Escalade and pushing eighty all the way back to the house in Coconut Grove.
Chapter 25
“What are you doing with that child, Claude?” Rémi paused at what she thought was the sound of Eden’s voice. Claude? Claudia?
“I’m not doing anything.” Claudia’s voice pushed through the speakers in Rémi’s office like superheated cream. The forced nonchalance in her tone didn’t fool anyone.
Rémi’s eyes searched the sparse crowd in the restaurant below then up to the second level. The women sat at a window table with the falling light from the sun haloing them and their nearly empty martini glasses. Claudia, in pale slacks and her favorite periwinkle blouse, leaned back in her chair and gazed at her friend.
“You talk about her too much. Not to mention the other night I was passing by your house and I saw her motorcycle in your driveway.” Eden leaned forward, her voice tight with emphasis. “It was almost two a.m.”
The previous owner of the building had wired nearly every inch of it for sound and video. When Rémi had first found out, she was vaguely repelled. But over the years, being privy to certain conversations that took place in her club proved very useful to her, even when that eavesdropping hadn’t been planned. Like now.
Eden looked ready to confront Claudia for being a liar. Her pose against the sun, head cocked in disbelief, palm up and open as if ready for her friend’s confession, spoke of someone in possession of another’s secret. It wasn’t any of her business who Claudia had in her driveway late at night, anyway. What was she, her fucking keeper? A jealous lover? Rémi’s hand hovered over the button to kill the feed. Inside, she squirmed listening to their conversation, but—her hand fell away from the remote—she wanted to hear more.
“So what?” Claudia asked. “Rémi has been like family for years now. She can come see me anytime she wants to.”
�
�Is that how you two are still acting? Like family?”
Images of them together flooded Rémi. Claudia bent over and open, ready to be taken from behind. The damp, heaving line of her belly while Rémi feasted between her legs.
“Yes. Like family. How long have you known me? Do you think all of a sudden I’m going to turn into a lesbian?”
“I’ve seen how she looks at you. That girl has had a crush on you for years. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Claudia shook her head. “Let’s not go over this anymore. This discussion is pointless.”
“You’re avoiding this discussion.”
“There’s nothing to discuss, Eden. Nothing is going on between Rémi and me.” Her voice rose in desperation, negating her words. “That’s it. Just leave things alone.”
A knock sounded on the office door, and Rémi looked abruptly away from the two women. She killed the audio feed and glanced at the monitor, expecting to see Elena at the door, but her eyebrow rose at the figure that waited there instead.
“Come in.”
Her cousin walked in and closed the door behind her. “Your chef does some really impressive things in that kitchen,” Wynne said, nibbling from a small plate of hummus and pita crisps, another of Rochelle’s specialties. “What’s in this thing? Pieces of black olives? Pine nuts? That reviewer from the Herald was really onto something.”
Her black-and-white tennis shoes were silent against the floor as she made her way to the sofa she’d taken last time she visited. In dark jeans and a sky-colored T-shirt with “Visit the Florida Keys” scrawled across the chest, she again looked like a college student. A hungry one, by the way she was eating Rochelle’s hummus.
“Thanks,” Rémi said for want of anything better to say. She was trying to get past the point of being surprised when her cousin showed up unexpectedly, but she wasn’t there yet.
“I hear you’re heading back home.” Wynne dipped the pita too deeply in the hummus, smearing her fingers pale. She licked them off before biting into the crisped bread. “Say hello to Aunt Kelia for me when you see her.”
It seemed like no piece of information ever got by her cousin. “I will.” Rémi put away the stack of invoices she’d been about to take a look at before she was distracted by Claudia and Eden’s conversation. “I don’t suppose you’ve found out anything more about Matthias Anderson and why he seems to have it in for me?”
“Not directly. But I’m sure you will soon.”
Rémi made a noise and stood up from behind her desk. “I’m glad you have such confidence in me.”
Even with her tall cousin stretched out in the sofa, she was able to sit comfortably at its end, legs stretched out before her and crossed at the ankles. She blew a breath out between pursed lips. Wynne, always the quiet one and especially with food in front of her, said nothing else, and Rémi didn’t press her. She’d managed to put this thing with Anderson at the back of her mind in favor of more pleasurable preoccupations but she felt that it was all coming to a head. And soon.
“You know, I’m not sure what you’re doing here in the city, but you’re always welcome to come over to my place for dinner or something.”
Wynne looked at her over the plate. “You cook now?”
“Not exactly. But I can always ask Rochelle to make us something. Not to mention I pour a decent bottle of wine.”
“Thank you. I just might take you up on that.” She used her finger to wipe the last of the hummus from the plate. “If your chef can make this taste good, then the prospect of a proper meal . . .” Wynne’s voice drifted away at her slight smile.
Although her cousin never talked about it, Rémi easily imagined the bleak isolation of the life she must have now. Her parents dead. Sister disappeared. And a dangerous job that fostered the opposite of intimacy. The loneliness must press down on her hard like an unexpected wave on a calm sea.
“I’m sure that—”
But a quick rap at the door interrupted what she was about to say. Rémi stood up to look at the monitor and felt Wynne do the same.
“I’ll let you get back to business,” her cousin said.
She opened the door to let Elena in and herself out. Over the manager’s shoulder, their eyes met. “I’ll be around,” Wynne said.
“Good.”
After the door closed behind her cousin, Rémi gestured for Elena to join her on the sofa. With her dark hair pinned up in a severe bun and dressed in slim-fitting dark jeans, a dark blouse, and black blazer, the manager looked ready for a funeral.
“Thanks for coming in, Elena. I know you have important matters to take care of at home.”
The other woman nodded. She sat on the sofa and crossed her legs, throwing a guarded, almost fearful, glance at Rémi. That look told Rémi all she needed to know.
She decided to get to the heart of the matter. “There’s a man named Matthias Anderson who’s been giving me some trouble over the last few months.”
Elena flinched.
“Do you know this man?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Tell me about him.”
Elena visibly swallowed and clasped her hands together on her knee. She opened her mouth. Then closed it. “Rémi,” she said finally. “I think you know everything.”
“Tell me anyway.”
The skin around Elena’s mouth was pinched tight. She looked like she’d rather be anywhere but in Rémi’s office. In the month and a half since she’d been gone, she’d lost weight. Her once curvaceous body was now like a prepubescent child’s, thin and awkwardly posed.
“My husband. He works for a man—a man who owns another restaurant in North Miami. This man threatened Guillermo. Told him that if I did not disappear from Gillespie’s for a few months he would fire him and make sure that no one else employed him.” Elena blinked frantically but her eyes still shone with tears when they looked up. “We have the children to worry about. The new house. We couldn’t afford to say no.” The manager trembled, her hands maintaining a stranglehold on each other on top of her dark-clad knee.
Rémi nodded. It was not as bad as she thought. But it was bad. Anderson had gotten to Elena. Someone she thought she could trust.
“I know you trusted me, Rémi,” Elena said as if reading her mind. “You probably feel that this trust was misplaced. But please don’t think of this as a betrayal. When that man forced me to leave, I knew that wasn’t going to change anything. You could handle the business by yourself. He thought you would fail but he was wrong.”
Rémi arched a sardonic brow. “Are you trying to flatter me to keep your job?”
“No. If you’ve made up your mind to fire me, then I’m gone. My small words won’t change your mind. Still, I wanted to say them.”
The women looked at each other. They had known one another for three years. It was three years of hard work, of working side by side to ensure the success of this business that they had both invested so much in. When Gillespie’s first opened, Rémi had taken a chance on a woman who’d never managed a restaurant before, and she’d been rewarded with a tireless and exceptional employee.
“Come back to work tomorrow. Consider yourself on probation. If anything else happens with you that affects the club, you’re fired. Permanently.” Rémi stood up. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Elena’s voice broke. She got to her feet. “Thank you, Rémi. You won’t regret this. I promise.”
Rémi nodded once. “I hope not.”
Chapter 26
When Rémi walked into the classroom, it grew quiet. The students, mostly young women, turned to look at her, some stares lingered but most merely gave her silent figure a cursory glance before turning their attentions once again to the professor. Rémi nodded at Claudia, seated in front of the class in a dark skirt and white blouse, legs crossed, a book face up on her lap.
“—Les Guérillères remarkable for its time,” she continued, not faltering at the sight of Rémi, but a slight question wrinkled her otherwise smooth brow.
Claudia didn’t sit behind a desk away from her students. Rémi remembered this from when she took French 101 in college. Instead, she sat in front of the desk in a plastic chair much like the ones her students inhabited, minus the attached desk, paying seductive attention to a class full of eager young minds.
Rémi put her paper bag on the desk in front of her. Crossed her booted feet and waited for Claudia to finish. Her spurs jingled.
“Remarkable, yes, but still very opaque in some ways,” an Asian girl with a pixie haircut said. “And that’s a barrier to her ideas finding their way to us, the very people she is trying to reach.”
A girl who reminded her of Nuria, only with a shaven head and large hoop earrings, jumped in without raising their hand. “I disagree. We don’t ask Faulkner for clarity, do we? No. We keep engaging with the text until its buried meaning emerges and we are ourselves richer for the experience.”
The discussion continued, but Rémi focused on Claudia instead, content with watching her guide the students where she wanted them, her soft voice agreeing or disagreeing as she saw fit but always respectful. Insightful. A few minutes after three, with the discussion still going strong, Claudia closed the book on her lap.
“That’s all we have time for today, class.” she smiled, at once conveying regret and finality. “For next time, have your two-page reactions ready to hand in to me and come prepared to discuss the Maryse Condé novel.”
The classroom erupted into disorganized sound as the students put their books away, started conversations among themselves, and began to leave. The Nuria look-alike picked up her shoulder bag and approached Claudia, academic curiosity all over her pretty face.
With her questions satisfactorily answered ten minutes later, she too left, sparing Rémi a polite smile as she passed.
“This is a nice surprise,” Claudia said once they were alone.
She dropped a stack of papers into her briefcase, looking over her shoulder at Rémi. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”